LyrArc Article Gist
WSJ's Greg Ip points out the realities on the ground for housing inflation- Austin 11% higher prices for housing 2020-2024, for NYC 20%, supply up 17% in Austin NYC only 3%. Austin avoided rent control route in elections even when prices were up 23% in 1 year, rent control freeze is not allowed in Texas. Prices eventually dropped as supply increased. This is a warning sign for NYC primary winner Mamdani's rent freeze and rent control in NYC. This is not to say that landlords have to get their act together and fix homes, and moderate pricing. It is to say that the supply of housing matters and adding supply to housing as the British Labor government is doing in Britain under a socialist/private enterprise oriented government matters. For this to happen a comprehensive policy is needed cutting time to build reducing permit times, and incentivising builders, as well as cutting costs, and building affordable housing. It is a reflection of the degree of desperation that New Yorkers- created by the same educated and the professional workers among them, the rich and the elites- that the vast number of young college educated people are now pushing free buses, rent freeze, and city run grocery stores. And so little discussion is taking place on the comprehensive plan to increase supply of housing and building the new infrastructure in a city where roads and pavements, whole neighborhood infrastructures are crumbling as in Brooklyn. So little discussion on creating a rising tide that lifts all boats. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The Editorial Board of the Washington Post says people should be concerned about going back to the 70's when New York City struggled with funding and went downhill. The very goal of affordability that Mamdani is trying to achieve could end up being hit because the methods may not work at all. It says free bus service means a transit funding hole, city run stores would hurt privately run stores, and a rent freeze would depress housing supply. Greg Ip in the WSJ compares Austin with NYC with Austin seeing 20% increase in housing supply to NYC 3% in 2020-2024. Austin had a 23% jump in one year in housing prices but it came down and over 4 years rent increases in NYC are 20% in Austin 11%.  It is only that much of the New Yorker educated elites have let the city down so much by not finding solutions to the affordability crisis and not focusing on fixing infrastructure and modernization of the American cities, in the last three decades that this has happened- as a desperate young population turns to giveaways or free services across the board as a solution that never works. A fiscal crisis could happen as in the 1970's creating another vicious cycle says the Washington Post. It says one can only hope that the damage is at the margins. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
According to a report from the Southern Education Foundation about 51% of the students from pre-Kindergarden to 12th grade in the U.S. were eligible for the federal program of free and reduced price lunches, using an analysis of 2013 federal data. With the highest proportion of students in poverty concentrated in states in the southern and western U.S.. States all across the south, including Texas, show high concentrations approaching 60-70%, and states in the west such as California show about 50-60%. Midwestern states such as Illinois and Michigan show rates over 50%. The implications of this data are that these children from poor and sometimes chaotic backgrounds trail other children in educational development, are less likely to have educationally enriching activity, and more susceptible to dropping out or never attending college. Kent McGuire, president of the Southern Education Foundation says the map showing this is striking. He points to the disinclination to invest in young people today, compared to the focus on leadership in areas of creating opportunity and upward mobility in the decades of the 50's through the 80's. Michael Rebell of Teachers College at Columbia University, says reaching this point where a majority of public school children are from poor backgrounds has happened sooner, and the trend has accelerated over time. ...