Increase in arson fires. War years 2.0

[10-75K]

I did search before make sure it's not getting repeated.

With the new administration and there radical policies and Weaver farting from her mouth, can this lead to the war years repeating itself. Owners that are not on the up and up with their property taxes and mortgage could be targeted but owners that are up to date or current on property taxes and mortgage being paid on time they will be OK.
The owners that are feeling pressure from the city feel they rather burn the property get the insurance money and bounce.
And some owners might set their own building on fire out of spite or is this whole different kind of circumstances compared to the 70s

 

[NikFDNY]

I did search before make sure it's not getting repeated.

With the new administration and there radical policies and Weaver farting from her mouth, can this lead to the war years repeating itself. Owners that are not on the up and up with their property taxes and mortgage could be targeted but owners that are up to date or current on property taxes and mortgage being paid on time they will be OK.
The owners that are feeling pressure from the city feel they rather burn the property get the insurance money and bounce.
And some owners might set their own building on fire out of spite or is this whole different kind of circumstances compared to the 70s

This seems like a different set of circumstances, especially as crime citywide hits a low. Including the least amount of shootings in recorded history, obviously this can change but as of current that's how it's going.

Secondly housing is in still in such a demand that it's probably not only easier to sell the building but would even possibly pay more then insurance, on top of the fact that it no longer is the 1970s, and I'm sure the fire marshals have gotten much better at their jobs.

A big reason housing in the 70s wasn't nessecsrily as demanded was due to a large amount of the population leaving the city paired with the increasing crime.

 

[3511]

I believe you guys are missing the real reason for the arson of the 1960s and '70s... Rent control.

Rent control was a program started during World War II to protect families whose breadwinners were off to war. WW2 put an end to the Great Depression. Factories started manufacturing and wages went up. Laborers flooded to these jobs in the cities, and housing came into greater demand. Rents began to rise, forcing the service members families out.

Rent control was implemented in a lot of cities in the country to protect the families left behind by the service members. By 1950 just about all of them have lifted rent control except for, you got it, liberal/socialist New York.

By the early 1960s, as the cost of energy to heat the buildings and repairs to the aging infrastructure began to rise, landlords were prohibited from raising rents to match the rising costs. The landlords who had maintained these buildings while making a reasonable profit were now losing big time dollars on their investments. Guess what?... They bailed out, by hiring arsonists (anybody remember Gasoline Gomez in the South Bronx?) or just abandoning them.

Families moved out in droves
Nobody cared about their neighborhoods anymore and then came the crime, as the broken windows theory was to prove three decades later.

 

[entropychaser]

3511's observations are correct. Everyone knows price controls are terrible yet rent control persists. The problem in New York is there are more renters than landlords voting. It has been said that the only thing more effective than rent control to destroy housing stock in a city is aerial bombing.

NYCHA also contributes to the problem. They are cost insensitive and block private (property tax paying) investment on otherwise desirable land. At the same time this keeps poor people from accumulating wealth from home ownership that they could pass on to their heirs (just like Social Security).

By the way, NYCHA has just spent $1,973 per apartment to install LED light bulbs. This makes tree-huggers' hearts sing with joy. Even better, the tenants will not only feel, but see better, that they have no heat this winter.