Why New Yorkers Should Prepare for a de Blasio Building Boom

"Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio will be New York's most pro-development mayor in decades," writes Barro. "He'll have no choice but to be." 

Though he's proposed a tax increase on people making over $500,000 a year, that won't generate nearly enough revenue. "If he hopes to buy labor peace and fulfill his progressive missions, de Blasio will have to find another way to get more money coming into the city's coffers. That's where development comes in."

But encouraging new development - and the fees, transfer taxes and property taxes that go with it - through additional upzoning won't be easy. "The next round of upzonings will have to come in neighborhoods full of existing residents and all the political resistance they bring," notes Barro.

"If de Blasio hopes to achieve his broader progressive agenda, he'll have to get the real estate issue more or less right — and that bodes very well for development, affordability and growth in New York City."