Submitted by Scott Baker, Oct 17, 2007 12:14

Less attention is being paid to the downside of this building boom - the shortage of construction workers. This has been going on for a while, as Americans opt for cushier indoor jobs. With the Administration's ham-handed immigration poiicy discouraging immigrants - legal or not - from working in the visible building trade, we will be even more short of valuable construction workers. Higher wages won't fix this; they are already high and there simply are not enough people willing to fill these jobs. You can see the results in places like the Greenway, where the construction has essentially stopped from 60-63 street (there was even a $30,000 theft from this semi-deserted site). We need meaningful immigration reform, an opening up of the building trades by their unions, and promotion of these labor intensive yet high-paying jobs.

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