Aaron Renn's latest article in the Manhattan Institute is about how America's top cities can "grow to new heights." Usually when we talk about urban problems, it is because of failures. But in this case, it is about problems of success (though I suppose you could argue these are still failures).

Cities such as New York and San Francisco have, in his view, stopped thinking like growth cities and that is leading to high home prices and overburdened infrastructure. But we all know that these problems are not unique to only "superstar cities."

Not surprisingly, Aaron argues that we need to stop implementing land use policies that only exacerbate our housing supply problems. Things like rent control and inclusionary zoning. And in some cases, it may be time for states to start intervening in local planning decisions.

For the full article, click here.

This is a fascinating short video (by Vox) about a former neighborhood in Manhattan known as Seneca Village. Today, its land forms part of Central Park.

Most of us would probably agree that building Central Park was both a good idea and a powerful example of the value of foresight.

But that doesn't mean that the area's pre-park history is something that should be forgotten. (Thanks for sending this along, Jeremiah Shamess.)

If you'd like to learn more about Seneca Village, check out this NY Times opinion piece by Brent Staples. It's called, The Death of the Black Utopia.

A decade of ultra luxury condos. The New York Times published this story over the weekend talking about how the luxury condo boom of the 2010s transformed New York City, and in particular Brooklyn.

Below are two tables from the article: (1) The number of units built between 2009 and 2019 across the five boroughs and the city's top neighborhoods, and (2) the neighborhoods with the highest median sale price increase.

The overarching theme is that New York built too many "super-high-end condos" geared toward global capital flows. According to one developer interviewed for the article (Gary Barnett of Extell Development), it was unprecedented.

Apparently, the problem segment remains the $5 million to $10 million market. There's simply too much inventory, and that has developers both delaying launches and going with much smaller (and hence more affordable) unit mixes.

One stat that stood out for me was the new condo premium over resales. In 2011, the average sale price of a new condo in the city was about $1.15 million, which represented about a 9% premium over resale pricing.

While it is typical to see a premium over resales (the same is true in Toronto), the average price of a new condo in 2019 rose to $3.77 million, representing a 118% premium over resales.

For the rest of the article, click here.