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Research & Policy
Faculty Director Vicki Been Testifies at Charter Revision Expert Forum
On March 21st, Furman Center Faculty Director Vicki Been testified on a Land Use expert panel before the 2019 NYC Charter Revision Commission. Her testimony focused on proposed changes to the city charter that would require the city to develop a comprehensive plan that sets long-term development goals. Been raised concerns about the proposal, noting that the city already carries out a significant amount of planning, and it is unclear how a comprehensive plan would differ from the city’s many efforts. She emphasized that the there is no clear agreed upon definition of comprehensive planning and that submitting such an ambiguous concept to a vote could prove confusing and dangerous for New York City and its voters. Read more »
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Webinar Training: Using CoreData to Analyze Citywide Trends at the Neighborhood Level
This free webinar training was hosted by NYU Furman Center researchers on March 21, 2019. The webinar explores how users can use the CoreData.nyc platform to analyze citywide findings from the State of New York City’s Housing and Neighborhoods Report, and the State of New York’s Subsidized Housing Report at the neighborhood level. Read more »
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News & Events
NYU Furman Center Names Matt Murphy Executive Director
The NYU Furman Center announced the appointment of Matt Murphy as its new Executive Director. He will join the Furman Center on April 15 after an eight-year stint in City government, where he currently serves as Deputy Commissioner for the Office of Policy and Strategy with the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD). His present portfolio includes the Office of Housing Policy and the Office of Strategic Operations and Analytics, which leads the development of strategies to advance HPD’s housing policy objectives and oversee initiatives to help achieve agency goals and improve operations Read more »
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News & Events
Video: Policy Breakfast on Local control in land use decisions: Implications for affordable housing
On March 6th, the NYU Furman Center hosted over 200 participants for the policy breakfast “Local control in land use decisions: Implications for affordable housing and for neighborhood integration. A diverse panel of housing advocates, legal scholars and practioners debated the benefits and drawbacks of local control, and the merits of moving land use decision-making towards the city level. Read more »
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The Dream Revisited: Local Control, Affordable Housing, and Segregation
The NYU Furman Center has launched the twenty-sixth discussion in the The Dream Revisited series, an online forum of debates and perspectives on racial and economic segregation. The new debate Local Control, Affordable Housing, and Segregation, explores how local control in land use decision-making may influence the availability of affordable housing and contribute to economic and racial segregation. Featuring four essays from legal scholars, practitioners, and advocates, the new debate weighs the potential benefits and drawbacks of “scaling up” the zoning process, and moving land use decision-making towards the city, state, or regional level. Read more »
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Research & Policy
Supply Skepticism: Housing Supply and Affordability
Will building more housing lead to more affordable rents and lower home prices? Economics 101 says yes, but an increasingly vocal cohort of advocates and activists—supply skeptics—oppose new housing construction on the grounds that it will not enhance affordability in their communities and might, instead, increase prices and rents. Read more »
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Research & Policy
Policy Minute: Perspectives on Housing Supply and Affordability
This Policy Minute examines whether increasing the supply of market-rate housing improves housing affordability. Read more »
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News & Events
The Dream Revisited: Contemporary Debates about Housing, Segregation, and Opportunity
The Dream Revisited takes as a starting point the belief that all people should be able to live with equal dignity and recognition of their humanity, and that part of the realization of the ideals of the United States is a continuing responsibility to advance equal access to opportunity for all individuals. Even with these basic principles as a starting point, there is still significant disagreement about the causes of contemporary residential segregation, the consequences of that segregation, and how we as individuals and as a nation should address it. Learn more about The Dream Revisited, available now from Columbia University Press. Read more »
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Policy Minute: Access to Counsel and Other Strategies to Prevent Displacement
This Policy Minute rounds up recent developments and research on increasing access to legal representation to prevent displacement. Read more »
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Research & Policy
Fact Brief: NYCHA’s Outsized Role in Housing New York’s Poorest Households
As the largest landlord in New York, New York Housing Authority (NYCHA) units represent almost six percent of all occupied housing citywide, and almost nine percent of all occupied rental housing. The city’s public housing provides shelter to substantially more households than any other place-based housing assistance program in the city. In 2017 over 60 percent of the roughly 174,000 households in NYCHA’s public housing developments earned 30 percent of Area Median Income (AMI) or less. That translates to just $28,600 annually for a family of four. These households would have few housing options in New York City without the affordability offered in public housing. Read more »
