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Why Is the Rent So Damn High?
Sponsored by Books Beyond Bars
In the NYR Online today, Samuel Stein investigates the precipitous rise of rent in New York City and the “unusual amount of what real estate types call ‘churn’”—the number of people looking for new housing at a given time:
For New Yorkers, the years between 2020 and 2023 were a terrible game of musical chairs. When the sirens started, hundreds of thousands packed up and moved. When they were ready to sit down again, they fought for the remaining seats. In this contest, those with the most money paid a premium for their chosen places, while those without the means were left standing outside the circle.
Below, alongside Stein’s article, we have compiled a collection of writing from the archives about the struggle for housing.
Samuel Stein
Musical Chairs
Why did New York City’s rents skyrocket in the aftermath of the pandemic?
Alissa Quart
Anti-Rent Wars, Then and Now
Amid the 1840s economic crisis, landlords tried to drive out tenants in default. The remarkable movement that rose to challenge evictions can be a model for today’s housing activists.
Michael Greenberg
Tenants Under Siege: Inside New York City’s Housing Crisis
New York City is in the throes of a humanitarian emergency. The tide of homelessness is only the most visible symptom.
Jason DeParle
Kicked Out in America!
“It is odd that the shortage of low-income housing gets little attention, even among experts on the left. Decent affordable shelter is a primal human need, and its disappearance is one of the most troubling results of growing inequality.”
Christopher Jencks
Housing the Homeless
“Because redevelopment eliminated so many cheap rooms so quickly, a temporary shortage was inevitable. But why weren’t they replaced? Virtually everything in Chicago is constantly being torn down, but almost everything profitable reappears elsewhere. Chicago had many empty warehouses that could have been turned into cubicle hotels. That did not happen—not because there was no demand for cheap beds but because the Chicago building code no longer permits construction of such accommodations.”
Sue Halpern
The Rise of the Homeless
“Nineteen-eighty-three…was a signal year in the history of homeless families in New York City. That year, their number rose to 1,300 after holding steady at about 600 throughout the previous decade, and the city, which had sheltered them on an emergency basis in a handful of privately owned, shamelessly run-down hotels, now found itself patronizing thirty-six such hotels and motels throughout the five boroughs.”
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