I finally came up with solutions to New York’s vexing problems regarding school overcrowding, pitiful educational planning, charter school "co-location" and rampant growth in residential development. It took me all afternoon, but I did it.

Like most problems in New York City, these big issues boil down to neighborhood disputes. To understand how these problems intersect, consider what’s happening on Manhattan’s Upper West Side (or “Stroller City,” as it’s known these days), which has all the components of NYC’s larger malaise.

Good neighborhood schools are full, and last year’s debut of a new elementary barely dented most kindergarten wait lists. Manhattan is experiencing a baby boom, and parents are flocking to nabes with good public schools. Former chancellor Cathie Black (oooh, how I love to type those four words) suggested folks use birth control, but her advice arrived five years too late. No “morning after” pill can erase a kindergartner.

A new Success Academy charter school was allowed to open on the Upper West Side, but many are furious the charter was given space amid high schools within the Brandeis campus on West 84th Street. Such co-location arrangements spark the fiercest battles in the fight over charters, as competing institutions instantly begin fighting for limited space in classrooms, cafeterias and gyms.Now, things are about to get worse: Developers want to build a 20-story residential tower at 77th and Broadway. If the past gives a hint of the future, this tower will be full of families with young kids long before Department of Education planners realize an increase in two- and three-bedroom apartments means a commensurate increase in children needing classrooms.

These problems seem to defy solution, yet one decisive move could solve everything: Force the tower’s developers to include a home for the new charter school.<!--more-->

Any developer will howl at such an idea, but I have little sympathy for folks who earn millions by adding family residences in neighborhoods already unable to satisfy the educational needs of the existing population. But after the howls subside, a smart developer will realize that including school space within a residential tower provides immediate benefits (not least among them governmental power of eminent domain to forcibly buy out balky property owners) while also fostering political good will.

Besides, involving private developers in the construction of public schools is hardly a revolutionary idea. In 2010, exactly this type of public-private partnership created East Side Middle School, the first new public school built on the Upper East Side since 1962.

But should the charter get its school space for free? No. Eva Moskowitz’s expanding Success Academy charter network needs to start building new schools rather than elbowing its way into existing public spaces. Other charter schools (notably Harlem’s DREAM Charter School) are raising money for bricks and mortar. Let Success Academy’s impressive fund-raising corps tackle a new project: construction of the first K-8 campus it will have all to itself, forever. Start now, and your new classrooms will be ready about the time Success Academy outgrows its contentious Brandeis home, which it inevitably will.

The developer will add classrooms, not deplete them. A charter school will create its own home, not steal space. Parents will have more options to meet children’s needs. Best of all, this solution can be tailored to any NYC neighborhood where new development outpaces existing classroom space.

The downside? More strollers on New York sidewalks. To solve that problem, allow me to outline my plan for a stroller-only subway …