New York Rent Controlled Buildings

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Photo. Not a New York building.

Going to college in New York City? You get two scoops of education. Your field of study - let’s say journalism - and education about New York, a country, within a country. You heard me right. Of course it’s a city, but it has its own ‘legislation’ written down or just understood.

That is where I found rent controlled buildings. How is that possible, when New York is where money lives? The New York Stock Exchange is right there, where men play poker with lives of the whole world, selling cocoa, coffee, tea, oil, gold, platinum, pork bellies, seafood, corn not yet planted and more.

Books triggered the interest in rent controlled buildings. New York is the cradle of book publishing, English books that is. I don’t know how many books I’ve read where characters lived in rent controlled buildings. They seem to be run like villages, with ‘understood’ norms like who can live there. Being rich is a prerequisite. Ironic isn’t it? Men and women who can afford rent, stifle it.

Selective capitalism if you ask me. High rise buildings increase the rent every year, and it’s the law, but workers have to go on strike to keep up with the cost of bread, peanut butter and winter boots.

Nonqaba waka Msimang

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