Podcast: What is City of Yes Zoning Reform?

In late October, I did two things for the first time:

• I attended a political rally at NYC City Hall

• I publicly testified in support of legislation

What was I supporting? City of Yes Zoning reform! City of Yes (CoY) is a set of reforms that will make it easier to add housing across New York City. It doesn’t solve the city’s housing issues and isn’t even considered major legislation, but passing it would give momentum to housing advocates who want more housing supply in New York City. And over the next 15 years, it might add 100K more units to the city.

So … what exactly is zoning reform? Recently I had the following exchange on Threads:

But I think we can go a bit further. So I fed some sources about CoY into Google’s NotebookLM to produce an AI-generated 20 minute podcast about the reforms.

I think this is a much more engaging way to learn about an otherwise dry topic, with the obvious caveat that individual facts may be a hallucination or misframed. That said, I’m hoping people who listen will at least be more curious to learn more about CoY and other housing efforts in New York City. Feel free to give it a listen!