Westchester County in US bustling with developments

New York

FOR decades, Westchester County's cities seemed stuck in a peculiar limbo, too sleepy to be New York, too gritty to be suburban.

But as a housing crunch continues to grip neighbourhoods in Manhattan and Brooklyn, some midsize cities just north of New York are pushing to take advantage.

In a flurry of activity, developers are adding apartments, stores, restaurants, theatres and even a brewery to Mount Vernon, New Rochelle and Yonkers, where local leaders are embracing aggressive growth policies.

"The question is: What took them so long?" Marco Lala, a commercial real estate broker at the firm Marcus & …