Rethinking commercial corridors is just one of many proposals in Adams’ latest effort to boost housing production in the city, known formally as the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity. Many of the constraints Adams is trying to undo date back to the city’s 1961 zoning code, which is now criticized by experts for largely closing the door on future growth. In general, the City of Yes plan would encourage less-dense parts of the city to contribute more housing.

Although low-density neighborhoods might ultimately look the most different, in other words, high-density neighborhoods are part of the plan as well. And targeting the whole city for more housing should not just be viewed as a political strategy to limit the backlash from NIMBY forces, Slatkin pointed out.

“It’s also a substantive housing strategy,” he said. “When everyone is producing some housing, you don’t get the kind of overheated market conditions and distortions or disruptive effects on individual neighborhoods the same way. It has a stabilizing effect.”

Read more at Crain’s New York Business.

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