New York’s New Electorate
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

Here’s a heads up for Mayor Bloomberg, who has been trying to distance himself from President Bush. New York’s growing “ownership society” is transforming the electorate and the mayor is reaping the benefits as he prepares to cruise to easy reelection. Homeownership is on the rise, and even among the ranks of renters reductions in the proportion of rent-controlled or rent-stabilized units are bringing more New Yorkers into contact with market forces and thus with their government.
According to the latest edition of the triennial New York City Housing and Vacancy Survey, about 32.4% of housing units in the city were owner-occupied in 2002.That’s up from 30.7% in 1999, 28.6% in 1996, and 27.7% in 1993. While new construction increased during that span, conversions of older rental units to condos and co-ops also played a role, accounting for anywhere between 20% and 30% of new condo or co-op units each year in the first part of this decade, according to data from the state attorney general’s office cited in the Rent Guideline Board’s 2005 Housing Supply Report. New York still lags on homeownership, however; for example, in Chicago, the percentage of housing units that were owner-occupied soared to 43.8% in 2000 from 41.5% in 1990.
Those who continue to rent are somewhat more likely to pay market rates, too. Following rent reform in 1997, the percentage of New Yorkers paying market rates for their apartments has climbed to 36.4% in 2002 after hovering between 32% and 33% between 1993 and 1999. The change is even more noticeable on a borough-by-borough basis. In 2002, 23.7% of Manhattan rental units were renting at market rates, up from 17% in 1993. Queens increased its proportion to 49% from 45.6%.
These numbers would be noteworthy enough as signs of progress in a sclerotic housing market, but are a volcano in the making for candidates with an interest in the impact that market-rate renting and homeownership can have on voters’ attitudes. A chief adviser to Mayor Bloomberg’s campaign, Bill Cunningham, told us that this phenomenon was on the mayor’s electoral radar screen even before the election began. While admitting that he doesn’t know precisely how to quantify the effect, Mr. Cunningham notes that homeownership creates a shared interest in neighborhoods by investing people in their communities. He points out that rates of homeownership are increasing the fastest among African Americans and Hispanics, groups of voters that have been supporting the Republican Mr. Bloomberg in unusual numbers this cycle.
Opinions differ on how much an effect the rising wave of ownership and market rate renting is having. One veteran political observer, Fred Siegel, speculated that it partly explains Anthony Weiner’s surge and close second-place finish in the Democratic primary; Mr. Weiner was particularly aggressive in courting the middle class with a tax-cut proposal. However, rather than a sea change, home ownership might merely cause Upper West Side liberals to become slightly less liberal, Mr. Siegel says.
A Manhattan Institute scholar and author of “America’s Trillion-Dollar Housing Mistake,” Howard Husock, says the effects of market housing are likely much more subtle and work over a longer time span, particularly in New York. The city benefits from a commercial tax base that makes every other metropolis in the country green with envy. As a result, property taxes, as bad as they are here, are still not as heavy as in other large cities, and the full cost of city government is less obvious to homeowners. Mr. Husock suggests that the long-term effect might come when voters start pressuring politicians to preserve that commercial tax base by encouraging economic growth.
All that being said, political trends are complex and defy explanation by single demographic statistics like homeownership rates, as one expert in housing and development, Peter Salins, cautioned us. Mr. Salins attributes the popularity of Mayors Giuliani and Bloomberg to a rising sense that good management is important in City Hall. While being ever more invested in housing will reinforce that sense, that investment on its own may not be enough to turn a political tide.
While arguments about the scope of the homeownership effect continue, the effect itself becomes ever more noticeable. Property taxes have been a major bone of contention for the Bloomberg camp as critics point to the mayor’s property tax hike and the mayor touts his rebate program. Even Fernando Ferrer got in on the act with a property-tax cutting proposal of his own over the weekend, although it may come too late to do him much good on election day. A rising tide may lift all boats, but when that tide is homeownership it can change politics, too.