New York Times Makes Its Own Case Against City of Yes

A recent opinion piece in The New York Times once again sang the praises of increasing density in single-family neighborhoods, presenting it as a painless solution to our housing crisis. Author Binyamin Appelbaum, a member of the Times editorial board, compares Palisades Park, New Jersey, which allows single-family homes to be replaced by multifamily duplexes, with adjacent Leonia, which does not.

Among the points the essay makes is that “Palisades Park shows that a little more density can deliver big benefits” and that single-family neighborhoods won’t change dramatically overnight. “Allowing more density does not mean that existing homes are immediately torn down and replaced,” he writes. “It will take a few more decades before the supply of single-family homes in Palisades Park is exhausted.” I don’t feel much better about the prospect of my neighborhood becoming “exhausted” knowing that it will be a long and painful process rather than a short one, and I am not fooled by his position that “allowing the construction of a little more housing in areas previously reserved for single-family homes” will solve anything – or even happen.

That’s not only because “a little more housing” is fiction, but because Mr. Appelbaum undercuts his entire argument with side-by-side photos of single-family Leonia and the progressive new Palisades Park.

The argument that the eyesores of Palisades Park are better than the homes in Leonia is laughable – at least it would be if the stakes were not so high. These two photos show many of the problems in the City of Yes proposals as written: the elimination of green space, the loss of any architectural appeal, and the abolition of the sense of community that arises among neighbors who are not walled off from one another by concrete.

Right now our city planners are campaigning for exactly this to happen in lovely communities in New York City that are zoned for single-family homes. Only 15 percent of the city is zoned this way, offering the choice of homeownership and community in an otherwise large-scale and anonymous metropolis. City planners want to eliminate this choice and shoehorn multifamily buildings into green, tree-lined communities. They use the same language about “a little more housing” that the Times piece does, but there are no limits to City of Yes proposals – over the coming years our communities would become as exhausted as poor Palisades Park is.

The duplex shown at right has zero to recommend it other than offering an extra “housing unit.” I firmly believe we can create more “homes” without replacing our neighborhoods with Soviet-style “units.” The City of Yes must be dismantled, then replaced with solutions that will address the housing shortage without destroying neighborhoods.