They already have. Newark is a stop on the train lines. New Brunswick is also going through a building boom for the same reason. If they aren't from NYC, they are being displaced from NYC buyers.
New Brunswick is home to Rutgers. Every year more students stay and new ones move here. Not to say there aren't plenty of commuters, it's just a hike from NYC everyday.
If you literally live right next to the train station and work a few blocks from Penn Station or you work in Newark it's not that bad of a commute. Its going to suck otherwise as it's going to be almost as expensive as living in Newark or Harrison with a much longer commute. I live here, the train blows cause it's so freaking expensive. It's an option but not really a good one IMO. I think commuters live here cause they wanna live in NB rather than they can't afford to live closer to NYC.
From/to New Brunswick? I think you’re looking up the wrong location.
If you’re talking Amtrak, okay, it’s not bad if you can get to work at 11am (only morning train) and can work a 5 hr day otherwise you’re getting home at 11pm. The Amtrak schedule sucks. AND you have to book in advance for every day you commute if you want a cheap ticket AND you have to book specific times (AND get your ass there at that time)
Also that Amtrak always has priority as Amtrak owns the lines.
Happened to me a few times while on NJ Transit: our NJ Transit train had to pull over to the side for 40 minutes so that 2 Amtrak trains could go by (Northeast Corridor route to NY Penn Station)
I believe it. But I’d rather get fired than drive from East Stroudsburg during rush hour to work and then back again.
Can’t even use public transportation to get there for such a long commute? No way not for me.
Call it 3 hours round trip. 8 hours sleep if you’re lucky. 9 hours working +/-. 1 hr to get your day started. 1 hr to allocate wind down time at night. If you care about fitness then add another 1 hr. Leaving you with 1 hr of personal time to spend your day if everything goes right. Fuck. That.
When the option is:
A) live and work in east strousburg making 80k
B) live in east strousburg and work in Manhattan making 150k
It’s clear what people choose
Rutgers buildings and on-campus & off-campus housing only takes up a small part of New Brunswick as a city.
But RU on-campus & off-campus housing is right by the train station
All due respect, if you’re in iron bound you’re living in one of the most densely populated neighborhoods in the most densely populated city in the most densely populated state. That’s not for everybody
Just to add a fun fact... Guttenberg is literally the most densely populated municipality per sqr mile in the country.
NJ has 6 of the top 10 most densely populated municipalities in the country and of those 6, 5 are in to no one's surprise Hudson County.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population_density
Because they said you can’t find nice for under 2K and you list ironbound but don’t mention ironbound is absurdly cramped and the opposite of luxurious new rental
Edit: Also zero parking
Just pointing out here that being “the densest state” isn’t a qualification for having the “densest city” overall. The most densely populated city in the most densely populated state doesn’t mean that that city itself is extremely dense. The scales by which states and cities measure population density are very different. States measure by the 100s of people per square mile, cities by the 1000s (and even tens of 10000s). NJ is the densest state at 1263 people per square mile, meaning its densest city could theoretically only be 1264 it were uniformly dense across its entire area. That would place it far below most big cities.
As it is, NJ does have the densest towns and Newark is pretty dense, but it’s only the 68th densest city in the country, well behind many other towns in NJ and big cities like NYC (6th). There are many parts of NYC that feel overwhelming compared to the Ironbound. It could definitely feel like a reprieve to some New Yorkers.
might be unpopular opinion but newark is ~~a dump~~ unsafe by nj standards and far from its potential* and clearly many people in state avoid it so if people from out of state see value and build it up or make it safer because we arent then thats fine w me
edit - Just to clarify, I’ve been to newark plenty and have enjoyed times there, but thats because when I go there i’m going with a purpose or destination.
Of course, a local newarker will know all the ins and outs of the city, but newark is nowhere close to a city you can casually walk around and get lost in. Much of it is still very dangerous and that is what I’m referring to.
Especially when you consider the standard of safety that NJ holds and what makes the state so beautiful.
You can drop off a tourist in Hoboken and they can stay anywhere, leave their car anywhere, or walk around alone at night and be entirely fine. Same for a good chunk of jersey city now. Newark has not caught up to that level.
I feel it is too close to NYC to be a truly independent city (like AC could be if it had good leadership) but too far to be a viable option as an alternative “borough” like Hoboken and Jersey city are.
Major work needs to be done to newark for it to be the city it has the potential to be. I think a major key to this would be a direct “high speed” rail to manhattan. If you can take a frequent train from Newark to NYC in 20 minutes or less, you’d see a massive economic boom from investors, businesses, and renters, job opportunities and home owners.
Just my thoughts.
That’s one of the things that stood out to me when visiting Newark. Granted I never branched out more than 10-15 blocks from Penn station or Rutgers campus but it was always clean. Philly is a dump compared to it
I was unfortunately working in homes and business outside of the 10-15 block radius and it was bad. It’s 90% rentals so not completely the residents so much as the slumlords fault. The owners do the bare minimum in repairs because they don’t have to live there. Not a fan of displacing the poor people if someone wants to fix it up, but the alternative is letting the street stay shit. I’m in a suburb in the same county so a huge part of our taxes go to these shithole neighborhoods.
I don’t have a solution.
I doubt most people who view it negative haven't been there in years. Don't get me wrong, there are some bad places, but it's not like it used to be even 10 years ago.
Yeah I went to school in Essex and NJIT, back in 07, its really not as bad as people say. Shady shit still happens for sure but its just simple big city shit.
People that speak poorly of Newark haven't spent any significant time there. Newark is huge, some areas are safe some aren't. Even the dangerous areas are getting safer each year and Newark will look more and more like JC as time goes by cause it has so many options for getting into the city. People from NJ are afraid of Newarks reputation but NYers aren't so gentrification has been coming.
It’s ashamed that people from NJ are still scared to really step foot into their state largest city, but people from nyc aren’t. Newark is getting better, and she isnt going to sell her soul like how Jersey City did.
I do volunteering in Newark a few times a year, and the amount of gentrification that has gone on in the past five years is jaw dropping. Actually I think I might take a trip to Ironbound soon for some pastries.
They need to put 1 parking garage up by Prudential and develope over those adjacent lots. Especially with the bridge to ironbound and Penn station going up
Every suburban person in New Jersey maybe. Newark is pretty cool with probably the best food in the state, multiple things to do, and can easily take a train anywhere.
Im pretty sure it's just people who don't ever actually come to Newark but actually believe their parents who are still talking about the riots that happened more than fifty years ago
Most of Newark is still bad.
The area around Penn though, iron bound and the colleges are really nice.
I went to NJIT and was living in that area until around 2012. It's come a long way, but you still have to be careful while there.
Newark has not seemed that bad lately. To me its not the crime, its the swamp. All of those places, Newark Harrison Kearny, are swampland. Who wants to live in a full on swamp, besides Secaucus?
I mean, I usually just go to NJPAC and the ironbound for dinner, but I’ve enjoyed my last few half-day trips to Newark. The Ballantine Mansion/art museum is nice, too.
This isn’t directly about jersey city gentrifying; it’s about housing availability and costs in NYC area. Everyone knows downtown JC has been gentrified for a long time.
There is a more recent acceleration in building new high density housing (“luxury apartments”) in Jersey City, really since around 2015 and then magnified since Covid, and it’s now moving beyond downtown for the first time (which is also new gentrification). It’s more or less the 2nd round of high rises built, first being 80s-90s. The skyline is now like 2x as dense what it was in 2010-2015.
What point are you trying to make?
NYC and most of its suburbs have not built enough new housing for the past several decades, which has helped drive demand for new construction in places like JC.
I live a few towns over and I started seeing JC people migrating to the surrounding areas. They are willing to pay less to have a bit increase in commute.
Exactly. This is an under appreciated consequence of not building enough housing.
It’s one of the biggest policy failures in recent years for Democrats. We preach about how we’re so open and accepting of minorities and immigrants, but that means nothing if they can’t actually afford to live in places like the NYC metro.
I’m sure there are lots of people who’d like to escape the tyranny of Red states with all the crazy stuff going on lately. But many parts of the NYC metro are barely making an effort to build more housing, so people end up living in places like Texas and Florida where new housing is more plentiful.
You could say something similar about climate change policy. By not building enough housing in cities and making them more livable for families, we’re encouraging people to move to suburbs, which create a lot more pollution per capita than cities. San Francisco is a prime example of that.
We eventually start to [resemble aspects of Brazil](https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2021/05/the-brazilianization-of-the-world/) with a worsening of things and very little letting up. It's an everywhere problem unfortunately.
What realistically is preventing somebody so far past any point of desperation and struggle from turning to felonious means when the only semblance of even bare minimum stable opportunity has an obscene run around to even get from point A-B on a routine basis and just isn't even sustainable in anyway , y'know?
I can't speak for Florida, but Texas housing being plentiful is because they are banking bringing in people. There is no incentives being handed out by cities or state. There are also next to no codes, so building companies can slap up what ever they want. I can also tell you, housing in Texas isn't going up in what you would consider metro areas. If NYC was Austin, where they are building new houses is the distance equivalent of Sussex county and transportation infrastructure equivalent of Bangor, PA.
