Politicians Against Progress

No sooner had the top official for the Northeast at the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development made some comments about possibly selling off some of the housing projects that are occupying prime Manhattan real estate than the local reactionaries started trying to stop the idea. We sketched the rationale for the idea of an asset sale — and some of its history — in an October 25, 2007 editorial headlined "Sell the Projects." It was only the latest in a series of articles in the Sun on the topic, which, as we wrote, "offers a chance to reclaim hundreds of buildings of housing projects on hundreds of acres of prime real estate in the city, land now locked in stagnation, that could be integrated with the surrounding neighborhoods and become part of the cycle of dynamism and improvement and transformation and building that makes New York City today such an exciting and vibrant place."

The politicians against progress are apparently so worried that this might actually happen that they have stirred to action, writing a letter earlier this month to the secretary of housing and urban development, Alphonso Jackson, deriding the idea of selling any projects as "blind reasoning." The letter, a copy of which is posted at Brownstoner.com, where we first saw it, is signed by 14 members of the New York State Assembly. They are Keith Wright, Ivan Lafayette, Rhoda Jacobs, Jeffrion Aubry, Joan Millman, Daniel O'Donnell, Ellen Young, Joseph Lentol, Aurelia Greene, Vivian Cook, Deborah Glick, Felix Ortiz, Karim Camara, and Hakeem Jeffries.

These politicians against progress are pandering to the residents of these housing projects, who have lived for years — the average stay for a tenant in the New York City Housing Authority is nearly 20 years — at rents far below market rates for Manhattan. That pandering is the politicians' choice. But many of these politicians also represent voters who pay a market rate for their housing and resent having their tax dollars subsidize housing projects in Manhattan's priciest neighborhoods, projects that are often breeding grounds for crime and that lower the property values of nearby buildings. If the politicians are going to curry favor with project residents by resisting progress, it's only logical that they also be exposed to negative feedback. Many New Yorkers work hard to pay market prices for property and think a policy of devoting valuable real estate to a lucky few beneficiaries is inefficient and nonsensical. They vote, too.