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Publication Date: May 2d, 2025
Local leaders may blame outsiders and immigrants for Hudson’s troubles. But the problem is not with the overperforming newcomers, but the underperforming old guard.
For Hudson to remain affordable to its long-time residents, the city would need either to suppress demand — unlikely in a functioning market — or to intervene artificially: heavy subsidies, price controls, or restrictive zoning against newcomers.
While the unpopular mayor and his allies are doing their best to suppress demand, history shows such measures stifle investment, lower housing quality, and entrench insiders. Over time, they harm the very groups they claim to protect. See the 2nd Ward.
Better education, stronger apprenticeships, and pathways into higher-value industries can lift local earning power faster than property prices rise.
From postwar Silicon Valley to modern Singapore, prosperity has come not from cheap rents but from rising skills. Some Hudson residents recognise this: a cottage industry of after-school and youth programs now competes for a shrinking pool of "under privileged" children.
The real solution lies in raising human capital.
In truth, a merely average New York State College graduate earns enough to afford a home in Hudson, or in nearby towns such as Kinderhook, Germantown, or Greenport — and many do, and many stellar graduates thrive locally and far away. But those who complain most loudly are often those who did not do the work and simply cannot get and keep a market rate job during historic low unemployment in the US.
Meanwhile, Hudson’s public schools continue their decline. The Hudson City School District recently approved a budget nearing $60m, even as enrolment shrinks and academic performance languishes in the bottom quartile of the state. Half the school board failed even to attend the vote. A town that cannot invest wisely in its future workforce mistakes fiscal expansion for real progress — and cements its decline.
Local leaders may blame outsiders and immigrants for Hudson’s troubles. But the problem is not with the overperforming newcomers, but the underperforming old guard.
It is the newcomers — through their soaring tax bills — who fund the system the old guard mismanages. Far from displacing locals, the newcomers are underwriting their underperformance.
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Last edited/updated:
August 4th, 2025
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