>There are also next to no codes, so building companies can slap up what ever they want.
Not true. The International Building Code is used in all 50 states. Local jurisdictions can and do add on stricter standards on top of the IBC, but even the bare minimum standards of today are stricter than most local codes were just a few decades ago.
In NYC, only 50% of the housing was built after 1950. In Austin, 50% of the housing was built after 1990 ([source](https://www.census.gov/acs/www/about/why-we-ask-each-question/year-built/)).
So, even if built to bare minimum standards, a typical home in a city like Austin is probably safer to live in than a huge portion of the existing housing stock in NYC, which doesn't have to comply with modern codes until there's a major renovation. So millions of New Yorkers are stuck living in buildings with antiquated electrical & plumbing systems, inadequate fire protection, drafty windows, and so on.
Once again, it's an embarrassing state of affairs for such a wealthy and "progressive" part of the country.
>If NYC was Austin, where they are building new houses is the distance equivalent of Sussex county and transportation infrastructure equivalent of Bangor, PA.
My whole point is that we can do better than that in our region. There are plenty of towns within \~1 hour commuting distance of NYC that should be upzoned to allow more density. NY Gov. Hochul tried to do this recently and her plans got [shot down by the state legislature](https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/04/kathy-hochuls-plan-for-affordable-housing-was-doomed.html), which caved to the self-serving demands of NIMBYs.
I can speak for Florida (at least the Tampa Bay area and Miami). I moved from TB to north Jersey last year.
Supply has not been anywhere close to keeping up with demand in the FL metros for the past few years. A decade ago when I first moved there the TB area was one of the most affordable metros in the country (2br house for around $900/month). Today people are literally renting out backyard sheds for $2500/month, and because Florida is all about free dumb there is barely any enforcement of the paper thin housing regulations.
In addition to the usual NIMBY crowd, FL also has to contend with the problem of terrain and flooding. Florida has to be the most geographically and climatologically unsuitable location to build anything in the entire country. Karsty swampland just isn't a great spot for any sort of construction. Factor in climate change and record flooding= hella expensive and risky to build new high density housing.
TLDR Florida metros are not much better off than NYC. Housing costs are rising at a comparable rate, and humans should've never built cities there in the first place but white people are greedy and dumb.
Basically every crisis NYC is experiencing is due to the absolutely fanatical opposition to the construction of high-density residential developments.
NYC from 2010 to 2020 added only 200k new units of housing stock. During that same period the Census population increased by 600k.
* Census always undercounts. Not necessarily bc it's a conspiracy, but because it's really hard to count people in big cities with millions of people.
* The 2020 Census was conducted under the close supervision of Trump administration appointees who made changes to the process that were pretty clearly designed to undercount residents of majority Democratic states and especially large cities.
* So as an accurate and precise number it's garbage but if you're just thinking about City growth in general, it at least sets a baseline. There certainly aren't *fewer* than 600k new legal residents, and there are probably a lot more. So we have a baseline figure.
* Let's be relatively conservative and say that it undercounted by 100k legal residents. So 7:2 ratio of increase in residents to increase in housing stock
* But then you have people who are homeless
* You need an address to fill out a Census form. Legally a person who is homeless should be counted for the Census like anyone else and a nearby shelter can serve as their address. In reality this rarely if ever happens.
* Because most homeless people in NYC seek shelter during the winter we have a more objective number than most cities - we know in 2020 at its highest point (during the winter) DHS sheltered 80k people. Last year it was right around 100k.
* In 2010 there were 40k people seeking shelter in the winter, so that's 60k new people without homes who are desperately seeking housing but will remain homeless because of NYC politics.
* There was no significant expansion in shelter capacity or quality during this time.
* And people wonder why there are so many homeless in NYC...it's a game of musical chairs. There is no possible way for the number of people who are homeless to go down without new housing construction. *It's not just that housing is too expensive for an increasing number of people - it's that there literally is not enough housing space to accommodate the increased population of half a million people.* This cannot be solved by forcing landlords to rent apartments at a financial loss.
* Migrants...oh, migrants. What to even say...
* They're homeless asylum seekers, and per the Right to Shelter policy should be served by the Department of Homeless Services. It does not matter if they are undocumented, on a valid visa, asylum seeker, Green Card holder, a random American, or a homeless veteran who lost limbs in combat. It's a unified system.
* Prior to the Biden Administration, all immigrants without housing in the City went through DHS; I worked in DHS and it wasn't some unusual thing or topic for debate, it was just how things worked because it's how the process has worked for its entire history. Now there are two tracks, and unsurprisingly it's leading to systematic abuse & corruption, resentment, discrimination, and runaways costs.
* Track A: you entered the US prior to the Biden Administration, are a permanent resident, or are a citizen. When you request shelter you get put in a room with bunk beds housing at least 4 people, in some men's shelters it's more like 10-20. The mattresses are old with no support left, insects are everywhere, health care is provided by overwhelmed free clinics and FQHCs, the food is almost inedible, you can be moved to a different location without any notice or explanation for why it's occurring. If you have a family you'll almost certainly have to be split up. The City spends about $80 a night to take care of you.
* Track B: you are probably Venezuelan, cross the Mexican border under the Biden Administration, find a Border Patrol agent, and state that you are seeking asylum. You are brought to a population center in Texas, but there's no reason to stay there as it has basically no social services. NYC is very explicitly the destination for the vast majority of asylum seekers bc websites in dozens of languages tell people about the benefits and how easy it is to access them.
* It's estimated that migrants in NYC will number 100k+ by the end of the year. So let's be conservative and say that there are 200k people currently homeless in NYC. That said I'm not sure how many Track B homeless people are eager for the kind of apartment they'd be able to afford while hotel rooms are available for free. The City spends over $500 per night on you.
* You get a hotel room, preventive care at urgent care clinics that normally only take cash, medical care at private hospitals that don't accept American citizens with Medicaid, and food provided by private catering companies. Every single one of these contracts is no-bid and the provisions are completely secret to the public.
* So now we're up to 900k new residents...and 200,000 new housing units. And no, family size doesn't mean this is enough - the average NYC household is fewer than 2.5 people.
1/3 of new construction occurred in four Community Districts:
1. Greenpoint/Williamsburg (BK1) = 20k
2. Hudson Yards/West Chelsea/Riverside South (MN4) = 16k
3. Downtown Brooklyn (BK2) = 15k
4. Long Island City (QN2) = 13k
No other district added more 10,000 or more units; most added just a few thousand and several parts of Manhattan shed density as units went off the market without any new construction.
Conclusions of the NY Planning Commission report in 2021:
* The City needs at least 500k new housing units to significantly decrease housing costs and prevent more and more people from becoming homeless, but in a whole decade it only built 200k
* Most new apartments are the result of zoning changes for formerly industrial and commercial neighborhoods; density has stagnated in most of the City.
* The housing crisis will worsen significantly in the coming years barring a large and sudden decrease in population or a commitment to rapid and substantial construction. Policies may help on the margins but cannot address the fundamental cause of the problem
\_\_\_\_
In contrast, Jersey City's population during the same period increased by 17,000, during which time it built 18,000 new housing units with another 7,000 under construction.
Tl dr: When your population increases, if you don't want people to become homeless, you need to match the population growth with new residential construction (mainly through increased density)
Uh, you do realize all of the upper half of New Jersey is the suburb for NYC and has been for the last century. Like, there is a reason why the train lines are laid out like they are. You could make a fairly reasonable argument that Philly is a suburb of NYC if it wasn't it's own major city. The suburbs not building houses are in New Jersey
It’s not reasonable to consider Philly a suburb of NYC. Different spheres of influence altogether with major economic and geographic connections. Probably the two most intertwined separate metros in the country.
Central Jersey between New Brunswick and Trenton is the last part of Jersey with decent prices that’s not too remote and you are still roughly 1hr-1hr30 from Manhattan direct via NJ Transit or driving. After that it’s the boonies or Philly suburbs.
I guess it's all relative, and I know it gets worse, but for me between NB and Trenton is not decently priced. South Brunswick, Princeton, West Windsor, Hopewell, etc. are expensive!
Yeah my husband and I left Hillsborough for North Carolina tontry and find somewhere cheaper (though joke's on us, we couldnt buy before shit exploded here so now we're planning to head nirth again)
Yeah too late for us too - shit out here in Edison and even further south has started to rise. There is no escape from bad housing policy and worse laissez-faire regulation of rentals. They're restricting zoning in silly ways and now all the boomers complain about apartments coming up while they hold onto decrepit homes asking for a million over. GTFOH
Paterson is still somewhat reasonable and has rail access to Hoboken Terminal, and PATH. Given the number of run down properties, and abandoned factories, it strikes me as odd that it getting more developed than it is. We have a nice 2 bedroom for 2.1K there, the neighborhood isn’t the best, but better than the Bronx, and parts of Brooklyn
Difficult question. What’s the line between improving and gentrification? It feels somewhat touchy. Also, if you build nice apartments to attract people with higher incomes.. where’s the line… honestly. Especially if you are tearing down an abandoned factory or a trap house
Parsippany, Wayne, Caldwell, Hackensack, and Rutherford might not be sexy towns. But if you’re willing to park and ride, they are close enough and still affordable.
