But a funny thing happened on the way to urban sprawl: Suddenly, residents like myself also had a plethora of local options for food and entertainment \u2014 and we didn\u2019t have to venture into \u2018The City\u2019 unless we really needed or wanted to.<\/p>\n
Whether it\u2019s called gentrification (an imprecation that really shouldn\u2019t be) or \u2018Yes in My Backyard<\/a>,\u2019 one of the lessons I derived from a lifetime spent in New York City is that large-scale residential construction \u2015 often fraught with the politics of class and race \u2015 is beneficial in the long run to neighborhoods. It\u2019s not cheap, but it does create more options and improves the area\u2019s vitality.<\/p>\n D-FW Real Estate News<\/p>\n By signing up, you agree to our\u00a0Terms of Service<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n It\u2019s one of the reasons why Nicholas Wooten\u2019s cover story on SB840<\/a> makes for such a fascinating read. It\u2019s a case study in how even a pro-business, construction-friendly state like Texas isn\u2019t immune to \u2018NIMBY\u2019 public pressure campaigns that upend the best-laid development plans. <\/p>\n Although a legal battle against a mixed-use development in Far North Dallas was unsuccessful, the group that spearheaded the campaign blasted the new law as a \u201csweeping sledgehammer\u201d that doesn\u2019t resolve the area\u2019s lack of affordable housing. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just a developer\u2019s dream for them to go in and not have to deal with local governments,\u201d Matt Bach told Wooten.<\/p>\n The forces arrayed against endless sprawl and high-end housing have legitimate concerns about affordability \u2014 the single biggest, and most persuasive, argument against many large-scale projects.<\/p>\n But using New York City as a lens, bear with me as I simultaneously out myself as a YIMBYist (if that\u2019s even a word?) and hark back to my graduate school capstone project<\/a> on Big Apple rent control programs<\/a> \u2014 to explain why a booming population in need of affordable housing needs more market-driven supply. <\/p>\n New York City has a time-honored tradition of embracing policies designed to make life easier on the working class, but inevitably worsens quality of life, and makes things more expensive for everyone. Meanwhile, the city\u2019s widely criticized rent control laws<\/a> create market distortions that don\u2019t resolve the fundamental problem. It\u2019s a dog\u2019s breakfast that pits landlords\/developers against renters in an unproductive, endless war of words.<\/p>\n And it\u2019s not just apartments. If you\u2019ve ever wondered why a NYC hotel room is so expensive, witness how the city has simultaneously banned Airbnb<\/a> and placed stringent restrictions on hotels<\/a> that create significant hurdles<\/a> for new entrants into the market.<\/p>\n Jay Martin, the executive vice president of the New York Apartment Association<\/a>, spends a lot of time on X educating the public<\/a> about why the solution to sky-high prices is to let developers, well \u2026 build more supply. <\/p>\n He and other \u2018YIMBY\u2019 proponents<\/a> argue that New York\u2019s patchwork of rent regulations have come at a substantial cost to those who need it most. Among other things, the status quo deprives landlords \u2014 many of whom aren\u2019t major developers, but \u2018mom and pop\u2019 investors<\/a> that rent for supplemental income \u2014 of the means to fix their properties. <\/p>\n Bringing it back to the Dallas-Fort Worth, there are lesson here for well-intentioned neighborhood activists who fight for affordability and the preservation of an area\u2019s character. <\/p>\n Protests and lawsuits can be useful, and they are their own form of market regulation that attracts attention, galvanizes the public and concentrates the minds of elected officials. But they can also be counterproductive to accomplishing what a housing crisis needs the most: building more units.<\/p>\n For my adopted hometown, I\u2019ll close with a plea that doubles as a word of advice. D-FW has a hard-earned reputation as a builders\u2019 town, but should avoid making the same mistakes as my former city did. For the sake of alleviating the affordable housing crunch, please \u2014 let a thousand new apartment buildings bloom. <\/p>\n If you don\u2019t, you may live to regret it. New York City certainly has, in more ways than one.<\/p>\n Here are the latest leases, sales and deals in North Texas<\/p>\n Texas has the sixth-highest insurance burden of any state in the U.S. plus Washington, D.C., according to MoneyGeek.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Yorkers of a certain era who lived in the outer boroughs recall a time when we used…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":415013,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5135],"tags":[5229,1596,79,25622,4329,44284,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-415012","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-dallas","10":"tag-economy","11":"tag-future-of-north-texas-population","12":"tag-real-estate","13":"tag-real-estate-investment","14":"tag-texas","15":"tag-tx","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-united-states-of-america","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115638589702729628","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=415012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/415013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"This](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/HBDLNF4KRLH55ROXWJKNFHSWHI.jpg\")
<\/a>$836.5M data center planned near Love Field and other D-FW real estate news<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Tree](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/NHJKLFTBXFDULEDEVBCWBPVWQU.jpg\")
<\/a>Texans pay more for insurance than almost every other state, according to report<\/a><\/p>\n