Kevin Loughran states that the High Line preservation effort had its roots in the city’s elite. He lists professionals, politicians, and celebrities who backed Friends of the High Line, and traces its path to achieving city government approval. Loughran argues that the High Line is geared exclusively towards the upper middle class, “predominantly white young adults” (57), and supports his argument with an ethnographic sketch of the park. This is used as an example of the phenomenon of growing inequality between parks in high-income and low-income communities.

The Community Parks initiative is intended to have the opposite effect. It is designed to rebuild parks in underprivileged neighborhoods. This is intended to address the issue of park equity, as discussed in this New York Times article. Large parks in wealthy areas tend to get consistent funding, while small parks in poor areas get little to none. Mayor Bill de Blasio created this initiative to help fund these neglected parks. Perhaps this will help bridge the gap between the super-privileged parks such as the High Line and underprivileged parks that have been all but ignored.

I would like to comment on a recent project in my neighborhood, the Far Rockaway boardwalk. It was recently developed and is clean and pretty. Where I live, near the east tip of the boardwalk, there are sprinklers, playground equipment, a skate park, benches and a food stand that sells ice cream and barbecue.

The boardwalk caters to a diverse group of people. When I am there, I see schoolchildren, teenagers on skateboards, fishermen, families, joggers, and people doing push-ups on the playground equipment. There are sometimes amateur bands playing music on the side of the boardwalk. On the “off season” when the beaches aren’t packed, the boardwalk seems to be populated exclusively with locals. It is, in my opinion, an excellent example of a public park.

In Professor Larson’s chapter about Burden in the Bloomberg Era we see a thread of information throughout that leads us to the conclusion that Amanda Burden was, in fact, responsible for the “progression” of the city’s urban landscape and redevelopment in the 2000s.  The Bloomberg Administration kept pushing a propaganda of sorts: “the quantity of Moses with the quality of Jacobs”.  It’s interesting that while Burden seemed motivated by said mantra, that the way in which she went about the projects she oversaw contradicts it.  Professor Larson, as well as the film we watched in class last week, gave us a broad set of events and comments on Burden’s process of getting projects approved and how she was a large part of that process.  What is important concerning the issue of design in the city and how it relates to Amanda Burden’s tenure is what it did to the city?  Or, perhaps more importantly, what it has set up the city to become in the future, long after she and Bloomberg are out of public office?

Burden was quoted at a City Lab Panel in urban expansion saying that she expected a decrease in the price of housing would be the result of the huge influx of housing supply that the city has received from many years of rezoning and rebuilding neighborhoods with more living space.  Unfortunately, the prices had not decreased substantially and she said that to this day the issue of gentrification remains an unsolved thorn in the side of our great city.  While gentrification may not be an easy issue to fix, we can observe the trends in Burden’s tenure to make some interesting conclusions about the city’s future.

It would not be an understatement to say that Amanda Burden has made the city look “prettier” and by doing so, attracted a larger tourist presence and a slew of private investments into the city, mainly Manhattan.  However, by increasing the face value of the city’s global appeal her projects have made prices in redeveloped areas higher, thus pushing out the lower-income residents of these areas and attracting wealthier ones.  While this idea of the disappearing middle-class in New York City was alluded to in the reading it cannot be overlooked.  As we look at New York City and see it slowly evolve we must also recognize the fact that the same people that were here five years ago may be somewhere else now because they simply can’t afford to live where they used to.  Is this the sacrifice for design…for aesthetic?  Or is it true, as Whyte would agree, that “urban redevelopment equals economic development”?

At the end of the day we must observe the “redesigning” of New York City from an aerial perspective because if we look at it only in terms of Moses and Jacobs, then our tunnel vision would be worse than that of Burden’s sense of design.  Did a lot of stuff get built in a reasonable amount of time? Yes.  Moses…Check.  Did the building projects take into account their accessibility in the social space around them and how they would affect the street lifestyle and economy?  To a certain degree, yes.  Jacobs…check.  Now if we look at it from afar we can see it’s possible that the people that should have benefitted from those shiny new back-less park benches had to actually move to a lower-rent neighborhood because the influx of private investment in the following years drove up prices for the entire area.  So now you potentially have a situation in which one shiny, new building comes up in a neighborhood of older buildings and instead of fostering a sense of community it could possibly create a whole new one by gentrifying the whole neighborhood and in five years it’s just another upper-middle class neighborhood.

I can’t say for sure that Moses wouldn’t have liked Burden or her projects; however, I can say that Jacobs may have found some fault in the pseudo-facelift that the city has received.  All in all, the most interesting, crucial questions remain… Does urban redevelopment equal economic development?  And if it does, at what cost do we, as a society, place on economic growth?  Is it possible to grow economically and avoid the gentrification of the most diverse city in the world?

Extra Research Links:

http://www.citylab.com/housing/2013/10/what-we-havent-figured-out-question-gentrification/7166/

Amanda Burden is known to value the aesthetics of the architecture within the city. She needs buildings and parks to look a certain way, and is apparently ready to spend more money and time simply to perfect that. Both Burden and Whyte believe that “what is good for business, is good for the city.” Following this idea, Burden goes on to build buildings designed by starchitects, believing that this will bring up the value of surrounding land and introduce new businesses into the area. The prime example of this is the Highline, where after the abandoned railroad was renovated, hotels and luxury apartments sprung up around it.

