Well-designed “parks, playgrounds, and street-scapes” would help make urban areas “livable and attractive for residents and businesses” (Yaro and Hiss 1996, 14). “Abandoned and underutilized” waterfronts and leftover industrial sites and landfills–together accounting for fifty thousand acres of brownfield–would be redeveloped (15).

…”the reclamation of the region’s urban waterfronts offers opportunities to create extraordinary new public spaces”…

In time, Bloomberg would also embrace the use of parks and open spaces to enhance real estate values, drive development, and raise issues of environmental sustainability and projected population growth to assert the need for immediate and decisive action.

In 2007 the administration proposed spending an additional $3 billion over three years to develop eight regional parks and expand the city’s network of green spaces so that no New Yorker was more than a ten-minute walk from a park or patch of grass (Benepe 2007). Plans for proposed waterfront redevelopments in Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens featured additional public open space, ensuring city residents access to the water while at the same time providing developers with nearby public amenities sure to enhance the value of their projects (Burden 2007a).

Reading those sentences made me think of what is going on in the South Bronx and FreshDirect’s relocation. A section of the waterfront will be redeveloped and FreshDirect will operate from there. The relocation would bring jobs according to FreshDirect. However, residents wouldn’t be able to use FreshDirect since many live under the poverty line. From the reading, redevelopment of waterfronts can increase real estate values. If prices and rents increase, then residents may be displaced. Having FreshDirect in the South Bronx also isn’t beneficial for the residents’ health. There are high asthma rates and the addition of diesel trucks would add to the pollution.

Why can’t waterfronts be redeveloped into parks? Parks and green spaces would enhance the neighborhood and the waterfront view is attractive. The reading gives the impression that parks/green spaces and waterfronts are separate spaces. The government giving incentives, subsidies, and tax cuts would encourage development in waterfronts, which would in turn increase real estate values and lead to more development. The reading also mentions that having parks and green spaces can bring the same effect, too. Parks and green spaces can improve health, are good for the environment, and may not displace residents. So why not build a park instead and have more New Yorkers live within a 10 minute walk from a park? As it happens, some residents of the South Bronx would rather turn the waterfront into parks and green spaces than to have a FreshDirect facility.

Discussion: What does it mean to reclaim waterfronts? How should waterfronts be handled? Should they be redeveloped or should they be turned into parks?