🏙️ Why Building Fancy Apartments Actually Helps Everyone (Yes, Even Renters)

If rich people don’t get new apartments, they’ll take yours.

Let’s talk about housing for a second. Because in New York, we’ve all heard the same thing: “They’re building another luxury tower? How does that help anyone who can’t afford it?” And honestly, that feels like a good question. The optics are bad. Shiny glass towers going up while your rent jumps $400 a month. I get it. I really do. But here’s the weird, frustrating, counterintuitive truth that makes my brain hurt:

When those towers don’t get built, rents rise even faster.

I know. I KNOW. Stay with me.

🎶 Think of Housing Like Musical Chairs

Imagine 10 people playing musical chairs with 9 seats. Now add three more people, but don’t add any new chairs. What happens?

Everyone scrambles. The music stops. And someone ends up sitting in your seat. That’s what’s been happening in New York for decades. When the city doesn’t build new housing for people who can afford expensive apartments, those people still move here, they just move into *existing* homes. They don’t vanish into thin air. They don’t say “oh well, guess I’ll live in Cleveland.” They just outbid everyone else for whatever housing already exists.

They take YOUR apartment. Or they take the apartment you were going to move into. Or they take the apartment the person above you was going to move into, which means that person stays put, which means YOU can’t move up either. The chairs don’t multiply. The people do.

💸 The “Vacancy Chain” Nobody Talks About

There’s this concept economists have, and look, I know, economists, but this one’s actually useful. It’s called the vacancy chain.

Here’s how it works:

When a high-income person moves into a brand new apartment, that creates a ripple effect. Their old apartment opens up, and someone with a bit less money moves in. That person’s old place opens up, and someone with even less money moves in there. And so on, all the way down the income ladder.

It’s like dominoes. Every new unit starts a small chain of moves that reduces pressure on the rest of the housing market.

Studies have shown that for every 100 new market-rate units built, about 45-70 people with lower incomes end up in better housing situations within a few years. Not because they moved into those fancy buildings, but because of the chain reaction. But when we don’t build new homes? That chain runs in reverse. The pressure builds. Everyone’s competing for the same few units. And suddenly the “cheap” apartment in Bushwick that was $1,200 five years ago is $2,400 and the landlord wants to see proof you make 40x the rent.

🏗️ Why Luxury Construction Still Matters (Even If You Hate It)

Here’s the part that makes people mad: Building market-rate, yes, even “luxury”, housing actually protects existing renters. Because it absorbs demand from people who would otherwise be bidding up prices in older buildings.

You don’t have to like that. I don’t love it either! But it’s just… math. It’s how supply and demand works when you can’t print more land.

If 10,000 high-income New Yorkers want to live in the city, they’re going to live somewhere. You can either give them new buildings, or they’ll take the ones we already have. It’s why BedStuy brownstones now sell for $4 million.

And if they take those? Everyone else slides down one rung. The person who would’ve rented the nice place rents the okay place. The person who would’ve rented the okay place rents the sketchy place. And the person at the bottom? They leave. Or they get priced out. Or they end up in a shelter.

This isn’t theory. This is what’s been happening in New York, and San Francisco, and Seattle, and every other city that decided “we’re full” while people kept showing up anyway.

🏠 Affordable Housing Still Matters- But It’s Not Either/Or

Look, I need to be super clear about this: This is not saying “forget affordable housing.” We absolutely need subsidized affordable housing and vouchers. We need public housing. We need stronger rent regulations and tenant protections and anti-eviction policies and all of it. But here’s the thing: affordable housing and market-rate housing aren’t enemies. They work together. Affordable housing is like an anchor, it keeps people rooted, especially those who’d otherwise be displaced.

Market housing is like a pressure valve, it keeps the system from boiling over by giving high-income people somewhere to go that isn’t your building. You need both. BOTH.

Because without new market-rate construction, even the “affordable” units start feeling expensive. The waitlists get longer. The lotteries get more competitive. And the people who don’t win? They’re back in the regular market, pushing prices up for everyone else.

🚇 The Bigger Picture: Choice and Freedom

Here’s what this means for the actual future of the city: When we build new market-rate housing, it generates tax revenue. Those fancy apartments pay property taxes. Those taxes fund schools, subways, parks, libraries, all the public goods that make New York livable for everyone. That revenue also funds more affordable housing, more housing vouchers, faster subway service, better public schools in the outer boroughs.

The goal here isn’t to make Manhattan cheap. That ship sailed decades ago.

The goal is to make Queens, the Bronx, and Brooklyn so good, so well-connected, so full of opportunities, that living there feels just as desirable as Manhattan. So people have real choices. So you’re not trapped in a bidding war for the one neighborhood with decent subway access.

That’s how you actually make a city more affordable in the long run: Not by freezing it in time. Not by keeping it exactly as it was. But by giving everyone, rich or poor, a real choice about where and how they want to live.

✅ So Yeah. Build the Tower.

Not because it’s fancy. Not because we love developers (we don’t). But because every time a new building goes up, it takes pressure off the rest of us. That’s not trickle-down economics. That’s not some libertarian fantasy. That’s just how chairs work.

More chairs = more people get to sit down.

Fewer chairs = someone’s sitting on the floor. And it’s not the rich guy.

If this helped clarify things, or if you think I’m completely wrong, let me know in the comments. I read them. I really do. And if you know someone who’s confused about why their rent keeps going up, send this to them. Let’s talk about it.