{"id":208322,"date":"2026-04-24T13:27:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T13:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/208322\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T13:27:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T13:27:08","slug":"senior-leif-anthony-crunches-the-numbers-on-new-york-citys-housing-crisis-the-colgate-maroon-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/208322\/","title":{"rendered":"Senior Leif Anthony Crunches the Numbers on New York City\u2019s Housing Crisis \u2013 The Colgate Maroon-News"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Printed<\/a> <\/p>\n

Printed with permission from Leif Anthony <\/p>\n

Leif Anthony, a senior from Buffalo, N.Y., is in the final stretch of completing his seminar paper for ECON 441 Seminar in Urban Economics, taught by Assistant Professor of Economics Mike Mei. An economics major and Spanish minor, Anthony says his favorite academic memories have been problem-solving, language study and his time abroad in Japan.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Anthony chose to pursue economics because he loved being able to use mathematics to solve real-world problems.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really loved taking calculus and advanced math courses my freshman year. I also really loved problem solving, and I felt economics was the perfect way to combine my mathematical skills with that,\u201d Anthony said. \u201cIn high school, I loved math, but didn\u2019t lean towards any of the sciences, and I\u2019m really glad I chose economics at Colgate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mei\u2019s urban economics seminar applies economic methods to study the issues cities face. Anthony focused his project on New York City and analyzed whether a recent policy in SoHo and NoHo \u2014 Manhattan neighborhoods historically dominated by commercial zoning \u2014 drove up housing prices.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m doing a project on the SoHo and NoHo neighborhoods,\u201d Anthony said. \u201cIn 2021, there was a rezoning policy that allowed taller buildings and more housing to be built in these two areas. I\u2019m basically analyzing the effect this policy has had on housing prices.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2021, the City of New York implemented the \u201cSoHo\/NoHo Neighborhood Plan.\u201d As two large commercial zones, the areas have historically had lower housing availability, and many buildings are zoned to permit only commercial stores. As a result, housing levels in the area remain low.<\/p>\n

Anthony explained the reasoning behind New York City\u2019s decision to pursue this policy.<\/p>\n

\u201cSoHo and NoHo had booming art scenes. Formerly, it used to be a huge community of artists and creatives. This attracted big brands trying to set up stores in the area, and eventually, the majority of houses and apartments that people owned were bought up by these large conglomerates,\u201d Anthony said.<\/p>\n

Anthony elaborated on how this policy piqued his interest, connecting actual results to economic theories.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe policy is attempting to increase housing, and I wanted to study what the effect upon prices would be. Some say that because more housing is available, prices in the area will decrease as supply increases,\u201d Anthony said. \u201cHowever, since the area also attracts many wealthy individuals, other economists speculate that prices will be pushed higher.\u201d<\/p>\n

To conduct his analysis, Anthony turned to two specialized tools. Stata, a statistical software program, allows him to build regression models that isolate the effect of the rezoning policy on housing prices from other variables. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software lets him map and visualize that data spatially \u2014 plotting price changes across neighborhoods to identify geographic patterns. He has not finalized his results and remains skeptical of confirming or denying his hypothesis.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMy hypothesis is that housing prices will remain similar or constant to other regions in New York City, not showing any significant changes as a result of the policy,\u201d Anthony said.<\/p>\n

Anthony mentioned that he hopes his statistical and economics skills will transfer over into his career.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve recently looked at roles that use data to make decisions, as well as strategy and operations. I really love the idea of being able to work with small teams in the back offices of businesses, to help improve their operations and logistics,\u201d Anthony said. \u201cThe economics major at Colgate has certainly prepared me for that, and I\u2019m looking for work that allows me to solve large problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anthony mentioned his interest in the food industry and being able to improve the logistics and efficiency of these companies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe economics major has set me up for these sorts of problems. Economics, to me, is really all about seeing if X happens, what are the consequences of Y,\u201d Anthony said. \u201cI love the process of understanding the world and the effects that decisions can have on the future, as well as being able to predict these changes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anthony believed that economics would remain a vital skill throughout his life, wherever his path takes him.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Printed with permission from Leif Anthony Leif Anthony, a senior from Buffalo, N.Y., is in the final stretch…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208323,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,24,55,54,56],"class_list":{"0":"post-208322","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","11":"tag-new-york-city-news","12":"tag-ny"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}