There is no scarcity of housing space in NYC. NYC is a very large city. About 80% of it is low rises. If you want to increase the housing supply, you an do just that: you approve more building permits. 10 or 20 or even 50 sky scrappers will not change the availability of land in NYC.
Yes, and the current zoning / city council / NIMBYism death triangle means most development is poorly located.
In expensive parts of Northwest Brooklyn & Queens, the waterfront which is a 15 minute walk to the subway was zoned to put up a ton of 40+ story residential towers. It's far enough away that many of them run private shuttle busses to the subway.
Meanwhile the subway station (Bedford Ave particularly) that you walk to from said waterfront is surrounded by 3-4 story buildings.. as is most of the walk there.
The difference is there were already people in those 3-4 story buildings to show up to city council meetings & whine about any zoning changes, unlike the previously industrial water front.
