Surveys
Finding Affordable Housing Becoming a "Creative" Challenge
Wednesday, March 5, 2008, 04:51pmSubmitted by Jonathan Sills
Gorilla Coffee at Fifth Avenue and Park Place in Brooklyn's Park Slope is filled day and night with hipster-looking folk sipping weapons-grade java and tapping away peacefully on their mac laptops in spite of the noisy, punk-rock soundtrack. On the very rare occasion that we are both in Park Slope during the day and at liberty to stroll around, my wife and I often wonder what all these people do for a living in order to spend their lives sitting in a coffee shop. Many, we figured were trust-fund babies, the others, we thought, must be self-employed, you know, "creative types."
Well, figures in an article titled Brooklyn's 'Creative Crescent' In Danger of A Drought in today's New York Observer, prove us to have been right, well, partially anyway. Apparently, "Park Slope ranks the No. 1 most creative neighborhood in the borough with 3,500 independently employed designers and independent artists in residence..." ahead of Williamsburg and BoCoCa (Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens). These people are so prevalent in fact, that the Brooklyn Economic Development Corporation (BEDC) refers to northern and eastern Brooklyn as the "Creative Crescent."
However, the point of the article was not point out just how many people work out of the borough's coffee shops, but that seeing them all there all day everyday tapping away may become a thing of the past, and soon. Understanding that artists and other self-employed people are often at the vanguard of colonizing new areas for residential uses, like parts of Williamsburg and Greenpoint, the BEDC is concerned that rising property values and prices in northern and eastern Brooklyn will force these people to move elsewhere in the city to find affordable living and working accommodation.
The article quotes one performance artist who says, "I used to live in Cobble Hill, then I was priced out and moved to Fort Greene. Now, I've been priced out again so I'm moving to Bed-Stuy."
The issue of affordability and a diverse mix of uses, building types, populations and retail in a neighborhood was certainly one that Jane Jacobs understood well, and it is an issue that is becoming serious in the minds of many New Yorkers today also as property prices, for both purchasing and renting, continue to increase, or at least, remain high compared to salaries.
Do you think that the city government has a responsibility to make sure New Yorkers of all types, working in all kinds of industries can still live in the city, or is it an individual's responsibility to make sure they make enough money to afford accommodation whatever it costs, or is it both? What do you think?
Chain Stores: Are Brooklynites Getting What They Deserve?
Monday, February 25, 2008, 04:54pmSubmitted by Jonathan Sills
So, it took the arrival (and success) of an IHOP (International House of Pancakes) in Downtown Brooklyn for the newspapers to notice that Brooklyn has steadily been growing more and more attractive to national and international chain retailers -- NY Post "B'klyn is Making Chain-ge", Feb. 25, 2008.
Forgive us if we've heard this one before - Ikea, Fairway in Red Hook; Target, Daffys, Circuit City etc. at Atlantic Center, anyone? And, what about the furore about the retail spaces in the proposed Atlantic Yards development that seemed to have been designed with large, big-box retailers in mind?
Of course, the point is that whereas years ago there were few, if any, chain stores in the borough, they are cropping up all over the place these days. Mostly, it seems, due to the fact that the chain stores in Brooklyn are among the most profitable anywhere in the country. The article goes on to say that Borough President Marty Markowitz is negotiating with Apple to bring a new Apple Store to Brooklyn, perhaps in the ground floor of the Wiliiamsburgh Savings Bank.
Campaigners for local retailers will, no doubt, be up in arms about the advance of chains into Brooklyn, and others will say that, actually, there are small, local businesses opening up all the time in the borough, especially in historic (and protected) Victorian neighborhoods, where storefront widths make spaces less attractive to chains and formula businesses.
So, what's the answer? Is the borough simply moving towards an ideal, diverse mixture of chains and locally-owned stores, or is one on the rise at the expense of the other? How is real estate development in the borough affecting the retail mix? Indeed, if chain stores are so profitable in Brooklyn, there must be a market for their goods, so is it just a case of supply and demand?
What do you think? Are Brooklynites getting the retail they want (and deserve)? And if so, will chain stores kill-off the borough's small retailers and enforce rigid uniformity with the rest of the country on consumers? Or, is a diverse, lively mix of retail sizes and types possible? How could this be developed and maintained? Your thoughts, please.
Midtown Rents - A Bargain?
