After $238M condo sale, calls for pied-à-terre tax are renewed
ALReady have mansion tax ANd transfer taxes . If rich buy pay mansion tax then monthly property tax but don the live here and don’t use any services like mta schools …why should they be punished ? City has a gravy train just by sell8ng it’s air above the city . Money grows on air for city revs ….they get money AND don’t dont provide a thing for these oligarchs
That note about buying isn’t quite right. In upper Manhattan, one can buy a spacious 2br co-op, accessible to multiple subway lines, for south of 500k. More than affordable for most two income households with very average savings. The outer boroughs can be even cheaper.
I guess if you’re fussy about elevators, parking, ducted air and whatnot, then sure, the prices stack up. But ‘unaffordable’ is a misrepresentation.
Lower East Side one-bedroom with outdoor space seeks $775K
"And all the "south" facing windows? They face a narrow air shaft, the BOTTOM of a narrow air shaft, meaning zero daylight."
AND the pervasive smell of mildew after it rains. AND, if your neighbors are @ssholes, the sight and stench of garbage they toss out the window into the shaft. (I know because I used to live in a first floor apartment with windows facing an airshaft. Yuck.)
Lower East Side one-bedroom with outdoor space seeks $775K
I agree it’s a small and oppressive. On the other hand, if you want to live in this area, this is not a bad block, as there are none of the popular bars and restaurants on it to keep you awake, unless Beauty & Essex (fun place!) uses the neighboring air shaft or leaves its windows open.
Congestion pricing is the only way to fix our broken transportation system
ALYSSAWALKER CONT’D — Human beings on Earth do not need to be saved from carbon dioxide gas emissions. We could use less smog, but carbon dioxide does NOT cause smog. Carbon MONOXIDE causes smog.
Greenhouse Effect from carbon dioxide gas is practically zero. Only 4 molecules per 10,000 air molecules are carbon dioxide. This is so sparse that there is no way for carbon dioxide molecules to blockade heat radiation in the atmosphere. Clouds are the primary cause of atmospheric Greenhouse Effect. Yet you have no concern about the heating that clouds cause. You can get sunburn on a cloudy day from Greenhouse Effect. You also need to pay attention to VOLCANOES. Four erupted last year around the world. Molten material has been detected near the surface in the Arctic Circle. That is why there was a heat wave in the Arctic last summer.
If you think that campaigning to get people to give up cars is "cool," doing so comes with a steep political price. In 2009, President Obama took over bankrupt General Motors and gave 20% of the company to the United Auto Workers union. Obama wanted more black and Latino Americans to buy cars. The former GMAC Financing is still government-run today, though the government has sold its stake in GM. 0% loans and repayment time up to 8 years has encouraged MORECARS and BIGGERCARS. If you get Americans out of cars, the UAW’s many well-to-do black members shall lose their livelihood. Black activists are likely to claim that unseen White Supremacists plotted to take their cars away.
Given how the cost of living keeps rising and federal inflation data always denies there is much inflation, meeting ends meet shall become increasingly impossible. Thus, we’ll ironically end up giving up driving when we can’t afford to maintain or insure our old cars. Maybe we’ll LIVE in them from rent being too high. Government subsidy drives prices even higher, or else subsidy would have cured poverty in the 1970’s.
Just don’t expect us to believe that getting rid of cars will by itself make us happy. When there are nearly no cars on the road any longer, it’ll be a NATIONALTRAGEDY.