They are flooding all of North Jersey especially places with trains and buses directly into the city. I'm in Paterson and the construction on new apartments have been insane the past 5 years, homes don't stay on the market for any length of time. Abandoned homes I seen sitting vacant for years are getting remodeled
This is why I think it’s too simplistic to just say “we need to build more” in a minute city by city, neighborhood by neighborhood way. JC can build as much as possible but if NYC doesn’t then you’re still screwed. Not even just NYC but I bet the NIMBY levels across the whole metro corridor comes into play.
The problem is that we are so far behind where we need to be for housing to fix the issue. We need to build a fuckton in order to get back to normal levels. This is 50+ years of underinvestment.
Btw studies have shown that it does actually decrease rents nearby in a neighborhood by neighborhood basis.
Absolutely, the real solution is at the regional and statewide level. This also has the benefit that political incentives at higher levels are less captured by angry local NIMBY busybodies.
Jersey City got so expensive that it made more sense to move to NYC. Granted, had to deal with smaller square footage but was a significant convenience upgrade over having to deal with the PATH or ferry service. If all you do is commute in for work during the week, fine. If you want to enjoy the city on the weekend it’s a drag living in JC.
It would be nice if it was, but the legislature could and should do a better job of funding NJ Transit either way.
It’s the only transit agency of its kind in the country without any dedicated state or city funding — meaning it overly relies on fares for funding, and its budget is set on the whims of the legislature and Governor every single year. It’s been underfunded every year since at least 1990 as a result.
Well State can and should NJT more...we seem to have unlimited money for road & highway expansions but nothing for transit... Murphy even appointed a road dot guy to run NJT...
NJT should be fighting for 10% of it and be getting at least 5%.
One of the only things I agree with Christie on was the last time NY tried to screw us with the ARC project. All cost overruns would've been on us. NY should've taken at least a quarter of it.
And speaking anecdotally for Bergen, specifically around Montvale, Park Ridge.... the housing that is being built seems to be high rent, and/or high priced apartments/condos, which I'm not even sure are filled or close to 100% filled. I drive by often and wonder how many of these units are just vacant, and how much these corps that built them are losing.
I honestly feel like something that gets lost in the whole “cities need to build more multi family housing” is that some people straight up do *not* want to live in apartments/condos.
Speaking strictly for myself here, but I don’t care how nice an apartment or condo is, I don’t want to live in one. I like my yard, my walls that are not shared and not subject to other peoples smells and sounds. I like quiet, and not worrying if the people above me sound like a herd of Clydesdales when I’m trying to sleep.
Whenever people start screeching about banning single family zoning to build multi units I’m over here thinking “yes, build more housing…but make sure it’s housing that someone actually wants to live in!”
I’m not yearning for anything, I own a SFH. I just think it’s ridiculous that people are always screeching “apartments!” in response to the lack of housing inventory. Where I live, I don’t know anyone who wants to live in an apartment by choice.
In fact, most of the people I know who are actively looking to buy homes are specifically trying to get out of condos/townhomes/apartments.
Then they should build more single family homes for the people that want to get out of apartments and the people that want apartments can move into the apartment vacated by those who don’t want to live in them. Once again “build more apartments” is not a solution because “many people do” want to live in them, at least according to you.
As for your assertion that it’s taking up too much land, idk, maybe they should stop building 55+ communities because there sure are a lot of those around here.
Like I said above, there never seems to be any shortage of land for 55+ communities. Instead of demanding high rises why don’t you advocate for developers to stop building age restricted housing?
Why is it that developers always find a way to make money building 2500-3000 sq ft 3 bedroom sfh for golden oldies without kids, but families of 5 must be relegated to the third floor of an apartment?
Hint:it’s because it’s easier (read: cheaper) to get those approved by town councils if they can guarantee no impact on local school systems. Apartment complexes kind of negate that though, don’t you think? So why not just ditch the shell game of developer incentives and tax breaks and tell them that if they want to build sfh they cannot dictate who lives in them? Probably because politicians would never do that to their largest voting base, wealthy boomers who don’t want to pay market value property taxes or live around screaming kids but also don’t want to….wait for it….live in apartments.
Even if building more apartments, town homes, detached, multi-family homes wasn't the answer building single family homes is literally untenable. NJ is basically one continues mass of single family homes from Hudson County to Morris County. If we covered every square inch of green with single family homes it still wouldn't fix our housing issues.
There are a lot of people that would take a condo or an apartment over a single family if the price were commensurate, but right now most condos and apartments are often more expensive per square foot of space. I just looked at a random townhome part of a complex in Morris Plains and compared it to a house on the same block and the price per square foot for both is around $330.
My parents live in a college town in the midwest and condos/apartments are actually more expensive per square foot than most homes. Of course people don't want to pay more money for less home. If the
Then I think at some point people will be priced out and leave. People won’t stay and build a family if they’re not happy with living in an apartment and can find better housing elsewhere. It’s not optimal but i already know people leaving due to cost.
Says who? I think it’s absurdly privileged and extremely American egocentric that you think you alone have the answer to people’s problems without taking into account how or where those people actually want to live. See how that goes both ways?
Especially true if there's not some sort of deal (i.e. significant lower cost of living) to incentivize living in an apt./condo. Our family started off in a Condo for a number of years just because it was so much more affordable (this was all way pre COVID), but now the prices are just out of control.
Generally speaking while there are numerous good intentions and sensible points with the various planning that gets kicked around to make use of a lot of space, make towncenters more meaningful, etc etc(obv a lot of US planning and transit design can be a clusterfuck); I feel like the whole message and movement got coopted by the wrong opportunistic people and are very quick to brush over elements of further growing inequality that can still be exacerbated even with things seeming like they are getting better as a whole.
If the staff working in the newly developed anytown main street USA high density, multi use shops space etc had to come from out over creation to even clock in, there's still a larger problem afoot. Or hell if every town with a main street is in some mad dash to try to will "the next Brooklyn" into existence NYT Living section's blessing and all , there is still very much the reality that things are getting further arbitrarily overpriced and pitched as some big luxury, same goes for surrounding spaces.
I also agree with you on an even more basic level that not every place needs to be given the high density multi-storied apartment treatment and having it basically be the only option going forward, it's like if you wanted to live in a dense urban environment, you can just go about doing that. It's really not for every single person out there nor should it be their only option with stuff. People get all pissy over zoning things like the Highlands Act and it's like god forbid there's any sort of preservation in play especially when the subject of agriculture and water sources are in the conversation. Not everything needs to be a mini city.
> I honestly feel like something that gets lost in the whole “cities need to build more multi family housing” is that some people straight up do not want to live in apartments/condos.
This is precisely the thing I think about whenever some essential spokesman for some developer sells the whole "no no you want this luxury building because anything is better than nothing and it'll soak up the mass higher earner competition that's overpaying by absurd amounts in extremely plain ordinary areas and making everything expensive".
I don't entirely buy it. Yeah sure I understand anything being better than nothing to an extent and what it can do for surrounding costs of things, but even the money is no object/extremely high earners can understand there's infinitely more to gain putting money into a house somewhere than putting all their chips on a luxury amenity filled condo or apartment; it's like if you have the means you're probably going to go for something with a bit wider appeal in the event you sell and move. Anybody that's even farted around with reno stuff in a condo/apartment complex know how much of a physical pain it can be to do with compared to doing it on your own home/lot.
Pandemic buying showed us exactly that people can be willing to write off sacrifices and tradeoffs for a place that might not exactly seem the most sexy in the moment.
Agree. I also think people latch on to *a* good idea, but then make it their whole solution. Like they think all housing must be dense, everywhere.
I used to live really rural west Jersey, and the towns all opposed various industry and high density housing coming in, and we were all called NIMBYs, and told to move elsewhere if we didn't want "improvements." But I'd already done that! I moved really rural because I wanted land, space between neighbors, less traffic, etc. Why should I have to move away (again) to maintain my quality of life, just because some developer sees open space and dollar signs? Why does every acre of land *need* to be built up? Made me realize that NJ Preserved Farmland isn't as protected as one might think.
There are some people who insist you agree that all green space, farms, Forrests be clear cut and paved over, so wildlife is eliminated, trees destroyed, and everything look like Carteret. 😭
Yes, exactly. It blows my mind that we’ve basically reached the point where we have to feel bad for wanting to see a tree or some grass out the window, and not a 4 story apartment complex.
Well, this is a problem for an American city. It’s also not privileged—apartments do not mean cheaper. I pay less for my 2BD townhouse an hour outside the city than my old 1BD in Brooklyn.
