Queens is an "open city" - anyone can live here

Image source: Pierre LaScott on Flickr

Business Insider recently ran a thought-provoking piece about housing in Queens (primarily rentals) and how there’s something for everyone and every budget in the borough – “[Queens] offers a wide variety of housing options for any person, rich or poor. For renters, there’s no shortage of affordable studios and one-bedroom apartments. Families can easily move in to single-family detached homes or duplexes.” Over and over we hear about people moving to Queens because as renters they are priced out of Brooklyn and Manhattan. There is also a range of pricing when it comes to buying property in Queens, from co-op studios in nothern Queens for under $150K to homes by the beach that sell for $5.1 million, and everything in between, despite the fact that right now Queens has the sixth highest cost of living in the country.

The point they make about Queens having a “come one, come all structure,” allowing immigrant groups to more easily influence and affect a neighborhood than in other parts of NYC is an interesting one, too, musing on a kind of malleability present in Queens. Richmond Hill was highlighted as an example, which is now home to the largest Sikh populartion in NYC and is also where many West Indian and Caribbean folks live; for a long time it was populated by various peoples with origins in Western Europe (e.g. the UK, The Netherlands, Germany).

Daniel D’Oca, an urban planner with the Brooklyn-based Interboro Partners architecture firm, recently co-authored a book, Arsenal of Exclusion and Inclusion, which discusses how certain elements of design can send a signal to certain groups that they are not welcome. He seems to think that one is less likely to find such things in Queens, which contributes to the “openness” of Queens.

City Planners Love That Queens Offers Housing To Just About Everyone [Business Insider]