Lucy Cohen Blatter

One of the reasons rents are too damn high in NYC? The cost of water.  According to WNYC, water costs in the city have increased by 300 percent in the last 15 years — that's more than labor, fuel and even real estate taxes.

This week, WNYC is running a series called  “The Cost of Our Water." Here are some interesting takeaways:

When the city first rolled out its IDNYC — a free municipal identification card that offers one-year gratis membership to places like the Bronx Zoo, New York Botanical Garden and the Metropolitan Museum of Art and discount movie tickets and gym memberships — appointments booked up fast, and the wait was long enough to bring on

Interior designer Kerra Michele flew to Paris to redecorate a tiny apartment. She had one week and a "teeeeeeeeny tiny"  budget, she writes on her blog. She did so around this time last year, but the takeaways are many for us New Yorkers, the least of which is that her client's apartment looked so much like an NYC one (not everything looks like Amelie in the City of Lights), so we thought we'd revisit her whirlwind decorating tour.

This $1,750 one-bedroom  at 27 Himrod Street in Bushwick has some real pros and cons.  That Japanese-style room partition looks pretty cool, but does it provide enough privacy? And there are tons of built-ins and storage space, but not a lot of living space. There also seems to be a good amount of sunlight, but it's on the top floor of a walk-up.

Hearing a lot about rent regulation these days? The reason is two-fold. First, the city's Rent Guidelines Board will hold its annual vote on rent increases for rent-regulated apartments on June 24 at Cooper Union (public hearings are taking place across the boroughs this week and next). After a preliminary vote, the Rent Guidelines Board said it will likely raise rents by anywhere from zero to 2 percent on one-year lease renewals, and .5 to 3.5 percent on two-year renewals.