Brooklyn Development Boom

New York City has had a long, turbulent succession of evils in regards to the city's housing stock. In the 1940's, the federal government set forth in setting rent levels and the result caused a nationwide decline in housing construction, made worse by a migration to cities by workers seeking employment in defense industries.In many urban areas, the housing market tightened and manifested an epidemic of overcrowding and rapid rent increases. As Ronald Lawson noted in his piece "Tenant Responses to the Urban Housing Crisis, 1970-1984", the late 1960's and early 1970's witnessed severe urban decay and increased abandonment of the housing stock throughout New York City. Studies found that the housing decline was due to an economic chasm between the controlled rents landlords received and the costs associated with maintaining their buildings. Neglected properties caused concern for unsafe conditions, abandonment fires, and vandalism, and thwarted prospects for new development. The system of rent regulations was scrutinized, and a law enacted by state legislature in 1971 provided that rent regulation would be phased out over a period of years for the majority of apartments throughout New York City, despite a measure passed by the city council the prior year that introduced a system of annual rent increases for rent controlled apartments. For tenants of stable working-class and lower-middle class neighborhoods, deregulation spawned new concerns. Tenant displacement and threats of gentrification were marked by evictions of non-purchasing tenants of cooperative conversions, and pressure by landlords for tenants to move so that units could be decontrolled and raised to market levels.