City needs lots of new housing to accommodate coming population crisis: report

By 2040, there will be no space for hundreds of thousands of the estimated 1 million new residents projected to move to the city, according to a Columbia University Center for Urban Real Estate report cited by the Wall Street Journal.

That is, unless, a bevy of new housing crops up in waterfront neighborhoods such as Long Island City and Willets Point in Queens, Red Hook in Brooklyn and the Financial District, the report said. In less than 30 years, the city would exceed a population of 9 million, it added. The mega-developments of Hudson Yards on the Far West Side and Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn are only a small step to preventing a population crisis, center director Vishaan Chakrabarti told the Journal.

The Bloomberg administration, by comparison, projected faster population growth: 1 million more New Yorkers by 2030.

The authors told the Journal the report does not factor in the politics of zoning, which often requires the city and developers to strike compromises with the community on the bulk of new buildings. [WSJ] –Mark Maurer