Residential construction in the New York Region declined in 1964 for the second consecutive year, to the lowest level since 1960. Total volume fell 11 percent below the 1963 level and 22 percent below the plateau reached in the 1961-1962 period. The significant fluctuations in this 1960-1964 half-decade have been in multi-family construction; one-family home construction, by comparison, has been stable.
The decline in the Region-wide total, upon closer inspection, turns out to have been confined largely to four New York City boroughs: Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens. Together, these experienced a 60 percent decline in residential building activity, to 17,848, from their combined 1963 total of 46,749 units. In fact, in the Region outside of New York City, the number of new housing units increased more between 1963 and 1964 than between any previous two years since 1957.
439