NYC's main issue is that transit transfers between services are painful. Transfers between PATH, LIRR, NYC Ferry, MTA & the Air-Train can add a lot of unnecessa

NYC's main issue is that transit transfers between services are painful. Transfers between PATH, LIRR, NYC Ferry, MTA & the Air-Train can add a lot of unnecessary precious minutes. The MTA's newly minted OMNY payment system does not work on any of these either. The NYC transit system is expansive, but people stick to a select few locations because the transfers are so painful. Fixing this would be the easiest & cheapest solution to release some pressure from the housing market. Then there is NYC's generosity which follows (Blue city?) America's quintessential 'spend a lot, but never address the problem' approach. Between 50k-100k illegal migrants are being housed in NYC hotels right now ! Really ? The world's most expensive real-estate is the best place for housing illegal-migrants in country with the world's most hospitable area ? About 100k people are in homeless shelters in similarly prime real-estate. Same issue with rent control. In NYC, Roughly 1,006,000 rent-stabilized homes make up about 28 percent of the overall housing stock and 44 percent of all rentals. That's insane! Rent stabilized/controlled apartments face inevitable dilapidation while heavily limiting new housing supply in a city. Rent control is one of the best-studied : 'methods that do not work'. (In NYC rent stabilization is more common, but effectively follows the same patterns as rent control) Afaik, this does not include 500,000 housing projects residents, a lot of whom live in prime residential space in NYC. Social welfare & housing assistance are all well & good. But, no one should be entitled to a zip-code. NY's expansive rail network means that you can live 30 miles out of town, and still be within 30 minutes of your workplace. Let the location of housing assistance get decided by the free market. You can have your rent controlled apartment or NYCHA assistance. But, you aren't entitled to live walking distance from the WTC just because you're poor or have been renting since 1970. I agree that sustainable urbanism & dignified living should be central parts of 1st world city policy. But, blue cities in the US seem to be hellbent on looking at issues from the worst possible lens. Their solutions always answer the question : "What is the best way for us to maximize spend, minimize guilt and somehow lead to everyone being worse of ?". I had long thought that this pathology was limited to west coast cities, but the infection appears to have spread to the North East as well.