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I wish that was true, but over the past two decades of my consulting engineering career I've seen hospitals and universities--facilities with some of the largest and most complex MEP systems--reduced to a fraction of the skilled maintenance staff they once employed. They've been virtually gutted. That doesn't bode well for less demanding systems.

Specific to residential construction, given the attractive low first-cost of PTAC systems--a half-assed design trend that has only been growing--I'm not remotely optimistic that large developers will adjust their strategies since it would mean less profit.

Co-gen? Chiller plants? For people cages in the sky? I agree they make good engineering sense but I'm doubtful. I suspect that in the long term, these projects will mostly employ the working poor.

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More like pricing people out and it is perfectly legal. "Hey whats in your wallet ?"

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And HVAC mechanics, electricians, painting contractors, building engineers... High rise residential will provide steady work for the people I listed. Employment goes to skilled and semi-skilled trades long after the architects and iron workers have left.

The bigger the complexes the better: You get economy of scale to justify more complex HVAC systems. For example: it becomes worth it to install cogeneration and central chiller systems opposed to those PTAC units (heat pumps) that are so popular is mid sized residential developments. The guys who maintain the big systems make in the $35 to $50 per hour range.

Just another example of gentrification.
However its more like socio-economic and ethnic cleansing !

The new residential towers about to go up at Harborside & 99 Hudson & 70 & 90 Columbus are expensive and well-designed and will incorporate some great retail and hotel rooms.

Definitely NOT "Fast & Cheap"!

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There?s no demand for new office buildings. Developers have shifted their attention to fast-and-cheap residential construction, so hooray for maids, janitors, security guards, parking attendants, doormen, and dog walkers.

The analysis by this guy is so absurdly flawed; its hard to know where to start, or whether it is even worth discussing.

Its strange how parochial he is; he appears to in favor of discrimination based on where people live.

So let me get this straight: next time a developer wants to build an office building downtown, Jersey City government should only allow it if the developer will hire X number of city residents. My goodness, that's an invitation to corruption. Its practically an overt request for corruption.

Would the author of this report have opposed people from outside JC getting jobs downtown if they were poor? Probably not. So he's basically saying that, if a city's average household income is, say, $40K at time 1, the city should then decide to freeze it at that level by passing policies that make it difficult for richer people to move in.

Its all pretty ridiculous. The dead weight loss from all of these policies would be staggering.

I agree that the government plays an important role in ameliorating the condition of the poor and reducing inequality. But these are tasks best dealt with by increasing redistribution by increasing taxes on the well-off in order to increase the Earned Income Tax Credit. On the other hand, local government policies of steering businesses and residences in a particular direction to privilege current residents of a city at the expense of those who wish to move in is a recipe for disaster.

75k is towards the lower end of middle class in NYC metro area. It might be considered "high" income in West Virginia.

"the number of residents earning more than $75,000 a year has skyrocketed, the report finds."

That's pretty much the definition of "middle class." In fact, for a household around here, it's probably close to the floor for that vaguely defined category. That one sentence seems to disprove the paper's premise.

This whole thing sounds half-baked. I'd be more impressed if it was coming from an economics professor and not a sociologist.

Ooooo this is gonna be an entertaining and fun one to keep reading! I cannot resist - I should, but I just cannot! So Prof. Malone works here in JC but goes home to Maplewood. So? Okay. I know a few developers that have done a lot of good for JC and also go home at night to towns in Essex county and beyond. So what does any of this mean really? Does it even mean anything?

http://www.nj.com/jjournal-news/index ... versity.html#incart_river
Saint Peter's University sociology prof says city's top-down policies shrink middle class