Author: Mikki Weinstein

A Marketable City (A Reflection on Burden and the High Line)

Upon reading chapter nine, I want to reflect upon Amanda Burden and the High Line.

Amanda Burden seems to be quite the controversial figure. In chapter nine of “Building Like Moses with Jacobs in Mind,” Larson discusses the differing opinions that people have of her. Many of these opinions were not very favorable. Burden’s emphasis on this idea of “design matters” affected her work and, by extension, the way people saw her. For instance, her insistence that private developers use “starchitects” for their projects was a product of her focus on aesthetic, which made developers unhappy because they would have to pay more to hire these “starchitects.” Burden was clearly also extremely detail-oriented, possibly to a fault. People who work for her claim that she micromanages and feels the need to have her hands in every little thing. This controlling nature may have led to her strong influence over Bloomberg and his agenda in the fixation on how things look as an approach to development. Another place where we have encountered Burden was in the video we watched in class about the rezoning of the 125th street area in Harlem. In that video, again, Burden comes across as an extremely controversial figure. What I found really compelling in chapter 9 was how Burden’s preoccupation with the aesthetic of New York City is really a direct appeal or attempt at making the city marketable. And that includes the rezoning of 125th street because to her, small mom and pop shops and neighborhoods that are actually culturally rich and diverse are not “marketable”- or at least not as marketable as they can be.

In the Vanity Fair article I posted below, Amanda Burden is interviewed by John Heilpern. To be honest, both when Larson went into Burden’s family background, and when Harlem residents railed against Burden for being a rich white lady, I didn’t understand why those things were relevant or important. However, upon reading this article, titled “Princess of the City” (referring to Burden), and further reflection, I see why it is relevant. Coming from such a wealthy background does not necessarily mean that Burden would be unable to understand the situations of people in the city unlike her. But once this can be seen to be the case, her background may be a valid reason why she is that way. I don’t feel that the article paints Burden in a positive light. She comes off as an uppity socialite who treats her incredibly important job as the city’s planning commissioner as a hobby, sprinkling talk of city planning in with another one of her hobbies, birdwatching. Burden proves Larson correct in his comments that Burden did not “need” the job, but rather she wanted it, when in her interview, she mentions that if she didn’t love her job, she “wouldn’t be doing it.”

Also in Chapter 9, Larson points out that Burden used the High Line as a prime example of “how design can be an amazing catalyst for private investment.” Honestly, it just sounds like Burden is saying gentrification without actually saying gentrification. Since the High Line opened, it has seen much criticism. Jeremiah Moss, author of the blog Vanishing New York, rails against the High Line and how the rezoning of West Chelsea in 2006 paved the way for a complete transformation of that neighborhood. While some of Moss’s claims are a bit dramatic (“I’ve gotten close to a panic attack, stuck in a pool of stagnant tourists at the park’s most congested points”), he was right in pointing out that although the transformation of the High Line was actually a grassroots effort and was meant to be for everyone, it is now a tourist attraction and a driving force for the rapid change of the neighborhood to include more luxury buildings and less working class folk. While this may not be what Amanda Burden was directly referring to when she championed the High Line for being an “amazing catalyst,” I think this may be what she actually had in mind.

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2010/05/otl-burden-201005

 

Bloomberg’s NYC: (Re)Zoning as a tool… (Mikki)

In “Building Like Moses with Jacobs in Mind,” Larson points to sustainability as one major issue that New York faces today. New York’s population is rapidly growing, and a key question is how to accommodate that kind of growth, while keeping a healthy standard of living for its inhabitants. Larson discusses the various strategies and plans that Mayor Bloomberg employed to address these problems. Bloomberg used rezoning as a tool to adjust where and how people lived in New York City to fit in with what he thought would be most efficient, while stimulating the city’s economy. Rezoning was a way of reshaping the city passively- it created the framework for what could be built and where, and the idea was that “the market” or private investors or corporations would come along and develop where they wanted to. When incentives for developers to add public spaces were included with zoning, this was taken advantage of. Even with all the regulation that went on with zoning, developers were still able to get around them, and to build what they wanted where they wanted to build it.

Zoning as a way to provide for affordable housing is still used today. In fact, just this week, Mayor de Blasio got changes to the zoning code passed. The new rules change zoning requirements across the city and require that developers create affordable housing along with other projects, instead of simply incentivizing it.

What I found so interesting about the discussion of zoning in Larson’s work and also about the new rules de Blasio is trying to implement are all the politics involved. Especially in Larson’s discussion of Bloomberg-era rezoning, it seems like so many of the decisions made were made out of political and economical self-interest. The fact that a large amount the downzoning under Bloomberg took place in neighborhoods where Bloomberg was trying to gain political influence is crazy! And this is just one example of how the communities chosen to be downzoned or rezoned was not quite equitable or, at the very least, random.