Friday, February 22, 2008, 11:33amSubmitted by Jonathan Sills
In shocking contrast to our recent blog about Midtown commercial rents getting so high that restaurants were feeling the pinch and closing down (Tuscan Square - the Pino Luongo cafe/restaurant in Rock. Center did close, by the way), according to experts at Cushman & Wakefield Midtown’s office rents are lower than all of its major global competitors, including London, Paris and Tokyo, making it “a bargain” compared to these cities. So, where exactly does the truth lie?
Well, according to Metro NY,
"Although Manhattan’s office rents rose last year by nearly 30 percent, it still moved down a notch from last year’s rankings, placing 10th on the global real estate service firm’s 2008 “Office Space Across the World” survey."
"Rent, taxes and utility costs were studied to combine for an occupancy cost. New York’s occupancy cost is $100 per square foot compared with first-place London’s $312."
However, this comparison is a false one. In London, paying for your office space in the local currency would cost you around 150 pounds (sterling) per foot which, seeing as businesses there earn pounds, not dollars, ought to be compared on a numerical basis (as opposed to a currency exchange rate basis) to New York. Doing so, (150 things in London vs. 100 things in New York) reveals that office space in London is around 50% more expensive than New York - a significant margin, but much less than the 300% quote in Metro NY.
Now, as with the issue of growing international tourism, if you're an international business looking for office space in New York, it might well appear to be a bargain compared to other global cities, because you have the luxury of choice and a stronger foreign currency to buy with. But, what happens when you're a local company paying in US dollars? Surely, herein lies the rub? Perhaps the better comparison is between Midtown Manhattan rents and those in center city business districts across the country rather than across the world?
Commission Approves Congestion-Pricing
Friday, February 1, 2008, 10:21amSubmitted by Jonathan Sills
So, after much deliberation and a commendable public input process, the Mayor's Congestion Mitigation Commission has approved its recommendation.
For more details on how the voting went and a break-down of the press coverage of the plan, visit www.streetsblog.org.
From here, the City Council must approve the plan when it goes before them on March 28. The City Council must vote to approve the "Implementation Plan," send a home rule message to the state legislature. A home rule message is a request from a city or town council to the state legislature asking them to vote on legislation affecting only that town or city.
What do you think of the plan? Will it get approved by the council? But more importantly, will it actually cut congestion in Manhattan?
Mayor's Congestion Pricing Panel to Announce Recommendations Today
Thursday, January 31, 2008, 12:07pmSubmitted by Jonathan Sills
After a series of recent public forms and lengthy study of the plan, the Mayor's commission on congestion pricing will recommend today a plan that largely backs Mayor Bloomberg's original vision of the fee-based traffic idea, but does not include his proposed 86th Street boundary.
The recommendation would charge drivers entering Manhattan from above 60th Street $8 between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. Drivers traveling by car within the zone would be exempt from any fees, but a $1 taxi surcharge and higher parking rates would be enforced to decrease traffic below the northern boundary. The commission's recommendation must be approved by the state Legislature, the governor, and the City Council.
For more on the likely recommendations from today's NY Sun, click here.
Reminder - 2008 Jane Jacobs Medal Nomination Deadline Approaches
Wednesday, January 30, 2008, 11:02amSubmitted by Jonathan Sills
The deadline for nominations for this years' Jane Jacobs Medal has been extended until Monday, February 4th. For more details about the medal, click here.
Imagine Flatbush 2030 Movie Now Online
Monday, January 28, 2008, 11:31amSubmitted by Jonathan Sills
Imagine Flatbush 2030 from MAS on Vimeo.
The Mayor’s PlaNYC2030 is a citywide sustainability agenda that lays the groundwork for achieving and maintaining affordable housing, open space, good transportation, clean air, water, and land and reliable energy. It affords an enormous opportunity to rethink the development of the city.
However, the plan requires greater attention at the neighborhood level in order to achieve the goals it has laid out. In order to achieve this, the Municipal Art Society Planning Center has created Imagine Flatbush 2030, an initiative aimed at creating neighborhood sustainability goals and tools to measure progress toward community-decided consensus-based goals.
Click on the Play icon above to watch a video that outlines the goals of the project and features footage of the first community workshop.
Imagine Flatbush 2030 is part of the Jane Jacobs and the Future of New York project. To learn more about the project and find out how you can get involved, visit www.mas.org.
