Okay, if you can't handle being around other people, then don't live in NY. But, what's your point here? Cus I know you hate it, but supply and demand says that waaaay more people like NYs than there actually _are_ NYs. People who can only exist in giant metal boxes, sealed off from the world at all times, can choose to live in nearly any city in America and live their bliss. But not everyone is you. You shouldn't have to be a millionaire to live in a real city. We can make Seattle and SF and Portland and Boston and Philly better without Houston and Atlanta even noticing.
NYC has a net negative out-migration rate. If it wasn't for foreigners moving in the city would be shrinking. And foreigners (like many of my family in Queens) don't move to NYC because they like a city that's just one step up from Bangladesh. They do it because of the access to jobs, people who speak their native language, etc. They tend to move to Long Island (or, these, days, Texas) as soon as they get their feet under them.
My larger point is that public policy is a meta-market. We subsidize the suburbs because the majority of people like the suburbs. The net migration patterns in this country are to places like Dallas and Atlanta because that's where more people want to live.
Well, somehow housing in NYC is up 3% this year. I’m the biggest urbanist shill you’ll meet and even I don’t live there, cus it’s too damn expensive. We build only suburbs, only suburbs are affordable, and that’s where people live. Shocking.
I would love to see an experiment where we make a 1200 sq-ft apartment in a dense, walkable neighborhood, the same price as a 3000 sq-ft McMansion outside Dallas, by actually building the former. I predict… unexpected migration, but who knows. That’s a hard experiment to run.
