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March 31, 2011
Why the Census Bureau might be right on NYC
Crain's NY Business
by Greg David
The topic of whether New York City has been shortchanged by the 2010 census is certainly a hot button issue. The mayor continues to insist the census takers missed as many as 200,000 residents because they could neither count people in apartment buildings nor find immigrants who had no interest in being enumerated.
...Now comes a very provocative piece by Harvard economist Edward Glaeser, an expert on cities, which suggests the Bureau of the Census might be right.
...He finds lots of evidence to support the idea that growth is in line with housing creation, which means the less-than-expected 2.1% increase is on the mark.
If true, the Bloomberg administration should start doing some hard thinking. In part, the housing shortfall is the result of the financial crisis that delayed major development initiatives at Atlantic Yards, Hudson Yards, Coney Island and Willets Point, to name only a few. The administration is not responsible for that.
Other administrations, however, would be considering measures to spur more construction, as Ed Koch did in the early 1980s. So far, the administration isn't interested in that approach; maybe it is time for a change in plan.
NoLandGrab: The real question is, does housing creation spur population growth, or does population growth drive housing creation? If it's the latter, and New York City's growth is stagnating, who's going to pay to live in all of Bruce Ratner's planned luxury condos?
Posted by eric at March 31, 2011 10:43 AM