NY housing market splits the city in two

New York

NEW York City has added an estimated 488,478 housing units since 1991. For a city that has added 1.1 million jobs over that same period, that's not great, but it's not terrible, either.

Where things get complicated - and in some ways less encouraging - is in exactly what kind of housing it has added.

These numbers are from the New York City Housing and Vacancy Survey conducted for the city every three years by the US Census Bureau.

Full data from the 2017 edition won't be outuntil this summer, but the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development has prepared a summary of the major findings that was presented at a recent City Council meeting.

After being tipped off to its existence on Twitter by Daily News editorial board member Alyssa Katz, I start digging into past such reports. The data do much to put the city's strange housing market in perspective. There is an increase of 488,478 units since 1991; and the data show different categories have been growing at much different rates. (The Census Bureau surveys just a sample of New York City housing units, so be aware that all the numbers are estimates subject t…