Manhattan population to jump by 2030, putting strain on housing

Will NYC have to sacrifice landmarked buildings to provide for rising population?

While the demand for New York real estate remains somewhat unquenchable for the meantime, it’s possible the city could grow so crowded in the future that it may become a turn-off for prospective city dwellers, the New York Times reported.

By 2030, Manhattan could grow by 220,000 to 290,000 new residents, according to a study by the Department of City Planning, cited by the Times. Neighborhoods such as Chelsea, the Columbia University area and the Lower East Side are most frequently favored as the prospective sites of new developments to house the onslaught of new New Yorkers.

In order to provide for the surge in population, said Ed Glaeser, a Harvard economist, New York may have to sacrifice some of its protected or landmarked buildings.

Sign Up for the undefined Newsletter

“There are certainly individual buildings that I feel sentimental about,” Glaeser said, “but the upside of having thousands more people getting to enjoy New York would outweigh my personal feelings.”

The present-day population is also lower than it has been in the past, despite how the subway sometimes feels. The current population of the island is 1.6 million; that number totaled 2.3 million in 1910. [NYT]