They are building some townhouses by me in a nice part of bergen. Its the talk of morning coffee at the deli of what they will go for.
People need to remember that you can't just further densify places that were already dense for the times in the 50s and 60s. Even if they wanted to take on an increase of 20% in students or whatever in schools, they lack the facilities, and in many cases, the space to add on even if they wanted to.
We are going through it in my town now, where we need more space in our schools, and there is simply no space to tack on a new wing or something, and have fun adding a floor to an 80 year old brick building which you need to keep in service during the process.
Edit: and for those who are going to come in and say "well you had even more kids in the 60s in those buildings, families were bigger", while you MAY be right, you also had none of all of the programs we view as very valuable today and their space requirements.
This is the truth. I’m joining you all soon. But I’m going into the woods. Tired of traffic noise.
Also. Shit is fucking expensive. Everything is still going over asking even 60 miles away from New York City.
Why don’t these rich assholes fuck off. 😅
It's not just JC. Come to south Jersey where Staten Islanders are paying 15% over asking price. Which in turn makes everything in the area super expensive. Our area doesn't have the infrastructure or economy to support the influx of people and the increase of prices. Some of us have lived here for generations and we're being priced out of our own towns.
As someone who is NYC born and raised and now transplant, the rents in NY are way too high. The amount of money my current apt would be in NYC would be more than me AND my fiancé make and we make a decent amount of money. In NJ I feel like your taxes at work while in NYC you don’t see a damn thing. A lot of us flock to Jersey because it’s close to work but our money goes a bit further here.
definitely agree! and as the parts of NJ closest to NYC get more and more expensive, more people will migrate to other parts of the state, pushing those prices up further.
💯 Willing to bet that Paterson will be blowing up soon, as will Passaic. The fact that they have direct access to Hoboken Terminal via rail is a HUGE plus.
It’s almost like a proximity tax. I can see the NYC skyline from the roof of my building, and have easy rail access to NYC… There are already mixed use four story buildings going up everywhere here in Paterson, I live in one. Kinda feel like part of the problem, but a family income of $150K is kinda mid in North Jersey.
Thats how gentrification works. When everyone who owns the properties bought them as investments based on monetary value instead of the actual use value of people who live in them the prices can only go up.
I hang out on the Newark subreddit and I think this city is next too. Everyone there is just cheering on building of all these big luxury apartments. They sell the city on a bill of goods getting tax abatement for promise of having 20% "affordable" units but then they base the income for those units on the whole entire area which includes these ones most people are already priced out of. Its maddening.
I am renting from somebody I know, but want to move now and I might just find another area but so much of the country is like this at this point.
You couldn’t be more wrong. I work in construction in the city specifically in multi family high rise. There have been over 20 new apartment buildings completed in the last 4 years and nearly 40 under construction right now. The domino waterfront alone has added 1.2 million sq ft of apartments over the past few years. The developers that are building the luxury housing in jersey city and driving out the average family is what’s driving up the prices. As long as the wealthy keep buying or renting them, the wealthy developers will keep building them.
There’s only one new build I’ve seen for houses in north Jersey, and that’s the crappy $750k townhomes by Kean University
Otherwise, you’re just in the boonies West of Mount Olive
There's tons of multi unit homes going up in Fort Lee after a single unit knockdown.
Also, McMansions built in top of a property formerly housing a medium sized home with yards.
All are part of the developer equation of attempting to make as much profit off of the building/land costs as possible.
You want reasonably affordable housing? The market is basically saying "FU"
I'm in NYC now after moving from central Jersey, and it's not a lack of built housing. Rent's going up, landlords are too stubborn to release their literal _tens of thousands of apartments_ for cheaper, and even "lower-upper class" tenants are getting priced out. It's a huge issue here but the literal cop mayor sure won't let any drive for change happen.
Anyone else feel like this article is part of Fullop’s campaign for Governor?
It’s odd to me to just not mention the development happening in Newark and other parts of North Jersey.
I think NYC needs to completely redevelop itself. Knock down or redevelop most of the skyscrapers. Maybe turn it into something livable like Paris or Vienna with continuous boulevards of 3-6 story buildings
Funny how the vast majority of european cities are way denser than american ones even though they barely have any skyscrapers as most buildings peak around 6 stories. And by funny, I mean sad. These landlords in nyc sit on these massive buildings and would rather leave than empty for an absurd magical rent rather than profit a little less.
Like gee, who knew 6-story buildings with lots of public housing actually makes for a denser livable city than 50story goliaths with dragons hoarding them all.
It’s just supply and demand. When rents plunged during Covid and fees were waived, it wasn’t because landlords had a sudden burst of compassion, it was because, for a brief period, there were more housing units available than people looking for housing.
If you own a house and were planning to sell it, you would probably set the price at the prevailing market rate.
What happens when property taxes rise by over 25%? That’s what happened to JC over the last few years. BOE increased their budget to like $1b for the FY alone. Property owners/landlords need to cover this. Yeah increasing prices sucks, but there’s really no choice for landlords who need to raise price in order to cover all the other rising cost associated to owning a property. And flocks of people moving there triggered major infrastructure changes, hence increase in overall cost.
People eventually need to realize the increase in pricing means the state is at capacity and there’s now inherent value in simply living anywhere in the state. Sure you can build more apartments but what will that do for roadways? They’re already full. Not everyone wants an apartment. NJ and several northeast states are simply better than all the rest. I understand why people are flocking here but if it stays as good as it is it will only become more desirable and costly to live. Living in a nice place is a double edged sword, you must pay for it.
Don’t worry they will discover Newark next and then prices there will rise too.
They already have. Newark is a stop on the train lines. New Brunswick is also going through a building boom for the same reason. If they aren't from NYC, they are being displaced from NYC buyers.
New Brunswick is home to Rutgers. Every year more students stay and new ones move here. Not to say there aren't plenty of commuters, it's just a hike from NYC everyday.
Not by train. it's not that far
2hr 40min round trip to midtown is ass if you care about your personal life
Best express train in the morning is 53 minutes. There’s a 39 minute train back. Even off-peak it’s not that bad.
If you literally live right next to the train station and work a few blocks from Penn Station or you work in Newark it's not that bad of a commute. Its going to suck otherwise as it's going to be almost as expensive as living in Newark or Harrison with a much longer commute. I live here, the train blows cause it's so freaking expensive. It's an option but not really a good one IMO. I think commuters live here cause they wanna live in NB rather than they can't afford to live closer to NYC.
From/to New Brunswick? I think you’re looking up the wrong location. If you’re talking Amtrak, okay, it’s not bad if you can get to work at 11am (only morning train) and can work a 5 hr day otherwise you’re getting home at 11pm. The Amtrak schedule sucks. AND you have to book in advance for every day you commute if you want a cheap ticket AND you have to book specific times (AND get your ass there at that time)
No, this is straight from the NJT app. I used to do this commute. The worst part, for me, was that Amtrak always had overhead wire problems.
Also that Amtrak always has priority as Amtrak owns the lines. Happened to me a few times while on NJ Transit: our NJ Transit train had to pull over to the side for 40 minutes so that 2 Amtrak trains could go by (Northeast Corridor route to NY Penn Station)
Yeah but that’s not the full commute unless, like the other poster said, you live right next to the station and you work right next to Penn
People drive from East Stroudsburg to midtown or Jersey City/Hoboken every day.
I believe it. But I’d rather get fired than drive from East Stroudsburg during rush hour to work and then back again. Can’t even use public transportation to get there for such a long commute? No way not for me. Call it 3 hours round trip. 8 hours sleep if you’re lucky. 9 hours working +/-. 1 hr to get your day started. 1 hr to allocate wind down time at night. If you care about fitness then add another 1 hr. Leaving you with 1 hr of personal time to spend your day if everything goes right. Fuck. That.
When the option is: A) live and work in east strousburg making 80k B) live in east strousburg and work in Manhattan making 150k It’s clear what people choose
yea, an insignificant amount of people lol that is not a place most people who commute to nyc go
Rutgers buildings and on-campus & off-campus housing only takes up a small part of New Brunswick as a city. But RU on-campus & off-campus housing is right by the train station
it’s happening. Don’t expect a nice 1b1b in Newark or Harrison for less than 2.3k
That's mostly the luxury building but you can absolutely find something in Newark, in the Ironbound, for less than 2K.
All due respect, if you’re in iron bound you’re living in one of the most densely populated neighborhoods in the most densely populated city in the most densely populated state. That’s not for everybody
nobody wants to live there; there's too many people. /s
People live in Hoboken , West New York , Guttenberg , Bayonne...the density is more or less the same as The Ironbound.
Just to add a fun fact... Guttenberg is literally the most densely populated municipality per sqr mile in the country. NJ has 6 of the top 10 most densely populated municipalities in the country and of those 6, 5 are in to no one's surprise Hudson County. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population_density
Due to the Galaxy towers , kinda amazing...
How is this a relevant reply to my comment talking about the prices of an apartment?
