Why “you don’t deserve to live in New York” is no excuse for the status quo

Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro has received some publicity for stating: “If you can’t afford to live here [in New York City]  maybe  you should not live here.”  From the standpoint of advice to individuals, this statement of course makes perfect sense: if New York rents rose high enough, I might consider moving elsewhere.

But every so often, I see this idea used as an argument why today’s rent inflation is not a problem significant enough to justify zoning deregulation (or any change to the status quo).  Some argue that it is perfectly acceptable to have metro areas that zone out everyone but rich people, because no one “deserves” to live in any particular place.*

Even this view has a grain of truth.  In any city there will be richer neighborhoods and poorer ones, and the richer ones will have higher rents.  So I concede that not everyone can afford an unlimited amount of space in any neighborhood.

But this is not the same thing as saying NO neighborhood in New York (or any other high-cost city) should be affordable to less affluent people.   To see why this is a bad idea even for its so-called beneficiaries, let’s engage in a thought experiment: let’s suppose that all five boroughs of New York and all counties bordering them became so expensive that no one earning under $300,000 could live there.  These high-earners would probably need a lot of not-so-high earners to support them: for example, plumbers, electricians, doormen for residents of high-end apartment buildings, cleaners of office buildings, teachers for children, etc.  There is no reason why all of these lower/middle income workers need to be spread evenly throughout the city’s neighborhoods: however, if all of them had to live in outer suburbs such as Suffolk or Orange County, the city’s own (rich) residents would be gravely inconvenienced.  Two-hour commutes would mean that these service personnel would be frequently unable to get to work on time, their cars would clog up the streets if they drove, and improving commuter transit so that more exurbanites could reach city jobs would impose costs on taxpayers.

Moreover, New Yorkers would not be the only losers from my imaginary high-cost city.  Middle-income workers priced out of the five boroughs would move not just to New York’s outer suburbs but to other states and regions.  And as these rent refugees moved to other states and cities, they would compete with those places’ preexisting residents for housing, thus increasing demand and bidding up the price for housing anywhere they moved.  In other words, high New York rents aren’t just New York’s problem: they are the nation’s problem, because New York refugees bid up prices throughout the nation.

*This tweet seems to be an example of that mentality.