From the Editor

Shabnam Mogharabi, Editor

I salute Long Island. Yesterday, a colleague forwarded me a story from Newsday that I found fascinating. The article discussed a recent report showing that Long Islanders would gladly trade their single-family homes for multifamily residences in high-density, transit-oriented neighborhoods. According to the Long Island Index, a poll of more than 1,100 people conducted by the Stony Brook University Center for Survey Research, 38 percent of residents could imagine themselves living in a downtown multifamily unit; 56 percent would support state incentives to encourage higher housing density.

Isn’t that a turn of the tides! For decades, Long Island was the ultimate New York suburb, luring families to the “dark side” of sprawl with its picket fences and carpools. Now, residents are eager for a change—and the area has the capacity to deliver. The Index predicts that the region will need to create between 7,000 and 8,000 new housing units annually simply to accommodate population growth and replace aging homes. Thankfully, the report estimates that Long Island downtowns can accommodate 100,000 new units in the next 25 years.

Kudos to the researchers for asking relevant questions about the issues that so many municipalities in this country fail to consider. The reality is that housing, density, and fighting urban sprawl will be one of the greatest challenges the United States will face in the next century. More and more citizens want to live responsibly, and multifamily housing is often their first stop. It seems to me that Long Island is a microcosm reflecting the shifting sentiments of the nation. And I think that’s worthy of recognition.

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