What Happened to the West Village?

https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2019/10/09/what-happened-to-the-west-village/

by kwindla • 7 years ago

67 72 7 years ago

Cities change...it’s the longing for days past that created the housing crisis in SF in the name of preservation.

I’m not familiar with the exact building restrictions in West Village but I assume there’s strict height restrictions that have been grandfathered in long ago...I’m going to guess these restrictions is the exact reason why the ultra wealthy can just buy up a small building and make it into a SFH, which obviously just exacerbates the housing problems in the neighborhood.

The story touched on this a bit but also seems like every time I visit half the stores are either closed or new because rents are so high for businesses. The only stores that I see have staying power are the ones that look like obvious money laundering fronts like jewelry stores. It’s this strange ghost town for retail.

vobios4• 7 years ago

There is a section that addresses that specific point:

The Landmarks Preservation Board protects the facades of historic buildings, but not their interiors. Thus landmarking led townhouses once divided into multiple apartments to be converted into single-family mansions for the incoming super-rich—serving only to further inflame the speculative energies that skyrocketed the prices of the buildings they preserved.

momokoko• 7 years ago

Cities are becoming expensive for two main reasons. People with unlimited funds buy them up because its an investment you can actually use, and dual income couples cannot move to smaller places where it is possible that only one of the two can get a well paying job in their chosen profession.

The internet has created an environment where it is incredibly easy for landlords to find tenants and dramatically decrease the cost of tenant churn for them. This allows them to raise rents much more aggressively, and quickly, than they could have done in the past.

barry-cotter• 7 years ago

Cities are becoming more expensive because of zoning. If you build enough housing that demand equals supply prices will be stable. Tokyo’s population has gone up 50% over the last two decades and property prices and rents are basically flat because they’ve built more housing.

Why does this happen in Japan but not NYC or SF? National, not local zoning. State level would probably work too.

sdrothrock4• 7 years ago

property prices and rents are basically flat because they’ve built more housing.
Why does this happen in Japan but not NYC or SF?

I don't think zoning is the complete answer here -- there's a lot of stuff going on in Japan, and in Tokyo in particular, that's very different from the US.

For example, a lot of cheaper places are tiny and have no shower or a shared shower. I don't think a lot of Americans would be willing to deal with that, but Japan has a public bath culture/history.

In Tokyo in particular, there's a huge amount of public transportation options, which allow people to live farther out and commute easily (with the commute costs being covered by work) -- that's not as simple in NYC. Imagine living in White Plains and commuting to the heart of Tokyo every day in a reliable, timely fashion.

Another thing is that a lot of cheaper housing in Tokyo is just old (post-war wood construction with a veneer of modernity) or in just plain bad areas (low-lying areas near rivers, below the water table, on reclaimed land, far from hospitals/fire departments, etc.)

On top of all that, housing here just isn't an investment like it is in America. Nobody's house or apartment appreciates with age.

It's not as simple as pointing at the average rent and zoning.

tomweingarten• 7 years ago

NYC is probably not a good example to use here. Its median property prices are negative this year and flat for two years before that. It's likely (IMHO) that the post-recession building boom is a factor.

https://streeteasy.com/blog/data-dashboard/?agg=Median&metri...

maxsilver2• 7 years ago

Cities are becoming more expensive because of zoning.

If this were true, then all the US cities without zoning should be getting cheaper. But they aren't. They are also getting more expensive, and at similar (sometimes even faster) rates as major coastal cities.

If you build enough housing that demand equals supply prices will be stable.

If this were true, then all the cities losing population should be getting cheaper. (Demand falling with stable supply should decrease prices). But they aren't, these cities are also getting more expensive, and at similar (sometimes even faster) rates as major coastal cities, despite the drop in demand.

If this were true, then all the cities outbuilding their population growth (cities where new units exceed new residents) should be getting cheaper. (Supply greater than demand). But they aren't, these cities are also getting more expensive, at similar/faster rates as major coastal cities.

(Tokyo) property prices and rents are basically flat because they’ve built more housing.

No, Tokyo property prices are flat because they allow housing and land to depreciate, they don't artificially prevent that from happening.

The US does prevent this. The US does everything it can in basically every city to prevent depreciation from happening (often at the city, county, state and federal level).

If we had let the banks fail in the mortgage crisis last decade, for example, we'd have a much more accurate housing market in the US. But since instead, all housing in every city is guaranteed to appreciate, and since the full faith of the federal government forever backs that guarantee over a long enough time, there's no reason for property values in general to not go up.