Her logic is correct. Renovating or building new, iconic buildings do raise the value of surrounding land and bring in businesses, which subsequently leads to job and a better economy., however, it is important to keep in mind what jobs she brought in. Yes beautiful buildings can attract people to move into New York, but the only people capable of living or working in those environment seems to be those white-collared workers who were well off to being with. With this in mind, I don’t believe that her plans correlates with the idea of “building like Moses with Jacobs in mind”. Jane Jacobs wanted a city for the people. Not just a segment of people in New York, but for all the people in New York, in all different kinds of city.

Perhaps it was because Burden came from a well connected and well to do family and circles, but she can’t seem to comprehend the life style and needs of those who lives lose to the poverty line. Although I don’t believe that she should be criticized by for her preference of artistically designed architecture, she should be criticized for not building with Jacobs in mind.

http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/politics/newyork/features/6005/index1.html

Amanda Burden, chair of the New York City Planning Commission during the Bloomberg administration, believes that design is an important element to consider in urban development. Burden shares many views with Jane Jacobs such as encouraging social interaction and the vibrancy of public spaces (Larson 134). In Burden’s TED talk, she connected how her background as an animal behaviorist helped her observe and understand how people use spaces. Through these studies, she discovered what makes certain environments more inviting than others: comfort (created by the company of other people and seats) and greenery. Burden contrasts her beloved Paley Park with the familiar bare plazas favored by architects for their low-maintenance and generally avoided by the public. Consequently, she used information from her observations to develop design guidelines, such as at least two types of seating and at least four trees, for the city’s public plazas (Larson 139).

If the core of design is people as Burden suggests, it makes sense for urban planners to consider it. A space that appeals to and attracts visitors potentially brings revenue for surrounding businesses. Burden’s perspective that the High Line would encourage development and increase real estate values demonstrates William “Holly” Whyte’s belief that business is integral to the city’s success (Larson 135).

This leads to a different perspective to why design was important to Burden: to make the city appealing to investors and real estate (Larson 144). Burden refers to the “common good” in her talk several times but her idea of the “common good” is not inclusive of all city residents. The High Line’s impact in raising rent forced many people out of their homes and led to the construction of luxury apartments and condominiums (Larson 135). Her insistence to involve famous architects in the design of structures that demonstrate the city’s cultural and economic appeal may increase the number of tourism sites but these buildings might only be accessible to those who can afford to use them. Thus, the same spaces that were supposedly designed with people in mind may not be reachable by people who don’t have the time or money to visit.

Amanda Burden’s TED talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/amanda_burden_how_public_spaces_make_cities_work/transcript?language=en

When zoning was first instituted under the framework of the 1916 Zoning Resolution it was “the nation’s first complex set of rules governing how land can be used, and where and how structures can be built” (Farley). It was a bunch of guidelines to organize urban planning and to protect neighborhoods. It told people what they can build, where they can build it, and to an extent what their buildings would have to look like. One thing zoning policy didn’t do though was to tell people if they were going to build A, then they also needed to build B. That’s what Bill deBlasio wants to do.

A prevalent issue in the city today is that of affordable housing. There’s just not enough affordable places for the poor to live. While Bloomberg used a “voluntary inclusionary model”, which basically gave developers incentives, such as tax-reductions to build affordable housing when they build developments, deBlasio wants to use “a ‘guaranteed inclusionary’ model. Developments that take advantage of rezoning will contain affordable units by requirement rather than as an elective trade item. There will be no opting out” (Pomorski).

The thing is, some developers may decide they don’t want to be told what to do and could go build elsewhere, which would be harmful to our city. Can we really tell developers that they must build affordable housing? “We don’t ask Hermes to produce cheap polyester ties, or Thomas Keller to offer a dollar menu at Per Se. Why should Manhattan developers forgo profits on their most valuable holdings?” (Pomorski).  At the same time, Bloomberg’s model clearly wasn’t the best plan either. “Having secured lucrative incentive packages, developers were allowed to deliver tiny studio apartments, useless to families, to fulfill affordable square footage obligations” (Pomorski). Under Bloomberg there just wasn’t enough affordable housing. Developments like Williamsburg and Greenpoint and Hudson Yards have what seem to be “indefinite delays to promised affordable housing construction” (Pomorski).

Farley, John. “Eye Sores and Eye Candy: The Impact of Zoning on NYC”. Thirteen. 3 Jan 2012. Web. 15 Mar 2015. <http://www.thirteen.org/metrofocus/2012/01/eye-sores-and-eye-candy-the-impact-of-zoning-in-new-york-city/.

Larson, Scott. 2013. Building Like Moses With Jacobs in Mind: Contemporary Planning in New York City. New York: Temple University Press. 33-43, 77-96. Print.

Pomorski, Chris. “Is Manhattan for Everyone? The pied-a-terre approach and the “‘poor door'”. The Observer. 19 Feb 2014. Web. 15 Mar 2015. <http://observer.com/2014/02/is-manhattan-for-everyone-the-pied-a-terre-and-the-poor-door/>.