There is an affordable-housing crisis across America. As of June, the median sale price of a home in the United States was nearly $400,000. In large cities, the cost of homeownership is significantly higher. The median apartment in Manhattan sells for well over $1 million...
There is a huge exception to this problem: Co-op City.
Co-op City, in the northeast Bronx in New York, is the largest housing cooperative in the United States, containing 15,372 apartments in 35 high-rises and seven low-rise townhouse clusters. Today, residents of the smallest three-room apartments pay an equity deposit of $22,500 to buy into the cooperative and thereafter $751 in monthly carrying charges, which include utilities. Even the residents of the largest 6.5-room apartments pay less than $1,700/month. Co-op City’s raison d’etre has always been affordability. It may provide both a model and a cautionary tale for communities facing crises of housing affordability across the country.
Read the rest at The Washington Post
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