F
Living without a car is WHY I'm here. And it's true for so many people that I know. It's this massive benefit and attraction of the city, but US car culture means that we don't talk about it directly.
Living car-free is very luxurious but implying this would make car manufactures and many people angry. So, we pretend that the half of NYC residents without cars are sad and poor about it.
This is a lie.
One of the benefits of NYC is the locals are already pissed off so we can't really be pissed off more.
I want to point out one other thing. In a primate city like NYC increasing density and building more housing has an "induced demand" effect just like when you try to widen a highway. Building more housing has made the city a more desirable place to live and increased housing prices even as the supply has increased.
Now with a highway? I say, don't bother. With housing I think the induced demand just means you need to be more aggressive in increasing the supply.
People who live in NYC are very pro-transit. That's because we all depend on it to ... live. Transit obviously needs massive funding increases, modernization and new lines and that is harder, but I would not call it a "non-starter" just difficult.
Building more housing isn't a "non-starter" in NYC. We are NOT SF.
In fact, over the past two decades we have built tons and tons of housing, it's why the city is thriving. Tons of "in-fill" and "80-20" development. It has not been very focused on ordinary people, so much has been built strictly to rent, but that could change as we keep building. (And even building rentals is better than not building.)
We love to increase density.
Now the transit part.
Are cats real?
Around 50 percent of people own their home or are paying a mortgage. It's fairly common, but the reality of renting for life needs to stop being treated like an anomaly or a mistake.
Everything about the US is set up to advantage home owners. It's kind of disgusting.
Beyond that you have "import export" or sourcing goods and products from around the world and arranging for them to go where they can be sold for nice profits. This used to be more literal with all of the imports coming into NYC and getting sold here too, but it's been streamlined.
Nonetheless I think there are THREE major ports and they are full of container ships.
Our last product is NYC itself. People want to live here very badly and will pay a lot for that.
Our watershed is the very best part of NY state. The city extends into the mountains and has an excellent water supply. Now the industries? The ugliest and largest one is "the financial sector" basically the stock market, banks, and financial services. We manufacture and structure loans and debit.
Entertainment is another huge export.
We also have real manufacturing of, you know, objects you can touch: home fixtures, flooring, elevators, lots of things for buildings.
Increasing supply is also important. I just hate the idea of people paying that much interest over their lives.
The options that work for middle class people to buy in a city are: coops, condos. Owning a whole building isn't practical.
The existing market and legal structure makes condos outrageously expensive and coops are very rare and like secret clubs that you have to be in the know to join. It's a terrible system.
Of course those making tons of money by renting hate all of these ideas.
Of course fixing the housing market also means addressing the fact that a lot of Americans want to live in cities but cities have not been planned for long-term living. You rent in the city in your 20s then you are supposed to move to a suburb. But not everyone wants to do that. So you have a lot of people renting into their 40s and beyond. This is NOT their fault.
I'm a little obsessed with property and real estate so I found a way to buy in NYC, but this took a manic focus.
One of the reasons home prices in the US are so high is... the 30 year mortgage. For sanity, and the future we ought to be planning to slowly transition to 20 and 15 year mortgages as the default. This would increase middle class wealth, cool down the housing market and frankly, it might make buying a home less daunting.
Older Americans have most of their wealth in their home. Hence, the "slow" part. We won't be done till they are all dead. Not to be impolite about it.
Do you care NOTHING for the poor people of that town?
The beast has taken over the park, crushed the observatory, school and part of the amusement park... and is now eyeing the shops...
(That said... not the most practical urban planers, are they? Perhaps they deserve their fate. )
It'd make nice mittens or a "keep away" subway hat.
We are all already inside of it and therefore dead 
That's just one of many theories and not probably the most favored one...
Wide round paws.
Try etsy
I am the dust in the library. Food for the silverfish, specter of the un-scanned microfiche.
I am the dust that dances in the sunbeam that crosses the hall on a cold winter day before final exams.