Eighty-eight thousand people (so far) have applied for 55 low-rent apartments in a fancy new condominium building on Manhattan's Upper West Side.  The lucky few could get a two-bedroom apartment for less than $1,100 a month in the West 60s.  To get tax breaks, developers of luxury buildings make some units available at below-market rent rates, and this is what happened here.

But as you can see from the number of applicants, this program will never produce enough low-income housing.  Rent control is the biggest obstacle to building new affordable housing; that's why nearly all new construction in the private sector comprises luxury units not subject to rent control.

This is the way the liberal mindset works.  The left promises everything: low-cost health care, high-paying jobs, and low-cost apartments.  The only catch is that most people never see these benefits.  The new Obamacare plans sharply limit the choices of doctors and hospitals available.  Raising the minimum wage and Obamacare health care requirements sharply reduces the number of jobs.  Low-cost apartments are available in less than one percent of the amount needed to meet demand.

But this is an old story that many of you know.  There are two things about this particular building, however, that you probably don't know that make for entertaining news:

1) This building has two separate entrances: one for the low-income renters and one for the condominium owners.  How shocking!  How elitist!

2) The condominiums in the building go for prices ranging from 4 million dollars to 25 million dollars.  And what do you get for that money?  A building right next to the fumes and noise of the West Side Highway.  There's even a little park in front of the building within 20 feet of the highway, where you can take relaxing walks...by the elevated highway.

There are no supermarkets in the neighborhood, and the nearest subway line is several long avenue blocks to the east, just past Lincoln Center!  Lincoln Center is a very fancy musical performance venue.  But in order to get to Lincoln Center, and the supermarkets, and the subways, you have to walk by a very dangerous megahousing project four blocks long that always seems to be in the news.  That's right!  Every time the super-rich condo owners want to go anywhere, unless they take a cab each time (which often aren't available), they will have to make themselves targets of opportunity for violent criminals.

That's the joy of city living, and I envy the ultra-rich, mostly ultra-leftists who pay millions for a lifestyle of noise, pollution, and crime.

This article was produced by NewsMachete.com, the conservative news site.