THE POWER OF AIR
Anabella Acevedo Peña | Meg Kalinowski The Power of Air proposes a transformative Air Rights strategy to address New York City’s dual challenges of a severe shortage of affordable housing and the financial and physical deterioration of New York City Housing Authority’s (NYCHA) aging portfolio. By turning 420 million SF of unused FAR into a liquid blockchain-based marketplace through a public-private alliance, the proposal aims to generate over $2.5 trillion in market value, while covering the $42 billion of NYCHA’s deficit. The Power of Air seeks to generate new revenue streams for vertical densification within NYCHA campuses.
The proposal also establishes two mechanisms to integrate NYCHA to the city’s evolving urban landscape: a transformative urban planning model and a new decentralized decision-making system.
The Power of Air further establishes the idea of Emerald Districts, urban realms based on the theory of the 15-minute city, with NYCHA at their epicenter. Within these special zones, air rights restrictions would be eased in return for a commitment to affordable housing and enhanced urban amenities. To ensure a balance between developers' interests and the community needs, The Power of Air establishes a collaborative governance model that empowers local residents and air rights owners to participate in the future of their communities. Under this system, voting power is determined by factors such as tenure, length of residency, the proximity to new developments, and other key considerations, ensuring that all stakeholders have a voice in shaping neighborhood growth. This system will be oversighted by Community Air Trusts, regulatory bodies designed to safeguard community interests, promote responsible redevelopment, and prevent speculative investment that does not serve the city’s long-term needs.
The Power of Air positions NYCHA as the catalyst for urban revitalization, integrating resilient financial mechanisms with sustainable, community-focused development. This strategy will not only regenerate the existing building portfolio, but also will connect it with the surrounding areas, making NYCHA the epicenter of urban changes that will benefit all residents and spearhead the future of equitable development in New York City.
FORMULA FOR THE VOTE WEIGHT IN THE MARKETPLACE
Objective: Create an indicator in integer shape, between 0 and 1 that shows the value or the weight of an individual’s vote depending on: the amount of air rights that this person has, the location according to the 15-minute city brackets/areas, the location of the future development,
Still pending: what happens when an air rights owner doesn’t live in the 15 minute city? What happens with the people that live within the 15-minute city, but don’t own air rights?
Prompt
Help me create a formula to determine the value of an individual's vote according to certain parameters.
First, let's call the value of that person's vote the “Vote Weight,” and mathematically we will denote it as “VW.” This value must be between 0 and 1.
VW varies depending on two things:
The absolute value of the difference between the construction (which we will call D) and the average of the distances of the individual's tokens (which we will call TD). We will refer to this value as “Relative Distance” and denote it as RD in the formula. If RD is higher, VW will be lower. If RD is lower, VW will be higher.
A “Token Factor,” which we will denote as TF in the formula. TF is a factor derived from the percentage of tokens an individual holds. The percentage is determined by the ratio of the number of tokens an individual has to the total number of tokens available. The greater the TF, the higher the VW.
Chat GPT Response
We can combine both parameters into a single formula that ensures the "Vote Weight" (VW) is between 0 and 1. In this setup, VW increases with the Token Factor (TF) and decreases as the Relative Distance (RD) increases.
Recall the definitions:
Token Factor (TF):
This value ranges between 0 and 1. The higher the TF, the greater the individual's influence.
Relative Distance (RD):
where:
D is the construction/new development
TD is the average of the distances of the individual's tokens.
The idea is that as RD increases (i.e., the discrepancy between D and TD grows), the vote weight (VW) should decrease, while a higher TF should boost the vote weight.
Here are two possible approaches:
1. Exponential Formula
One option is to apply an exponential decay based on RD:
Explanation:
If RD=0, then and VW=TF. This means that when there is no difference, the VW is determined solely by TF.
As RD increases, decreases (with k>0), which in turn lowers VW.
The constant k controls the sensitivity of VW to changes in RD; a larger k will cause even small differences in RD to lead to a significant reduction in VW.
2. Linear Formula (with normalized RD)
If you can normalize RD so that it lies between 0 and 1—by dividing by a maximum expected value a linear approach can be used:
Explanation:
With , we ensure that
If RD=0, then VW=TF.
If , then VW=0
This formula reduces VW linearly as the discrepancy increases.
Summary
Both formulas meet the criteria:
VW remains between 0 and 1.
A higher TF (indicating a greater share of tokens) results in a higher VW.
A higher RD (indicating a larger discrepancy between the construction and the individual's token average) decreases VW.
The choice between the exponential and linear formulas depends on how sensitively you want VW to respond to changes in RD. The exponential model can provide a more drastic effect in certain ranges, while the linear model offers a directly proportional reduction.
