Nah, I’m not starting a new category. But I am coming in high praise of the New York Times’ marvelous essayist and journalist Ginia Bellafante.
Yesterday, in a Big City piece called “When ‘Affordable’ Is Just A Word,” she dissects in her mordant way the gross distinctions between what the City calls “affordable” housing for low-income people and the kind of prices very rich people can afford to pay for their own housing.
It’s a great piece. And Ms. Bellafante just gave me two terrific sub-categories for my putative Rich People Behaving Richly category:
- “Ludicrously Priced Housing for Oligarchs Who Spend Most of the Year in Tax Exile on Mediterranean Yachts.”
- “You Don’t Need to Live in a $50 Million Penthouse Tax, which would require anyone buying a property for more than $10 million (of which there are currently about 280 listed in The Times) to pay a percentage of that cost to an affordable-housing fund. And then commit, in writing, to never complain about it.”
Ginia Bellafante is my new bestest friend.