The Financial District may finally become a residential neighborhood. Pretty much since its inception, this area has been solely for work (and maybe for those workers’ happy hours). But now, everywhere you look a new residential building is springing up.

Unfortunately, as seems to be the case with most new housing projects I’ve noticed around the city, these building are all ultra-luxury housing. $700,000 for a studio. Yeah. In the buildings is everything you could possibly want, pool, gym, jacuzzi, rooftop garden, massage, room service, childcare, movie theater, bar! Seriously. The good thing is they are often really nice looking buildings built next to parks, sometimes with eco-friendly elements such as green roofs and solar panels. But they’re only affordable to a select few.

I find myself wondering how do people under 30 find a place they can actually afford to buy in the city? Even in Long Island City, near Queensboro Plaza, these luxury condos are sprouting up all over, the cheapest over $300,000 for a studio. And this is in an industrial area that hasn’t gentrified yet. It’s as if they’re guessing what the area will be worth in 5 years and that’s the asking price.

Perhaps Wall Street workers (not myself, but those who actually work in finance) might be able to afford this luxury housing. But what about the rest of us? What can we buy, when everything old is expensive and everything new is luxury condos?

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