In the reading this week, chapter 3 discussed various plans during the Bloomberg administration that ended up falling through. Attempts to hold the Olympic games in New York City and building up the West Side and transportation extensions including a new LIRR terminal all withered and died. The problem is, it’s very hard to get things done in New York nowadays.
Almost all plans for “improvement” invite gentrification, and therefore anger poorer areas. But if improvements were made to wealthy areas, people would disagree with that as well, complaining that poorer areas deserved attention as well. There are issues with costs, since people are always looking for someone else to pay. Additionally, different organizations with conflicting interests have different visions of what they’d like accomplished, and there are always people who’d prefer for nothing to be done at all.
It’s easy to talk about Robert Moses and claim that his methods were cruel. However, his plans were far more likely to be enacted and paid for and accomplished on-time than plans today. Nowadays, too many people and organizations claiming Jane Jacob’s vision aim to prevent government plans, and it’s also harder to find funding for large projects.
I did notice however, that since the chapter from the reading was written, the 7 Line extension has actually been built and is operational. With some issues, including leaks. However, as a separate article points out, it had been delayed many times and ended up around 500 million dollars over budget, and had to scrap a second station that was originally planned as part of the extension. The article mentions that funding became an issue, but the MTA was unwilling to ask for government money from the New Starts funding. If they had done so, there might have been a way to build the second station. Overall, the city seems to be unable to plan as thoroughly as it should. I don’t know if it is out of fear of being seen as tyrannical and uncooperative as Moses, or simply laziness. But this lack of foresight adds to the growing distrust of city planning!
New Yorkers are always skeptical of big plans. They don’t trust the government to act in their best interest, and they don’t expect plans to actually come to fruition. This leads to even less support for different initiatives. For example, as mentioned in a New York Times article, our current mayor recently proposed a streetcar line between Brooklyn and Queens. He argues that the added transportation line would help people in lower-income communities and projects. However, at the same time, it is suggested that the project will pay for itself with increasing property values. To me, this screams asking for gentrification. If property values go up enough that cost won’t be an issue, how will poorer people still be able to live within useful distance of the new line? I see a lot of oversight.
Zoning was discussed in the second half of the reading as a way to facilitate certain kinds of growth without the government getting directly involved. However, zoning itself rather confuses me. I understand the basic original purpose to prevent overgrowth of certain areas and protecting homes or businesses. But the way in which it is used to subtly suggest building plans ends up not making a lot of sense. Builders tend to just find the cheapest way to be allowed to build extra floors. The city ends up with a lot of similarly planned out buildings. The zoning changes again. And the cycle starts all over. There are so many exceptions and different zoning rules that there doesn’t seen to be any kind of pattern at all anymore, and it just ends up influencing property pricing.
There are more than a few people that would like to see big building and transportation projects being again. However, they need to be planned out properly from beginning to end. The person doing the planning needs to make sure the project can actually be afforded, that it can actually get built within a certain time frame, and that it’s actually useful or feasible in an area. Otherwise, nothing substantial will ever get fully completed and the city will appear to have stagnated. Planners might think that people are only being disagreeable or distrustful, but judging by the number of planning oversights that have occurred recently and have been mentioned in the reading, it makes sense that New Yorkers no longer have real expectations for successful projects.
Sources:
7 Line Extension:
New York Times Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/05/nyregion/a-waterfront-route-to-serve-the-poor-not-just-the-wealthy.html?_r=0
“ Samantha
