Criticisms: 1) The moving around over the city skyline is slick and fun, but I doubt it conveys much useful information. I'd rather see the growth of new building over time. In visualization, motion should convey some meaning. Here it doesn't seem to. 2) It's important for visualizations to convey both anecdotal information (achieved through the before/after snapshots). But it's also important to convey quantitative information, magnitude and directions of changes. I don't detect anything like that here, even though there is quantitative information embedded in the text (e.g. "Population is up 2,000, but 600 poor people have left"). Numbers are good, visualizations that artfully convey the magnitude and direction of relevant numbers are even better. It's rare to have news narrative that can't be improved by conveying the quantities involved.
Things they did right: 1) The before/after snapshots are useful and pack a punch. 2) Inclusive. The visualization includes a a variety of changes and doesn't get sucked down a narrowly focused rabbit hole. 3) Simplicity. It's not a data dump. The visualization does a decent job of conveying single themes without including unnecessary extra. It may go too far with this though (see criticism #2 above).
Overall, I look forward to more visualizations like this from NYT and other media outlets.