Finding Room for a Million More New Yorkers

Laura Kusisto looks at the findings of a new report [PDF] from Columbia University's Center for Urban Real Estate, which recommends the "most logical location for all this new housing: the city's waterfront neighborhoods, including Long Island City and Willets Point in Queens, Red Hook in Brooklyn and the Financial District..."

These recommendations, which "would pack more people into smaller areas than the Bloomberg administration has planned," raise some key questions about improvements that will need to be made to the city's existing infrastructure to accomodate such growth and address the city's growing inequity.

"Whether residents want more apartments in their neighborhoods remains to be seen," notes Kusisto. "In places such as Williamsburg where Bloomberg administration rezonings brought new residents, the result has been subway cars so packed that commuters wait for several trains to pass, lengthy kindergarten wait lists and promised parks that have yet to be delivered. The city has also yet to master the art of making tightly packed blocks of new glass towers feel like neighborhoods, rather than sterile enclaves."

Furthermore, focusing development along the waterfront, "raises serious questions after superstorm Sandy, when residents in Lower Manhattan, Long Island City and Red Hook were out of their homes for weeks or months."