People don’t believe it, but cities used to be cheap.
I wasn't really aware of this, but was just wondering about it the other day, as it seems like logically they should be cheaper; economies of scale ought to help for both housing and infrastructure, I would think. Interesting to hear that expensive cities aren't necessarily inevitable.
Basically all the housing in NYC—from the brownstones in Bed-Stuy to the high rises on the Upper East Side—were built during the early 20th century when there was a huge population boom, to provide affordable housing for literally millions of people.
We need to keep doing that. NYC doesn’t need a few thousand more apartments—it needs hundreds of thousands more apartments.
I wasn't really aware of this, but was just wondering about it the other day, as it seems like logically they should be cheaper; economies of scale ought to help for both housing and infrastructure, I would think. Interesting to hear that expensive cities aren't necessarily inevitable.