The Poor Will Always Be With Us. But Where Will We Let Them Live?

Bill de Blasio became the mayor of New York in large part because he, better than anyone else in the running, was able to convince the city’s voters that he understood how tough life is for ordinary folks out there. “A tale of two cities” was his rallying cry, and he repeated it in every stump speech throughout his somewhat unlikely march to victory.

He would make things better, he promised. He would enact policies that made life easier for the working stiffs of New York, a constituency that felt ignored by his billionaire predecessor, Michael Bloomberg. Topping the new mayor’s agenda was the creation of more affordable housing. He promised to create or preserve 200,000 units through mechanisms such as mandatory inclusionary zoning, which would require developers to build a certain percentage of “affordable” apartments in order to reap the rewards of constructing the unaffordable ones that rich people are snapping up at prices rivaling any in the world.