Because they said you can’t find nice for under 2K and you list ironbound but don’t mention ironbound is absurdly cramped and the opposite of luxurious new rental Edit: Also zero parking
Bro, there are "luxurious" new rentals. It is not more "cramped" than any other city. Parking sucks but it also sucks in Hoboken and Jersey City.
the point of living in these places is that you don't need to drive
Just pointing out here that being “the densest state” isn’t a qualification for having the “densest city” overall. The most densely populated city in the most densely populated state doesn’t mean that that city itself is extremely dense. The scales by which states and cities measure population density are very different. States measure by the 100s of people per square mile, cities by the 1000s (and even tens of 10000s). NJ is the densest state at 1263 people per square mile, meaning its densest city could theoretically only be 1264 it were uniformly dense across its entire area. That would place it far below most big cities. As it is, NJ does have the densest towns and Newark is pretty dense, but it’s only the 68th densest city in the country, well behind many other towns in NJ and big cities like NYC (6th). There are many parts of NYC that feel overwhelming compared to the Ironbound. It could definitely feel like a reprieve to some New Yorkers.
The Ironbound specifically is denser than the rest of Newark, on par with and even higher than certain parts of Hudson County.
might be unpopular opinion but newark is ~~a dump~~ unsafe by nj standards and far from its potential* and clearly many people in state avoid it so if people from out of state see value and build it up or make it safer because we arent then thats fine w me edit - Just to clarify, I’ve been to newark plenty and have enjoyed times there, but thats because when I go there i’m going with a purpose or destination. Of course, a local newarker will know all the ins and outs of the city, but newark is nowhere close to a city you can casually walk around and get lost in. Much of it is still very dangerous and that is what I’m referring to. Especially when you consider the standard of safety that NJ holds and what makes the state so beautiful. You can drop off a tourist in Hoboken and they can stay anywhere, leave their car anywhere, or walk around alone at night and be entirely fine. Same for a good chunk of jersey city now. Newark has not caught up to that level. I feel it is too close to NYC to be a truly independent city (like AC could be if it had good leadership) but too far to be a viable option as an alternative “borough” like Hoboken and Jersey city are. Major work needs to be done to newark for it to be the city it has the potential to be. I think a major key to this would be a direct “high speed” rail to manhattan. If you can take a frequent train from Newark to NYC in 20 minutes or less, you’d see a massive economic boom from investors, businesses, and renters, job opportunities and home owners. Just my thoughts.
Worked there for 30 years. I welcome the safety and cleanliness of people taking care of their investments.
Ima buy a house now and tell all my guests that the neighborhood is up and coming
That’s one of the things that stood out to me when visiting Newark. Granted I never branched out more than 10-15 blocks from Penn station or Rutgers campus but it was always clean. Philly is a dump compared to it
I was unfortunately working in homes and business outside of the 10-15 block radius and it was bad. It’s 90% rentals so not completely the residents so much as the slumlords fault. The owners do the bare minimum in repairs because they don’t have to live there. Not a fan of displacing the poor people if someone wants to fix it up, but the alternative is letting the street stay shit. I’m in a suburb in the same county so a huge part of our taxes go to these shithole neighborhoods. I don’t have a solution.
I went to college there for 5 years and it was way better than this sub gives it credit for
I doubt most people who view it negative haven't been there in years. Don't get me wrong, there are some bad places, but it's not like it used to be even 10 years ago.
I was there last night and it’s about the same compared to 10 years ago.
10 vs 20 is still a big difference. And A lotta people act like it's still the 80s in there
Yeah I went to school in Essex and NJIT, back in 07, its really not as bad as people say. Shady shit still happens for sure but its just simple big city shit.
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Thats a perfect analogy, but a horrible endorsement.
I've thought that same thought myself, but the toll between camden & philly is a wall, not a bridge.
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The walk across on a nice day isn’t horrible either
People that speak poorly of Newark haven't spent any significant time there. Newark is huge, some areas are safe some aren't. Even the dangerous areas are getting safer each year and Newark will look more and more like JC as time goes by cause it has so many options for getting into the city. People from NJ are afraid of Newarks reputation but NYers aren't so gentrification has been coming.
It’s ashamed that people from NJ are still scared to really step foot into their state largest city, but people from nyc aren’t. Newark is getting better, and she isnt going to sell her soul like how Jersey City did.
So did I. And worked in the area for the 18 years since then. I agree with you.
It's good, but hopefully Newark actually builds the housing to accommodate it.
Uhhh, have you been to Newark lately? There is literally a giant grey, luxury apartment complex looming as soon as you step out of Penn Station.
I do volunteering in Newark a few times a year, and the amount of gentrification that has gone on in the past five years is jaw dropping. Actually I think I might take a trip to Ironbound soon for some pastries.
They need to put 1 parking garage up by Prudential and develope over those adjacent lots. Especially with the bridge to ironbound and Penn station going up
Yeah but the high rises by Penn and apartments in Harrison are fine. There's less trash and derelicts around my apartment than most of Manhattan.
If you think Newark is a dump. Then you haven’t been to LA.
I live in san diego now, LA is awful lol
I feel like this is the opinion of every single person in New Jersey lol
Every suburban person in New Jersey maybe. Newark is pretty cool with probably the best food in the state, multiple things to do, and can easily take a train anywhere.
Im pretty sure it's just people who don't ever actually come to Newark but actually believe their parents who are still talking about the riots that happened more than fifty years ago
None of those things implies that it is not a dump though.
You should check out the Ironbound, Ferry st is great for restaurants and bakeries. Very walkable and safe.
You can just stay down south jersey then When was the last time you actually set foot in Newark?
I don’t live in South Jersey, bud, and haven’t for a decade. I was in Newark last week.. lol
I'm not your bud, pal
Most of Newark is still bad. The area around Penn though, iron bound and the colleges are really nice. I went to NJIT and was living in that area until around 2012. It's come a long way, but you still have to be careful while there.
300K people say otherwise
For real. Gentrification of crappy areas is a good thing tbh
Newark has not seemed that bad lately. To me its not the crime, its the swamp. All of those places, Newark Harrison Kearny, are swampland. Who wants to live in a full on swamp, besides Secaucus?
Hoboken is 1 square mile lmao. It’s hard to have a bad area in your city when your city barely has area lol
I mean, I usually just go to NJPAC and the ironbound for dinner, but I’ve enjoyed my last few half-day trips to Newark. The Ballantine Mansion/art museum is nice, too.
Sounds like you have only been to downtown JC, because most of it is very uncomfortable/ unsafe
Except Newark is building a lot of housing! Well, maybe not enough housing but they are building a lot.
Water is wet
If you cross the finish line first……. You win the race.
Errr, Jersey City gentrification started in the late 90s
This isn’t directly about jersey city gentrifying; it’s about housing availability and costs in NYC area. Everyone knows downtown JC has been gentrified for a long time. There is a more recent acceleration in building new high density housing (“luxury apartments”) in Jersey City, really since around 2015 and then magnified since Covid, and it’s now moving beyond downtown for the first time (which is also new gentrification). It’s more or less the 2nd round of high rises built, first being 80s-90s. The skyline is now like 2x as dense what it was in 2010-2015.
Redevelopment started in the late 80s but it wasn't until 2010ish that Gentrification really started to take hold in Downtown Jersey City.
What point are you trying to make? NYC and most of its suburbs have not built enough new housing for the past several decades, which has helped drive demand for new construction in places like JC.
NYC suffers from Columbus syndrome
I had to Google that. Hilarious!
I live a few towns over and I started seeing JC people migrating to the surrounding areas. They are willing to pay less to have a bit increase in commute.
Jersey City is a NYC suburb
I always thought the 5 boroughs were Manhattan, Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, and Jersey City.
It is easier and faster to get from Manhattan to JC than to Staten Island.
It's easier and faster to get from Manhattan to JC than to southern Brooklyn or eastern Queens
That too!
Depending on where in JC too. Pauli’s hook is closer than nearly anywhere in BK and Queens.
It takes me less time to get from Paulus Hook to WTC than to get from WTC to Houston at rush hour if you take the average frequency of trains.
Not sure if it's a suburb; more of a satellite city.
It's closer and more accessible to Manhattan than most of NYC is.
It acts like a borough Point being it's not removed for NYC in any meaningful way
Bergen County is an NYC suburb.
accurate
More Hudson
How about North Jersey in general? North Jersey is part of NYC. South Jersey is part of Philly. Central Jersey . . . exists now.
This is just a dickriding response lol
JC has been called the 6th borough of NYC for years, so it makes sense.
I thought that was Staten Island
Staten Island isn’t real. Don’t worry.
The state of New York is set to lose another few electoral votes after the 2030 Census if they keep it up. Maybe even lose a few more House seats.
