One Solution to the Housing Crisis: Just Make People Rich

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From the Article:

On a recent Friday morning, I sat down with a group at the vanguard of Restoration’s reinvention at the organization’s headquarters on Fulton Street, completed in the early 1970s as a bleak fortress meant to convey safety over any sense of aspiration. The complex, known as Restoration Plaza, is on the verge of a massive 10-year renovation and expansion designed by the Ghanian-British architect Sir David Adjaye, a project that will enter the public-hearing stage at the city’s department of planning next week. ‘I was moved by the history,’ Mr. Adjaye told me later when I asked what drew him to the venture, ‘the idea of making a civic heart; the original project was intended to do that and it succeeded in some ways and didn’t succeed in others.’

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“The city has committed $50 million to the project, but much of the financing relies on filling ground floor retail space and drawing tenants to fill offices who will pay market rents and help mentor local talent. The development will have cultural space, social space, incubator space, pop-up space for local entrepreneurs. The hope is that by the time the project is finished, the reluctance of many workers to go to the office will have dissipated, and that young people living in Bushwick or Crown Heights or Bed-Stuy itself will be happy to go to work so close to where they live.

Still, change at this scale, particularly when it includes the construction of taller buildings, will inevitably draw opposition, even when, as in this instance, residents have been given the chance to talk about what they wanted. Over and over, it was clear that people hoped for good jobs and new opportunities, Ms. Pinnock said. ‘We’re holding true to what the community wants.’”