Nicholas Kikis

Advocate for quality rental housing. Views expressed here are my own.

[Jay Martin 🪾 @jaymart222]

This is wild.

"Before the 2020 pandemic, NYCHA's collection rate topped 95%. A moratorium was put in place and expired in January 2022. Since then the collection rate has dropped to around 65%. In fiscal 2026 it fell further, to 59.8%."

Housing needs rent to survive. That's true in public housing, Vienna social housing, rent-stabilized housing, any housing. A mortgage is just rent on housing you own.

The cancel rent movement was a disaster. The damage is still compounding.

[Basil🧡 @LinkofSunshine]

In the 2001 Long Island City rezoning, the City removed height limits, raised the FAR from 2 to 12, and had 0 affordable income requirements

They projected ~300 new housing units on these 10 blocks

Almost 11000 units were built

[Nicholas Kikis @NicholasKikis]

@dougboneparth If you inflation-adjust that forgone cup of coffee (price doesn't stay static), and invest in the s&p 500 rather than spend on coffee-to-go, you'd save $2.0 - $2.5 million after 50 years. That's the value of compounding.

[Nicholas Kikis @NicholasKikis]

@WalkPrinceton Mayor Freda is being an adult. There needs to be careful review b4 spending municipal $$. The roundabout seems nice, but the town's recent track record is poor: Witherspoon "improvements" a boondoggle, the Harrison bike lane mostly unused, and the roundabout at JP dangerous.

[Nicholas Kikis @NicholasKikis]

@Mrstanleycup Wow. In NJ we have flaggers and a couple of police officers or sheriffs. And who is monitoring temp for hydration breaks? Doesn't PA remotely consider worker safety? I hope you are at least requiring payroll registration so that DOL can audit to ensure payment of regulated wage.

[Brett LoGiurato @BrettLoGiurato]

So this is pretty wild: A polling firm that came out of nowhere to show Francesca Hong with a 23-point lead over David Crowley in the Wisconsin primary has shut down and said its whole operation was bogus

[Charlie Bilello @charliebilello]

Price Increases over last 7 years...
New Cars: +22%
Used Cars: +29%
Groceries: +33%
Shelter: +35%
Family Health Insurance: +38%
Restaurants: +39%
Transportation: +42%
Gasoline: +43%
Electricity: +43%
Auto Insurance: +50%
Fuel Oil: +56%
Home Prices: +60%
Gas Utilities: +62%
Dozen Eggs: +76%
Ground Beef: +81%
Coffee: +123%

[Jason, @jasonc_nc]

Step 1: mandate every city go back to the zoning and land use rules they had in place in 1930.

[Jay Martin 🪾 @jaymart222]

As has been said. Right to counsel is net bad for tenants and net very good for lawyers.

[Nicholas Kikis @NicholasKikis]

@JayWebberNJ It's important to remember that for many of the advocates who come to Trenton every day, ranking dead last for business friendliness is a indicator of success not failure. There's always a new tax to impose, industry to regulate, or interest group to subsidize.

[Nicholas Kikis @NicholasKikis]

@BillAckman @NYCMayor Freeze the Pay!

[Nicholas Kikis @NicholasKikis]

This is eight years of the Phil Murphy administration summed up in one headline.

[Brent Johnson @johnsb01]

Gotham FC, the pro women’s soccer team co-owned by former New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and First Lady Tammy Murphy, will soon move playing its games from Jersey to Queens.

They will still have a training facility in Whippany.

[Ellen Carmichael @ellencarmichael]

The most interesting part of the red card saga isn't the ruling. It's how differently Americans and Europeans process the idea that they might have been wronged.

Europeans are fundamentally different from Americans in one particular way: they expect life to be aggravating and at times unfair. It's just a fact of moving through the world. I joke that in Europe, the customer is always wrong. You didn't read the fine print. The only pharmacy in town is closed every other Tuesday for three hours, and even if the times weren't posted, that's still your problem. Too bad if you want the bill, because the waiter's on his union-mandated half-hour smoke break, and you're just going to have to wait.

To quote the great Mark Knopfler: sometimes you're the windshield, sometimes you're the bug. There's something freeing in that. Things are less in your control, so there's less angst in managing your expectations.

In America, things couldn't be more different. We simply can't accept a wrong left unrighted.

The flight attendant sneezed handing you a drink on your one-hour flight? 15,000 frequent flyer miles. Didn't like your appetizer? A replacement is on the way, and the whole course comes off the bill. There's a reason our interstates are lined with trial lawyer billboards.

Europeans have turned complaining into a continental pastime with no expectation that the universe owes them a remedy for their grief. You gripe about the train being late, your friends nod solemnly and everyone goes back to their apéro. In America, we launch a full-blown investigation of the train system, sue the government (and its contractors) that allowed for the tardiness and hold a Congressional hearing on the state of national infrastructure.

So to an objective observer, the red card shouldn't have happened, and VAR was a travesty. To Americans, our star player shouldn't be unfairly banned from a match we couldn't afford to lose for a card he so obviously didn't deserve.

Who cares that FIFA used a little-used reversal to fix it. Who cares that other people are mad about it. We. Were. Wronged. It was unjust. It must be corrected. We would accept nothing less.

Europeans waxing poetic about the sanctity of the game are, of course, talking about a governing body whose last tournament host was decided via confirmed cash bribes — one that imposed dress codes on women, shrugged off widespread allegations of modern slavery and reconfigured the entire tournament calendar to suit the host country. Which is exactly the point. If you've made peace with all of that, at least enough to watch the tournament four years later, a probationary suspension isn't actually a scandal.

Maybe that's the real divide. Over millennia, Europeans have made peace with being the bug. Americans have never once considered it, and apparently, we're not about to start now.

[Nicholas Kikis @NicholasKikis]

@Hi_individual1 @hardtfelt3 @JamesSurowiecki Agree that the first capital established by statute was NYC; however, ironically to the thread I replied to, NYC was established as the capital by the Confederation Congress, Congress under the constitution soon decamped Federal Hall for Philadelphia before building Washington.

[Nicholas Kikis @NicholasKikis]

@JamesSurowiecki @Hi_individual1 In 1776 the First Congress established the nation and formed an army. In 1781 the Second Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, established the name "United States of America." Don't conflate the constitution with the country.

[Nicholas Kikis @NicholasKikis]

@johnsb01 Thank you for your journalism. Much appreciated.

[Scott Lincicome @scottlincicome]

The Economist's new BBQ Index tracks the prices of 10 American cookout staples across 25 cities, and this year's results are not good.

The grocery basket now costs $81, which is 12% more than a year ago and "the fastest annual increase in a decade"

[Nicholas Kikis @NicholasKikis]

I get Hoboken wants to avoid traffic challenges from year's past, but this seems like economic suicide. Why not run a "plan ahead" campaign vs. this "don't come here" campaign?

[City of Hoboken @CityofHoboken]

Below are some more resources about traveling into town on the Fourth of July.

Video from the Mayor: https://t.co/W1UtudGl7c
🚧 Road Closures: https://t.co/uWVBMo85qU
🚫 Temporary No Parking: https://t.co/uWVBMo85qU

[Senator Andy Kim @SenatorAndyKim]

62 years ago today, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed segregation and other forms of racial discrimination, was signed into law.

While we celebrate the progress we’ve made, it’s important to remember that the fight for equality is ongoing. There’s no better time than America’s 250th to reflect on what comes next.