Make NYC more affordable by extending Manhattan: professorBy Hannah Frishberg
January 19, 2022
The answer to New York City’s affordable housing crisis? Make Manhattan bigger.
Rutgers professor Jason Barr believes there is a single solution to both cheaper NYC real estate and the issue of increasing global warming-related climate threats: Build more NYC.
“There is a way to help tackle both issues in one bold policy stroke: expand Manhattan Island into the harbor,” Barr, the author of “Building the Skyline: The Birth and Growth of Manhattan’s Skyscrapers,” wrote in a New York Times opinion piece this month. “This new proposal offers significant protection against surges while also creating new housing. To do this, it extends Manhattan into New York Harbor by 1,760 acres.”
The new acreage — which Barr proposed to be named “New Mannahatta” — would be built from landfill and reshape the borough’s southern shoreline, making it jut out into New York Harbor past Red Hook. New Mannahatta would be bigger than the Upper West Side — which is 1,220 acres — and could fit a comparable amount of housing: close to 180,000 units, ranging from brownstones to mid-level and high-rise apartment buildings.
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Source:
https://nypost.com/2022/01/19/make-nyc-more-affordable-by-extending-manhattan-professor/