The weekly link roundup is a collection of links related to Newburgh, revitalization, urban planning and anything else that might inspire change or create dialogue. Photo by HB
How Rent Control Harms Those It Hopes to Help [MI]
Trends Point To Rents Edging Higher In The Future [AT]
Beacon’s Historic Movie Theater Just (Re)Opened [HVM]
Newburgh supports rent control, tenant protections [MHN]
$2.4M filtration system being installed at source of Newburgh water [THR]
People in open-concept homes are realizing the walls were there for a reason [BG]
Fast-fashion retailers like Zara and H&M have a new threat: the $24 billion used clothes market [CNBC]
Add your own photos depicting city life to the Newburgh Restoration flickr pool to be used on the blog, or email me. **Flickr users please do not forget to remove disabling of downloading of pictures. Otherwise, I can’t use them** Please do not take photos for your own use without consulting the photographer.
An “all welcoming” position increasing the demand for housing results in rent inflation…this was unexpected? As well, in a city such as Newburgh, HUD’s influence on current rental prices shouldn’t be discounted. That said, it’s not that the rent is too high in the absolute sense…the $’s value is too low relatively. Rent in ’85 was $550 for a 1 bedroom which is equivalent to $1300 today when adjusted for inflation, the going rate give or take. However, absent from public discussions of rising living costs is the additional 40% $ devaluation over the same period. Decades of diminishing returns on ever increasing “investment” $s, aka deficits, have resulted in inflating housing, education and healthcare beyond the printed cpi (MMT circa 1913). Equate it to a compounding ‘vig’ in a perpetual wager. While the wager to grow the economy was building, so, too, was the costs of “administrating” it. As it relates to housing, the traditional subsidized model no longer pays enough interest to keep pace with this cost. Problem, reaction, solution. Build new? On a large scale it’s cost prohibitive relative to the roi and the targeted market. Ditto for housing rehabs (At a recent Newburgh council work session it was mentioned that rupco requires a minimum seventeen year PILOT for its next Newburgh housing rehab project to be supported and successful). “Tap-tap” into the private sector’s pre-existing inventory of rental units as universal rent control implies an administrative expansion. The small private landlord, already operating at the margin, will not be able to persist with the larger players in this type of “public-private partnership”. Will there be an expansive rupcoesque approach to the rental housing sector? Will market intervention keep the actual costs down…answer, has it relative to the three sectors of the economy mentioned previously?
Don’t expect the deficit path to change in a meaningful way. A few weeks ago the federal reserve chairman gave testimony to both the Senate and the House. The biggest concern directed at the fed from either chamber was how well the banks were insulated from another crisis.