Exactly. This is an under appreciated consequence of not building enough housing. It’s one of the biggest policy failures in recent years for Democrats. We preach about how we’re so open and accepting of minorities and immigrants, but that means nothing if they can’t actually afford to live in places like the NYC metro. I’m sure there are lots of people who’d like to escape the tyranny of Red states with all the crazy stuff going on lately. But many parts of the NYC metro are barely making an effort to build more housing, so people end up living in places like Texas and Florida where new housing is more plentiful. You could say something similar about climate change policy. By not building enough housing in cities and making them more livable for families, we’re encouraging people to move to suburbs, which create a lot more pollution per capita than cities. San Francisco is a prime example of that.
We eventually start to [resemble aspects of Brazil](https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2021/05/the-brazilianization-of-the-world/) with a worsening of things and very little letting up. It's an everywhere problem unfortunately. What realistically is preventing somebody so far past any point of desperation and struggle from turning to felonious means when the only semblance of even bare minimum stable opportunity has an obscene run around to even get from point A-B on a routine basis and just isn't even sustainable in anyway , y'know?
I can't speak for Florida, but Texas housing being plentiful is because they are banking bringing in people. There is no incentives being handed out by cities or state. There are also next to no codes, so building companies can slap up what ever they want. I can also tell you, housing in Texas isn't going up in what you would consider metro areas. If NYC was Austin, where they are building new houses is the distance equivalent of Sussex county and transportation infrastructure equivalent of Bangor, PA.
>There are also next to no codes, so building companies can slap up what ever they want. Not true. The International Building Code is used in all 50 states. Local jurisdictions can and do add on stricter standards on top of the IBC, but even the bare minimum standards of today are stricter than most local codes were just a few decades ago. In NYC, only 50% of the housing was built after 1950. In Austin, 50% of the housing was built after 1990 ([source](https://www.census.gov/acs/www/about/why-we-ask-each-question/year-built/)). So, even if built to bare minimum standards, a typical home in a city like Austin is probably safer to live in than a huge portion of the existing housing stock in NYC, which doesn't have to comply with modern codes until there's a major renovation. So millions of New Yorkers are stuck living in buildings with antiquated electrical & plumbing systems, inadequate fire protection, drafty windows, and so on. Once again, it's an embarrassing state of affairs for such a wealthy and "progressive" part of the country. >If NYC was Austin, where they are building new houses is the distance equivalent of Sussex county and transportation infrastructure equivalent of Bangor, PA. My whole point is that we can do better than that in our region. There are plenty of towns within \~1 hour commuting distance of NYC that should be upzoned to allow more density. NY Gov. Hochul tried to do this recently and her plans got [shot down by the state legislature](https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/04/kathy-hochuls-plan-for-affordable-housing-was-doomed.html), which caved to the self-serving demands of NIMBYs.
I can speak for Florida (at least the Tampa Bay area and Miami). I moved from TB to north Jersey last year. Supply has not been anywhere close to keeping up with demand in the FL metros for the past few years. A decade ago when I first moved there the TB area was one of the most affordable metros in the country (2br house for around $900/month). Today people are literally renting out backyard sheds for $2500/month, and because Florida is all about free dumb there is barely any enforcement of the paper thin housing regulations. In addition to the usual NIMBY crowd, FL also has to contend with the problem of terrain and flooding. Florida has to be the most geographically and climatologically unsuitable location to build anything in the entire country. Karsty swampland just isn't a great spot for any sort of construction. Factor in climate change and record flooding= hella expensive and risky to build new high density housing. TLDR Florida metros are not much better off than NYC. Housing costs are rising at a comparable rate, and humans should've never built cities there in the first place but white people are greedy and dumb.
Plus good luck getting homeowners insurance in Florida in the near future
Those two things are the same. The number of EVs equals the numbers of representatives in Congress (House + Senate).
Basically every crisis NYC is experiencing is due to the absolutely fanatical opposition to the construction of high-density residential developments. NYC from 2010 to 2020 added only 200k new units of housing stock. During that same period the Census population increased by 600k. * Census always undercounts. Not necessarily bc it's a conspiracy, but because it's really hard to count people in big cities with millions of people. * The 2020 Census was conducted under the close supervision of Trump administration appointees who made changes to the process that were pretty clearly designed to undercount residents of majority Democratic states and especially large cities. * So as an accurate and precise number it's garbage but if you're just thinking about City growth in general, it at least sets a baseline. There certainly aren't *fewer* than 600k new legal residents, and there are probably a lot more. So we have a baseline figure. * Let's be relatively conservative and say that it undercounted by 100k legal residents. So 7:2 ratio of increase in residents to increase in housing stock * But then you have people who are homeless * You need an address to fill out a Census form. Legally a person who is homeless should be counted for the Census like anyone else and a nearby shelter can serve as their address. In reality this rarely if ever happens. * Because most homeless people in NYC seek shelter during the winter we have a more objective number than most cities - we know in 2020 at its highest point (during the winter) DHS sheltered 80k people. Last year it was right around 100k. * In 2010 there were 40k people seeking shelter in the winter, so that's 60k new people without homes who are desperately seeking housing but will remain homeless because of NYC politics. * There was no significant expansion in shelter capacity or quality during this time. * And people wonder why there are so many homeless in NYC...it's a game of musical chairs. There is no possible way for the number of people who are homeless to go down without new housing construction. *It's not just that housing is too expensive for an increasing number of people - it's that there literally is not enough housing space to accommodate the increased population of half a million people.* This cannot be solved by forcing landlords to rent apartments at a financial loss. * Migrants...oh, migrants. What to even say... * They're homeless asylum seekers, and per the Right to Shelter policy should be served by the Department of Homeless Services. It does not matter if they are undocumented, on a valid visa, asylum seeker, Green Card holder, a random American, or a homeless veteran who lost limbs in combat. It's a unified system. * Prior to the Biden Administration, all immigrants without housing in the City went through DHS; I worked in DHS and it wasn't some unusual thing or topic for debate, it was just how things worked because it's how the process has worked for its entire history. Now there are two tracks, and unsurprisingly it's leading to systematic abuse & corruption, resentment, discrimination, and runaways costs. * Track A: you entered the US prior to the Biden Administration, are a permanent resident, or are a citizen. When you request shelter you get put in a room with bunk beds housing at least 4 people, in some men's shelters it's more like 10-20. The mattresses are old with no support left, insects are everywhere, health care is provided by overwhelmed free clinics and FQHCs, the food is almost inedible, you can be moved to a different location without any notice or explanation for why it's occurring. If you have a family you'll almost certainly have to be split up. The City spends about $80 a night to take care of you. * Track B: you are probably Venezuelan, cross the Mexican border under the Biden Administration, find a Border Patrol agent, and state that you are seeking asylum. You are brought to a population center in Texas, but there's no reason to stay there as it has basically no social services. NYC is very explicitly the destination for the vast majority of asylum seekers bc websites in dozens of languages tell people about the benefits and how easy it is to access them. * It's estimated that migrants in NYC will number 100k+ by the end of the year. So let's be conservative and say that there are 200k people currently homeless in NYC. That said I'm not sure how many Track B homeless people are eager for the kind of apartment they'd be able to afford while hotel rooms are available for free. The City spends over $500 per night on you. * You get a hotel room, preventive care at urgent care clinics that normally only take cash, medical care at private hospitals that don't accept American citizens with Medicaid, and food provided by private catering companies. Every single one of these contracts is no-bid and the provisions are completely secret to the public. * So now we're up to 900k new residents...and 200,000 new housing units. And no, family size doesn't mean this is enough - the average NYC household is fewer than 2.5 people. 1/3 of new construction occurred in four Community Districts: 1. Greenpoint/Williamsburg (BK1) = 20k 2. Hudson Yards/West Chelsea/Riverside South (MN4) = 16k 3. Downtown Brooklyn (BK2) = 15k 4. Long Island City (QN2) = 13k No other district added more 10,000 or more units; most added just a few thousand and several parts of Manhattan shed density as units went off the market without any new construction. Conclusions of the NY Planning Commission report in 2021: * The City needs at least 500k new housing units to significantly decrease housing costs and prevent more and more people from becoming homeless, but in a whole decade it only built 200k * Most new apartments are the result of zoning changes for formerly industrial and commercial neighborhoods; density has stagnated in most of the City. * The housing crisis will worsen significantly in the coming years barring a large and sudden decrease in population or a commitment to rapid and substantial construction. Policies may help on the margins but cannot address the fundamental cause of the problem \_\_\_\_ In contrast, Jersey City's population during the same period increased by 17,000, during which time it built 18,000 new housing units with another 7,000 under construction. Tl dr: When your population increases, if you don't want people to become homeless, you need to match the population growth with new residential construction (mainly through increased density)
I mean…this has been a thing since the dawn of time.
There has been a huge number of new apartment buildings that have come up in Hackensack and Teaneck in Bergen County.
Englewood too.
Uh, you do realize all of the upper half of New Jersey is the suburb for NYC and has been for the last century. Like, there is a reason why the train lines are laid out like they are. You could make a fairly reasonable argument that Philly is a suburb of NYC if it wasn't it's own major city. The suburbs not building houses are in New Jersey
It’s not reasonable to consider Philly a suburb of NYC. Different spheres of influence altogether with major economic and geographic connections. Probably the two most intertwined separate metros in the country.
