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Back in the day, the working class did better in places like New York/California: wage premium plus comparatively low housing costs. That has now changed — by policy, by design, by NIMBYism. It’s really f-ing immoral and sad, and we should do something about it!

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To put this another way, states like New York are still extremely desirable as evidenced by the continuous in-flow of wealthy people. And they are also extremely expensive as evidenced by the outflow of poorer people. Housing costs = #1 expense Solution = fix housing

“Something something something taxes and crime” If you look at the data, states like New York continue to attract wealthy people while seeing an outflow of lower income people. It’s (primarily) the housing costs stupid.

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Aaron Carr @aaronacarr.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

A perfect illustration of how the progressive project is destined to fail unless blue states get their shit together on housing costs

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Today, on a day in which a notorious landlord got inaugurated into the White House, we filed the largest housing discrimination complaint in Illinois history against 165 real estate entities for housing discrimination. This is just the beginning.

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Aaron Carr @aaronacarr.bsky.social · 12/01/2025

And that’s because less traffic for drivers, less pollution for society, and more funding for transit are generally good and popular things.

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Aaron Carr @aaronacarr.bsky.social · 12/01/2025

Like every other place that has done it, congestion pricing in NYC will get significantly more popular over time: www.crainsnewyork.com/transportati...

crainsnewyork.com

Subway, bus ridership ticks up on heels of congestion pricing

A bare Midtown road within the congestion pricing zone.

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Aaron Carr @aaronacarr.bsky.social · 12/01/2025

One of the many benefits of doing congestion pricing in a city that has one of the most expansive public transportation systems in the Western Hemisphere is that you are just going to end up with a lot of banal stories like this:

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Reposted by Aaron Carr

Ben Ellman @heybellman.bsky.social · 10/01/2025

2. Buttoned up the second episode of a show I'm making with @aaronacarr.bsky.social – it's not directly related to Housing Rights, but it's also not *not* related to housing rights. Also forthcoming, tk tk and so on

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Reposted by Aaron Carr

Dee @datawizgirl.bsky.social · 29/12/2024

One of the best pieces I’ve read on homelessness is by @aaronacarr.bsky.social. Mandatory reading for anyone planning to vote: www.noahpinion.blog/p/everything...

noahpinion.blog

Everything you think you know about homelessness is wrong

A guest post by Aaron Carr.

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Aaron Carr @aaronacarr.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

Thousands upon thousands of companies across the city are running the same scheme. This is a nightmare ruling for unscrupulous real estate companies.

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Aaron Carr @aaronacarr.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

Back in 2020, our watchdog group investigated Kushner for filing fraudulent paperwork that allowed it to collect rent without meeting safety requirements, to which they responded by accusing us of “politically motivated harassment” (lol). Welp, the case was just granted class certification.

yahoo.com

Kushner tenants could score years of free rent after class action win

Kushner Companies’ Charlie Kushner and 329-335 East 9th Street (Google Maps)The East Village tenants who took on Kushner Companies, claiming the landlord illegally collected rents while putting their ...

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This number is projected to increase into the hundreds of millions. 6/

Our watchdog has now gotten back over $30 million in rent refunds (and tens of millions of dollars more in rent reductions) for taxpayers and tenants to date, and given that over 90% of the class actions in which we have generated with our law firm partners are ongoing... 5/

While I’m truly proud of our work, the government should never be relying on non-profits like ours for housing enforcement. Whatever we can do, the government could do better, if it had the political will to do much of anything at all. 4/

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Meaning this one settlement with Blackstone exceeds 5-years worth of enforcement work from an entire state housing enforcement agency. That’s very unfortunate, ineffective, and depressing! 3/

If you want a window into New York State's broken housing enforcement system, consider the fact that the State housing enforcement agency has only gotten back $13.2 million in rent refunds for tenants over a 5-year period. 2/