New York State Housing Policy in Postwar New York City

Abstract

In postwar New York State, a powerful partnership among state government, the private sector, and quasi-public authorities resulted in the development of thousands of units of high-density middle-income housing located in New York City and a much smaller amount in other New York State cities. This housing was intended to counterbalance affordable suburban homes that were luring the middle class out of the city. This article describes this initiative and focuses on the contributions made by Nelson A. Rockefeller, governor of New York State between 1959 and 1973. The state made creative use of bond financing and public benefit corporations, raising capital with unsecured moral obligation bonds. New York State’s housing finance mechanisms facilitated a model of housing development that was prescient in its insistence on melding public and private, which is now the dominant strategy for affordable housing development in the United States.