With de Blasio’s rules, there are many council members who voted against the bill because they didn’t feel it required enough affordable housing to be developed, or because the housing that would be developed wasn’t affordable enough. (De Blasio, in defending the changes, pointed out that while the mandated affordable housing was extremely important, what would really boost low income housing is the 8.2 billion dollars in subsidies that would be spent on low income housing over the next ten years as part of this plan.) It just goes to show that in politics, you can’t make everyone happy. Even though most would agree that the new rules are a step in the right direction, it seems like the same political and legal restrictions that come with the democratic and capitalist processes that existed under Bloomberg continue to be relevant.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/23/nyregion/new-york-council-passes-zoning-changes-de-blasio-sought.html?_r=0

http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/city-hall/2016/03/8594595/council-overwhelmingly-approves-de-blasios-plan-rezone-city

Larson, Scott. Building like Moses with Jacobs in Mind: Contemporary Planning in New York City. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 2013. Print.

 

Response to Max’s Blog Post

Thanks for your post Max!

I really appreciated your assessment of Reichl’s piece and your discussion on the Disneyization of the Times Square area. I agree with you that Time Square today, as a more family-oriented, entertaining, and tourist-attracting hub is safer than a place infested with drugs and prostitution. However, upon reading Reichl and Delany’s pieces, I found myself questioning who city planners design the city for.

Is the city designed for its inhabitants or for its tourists? You characterized Times Square today as a place of “live entertainment, exciting merchandise, and revamped tourism.” This is true, and tourism definitely benefits the city as a whole. It bolsters the economy, brings different kinds of people to the city, and adds a flavor the overall environment that you can’t get elsewhere. But I wonder if sometimes this great focus on how foreigners perceive the city is a bit overdone. Shouldn’t city planners also be concerned with how New Yorkers perceive New York? Shouldn’t city planners care what people think about the city they live in- its successes as well as its shortcomings? I think they should. And while tourism is a great boon for the economy, and brings with it various other benefits, planners need to be wary of over-disneyifying the city to the point where even its inhabitants feel like tourists. Over-disneyification could lead to a city that seems warm and inviting, but is actually just a facade of cold profit.

I found your discussion of rebranding really thought provoking. The idea of the use of Disney as a rebranding tool makes total sense, as city planners were obviously very concerned with how the city was perceived and what overall message it sent. What is somewhat ironic is that just as Disney was used as a rebranding tool, so too the black and white characterization of Time Square at that time as dirty and dangerous was also rebranding at work. Maybe branding is a better word, since people did already perceive is as dirty and dangerous. However, as Reichl points out, the extent to which the Times Square area was dirty and dangerous was blown largely out of proportion. He even explains that this is partly due to the way small-town dwellers had notions that the city was more dangerous than their towns, even though New York was more safe than most small towns. Additionally, Reichl explains that there was some misunderstanding as to what constituted commercial sex, and that so much of the sexual activity that went on was misidentified as commercial, when in fact most of it was way more complicated than that simple label.

While I think that prostitution, drugs, and violence are definitely a bad thing, and that Times Square is better off without them running rampant, I’m not so sure that what Times Square has become is truly inclusive and considerate of the city’s inhabitants. The fact that all this work went into branding the area in a certain way shows that the city as an idea was being sold to the highest bidder. And there’s something about that that doesn’t sit right with me. At least we can all continue to enjoy the beauty that is the humongous billboards and Naked Cowboy.

Thanks again for getting me thinking!

Mikki Weinstein: Response to Eleni’s Blog Post

Great post Eleni!

First off, I found your questioning of the moral implications of Moses’ decision-making to be really interesting. When, thinking about Moses, I am inclined to try and put myself in his position. As a leader and decision-maker, it seems super complicated and difficult to make choices that positively benefit everyone; I’m pretty sure it’s impossible. Even if the leader him/herself truly believes that their choices positively impact almost everyone, there is no way that it ever actually true. Additionally, leaders have a habit of deciding what they think is best for other people. It think another important question to ask is, “Can your decision for others be right even if they neither disagree with the decision nor have any control over it?” I do believe that Moses thought the things he developed for the city benefited many people, but he failed to take into account the people he was hurting.

When Moses built the Cross-Bronx Expressway, did he realize that he was separating the Bronx into a North and South, effectively cutting it in half and creating a strong economic divide that causes issues to this day? I don’t think he did, because he didn’t seems to be sympathetic to the plight of the poor or colored communities. Moses had a vision that he thought would certainly benefit white people; and even if he though it would ultimately benefit poor people or people of color, their comfort or wellbeing were not his primary concern. I found this interesting quote that was in Robert Moses’s book: “the first prescription for slum dwellers in the ghettos of the big cities is total, immediate, uncompromising, surgical removal.” This just doesn’t seem like a guy who is concerned with the plight of those less fortunate than he was.

As for your pondering as the end of your post, regarding whether or not there is ever a way to make a decision without leaving certain groups out, I’m unsure as well. However, if a leader makes one decision that negatively affects a group, then I think it is reasonable to make sure the next decision made helps them out. It may not be possible for every policy to be all-inclusive, but if who bears the brunt of different decisions is alternated, perhaps some sort of balance can be found.

Thanks for your post! Really made me think.