Melissa Román Burch is New York City Economic Development Corporation’s chief operating officer—and one of the speakers at the AFIRE Annual Member Meeting in New York City this September.

https://www.afire.org/podcast/202408cast/

She says the five boroughs are home to more than a million buildings and unprecedented employment growth, with more private sector jobs than ever before. But the city’s housing crisis threatens to limit economic development.

“For more than 40 years, job growth has outpaced housing growth,” Burch tells host Gunnar Branson, AFIRE CEO. “This is a multi-decade problem… that has reached an inflection point.” Rental-unit vacancy rate is down to a historic low, around 1.4%, she says, while at the same time, the office sector faces occupancy challenges, with more than 100 million square feet sitting empty.

To address the housing crisis, the city has unveiled a housing moonshot—a goal to build 500,000 new units over the next decade, about double the typical rate of supply.

Exactly how the city will go about achieving that, on some of the most expensive real estate in the world, is topic number one in our latest podcast episode, now streaming on all podcast platforms.