It has now been almost a year since New York City implemented its congestion charge for the area of Manhattan south of 60th Street and, despite all of the critics, the results are overwhelmingly positive. Here are some of the most important data points:

• Pollution is down by as much as 22% in the congestion zone area.

• Traffic has declined by about 11% in the zone. As a reminder, traffic improved basically immediately following the $9 charge.

• An average of 71,500 fewer vehicles entered the zone each day from January through to November 2025, totalling nearly 24 million fewer vehicles.

• The congestion charge is forecasted to bring in $548.3 million in 2025, beating the initial goal of $500 million. (This revenue will be used by the MTA for bond issuances that will in turn fund further infrastructure improvements.)

• Importantly, foot traffic in the zone is also up year-over-year compared to Manhattan as a whole (3.5% versus 1.4%, respectively).

• Storefront vacancies in the zone declined more rapidly compared to Manhattan as a whole and the rest of the city. (Though the vacancy rate is still the highest in this area, presumably because of the higher rents in downtown and midtown.)

• New York City's sales tax revenue is also up 6.3% this year compared to the same period last year, outperforming all neighboring counties. This suggests that the congestion charge is not keeping shoppers away.

So, why shouldn't other North American cities follow New York's lead?

Cover photo by ian dooley on Unsplash

Let's talk some more about garbage.

Manhattan Community District 9 has just become the first neighborhood in New York City to containerize 100% of its trash. This is being done through a pilot program that now requires all residents to dispose of their trash into either an individual bin (the kind you'll find in most cities) or a new "Empire Bin." Empire Bins are required for buildings with more than 31 units in the pilot district. Properties with 10-30 units can choose whichever bin they want. And properties with fewer than 10 units have to go with the smaller individual bins.

The new Empire Bins look like this.

These are stationary bins that live on the street and take up about half a parking space each. Each bin is also assigned to a specific property and can only be accessed by building staff using an access card. So these are not general purpose bins. In the pilot area, there are some 1,000 bins, replacing hundreds of parking spaces. And if this were to be expanded citywide, it is estimated that it would require the removal of more than 50,000 on-street parking spaces.

In this instance, the use case is different than what we spoke about last week. The problem is not that large garbage trucks are taking up too much space inside of main street buildings. The problem is that these spaces don't exist, and so NYC has had to default to an approach that is remarkably efficient for fostering a vibrant rat population: collect rat food, place it in easily accessible plastic bags, and then set it out on the street like a buffet.

These efforts are about containerizing the city's trash. And yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

"Rent control is the second-best way to destroy a city, after bombing." —Lawrence H. Summers

Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for the mayor of New York City, clearly ran a good campaign. He used social media and short-form videos to find his audience and win with the message that the city has become unattainable to most.

But it is also clear that the stock market really does not like his message. Shares of firms with exposure to New York City's real estate market reacted immediately: Vornado Realty Trust, SL Green, Equity Residential, Empire State Realty Trust, LXP Industrial Trust, and others, were all down. At the same time, the wealthy vowed to leave New York for places like Florida, as they so often do these days.

One of reasons for this negative reaction was Mamdani's commitment to not just cap rent increases, but freeze rents in rent-stabilized units for the entire duration of his term. We've spoken a lot about rent control over the years (here, here, here, and other places) but, at a high level, the problem with rent controls is that they create a strong disincentive for landlords to invest and maintain their homes and for developers to build new homes. So what ultimately happens is that you get a more rapidly aging inventory of existing homes and a reduced amount of new supply.

A full-out rent freeze takes this even further. A rent freeze does not mean that utility costs will also be frozen, that insurance and taxes will be frozen, that interest rates will be capped, and that all other landlord operating expenses will be restricted from inflating. (If this were the case, we really wouldn't have market economy.) So what a rent freeze does is ensure that, in real dollars, a landlord is able to collect less money from tenants, while operating costs continue to increase under the line.

The same is true in condominiums and other ownership structures. Whenever somebody talks about frozen maintenance or common element fees, I immediately remind them that this is a bad thing, not a feature. It means the condominium corporation is on an unsustainable path and will eventually run out of money. Something is being sacrificed in order to keep up with rising operating and capital expenses. At the very least, you need to keep up with inflation.

I can appreciate that rents are too high. As a developer, I would love to be able to build to lower rents. It reduces absorption risk and it's better for the city. But rather than just freeze rents, a more productive and sustainable approach would be to attack the underlying root causes for the problem. A rent freeze is a short-term political fix that will have second and third-order consequences. Problems for a different day and for a different mayor, perhaps. But problems nonetheless.

