Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village is Manhattan’s largest apartment complex, home to 25,000 residents. The development could be going up for sale again soon, and tenants are concerned about what this could mean for their rents.

Social Explorer's Andrew Beveridge recently appeared on Aljazeera America TV's Real Money with Ali Velshi to talk about the potential impact of the sale and the history of middle income housing from WWII to the present.

Beveridge said of the decline of middle class housing:

New York City, and particularly Manhattan, along with other places like San Francisco, Boston, some parts of Chicago, some parts of Los Angeles, have become very very unaffordable, particularly for younger people. Stuyevesant Town was initially for returning veterans and younger people. If a younger person moves into New York now, they’ll be forced to move way out away from downtown or they’ll double or triple up. So, it’s a very difficult situation, and there’s been very very little affordable housing generated by the federal government or local government for decades.

With over 30 percent of the people in New York who rent paying more than half their income on apartments, he talked about the supply and demand forces at play in New York City:

When that was originally built there was some government money on the table to help it being built. But with the various capital and financial firms that have been involved with Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town since 2006 when it was initially sold, they are not really in it to supply affordable housing, they’re in it to make a profit…

No matter what, there’s going to be a continued decline of subsidized housing in New York and other parts of the country, unless there’s money put on the table.

For background on the middle class housing and the sale of this property, read "Stuyvesant Town, Bastion of Affordable Housing, Is on Way Back to Auction" (New York Times)