Every investor with cash who wants the highest risk-free returns is looking at this situation and thinking "it's free real estate".

beerandt2• 7 years ago

In addition to zoning:

Part of Dodd-Frank made it extremely difficult for contractors to finance new spec houses, or any housing that didn't participate in a federal multi-family housing program. Only the most financially stable companies could stay in the market.

Otherwise, construction companies have to find customers (to do the actual financing) before they can start building. This means the market is always trying to catch up, but never really can.

viburnum• 7 years ago

When nice places for people become too expensive, the obvious thing to do is to make more nice places for people. In America, however, it is only legal to make more nice places for cars.

vinay427• 7 years ago

What does this have to do with the issue in the article? In fact, it even mentions someone likely parking illegally, probably due to a lack of spaces.

semiotagonal• 7 years ago

I guess this is what they call a "hot take", but it's simply impossible to preserve a neighborhood's character and keep it affordable. You either have to build the same type of residences upward (in the city), or adjacent (in the suburbs), or have prices go through the roof, or have a period of crisis and collapse clear everyone out.

codingslave3• 7 years ago

Was speaking with someone recently about the city feels increasingly empty. There are less store fronts and such for sure, but huge swaths of apartments in NYC are investments. They may sit vacant for years on end for some Saudi Arabian wealth fund. There are certainly reports of the dropping population, but in other ways things feel tangible. Living in NYC you come to discover how small of a world it is, disparate friend groups may in turn know each other, how big is this city really? Neighborhoods feel emptier, huge parts of the population of the city are from wealthy Chinese and foreign backgrounds (this is not to disparage them). They don't really work jobs or have traditional careers, but fill the city, making it seem more hollow.

vobios4• 7 years ago

Are there really that many empty apartments? I am sure they exist, but are there really enough of them to make a dent in the market? Having lived in the city for years, I've never actually seen one.

I also wonder if you have enough cash to buy and hold NYC apartments, wouldn't your money do better in some sort of a REIT?

timidiceball• 7 years ago

It’s a problem at the high end (which is most of what’s been built lately) https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/13/realestate/new-developmen...

corporateslave5• 7 years ago

Where do you put 1 trillion dollars when your main goal is to just preserve it or lose just a little?

CoolGuySteve• 7 years ago

If you look at the new residential sky scrapers like 432 Park around 10pm on a weeknight when most people should be home, you'll notice it's mostly dark.

These tall expensive condo towers are like totems to the wealthy absentee residents of New York.

gcr• 7 years ago

That's what squatters' rights are for. Let the apartments go to folks who will use them.

rmah• 7 years ago

There are no "squatters' rights" in the USA. And the majority of Americans find the very concept anathema.

crazygringo• 7 years ago

Sorry, but I feel like you or your friend must be getting this from the media and not from personal experience.

Manhattan is the most populated it's been since 1960. [1] And the idea that "huge swaths" of apartments are "Saudi Arabian" investments is simply ridiculous. Yes, there are some, in a handful of ultra-luxury buildings, that is far less than 1% of buildings. It doesn't change the social fabric of the city at all.

And the idea that "huge parts of the population" are "wealthy Chinese and foreign" who "don't really work jobs"? This is so utterly and completely false I can't even imagine how you or your friend would develop this idea. I don't know where you're getting your information from, but it's just 100% not true at all.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_New_Yor...

twic• 7 years ago

I've heard the same thing said about London. By people with PhDs, no less. It isn't true here any more than it is in New York.

JDiculous2• 7 years ago

Why are you dismissing his personal observations with such a condescending attitude?

First of all it's a well documented phenomenon that NYC apartments are being bought by wealthy foreigners to invest and/or launder money without actually living there. As a result, these wealthy areas are eerily empty:

"In a three-block stretch of Midtown, from East 56th Street to East 59th Street, between Fifth Avenue and Park Avenue, 57 percent, or 285 of 496 apartments, including co-ops and condos, are vacant at least 10 months a year. From East 59th Street to East 63rd Street, 628 of 1,261 homes, or almost 50 percent, are vacant the majority of the time, according to data from the Census Bureau’s 2012 American Community Survey." [1]

The increasingly empty storefronts in Manhattan are also well-documented. Anyone who's lived in Manhattan for multiple years has noticed this - commercial venues shutting down, and either remaining vacant or being replaced with Chase bank retail branches or megachains.