Cover photo by Daryan Shamkhali on Unsplash

It has now been almost a year since New York City implemented its congestion charge for the area of Manhattan south of 60th Street and, despite all of the critics, the results are overwhelmingly positive. Here are some of the most important data points:

• Pollution is down by as much as 22% in the congestion zone area.

• Traffic has declined by about 11% in the zone. As a reminder, traffic improved basically immediately following the $9 charge.

• An average of 71,500 fewer vehicles entered the zone each day from January through to November 2025, totalling nearly 24 million fewer vehicles.

• The congestion charge is forecasted to bring in $548.3 million in 2025, beating the initial goal of $500 million. (This revenue will be used by the MTA for bond issuances that will in turn fund further infrastructure improvements.)

• Importantly, foot traffic in the zone is also up year-over-year compared to Manhattan as a whole (3.5% versus 1.4%, respectively).

• Storefront vacancies in the zone declined more rapidly compared to Manhattan as a whole and the rest of the city. (Though the vacancy rate is still the highest in this area, presumably because of the higher rents in downtown and midtown.)

• New York City's sales tax revenue is also up 6.3% this year compared to the same period last year, outperforming all neighboring counties. This suggests that the congestion charge is not keeping shoppers away.

So, why shouldn't other North American cities follow New York's lead?

Cover photo by ian dooley on Unsplash

Let's talk some more about garbage.

Manhattan Community District 9 has just become the first neighborhood in New York City to containerize 100% of its trash. This is being done through a pilot program that now requires all residents to dispose of their trash into either an individual bin (the kind you'll find in most cities) or a new "Empire Bin." Empire Bins are required for buildings with more than 31 units in the pilot district. Properties with 10-30 units can choose whichever bin they want. And properties with fewer than 10 units have to go with the smaller individual bins.

The new Empire Bins look like this.

These are stationary bins that live on the street and take up about half a parking space each. Each bin is also assigned to a specific property and can only be accessed by building staff using an access card. So these are not general purpose bins. In the pilot area, there are some 1,000 bins, replacing hundreds of parking spaces. And if this were to be expanded citywide, it is estimated that it would require the removal of more than 50,000 on-street parking spaces.

In this instance, the use case is different than what we spoke about last week. The problem is not that large garbage trucks are taking up too much space inside of main street buildings. The problem is that these spaces don't exist, and so NYC has had to default to an approach that is remarkably efficient for fostering a vibrant rat population: collect rat food, place it in easily accessible plastic bags, and then set it out on the street like a buffet.

These efforts are about containerizing the city's trash. And yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

"Rent control is the second-best way to destroy a city, after bombing." —Lawrence H. Summers

Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for the mayor of New York City, clearly ran a good campaign. He used social media and short-form videos to find his audience and win with the message that the city has become unattainable to most.

But it is also clear that the stock market really does not like his message. Shares of firms with exposure to New York City's real estate market reacted immediately: Vornado Realty Trust, SL Green, Equity Residential, Empire State Realty Trust, LXP Industrial Trust, and others, were all down. At the same time, the wealthy vowed to leave New York for places like Florida, as they so often do these days.

One of reasons for this negative reaction was Mamdani's commitment to not just cap rent increases, but freeze rents in rent-stabilized units for the entire duration of his term. We've spoken a lot about rent control over the years (here, here, here, and other places) but, at a high level, the problem with rent controls is that they create a strong disincentive for landlords to invest and maintain their homes and for developers to build new homes. So what ultimately happens is that you get a more rapidly aging inventory of existing homes and a reduced amount of new supply.

A full-out rent freeze takes this even further. A rent freeze does not mean that utility costs will also be frozen, that insurance and taxes will be frozen, that interest rates will be capped, and that all other landlord operating expenses will be restricted from inflating. (If this were the case, we really wouldn't have market economy.) So what a rent freeze does is ensure that, in real dollars, a landlord is able to collect less money from tenants, while operating costs continue to increase under the line.

The same is true in condominiums and other ownership structures. Whenever somebody talks about frozen maintenance or common element fees, I immediately remind them that this is a bad thing, not a feature. It means the condominium corporation is on an unsustainable path and will eventually run out of money. Something is being sacrificed in order to keep up with rising operating and capital expenses. At the very least, you need to keep up with inflation.

I can appreciate that rents are too high. As a developer, I would love to be able to build to lower rents. It reduces absorption risk and it's better for the city. But rather than just freeze rents, a more productive and sustainable approach would be to attack the underlying root causes for the problem. A rent freeze is a short-term political fix that will have second and third-order consequences. Problems for a different day and for a different mayor, perhaps. But problems nonetheless.

Cover photo by Daryan Shamkhali on Unsplash