Soaring Rents Make Life Tougher for City Restaurants
Thursday, January 24, 2008, 01:01pmSubmitted by Jonathan Sills
Crain's New York reported recently about the impending demise of many New York City restaurants as landlords continue to raise rents. The article cites restaurateur Pino Luongo's eatery Tuscan Square in Rockefeller Center as an example of one long-term restaurant going out of business (or at least, soon to be). Now, you can argue the toss as to whether Tuscan Square qualifies as a restaurant -- I think it's really more of a cafeteria / deli -- but the suggestion by Mr. Luongo that the city's restaurant business might be entering a recession echoes the broader economic trends we have been witnessing this week.
Other restaurateurs quoted in the article suggest that another reason for this decline is that diners are no longer ordering such expensive dishes and are cutting back on drinks, especially wine - typically the most expensive part of a meal. Again, this suggests that consumer spending is falling off as the economy's vitality ebbs away.
However, when the restaurateurs quoted also mention that their more popular prix fixe menus are around $29, and their a la carte choices are in the region of $40 -- is it any surprise that New Yorkers aren't splashing out? Said restaurant owners would swear that higher rents are forcing their prices up, and that is likely to be true, but in a city where a good deal is increasingly hard to come by, it is probably inevitable that some of the city's 17,000 restaurants fall on hard times when consumers are more strapped for cash.
Interestingly, and perhaps ironically, as we suggested in a post the other week, it largely only foreign tourists who find eating out in New York City a bargain these days due to currency exchange rates. Is a New Yorker's right to an affordable dining-out experience a livability issue? Indeed, if rents and property values continue to increase as they have, will New York's wonderfully diverse restaurant sector follow many other retail sectors in the city and become dominated by large, national chains offering homogenous fayre? Perhaps an economic recession might help drive rents down for a while, or at least stabilize them at rates restaurants can afford? But is this the only solution?
Make Your Voice Heard on Congestion-Pricing
Friday, January 18, 2008, 02:49pmSubmitted by Jonathan Sills
Following its hearing in Manhattan earlier this week, the Traffic Mitigation Commission is holding its final hearing on congestion pricing in Brooklyn next Thursday before it issues its final recommendations on January 31. If you care about this issue (and we know many visitors to this website feel traffic congestion is an important urban livability issue) then you should go to:
Medgar Evers College
1650 Bedford Avenue at Crown Street
Brooklyn, NY
@ 6:00 p.m., on Thursday, January 24
If you plan to speak at the hearing, you must RSVP in advance. Click here to download the form. You can also e-mail written testimony if you'd like to testify but are unable to present.
Tourists Flock To NYC and Spend Record Amounts
Wednesday, January 16, 2008, 10:46amSubmitted by Jonathan Sills
Earlier this week it was widely reported that in 2007 New York City had been visited by a record numbers of tourists who had spent record amounts of money here. Covering this announcement (by Mayor Bloomberg in his weekly radio program), the NY SUN reports that this phenomenon was interpreted by the deputy mayor for economic development and rebuilding, Robert Lieber, as being the result of a combination of factors, including increased investment in the city's cultural institutions, the attraction of New York's restaurants, a marketing effort abroad, and the low value of the dollar to foreign currencies.
Clearly, this has been a boon for a city that was down on visitor numbers following the 9/11 attacks due to the perception that the city (because of terrorism and nascent crime rates) was unsafe to visit. Last year tourism increased by 5% over 2006 with an estimated 46 million tourists who spent something in the region of $28 billion during their stays. A daily visit to Midtown Manhattan around lunchtime would inform the casual observer that there are almost as many tourists as business people with Italian, Spanish, French, German and British English mixing with the stressed cries of New Yorkers on their cellphones and the tap-tap, beep-beep of Blackberries.
An unusually favorable exchange rate with the Euro and British Pound (not to mention the Canadian and Australian dollars) certainly accounts for much of the visitors spending their money and getting as much as twice the value for it they would get at home, but from a Jane Jacobs and the Future of New York perspective it's interesting that in this time when many New Yorkers are finding living in their own city harder and harder to afford, visitors from abroad are flocking here and spending record sums in our stores and restaurants.
Is this situation set to continue? Or will rising dollar exchange rates reduce the number of foreign tourists? Is this disparity in spending/buying power a livability issue? And, if so, what is the solution?
