New York City Is Increasingly Becoming A City For Rich Elites, Instead Of Real People

I used to wonder if I was the only person who regretted NYC letting the real estate developers "clean up" Times Square. I miss the seediness and grit, now replaced with the bland anti-reality charmlessness of DisneyWorld. I've seen similar homogenization initiatives ruin interesting and unique corners of the world from Thailand to tiny Essaouira in Morocco. And what have they done to my old Mission District neighborhood in San Francisco? The ugly-- some say racist-- face of gentrification targets the most desirable places first. And New York is getting it worst of all. This week, the developers' remaking of New York for their own bottom lines was the subject of Bill Moyers' show.

He points to the changing skyline of Manhattan as the physical embodiment of how money and power impact the lives and neighborhoods of everyday people. Soaring towers being built at the south end of Central Park, climbing higher than ever with apartments selling from $30 million to $90 million, are beginning to block the light on the park below. Do you ever watch the Bravo realtor reality show, Million Dollar Listing New York? If you do, you already know that many of the apartments are being sold at those sky high prices to the international super rich, many of whom will only live in Manhattan part-time-- if at all-- and often pay little or no city income or property taxes, thanks to the political clout of real estate developers.

“The real estate industry here in New York City is like the oil industry in Texas,” affordable housing advocate Jaron Benjamin told Moyers, “They outspend everybody… They often have a much better relationship with elected officials than everyday New Yorkers do.” Meanwhile, fewer and fewer middle and working class people can afford to live in New York City. As Benjamin puts it, “Forget about the Statue of Liberty. Forget about Ellis Island. Forget about the idea of everybody being welcome here in New York City. This will be a city only for rich people.”

Moyers: "In the real world, inequality is a deep and divisive force. We see that politically all the time, as the rich buy elections and then shape the laws to their advantage... Across our country, millions of people of ordinary means can’t afford decent housing. In New Jersey, just on the other side of the Hudson River from where I’m sitting, three out of five renters can’t afford a two-­bedroom apartment at market rates. And across the continent, in San Francisco, residents-- including many from an anguished middle class ­­have taken to the streets to protest the narcissistic capitalism of Silicon Valley that provides an elite few with what they want instead of the many with what they need. We could continue city by city, state by state: because among our largest, richest 20 metro areas, less than 50 percent of the homes are affordable. Less than 50 percent. Here where I live, in New York City, inequality in housing has reached Dickensian dimensions. The middle class is being squeezed to the edge as the rich drive up real estate values and the working poor are shoved farther into squalor. As you will see in this report, the skyline of New York is a physical reminder of how wealth and power get their way without regard for the impact on the lives and neighborhoods of everyday people. So this is a story about how inequality matters, but it’s also a reflection of radical change in America, as the dark shadow of plutocracy falls across all things public... There’s an unwritten rule in New York City: don’t get between a grasping developer and the sky, you could wind up cantilevered."

MAYOR MICHAEL BLOOMBERG: That’s our tax base. If we can find a bunch of billionaires around the world to move here, that would be a godsend, because that’s where the revenue comes to take care of everybody else.

BILL MOYERS: But the mayor left something out. The super-­rich who buy those opulent apartments and live in New York City less than half the year will pay no city income tax at all.

PAUL GOLDBERGER: And while those people still contribute in other ways to the city's economy, I'm sure they go out to expensive restaurants and buy theatre tickets and shop in fancy stores and do all those things, you only pay income tax if you're a resident, and they're not.

BILL MOYERS: Which means the fabulously rich, high above the city, will be contributing no income taxes to support the public servants who make it work far below: transit workers and teachers, or the firemen and police who rushed to One57 when Hurricane Sandy tipped its construction crane and set it dangling dangerously over Midtown-- shutting down one of the busiest streets in the city for a week.

The owners of One57’s apartments will not be paying their full share of property taxes, either – thanks to a dodgy deal slipped into a housing bill by State Senator Martin Golden and other legislators in Albany.

NEW YORK STATE SENATOR MARTIN J. GOLDEN: It’s the normal bill that we do every several years to give our condos and co­ops the tax abatements that they get and that they require.

BILL MOYERS: Normal? What Senator Golden is really doing is carving out a tax break for five luxury properties-- including Extell’s One57. State Senator Liz Krueger called him out on it.

NEW YORK STATE SENATOR LIZ KRUEGER: This bill as I said has some important things in it, but it’s also a perfect example of what goes wrong in the wheeling dealing of the backrooms of Albany.

BILL MOYERS: In exchange for the developer putting $5.9 million into affordable housing in the Bronx-- pocket change, given the prices on Billionaires’ Row, those wealthy pied­à­terre buyers could get as much as $35 million in tax breaks.

NEW YORK STATE SENATOR LIZ KRUEGER: An example in a recent news story was a $90 million, 13,554 square foot penthouse and with 421a exemption allowed in this bill, their taxes per year would be $20,000. If they were not rolled into this legislation their taxes would be $230,000.

BILL MOYERS: Let’s hear that again.

NEW YORK STATE SENATOR LIZ KRUEGER: Their taxes per year would be $20,000. If they were not rolled into this legislation their taxes would be $230,000.

BILL MOYERS: A tax break of $210,000 a year for living there, four times the median income in New York City.

NEW YORK STATE SENATOR LIZ KRUEGER: I don’t think that’s what any of us were talking about when we endorsed the expansion and extension of property tax exemptions that the city of New York gives out.

BILL MOYERS: Yet the Senate approves it.

...JARON BENJAMIN: And we noticed that the same five developers that got this very unusual carve out to receive tax abatements for a program that was defunct also contributed mightily to the governor and other state elected officials.

BILL MOYERS: The group’s report, “Tax Breaks for Billionaires,” prompted reporters for the New York Daily News to hit the money trail. They found corporations-- LLCs-- affiliated with Extell Development had donated $100,000 to Governor Andrew Cuomo’s campaign two days before he signed the bill. Other real estate investors sweetened the pot. And when a commission appointed by the governor to investigate corruption got too close to the real estate industry, he blocked it. Then he pulled the plug. A feat of wondrous political engineering.

JARON BENJAMIN: The real estate industry here in New York City is like the oil industry in Texas. They outspend everybody. They often have a much better relationship with elected officials than everyday New Yorkers do. While there was affordable housing built in the last 12 years under Mayor Bloomberg, that affordable housing was not built for certain people.

For example, if you were a family of four that earned between $26,000 a year and $42,000 a year. So think of a single mom with three kids who works as an administrative assistant. There were basically no affordable apartments constructed over the last 12 years for that family. That really sent a message as to who this city wanted. You know, this city did not want regular working people, which is a real shame because that's who makes New York City great.

BILL MOYERS: As Billionaires’ Row keeps rising-- so does the cost of living, driving more and more people elsewhere.

MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO: We’re going to use every tool of this city government in ways more aggressive than ever attempted in the past to protect the interests of our people and make sure that every kind of person can live in New York City.

BILL MOYERS: But as Mayor Bill de Blasio promises at least 200,000 units of affordable housing over the next 10 years, affordable housing advocates protest it’s not enough.