Like, you all realize there's a schism in journalism and urban Democratic politics generally rn between younger leftist wokies...
Like, you all realize there’s a schism in journalism and urban Democratic politics generally rn between younger leftist wokies and older moderate liberals who remember and appreciate the 90s “back to the city” resolution of the “urban crisis”, the Real Estate section is a property value-loving bastion of the latter, and all the last week’s “taxpaying professionals leaving NYC for the suburbs again” discourse was really the latter issuing a command to reign the former in, backed by a Sampson Option threat?
A command? AFAICT most people plan to move back to NYC when the pandemic ends, although that may take a year to a few years, so any effect on property value is likely temporary (and we may see a return to people owning condos instead of renting in the middle-end of the crisis, if interest rates stay low).
And what the hell “Sampson Option threat” are the older liberals considering? If they stop benefits young people and unemployed young professionals will be all the more likely to move back with their parents for lack of funds. Raising interest rates doesn’t matter because so few people want to go on the market in real estate right now anyway, both because property values in NY are actually remaining steady (so no one is panic-selling), and because open houses are a hassle and a risk, and so the market has moved to individual viewings, which are necessarily slower.
Will people move back from their second homes, or stay in a UWS that’s reverting back to Velvet Underground times? People that give off enough tax surplus to sustain the rest of the city’s expenses? That’s exactly what’s being questioned, and real estate is the conversation in NYC, and that’s part of the conversation now.
Like, cities and the Democratic Party don’t have unionized industry as an economic base anymore, if the gentry gets scared off and flee they collapse, worse than the 80s. Circulation numbers are good for selling ads and if the NY Times tripled its circulation by being the voice of a new socialist generation but lost the locals who read Westchester real estate ads and the national gentry lifestylers that would be an existential failure.