You're right, when I think of a place that has an overabundance of 2 floor single family homes, I think of Manhattan.

It isn't that which is the issue. It is the fact greenwich village has been at the same height since even before Don Draper's time. You see, the suburban enclaves of long island and upstate and new jersey and the comparatively more built up areas of manhattan do have the exact same issue with regards to housing, and that is there is little room in the zoned capacity to legally add any more housing.

In 1961, NYC adopted a zoning plan that saw zoned capacity reduced by 80%. These sort of changes to zoning happened around the country in the 1960s and 70s in response to red lining being made illegal. If you can't prevent black people from living near you by law, maybe you could instead prevent anyone from living near you and guarantee a supply side crisis such that the wealthiest individuals in the economy are who can afford to be your neighbors, and in 1961 surely they won't be black. You should look up the median income differences between a white nycer and a black nycer today, it is shocking. Median household wealth for whites just within the scope of new york state, not even at city resolution, is nearly 15x higher (1).

Today, 80 years later, we have kept the racist-by-transitive-property laws on the books all over the country. And as such, cities remain highly segregated by both race and class. Civil right era in terms of housing was essentially a failure to achieve any change from this status quo.

1. https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/the-racial-wealth-gap-in...

▲

bobthepanda 40 minutes ago | parent [-]

With historic landmarks or districts you can generally transfer unused development capacity to other sites. Grand Central famously was spared from demolition but its unused zoning rights have been transferred elsewhere.

	▲	asdff 25 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		One issue with using hollywood accounting for zoning is failing to consider the context of the site, especially in terms of infrastructure and job access, in favor of historical protections. All that subway capacity and walkability to so many jobs in greenwich village for example is being squandered by punting potential upzoning elsewhere.
	▲	bragr 31 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Sure but they are still a finite resource. Once you've transferred those rights to a super tall luxury condo building, you can't readily transform that into affordable middle class and lower income housing.

▲

javanissen an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Do you live here? I do, and I’m astounded by the number of 1- to 3-story buildings and surface parking lots (!) dotted throughout Manhattan, especially outside of the skyscraper clusters in midtown and downtown.

There is an unbelievable shortage of housing that is solvable only by increasing supply and building upwards. It’s not even single-family homes; why are there any one-story buildings in the lower east side?

	▲	ch4s3 33 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		It's really shocking how much underutilized space there is in Manhattan and near Brooklyn/Queens.

▲

ianm218 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It has a huge amount of areas that are underdeveloped relative to demand. Many areas with height restrictions that block basically all new developments. For example West Village is one of the most in demand zip codes in the entire world caps new builds around 80 feet. East village caps housing @ mid rise so new grads who live there spend half their income on housing.

He is right.

▲

ch4s3 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

You'll notice I specifically said 4 to 8 story buildings.