NIMBY wrap-up for the week of Tuesday, August 20th

Cheers to the New Yorker for this wonderful piece of data visualization about income inequality and New York City's subway.

This story about an upper west side development with a "poor door"--a separate door for the 55 tenants who make 60% or less of area median income--has certainly been making the rounds this week, and even solicited comments from Christine Quinn, who, in a letter to state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, and state Senate Majority Leaders Dean Skelos and Jeffrey Klein, said that the building's plan “negates the inclusiveness the program seeks to create." The silver lining here is that this egregious exclusionary practice sparked Councilman Robert Jackson to propose legislation that would require that developers who get any form of city affordable-housing subsidy would be required to provide the same services — including entrances, amenities and utilities — for all tenants.

We will admit that we had never heard of the NUISANCE PROPERTY ORDINANCE until the NYTimes wrote this horrific piece about it on Friday. This is definitely worth a read.

Also from the NYTimes, here's a fascinating piece about the trials of being Hasidic in a modern metropolis. In our forthcoming book we take up this issue in essays about the ERUV, the SUKKAH BALCONY, and the AUTOMATIC ELEVATOR--all tactics that enable Hasids to stay true to their Orthodox beliefs (for example, not operating machinery or carrying things across property lines on the Sabbath)--but this article suggests more tactics, from the more or less benign (the use of well water to make matzos) to the egregious (gender-segregated buses).