It's a disaster. No single factor affects people's decisions as much as the rent in this city; lives here revolve around it, especially if you're only making so

It's a disaster. No single factor affects people's decisions as much as the rent in this city; lives here revolve around it, especially if you're only making so-so money. I think about how different life here would be if everyone's rent was only, let's say, 10% of their income (jobs, hobbies, social lives, etc.) The rental increase treadmill keeps turning faster and faster, and the need to keep moving neighborhoods every few years is not a picnic. I was born in Brooklyn and have lived in NYC my whole life, and the rental situation just gets worse every year. Unless and until we start dealing with the issue seriously, it's just going to keep eating more and more of people's incomes. I wrote a post on this a while ago summarizing the issue: https://medium.com/@spencer_th0mas/fixing-the-nyc-rent-crisis-or-the-rent-is-still-too-damn-high-edb13ca853cc#.mzgoimq52 https://medium.com/@spencer_th0mas/fixing-the-nyc-rent-crisi... My rental history looks like this: 1995: 300/month sublet (Kensington) 1997: 625/month 1BR walkup (Brighton Beach) 1999: 675/month 2000: 1450/month 1BR walkup (Upper East Side) 2001: Above raised to 1650, moved 2002: 1125/month studio (Yorksvillle) 2009: 1175/month studio (Yorksville) - landlord wanted the apartment for a relative, had to move 2010: 1750 1BR walkup (Lower East Side) 2011: 1800 2012: 1850 2013: 1900 2014: 1950 2015: 2000 2016: 2180 All the old apartments I lived in are now at least 400-500+ more. It's out of control. I'm probably heading back to south BK when my lease is up; at least studios under 1400 still exist there.