In “Five Boroughs. One City. No Plan,” Jarrett Murphy talks about the immense amount of rezoning that has taken place under the Bloomberg administration. This rezoning poses a disturbance because it changes the regulations governing the way land is used, the style and height of buildings, the size of yards and the distance between houses. Although the rationale behind the rezoning is to make New York ready for a larger population to live in, I think that it can cause disturbances for the current residents and planners in New York City. I find it interesting that as a part of the rezoning initiatives, planners were giving incentives to build larger buildings as long as they were providing affordable housing. This makes sense since it would provide people with more living opportunities and would help the low-income families with finding an economic residence.
I think that it would make sense to develop the infrastructure near areas of public transportation so people would be inclined to settle there and it would also make traveling around the city more convenient. However, since all of the rezoning was not done at these transit locations, there were other economic goals that were more important for the city planners to consider, such as locating people to the waterfront. I also find it interesting that most upzoning projects were for the whiter and wealthier areas, which shows that the city planners had economic plans for their changes.
The fact that the zoning was being done to accomodate the developers’ visions of how the city should be growing seems very dangerous to me. If their visions do not come to fruition, then the results may be unexpected and can cause the city and the residents of the specific rezoned neighborhoods to suffer. This is another way in which rezoning can fail when estimations are made for future populations and lifestyles. I was surprised that New York started the trend of city-wide zoning regulations which describe what can be built on every square foot of the city. I thought that New York would have used another city that had a proven story of such a plan being effective before it took such a major step.
The transformation of the zoning regulations also shows some of the overall changes made across New York City itself. As it becomes more modern and holds more people, it needs to find a way to accomodate more residents while also looking like an urban oasis. It is also interesting that so many of the major cities across the nation have such different zoning regulations and what they limit or call for. For example, in Chicago’s zoning regulations, they laid out streets but also plotted where cultural facilities and parks should go, unlike New York’s original zoning regulation.
It is an interesting thought that Manhattan could have been less dense had the city made proper and more detailed zoning regulations. This would certainly have solved many issues plaguing the city today. Also, the possibility of the city having more of a balance of jobs would be a huge positive had such regulations been created. However, even though the past cannot be changed, planners are still not making amends to the city’s zoning regulations that would help the future of New York City be more sustainable for its growing population. I guess that Mayor Bloomberg’s PlaNYC is the closest thing yet to a plan for a sustainable city. However, the plan is more of an agenda than a plan so the future of the city still remains uncertain as planners are yet to come up with a sustainable idea for the future of the city.
