Unaffordable, Growing Cities Lag on New Housing Permits

Stephen Smith describes a grim reality for the actions of New York to build enough housing for its growing population. "Long Island, and Westchester County in particular, have completely shirked their responsibility to shoulder any growth – with New Jersey’s Hudson County emerging as far and away the biggest builder."

For audiences outside of the New York metropolitan area, Smith helpfully includes a chart showing the number of permits approved per 1,000 residents for cities across the country. There, Austin leads the pack, with Houston and Charlotte following. Detroit, Chicago, and Los Angeles bring up the rear.

Smith goes into a lot of detail for submarkets within the New York metropolitan area, but here's what he writes about how New York compares to other cites in preparing to house their growing populations: "New York City’s housing growth rate sits somewhere in between, on par with other increasingly unaffordable and in-demand coastal cities like San Francisco and Boston. With 2.4 units permitted per 1,000 residents, the five boroughs don’t keep up with the national average, and fall impossibly far from what would needed to truly keep up with demand."