There are a ton of trust fund kids who don't work, noticeably more compared to any other city I've lived in. Of course it's probably a minority, but doesn't change the reality of it.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/26/realestate/pieds-terre-ow...

codingslave3• 7 years ago

I've lived here for five years, just giving you my take on the city as I see it and as others that I know see it. Not trying to start a big argument, there's also a difference between statistics of a city and how it feels to live in.

ppod• 7 years ago

The author explicitly acknowledges that the result of rent control is nepotism. Why is someone's friend's niece a better resident of this neighborhood than anyone else?

imgabe5• 7 years ago

Ultimately the people who buy up housing in major cities as a place to park money are going to end up shooting themselves in the foot.

Parking a few million dollars in a Manhattan apartment is desirable because it's unlikely to lose value and you can actually use it when you visit. But if all the apartments are owned by people who mostly don't live there and only visit a few times a year, the thing that made them valuable - being located in a desirable, dynamic city where lots of people live and work, is no longer going to be true and they're going to lose value.

Cities should implement punitively high property taxes on any homes or apartments that are not used as a primary residence, either by the owner or a tenant.

gniv2• 7 years ago

Ironically, strong rent control policies help the rich exactly because of this dynamic. The city is thriving while its most valuable real estate is empty.

afpx• 7 years ago

Please explain for those of us who fail to see the connection.

setr• 7 years ago

So... It's a self-correcting problem that will naturally find some equilibrium? The price goes up, it becomes worth using as a bank, but eventually bank usage leads to price reduction and thus not as valuable as a bank.

I'm not clear how you conclude regulation is needed; self-regulating systems are exactly where gov intervention is not required.

imgabe5• 7 years ago

You're missing the part where the correction involves the economic collapse of a major city.

unethical_ban• 7 years ago

The "self regulation" has the lag time where neighborhoods get ruined and housing goes to waste for the benefit of the ultra-rich to stick their money in a place where it is doing harm to society.

AdrianB1• 7 years ago

You can go directly for confiscation, it is just a 100% tax in the first year. You can also ask to pay it in advance. You cannot go more punitive than that.

Well, this does not sound right. But I saw punitive taxes are a very popular opinion in some places.

dublinben• 7 years ago

A more directly effective counterbalance for vacant housing is squatting. An empty apartment is much less valuable when you can no longer ensure it will remain empty.

imgabe5• 7 years ago

Probably pretty difficult to pull off in a fully staffed building with a doorman, security and all that.

srmatto• 7 years ago

There was an attempt to implement just such a tax in New York City but it failed.

https://ny.curbed.com/2019/3/27/18283292/pied-a-terre-tax-re...

imgabe5• 7 years ago

That's too bad. I think I read about Vancouver, BC implementing a similar tax and it being helpful.

beerandt2• 7 years ago

This scenario is happening in the French Quarter. Or really, has already happened.

MisterTea• 7 years ago

I used to hang out in the village from around 96 or so to the late 00's. The place was packed with all sorts of people visiting the numerous quirky shops, many of which lined 8th st. Punks, metal heads (me included), hip hop, skaters, artsy and bohemian types, tourists, from high school kids to elderly. There was real life there. Record stores, book stores, comic book shops, clothing and fabric shops, collectibles, gaming, etc. We'd go to bleecker bobs and go to this grugy dude in the back and order black metal imports. Generation records always had tons of vinyl and they had a great band tee shirt collection. The chess shop was few doors down and one friend was a frequent player.

Over the summer I took the train in to walk around the village and was heartbroken. Half the stores along 8th st are indeed boarded up. Shops I was familiar with were gone. The eerie part that struck me was how empty village was. Sure there were people walking around but not the hustle and bustle of all walks of life prowling the shops.

It's been sanitized. And thats whats happening. The white glove suburbanites are doing their damndest to scrub away New York City's "dirty" history so they can live in/visit their septic utopia devoid of unsightly things and people. And the same thing happened to Williamsburg too. They killed my home and I increasingly feel like a stranger in my own city.

jonahbenton• 7 years ago

Has nothing to do with sanitization, frankly.

It has everything to do with exploding rents, which themselves are due to the consolidation of commercial (and residental) ownership, changes in yield expectations from real estate, changes in global capital availability, and the benefits that accrue to owners at scale when property lies vacant.

And the complete lack of energy or imagination from De Blasio.

I have personally seen commercial rents rise by 10x in some extreme cases, from contract to contract, with 2x-4x being more common. When demand isn't there at those prices capital rich owners often can wait and take paper "losses" while the neighborhood takes real losses.

rasz• 7 years ago

It might be quite eye opening to learn 2000 square foot storefront in Manhattan starts around $10000 a month in the cheapest (ABCD) parts.

What Happened to the West Village?

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