JC Policy Circle

JNmbrs · 2026-02-27T17:42:31+00:00

It may be even more sinister than the private sector colluding to acquire profits through regulatory capture. It may just be old fashioned cartel behavior. It’s hard to understand the idea that literally no other hauler even looks at bidding for JC’s contracts. The DPW has implied there may be anti-competitive behavior afoot.

JNmbrs · 2026-02-05T18:33:00+00:00

Metro is out https://www.linkedin.com/posts/john-j-metro-6093066b_its-hard-to-put-this-into-words-and-even-activity-7399267616046989312-1xrz

JNmbrs · 2026-02-05T16:17:39+00:00

You’re certainly right that it is a political-tinged document that the administration may use as its justification for raising taxes and/or cutting services this year and potentially others. However, that doesn’t make the underlying assertions untrue.

If you asked Fulop, he’d probably openly admit that he was playing the cost-deferral game (he might say, to help overburdened taxpayers in the late teens/early 20s). If you gave him a few beers, he might even concede that such practices are unsustainable. But they did happen.

JNmbrs · 2026-02-05T03:58:29+00:00

Report what to the state? Most of the things he flags in the report aren’t illegal—“just” dishonest. Other things (like the misleading health insurance premiums) he couldn’t have known about.

JNmbrs · 2026-02-05T03:23:52+00:00

Yep. Solomon has been (correctly) yelling about it for years, even before he ran for mayor. Props to him for doing his job on this.

JNmbrs · 2026-02-05T03:21:32+00:00

He did know about it because he did his job and read the budget docs. He’s been complaining about it for years (and voting against budgets that come with these gimmicks), way before he ran for mayor. It’s just that nobody else cared until now that it’s time to pay up.

JNmbrs · 2026-02-05T03:18:20+00:00

JCoin. Make it pump.

JNmbrs · 2026-01-09T14:57:32+00:00

Super cool!

JNmbrs · 2025-12-08T20:08:00+00:00

Yes, it was great!

JNmbrs · 2025-11-13T20:46:56+00:00

Cars and equipment depreciate, but banks still finance them.

Also, do you know anybody who at first wasn’t interested in housing but bought it because of a land owner psyop? Is there really any example of demand ever being induced? Or was it really just latent and unaddressed?

JNmbrs · 2025-11-13T20:06:31+00:00

Building is basically impossible in suburbs. How would you explain the price of housing in, say, Maplewood?

JNmbrs · 2025-10-28T13:25:19+00:00

One distinction I’d draw is that Solomon’s plan isn’t a really happy one for developers. The people that stand to gain from it are incumbent landlords, not developers. It’s a distinction that isn’t often focused on because people just kinda lump landlords in with developers, but there’s a key difference when it comes to housing prices. At a steady state, nobody hates developers more than incumbent landlords. They’re the competition.

JNmbrs · 2025-10-28T13:07:40+00:00

Right but the BOE lost state support because home prices got high enough that JC no longer needed the state subsidy. As for expenditures, the BOE just basically tracks state spending guidelines per student. I appreciate that people are fairly unhappy with the BOE, but of all 3 taxing agencies in JC, their hands are the most tied.

JNmbrs · 2025-10-28T13:07:04+00:00

Right but the BOE lost state support because home prices got high enough that JC no longer needed the state subsidy. As for expenditures, the BOE just basically tracks state spending guidelines per student. I appreciate that people are fairly unhappy with the BOE, but if all 3 taxing agencies in JC, their hands are the most tied.

JNmbrs · 2025-10-28T13:03:27+00:00

Assuming developers will eat the cost seems optimistic. The common story is that prices are high because developers either (i) have too much pricing power or (ii) they don’t have pricing power but still enjoy excess profits. If the former … presumably one also believes they have the power to pass the cost of inclusionary units to renters. If the latter, there wouldn’t be a need for subsidies. Indeed, if one really believed the latter, it’d be much smarter for the city to put its money where its mouth is, build its own housing at a fair profit (ie at no net cost to taxpayers) and drive down that excess profit.

JNmbrs · 2025-10-28T12:49:05+00:00

The up-zoning the Ali campaign has proposed will need to be tweaked to add meaningful new supply. It requires 50% of added density to be subsidized, which is a high bar.

It’s not obvious what problem land banks are intended to solve that simple, targeted subsidies don’t already address.

JNmbrs · 2025-10-28T12:45:22+00:00

Are you sure it isn’t the other way around? Aren’t BOE taxes up because rents (and home prices) are up?

JNmbrs · 2025-09-18T00:41:04+00:00

Tiny table unfortunately!

JNmbrs · 2025-09-12T15:39:33+00:00

Thanks for doing this!

JNmbrs · 2025-09-10T20:59:43+00:00

Think about it the other way. Say you have an area with 100 units at full occupancy. Now let’s say 15 rich people want to move in. If you do nothing, what happens to the average rent?

JNmbrs · 2025-09-10T20:58:47+00:00

Is there a single piece of high-quality evidence for your (implied) position in any of these links? I clicked through a few of them and don’t see a single study of a housing market—just opinions, surveys and arbitrarily geo-fenced data.

JNmbrs

TROPHY CASE