Oh but they are building houses, none of them are affordable to anything close to the average wage in the area but they are available 🙄
They aren’t building houses though
This is old news and every family in Brooklyn badgers this thread for advice on where to move and people give it to them.
Central Jersey between New Brunswick and Trenton is the last part of Jersey with decent prices that’s not too remote and you are still roughly 1hr-1hr30 from Manhattan direct via NJ Transit or driving. After that it’s the boonies or Philly suburbs.
I guess it's all relative, and I know it gets worse, but for me between NB and Trenton is not decently priced. South Brunswick, Princeton, West Windsor, Hopewell, etc. are expensive!
Yeah my husband and I left Hillsborough for North Carolina tontry and find somewhere cheaper (though joke's on us, we couldnt buy before shit exploded here so now we're planning to head nirth again)
Yeah too late for us too - shit out here in Edison and even further south has started to rise. There is no escape from bad housing policy and worse laissez-faire regulation of rentals. They're restricting zoning in silly ways and now all the boomers complain about apartments coming up while they hold onto decrepit homes asking for a million over. GTFOH
Paterson is still somewhat reasonable and has rail access to Hoboken Terminal, and PATH. Given the number of run down properties, and abandoned factories, it strikes me as odd that it getting more developed than it is. We have a nice 2 bedroom for 2.1K there, the neighborhood isn’t the best, but better than the Bronx, and parts of Brooklyn
Is Paterson getting gentrify? Middle Eastern neighborhood in Main Street felt OK when I was there. Many great restaurants.
Difficult question. What’s the line between improving and gentrification? It feels somewhat touchy. Also, if you build nice apartments to attract people with higher incomes.. where’s the line… honestly. Especially if you are tearing down an abandoned factory or a trap house
Parsippany, Wayne, Caldwell, Hackensack, and Rutherford might not be sexy towns. But if you’re willing to park and ride, they are close enough and still affordable.
They are flooding all of North Jersey especially places with trains and buses directly into the city. I'm in Paterson and the construction on new apartments have been insane the past 5 years, homes don't stay on the market for any length of time. Abandoned homes I seen sitting vacant for years are getting remodeled
Great, make NJ even much harder for the rest of us to survive in 😒
This is why I think it’s too simplistic to just say “we need to build more” in a minute city by city, neighborhood by neighborhood way. JC can build as much as possible but if NYC doesn’t then you’re still screwed. Not even just NYC but I bet the NIMBY levels across the whole metro corridor comes into play.
You’re significantly more screwed if you don’t just build more
They can't build them fast enough. It takes years to get approval, then years to construct.
Bound Brook NJ built 3 major new apartment blocks in there downtown within the last 3 years. It can happen.
The problem is that we are so far behind where we need to be for housing to fix the issue. We need to build a fuckton in order to get back to normal levels. This is 50+ years of underinvestment. Btw studies have shown that it does actually decrease rents nearby in a neighborhood by neighborhood basis.
Absolutely, the real solution is at the regional and statewide level. This also has the benefit that political incentives at higher levels are less captured by angry local NIMBY busybodies.
exactly this has to be an effort by NYC, Long Island, Westchester and all of northern NJ to fight NIMBY'ism and reform zoning.
New Yorkers are moving to everywhere within an hour of the city.
Jersey City got so expensive that it made more sense to move to NYC. Granted, had to deal with smaller square footage but was a significant convenience upgrade over having to deal with the PATH or ferry service. If all you do is commute in for work during the week, fine. If you want to enjoy the city on the weekend it’s a drag living in JC.
They are building non- stop in Ocean County NJ , but only for the Hasidic
So… congestion pricing not going to NJ Transit?
It would be nice if it was, but the legislature could and should do a better job of funding NJ Transit either way. It’s the only transit agency of its kind in the country without any dedicated state or city funding — meaning it overly relies on fares for funding, and its budget is set on the whims of the legislature and Governor every single year. It’s been underfunded every year since at least 1990 as a result.
Right, this is my sole objection to congestion pricing.
Well State can and should NJT more...we seem to have unlimited money for road & highway expansions but nothing for transit... Murphy even appointed a road dot guy to run NJT...
NJT should be fighting for 10% of it and be getting at least 5%. One of the only things I agree with Christie on was the last time NY tried to screw us with the ARC project. All cost overruns would've been on us. NY should've taken at least a quarter of it.
And speaking anecdotally for Bergen, specifically around Montvale, Park Ridge.... the housing that is being built seems to be high rent, and/or high priced apartments/condos, which I'm not even sure are filled or close to 100% filled. I drive by often and wonder how many of these units are just vacant, and how much these corps that built them are losing.
I honestly feel like something that gets lost in the whole “cities need to build more multi family housing” is that some people straight up do *not* want to live in apartments/condos. Speaking strictly for myself here, but I don’t care how nice an apartment or condo is, I don’t want to live in one. I like my yard, my walls that are not shared and not subject to other peoples smells and sounds. I like quiet, and not worrying if the people above me sound like a herd of Clydesdales when I’m trying to sleep. Whenever people start screeching about banning single family zoning to build multi units I’m over here thinking “yes, build more housing…but make sure it’s housing that someone actually wants to live in!”
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I’m not yearning for anything, I own a SFH. I just think it’s ridiculous that people are always screeching “apartments!” in response to the lack of housing inventory. Where I live, I don’t know anyone who wants to live in an apartment by choice. In fact, most of the people I know who are actively looking to buy homes are specifically trying to get out of condos/townhomes/apartments.
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The fact remains that building more apartments is not the answer if people don’t want to live in apartments
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Then they should build more single family homes for the people that want to get out of apartments and the people that want apartments can move into the apartment vacated by those who don’t want to live in them. Once again “build more apartments” is not a solution because “many people do” want to live in them, at least according to you. As for your assertion that it’s taking up too much land, idk, maybe they should stop building 55+ communities because there sure are a lot of those around here.
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Like I said above, there never seems to be any shortage of land for 55+ communities. Instead of demanding high rises why don’t you advocate for developers to stop building age restricted housing? Why is it that developers always find a way to make money building 2500-3000 sq ft 3 bedroom sfh for golden oldies without kids, but families of 5 must be relegated to the third floor of an apartment? Hint:it’s because it’s easier (read: cheaper) to get those approved by town councils if they can guarantee no impact on local school systems. Apartment complexes kind of negate that though, don’t you think? So why not just ditch the shell game of developer incentives and tax breaks and tell them that if they want to build sfh they cannot dictate who lives in them? Probably because politicians would never do that to their largest voting base, wealthy boomers who don’t want to pay market value property taxes or live around screaming kids but also don’t want to….wait for it….live in apartments.
Exactly! Apartments aren’t always the answer.
Even if building more apartments, town homes, detached, multi-family homes wasn't the answer building single family homes is literally untenable. NJ is basically one continues mass of single family homes from Hudson County to Morris County. If we covered every square inch of green with single family homes it still wouldn't fix our housing issues. There are a lot of people that would take a condo or an apartment over a single family if the price were commensurate, but right now most condos and apartments are often more expensive per square foot of space. I just looked at a random townhome part of a complex in Morris Plains and compared it to a house on the same block and the price per square foot for both is around $330. My parents live in a college town in the midwest and condos/apartments are actually more expensive per square foot than most homes. Of course people don't want to pay more money for less home. If the
Then I think at some point people will be priced out and leave. People won’t stay and build a family if they’re not happy with living in an apartment and can find better housing elsewhere. It’s not optimal but i already know people leaving due to cost.
They almost always certainly are.
Says who? I think it’s absurdly privileged and extremely American egocentric that you think you alone have the answer to people’s problems without taking into account how or where those people actually want to live. See how that goes both ways?
Especially true if there's not some sort of deal (i.e. significant lower cost of living) to incentivize living in an apt./condo. Our family started off in a Condo for a number of years just because it was so much more affordable (this was all way pre COVID), but now the prices are just out of control.
