A Note on Content
Intentions for what Range NYC will and will not cover.
(Source: Charles and Ray Eames "The Powers of Ten,” 1977)
Welcome to Range NYC; this post is the right place to start.
Before getting into content, it’s essential to outline some expectations for what Range NYC will cover. This publication intends to remain broad while going deep. What do we mean by that? Range NYC will have a specific and tight geographic focus on the five boroughs of New York City while looking holistically at the varied inputs, incentives, policies, and technologies that create our city's built environment.
Range NYC will publish on topics ranging from specific and technical construction details to diffuse and general policy decisions.
The image above is from Charles and Ray Eames’ short video “The Powers of Ten,” which the couple made in 1977. If you have not seen it before, it’s well worth watching. The short documentary explores the concept of scale through a logarithmic progression based on powers of ten and highlights the relationship between micro and macro scales. Range NYC will endeavor to do the same.
When we refer to New York City or the city, Range NYC specifically refers to the five boroughs. We are not talking about the New York City metropolitan area. Generally, keeping a tight geographic focus is meant to achieve two aims:
NYC is the market we know best, and to the extent that Range NYC is qualified to provide any commentary, it is the market we are most qualified to comment on with any insight.
Focusing on NYC will allow for metrics continuity, such as keeping the population denominator consistent across posts. Range NYC will frequently explore ideas around a topic in several posts. For example, we may develop a topic such as the relationship between the city’s Real Property tax levy and housing affordability over several posts. Keeping the geographic scope consistent should allow someone reading this publication to easily cross-reference between posts and topic areas.
We will not speculate on state, federal, or international real estate, development, construction, policy, or urbanism. Instead, we will stay focused, aiming to go deeper and provide more value to those reading Range NYC’s posts by keeping a tight focus.
Range NYC is a work in progress and will develop over time. Expect that early posts will be rougher, and as time goes on, the writing will get tighter and the depth deeper.
Range NYC will have an editorial bias toward data and pragmatism. That may come at the cost of contextualizing, convincing or arguing a specific line of thought. Because we often do not start with a formed opinion, we’ll trust the available information and endeavor to reach reasoned conclusions through research.
Thank you for being here. Let’s see where this goes together.
Ever upward.
looking forward to the posts.