Source: New York Times —
For years, elected officials from across the political spectrum in New York City have scored points by attacking a common enemy: Real estate developers.
Politicians routinely quashed projects. Some officials argued they were protecting a neighborhood’s character and property values. Others said they were fighting corporate greed. On Friday, a left-leaning City Council member, Julie Won, said she would oppose a big new project in her Queens district, calling it a “gentrification accelerator.”
But a housing shortage and affordability crisis may be changing the political calculus for some progressives who have traditionally been among the most fervent critics of the real estate industry.
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who opposed the construction of an Amazon campus near her district, said recently that she would support local officials who make way for more housing, and a number of City Council members on the left have embraced new developments, even in cases where most of the units would not be affordable for working-class New Yorkers.
