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A shiny new set of maps from the Department of City Planning makes it easier than ever to see which neighborhoods are actually pulling their weight in solving New York’s housing crunch and which ones are barely building at all.
According to the city’s updated Housing Production Snapshot 2024, a record-breaking 33,974 homes were completed last year, the most in nearly 60 years. But the new interactive tools released by DCP show that boom time still looks pretty uneven depending on where you zoom in.
Only 10 of the city’s 59 community districts accounted for as much new housing as the other 49 combined. In 2023, Bronx districts 1, 4, 5 and 7 and Brooklyn districts 1, 2, 5 and 8 led the way, along with Queens 1 and 2. By 2024, Brooklyn reclaimed the top spot, responsible for about 40 percent of all new homes—13,732 units—while the Bronx added 6,526 and Queens 8,061. Manhattan, once the city’s construction engine, lagged behind again with 4,841 new units, and Staten Island barely registered at 814.
“New York City is producing far less housing than needed and the housing that is being built is concentrated in just a few neighborhoods,” said city planning director Dan Garodnick. “This imbalance is at the root of much of our housing crisis.”
Clicking through the map reveals hyper-local stories of construction highs and lows. Long Island City-Hunters Point topped all Neighborhood Tabulation Areas with 1,859 completed units, more than 1,300 of them part of two Hunter’s Point South towers. Spring Creek-Starrett City led 2024’s permits with 1,664 units, while Brooklyn’s Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Gowanus and Red Hook now holds the largest pipeline of future homes.
Overall, 15,626 units were permitted citywide in 2024, about the same as 2023 but far below the pre-2022 pace, when developers rushed projects ahead of the expired 421-a tax break. Even with a pipeline of nearly 97,000 homes in progress, high interest rates and limited construction capacity could slow completions.
Garodnick hopes the city’s forthcoming City of Yes for Housing Opportunity zoning overhaul—and the state’s new 485-x incentive—will spread building more evenly. Until then, the maps tell a clear story: some neighborhoods are still doing the heavy lifting for everyone else.