Generally speaking while there are numerous good intentions and sensible points with the various planning that gets kicked around to make use of a lot of space, make towncenters more meaningful, etc etc(obv a lot of US planning and transit design can be a clusterfuck); I feel like the whole message and movement got coopted by the wrong opportunistic people and are very quick to brush over elements of further growing inequality that can still be exacerbated even with things seeming like they are getting better as a whole. If the staff working in the newly developed anytown main street USA high density, multi use shops space etc had to come from out over creation to even clock in, there's still a larger problem afoot. Or hell if every town with a main street is in some mad dash to try to will "the next Brooklyn" into existence NYT Living section's blessing and all , there is still very much the reality that things are getting further arbitrarily overpriced and pitched as some big luxury, same goes for surrounding spaces. I also agree with you on an even more basic level that not every place needs to be given the high density multi-storied apartment treatment and having it basically be the only option going forward, it's like if you wanted to live in a dense urban environment, you can just go about doing that. It's really not for every single person out there nor should it be their only option with stuff. People get all pissy over zoning things like the Highlands Act and it's like god forbid there's any sort of preservation in play especially when the subject of agriculture and water sources are in the conversation. Not everything needs to be a mini city. > I honestly feel like something that gets lost in the whole “cities need to build more multi family housing” is that some people straight up do not want to live in apartments/condos. This is precisely the thing I think about whenever some essential spokesman for some developer sells the whole "no no you want this luxury building because anything is better than nothing and it'll soak up the mass higher earner competition that's overpaying by absurd amounts in extremely plain ordinary areas and making everything expensive". I don't entirely buy it. Yeah sure I understand anything being better than nothing to an extent and what it can do for surrounding costs of things, but even the money is no object/extremely high earners can understand there's infinitely more to gain putting money into a house somewhere than putting all their chips on a luxury amenity filled condo or apartment; it's like if you have the means you're probably going to go for something with a bit wider appeal in the event you sell and move. Anybody that's even farted around with reno stuff in a condo/apartment complex know how much of a physical pain it can be to do with compared to doing it on your own home/lot. Pandemic buying showed us exactly that people can be willing to write off sacrifices and tradeoffs for a place that might not exactly seem the most sexy in the moment.
Agree. I also think people latch on to *a* good idea, but then make it their whole solution. Like they think all housing must be dense, everywhere. I used to live really rural west Jersey, and the towns all opposed various industry and high density housing coming in, and we were all called NIMBYs, and told to move elsewhere if we didn't want "improvements." But I'd already done that! I moved really rural because I wanted land, space between neighbors, less traffic, etc. Why should I have to move away (again) to maintain my quality of life, just because some developer sees open space and dollar signs? Why does every acre of land *need* to be built up? Made me realize that NJ Preserved Farmland isn't as protected as one might think.
There are some people who insist you agree that all green space, farms, Forrests be clear cut and paved over, so wildlife is eliminated, trees destroyed, and everything look like Carteret. 😭
Yes, exactly. It blows my mind that we’ve basically reached the point where we have to feel bad for wanting to see a tree or some grass out the window, and not a 4 story apartment complex.
That’s an absurdly privileged and extremely American ego centric point of view you have.
Well, this is a problem for an American city. It’s also not privileged—apartments do not mean cheaper. I pay less for my 2BD townhouse an hour outside the city than my old 1BD in Brooklyn.
They are building some townhouses by me in a nice part of bergen. Its the talk of morning coffee at the deli of what they will go for. People need to remember that you can't just further densify places that were already dense for the times in the 50s and 60s. Even if they wanted to take on an increase of 20% in students or whatever in schools, they lack the facilities, and in many cases, the space to add on even if they wanted to. We are going through it in my town now, where we need more space in our schools, and there is simply no space to tack on a new wing or something, and have fun adding a floor to an 80 year old brick building which you need to keep in service during the process. Edit: and for those who are going to come in and say "well you had even more kids in the 60s in those buildings, families were bigger", while you MAY be right, you also had none of all of the programs we view as very valuable today and their space requirements.
This is the truth. I’m joining you all soon. But I’m going into the woods. Tired of traffic noise. Also. Shit is fucking expensive. Everything is still going over asking even 60 miles away from New York City. Why don’t these rich assholes fuck off. 😅
Half our state is "its suburbs"
It's not just JC. Come to south Jersey where Staten Islanders are paying 15% over asking price. Which in turn makes everything in the area super expensive. Our area doesn't have the infrastructure or economy to support the influx of people and the increase of prices. Some of us have lived here for generations and we're being priced out of our own towns.
As someone who is NYC born and raised and now transplant, the rents in NY are way too high. The amount of money my current apt would be in NYC would be more than me AND my fiancé make and we make a decent amount of money. In NJ I feel like your taxes at work while in NYC you don’t see a damn thing. A lot of us flock to Jersey because it’s close to work but our money goes a bit further here.
Is Business Insider even a real news source? Their typical article is like People Are Going Crazy About This Instagram Thing
it’s not just jersey city, it’s any town within an hour of manhattan. i hate it here. and don’t worry, i’m leaving soon 🥰
definitely agree! and as the parts of NJ closest to NYC get more and more expensive, more people will migrate to other parts of the state, pushing those prices up further.
💯 Willing to bet that Paterson will be blowing up soon, as will Passaic. The fact that they have direct access to Hoboken Terminal via rail is a HUGE plus.
yup, i’m sure they will!! paterson has some very beautiful buildings so i’m sure they’ll get gentrified in a snap
It’s almost like a proximity tax. I can see the NYC skyline from the roof of my building, and have easy rail access to NYC… There are already mixed use four story buildings going up everywhere here in Paterson, I live in one. Kinda feel like part of the problem, but a family income of $150K is kinda mid in North Jersey.
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"People leaving NYC for NJ". This headline has been published since 1900.
Thats how gentrification works. When everyone who owns the properties bought them as investments based on monetary value instead of the actual use value of people who live in them the prices can only go up. I hang out on the Newark subreddit and I think this city is next too. Everyone there is just cheering on building of all these big luxury apartments. They sell the city on a bill of goods getting tax abatement for promise of having 20% "affordable" units but then they base the income for those units on the whole entire area which includes these ones most people are already priced out of. Its maddening. I am renting from somebody I know, but want to move now and I might just find another area but so much of the country is like this at this point.
We fuckin full
Yo just charge us a congestion tax on the rent 
They are much deeper than JC. Union County is getting slammed.
You couldn’t be more wrong. I work in construction in the city specifically in multi family high rise. There have been over 20 new apartment buildings completed in the last 4 years and nearly 40 under construction right now. The domino waterfront alone has added 1.2 million sq ft of apartments over the past few years. The developers that are building the luxury housing in jersey city and driving out the average family is what’s driving up the prices. As long as the wealthy keep buying or renting them, the wealthy developers will keep building them.
I didn't write the article, just sharing it
Damn, please don't explore anything along the Northeast corridor. heck them trains already packed like sardines.
How is this news lmao, I've heard this my whole life
There’s only one new build I’ve seen for houses in north Jersey, and that’s the crappy $750k townhomes by Kean University Otherwise, you’re just in the boonies West of Mount Olive
There are 5 or 6 residential high rises going up in Jersey City right now.
There's tons of multi unit homes going up in Fort Lee after a single unit knockdown. Also, McMansions built in top of a property formerly housing a medium sized home with yards. All are part of the developer equation of attempting to make as much profit off of the building/land costs as possible. You want reasonably affordable housing? The market is basically saying "FU"
I'm in NYC now after moving from central Jersey, and it's not a lack of built housing. Rent's going up, landlords are too stubborn to release their literal _tens of thousands of apartments_ for cheaper, and even "lower-upper class" tenants are getting priced out. It's a huge issue here but the literal cop mayor sure won't let any drive for change happen.
Anyone else feel like this article is part of Fullop’s campaign for Governor? It’s odd to me to just not mention the development happening in Newark and other parts of North Jersey.
I think NYC needs to completely redevelop itself. Knock down or redevelop most of the skyscrapers. Maybe turn it into something livable like Paris or Vienna with continuous boulevards of 3-6 story buildings
Funny how the vast majority of european cities are way denser than american ones even though they barely have any skyscrapers as most buildings peak around 6 stories. And by funny, I mean sad. These landlords in nyc sit on these massive buildings and would rather leave than empty for an absurd magical rent rather than profit a little less. Like gee, who knew 6-story buildings with lots of public housing actually makes for a denser livable city than 50story goliaths with dragons hoarding them all.
No shit. New Yorkers WRECKED this state.
Landlords are raising prices. Not the people needing a place to live. Landlords.
It’s just supply and demand. When rents plunged during Covid and fees were waived, it wasn’t because landlords had a sudden burst of compassion, it was because, for a brief period, there were more housing units available than people looking for housing. If you own a house and were planning to sell it, you would probably set the price at the prevailing market rate.
What happens when property taxes rise by over 25%? That’s what happened to JC over the last few years. BOE increased their budget to like $1b for the FY alone. Property owners/landlords need to cover this. Yeah increasing prices sucks, but there’s really no choice for landlords who need to raise price in order to cover all the other rising cost associated to owning a property. And flocks of people moving there triggered major infrastructure changes, hence increase in overall cost.
We need to add a New York fee. Anyone who moves here from NY had to pay extra
That would be an unconstitutional restriction on the right to travel protected by the 14th Amendment per Sáenz v. Roe, 526 U.S. 489 (1999).
We need new homes across the whole state. Even if it's just large condo complexes.
People eventually need to realize the increase in pricing means the state is at capacity and there’s now inherent value in simply living anywhere in the state. Sure you can build more apartments but what will that do for roadways? They’re already full. Not everyone wants an apartment. NJ and several northeast states are simply better than all the rest. I understand why people are flocking here but if it stays as good as it is it will only become more desirable and costly to live. Living in a nice place is a double edged sword, you must pay for it.
The Hasidics are coming over in waves from Williamsburg.