TL;DR:

The Green New Deal panel offered a refreshing perspective on the current efforts in New York, at the city and state level, to both combat climate change and ensure the green economy marks a positive turning point in the injustice faced by marginalized communities. The new orientation of the economy in response to climate change can be characterized by three R’s: Regulation, Restitution, and Revolution. The most galvanizing part of the talk was the idea of a federal job guarantee, which would work through the new economic ideas of Modern Monetary Theory. What can you do? Start by calling your legislators about the GND legislation I mention and link to below.

Here are all the links to what I talk about:

Huffington Post article on NYC’s GND

NYS Senate Climate and Community Protection Act

New York Times article on MMT

Green New Deal Review (Full Version):

As I was leaving the Green New Deal panel, I must admit a bit of academic jealousy because Physics Department colloquia have never been so engaging and inspiring. Part of the display was simply the realization of how many moving parts it takes to achieve comprehensive legislative reform. On the panel were a city councilmember, activists on the state and global level, and an academic focusing on national policy. These people play a diverse set of roles in the way we are governed and represented, but they were all united on the new narrative of threat- the immediacy of the climate crisis. In contrast with the capitalistic fearmongering preferred by the Bloomberg administration, which focused on slow growth and the expectation of a business-related population surge, this new guard is taking a social and environmental stance. The panel’s description of the solid progressive majority in Albany and the comprehensiveness of New York City’s Climate Mobilization Act shows there is a path forward for our state to set an example in climate resiliency and a new energy economy. Throughout the discussion, words like “justice” and “equity” were emphasized over “growth” and “development.”          These sentiments found their implementations in what I’ll call the three R’s of climate action: regulation, restitution, and revolution.

Most of the regulatory policy came from Councilman Constantinides, which is not surprising considering his status as a local policymaker whose job it is to hammer out the nitty-gritty of who must pay for what. His description of previous NYC climate legislation and the upcoming Climate Protection Act include such impositions on corporate behavior as mandating that cost-benefit analyses include the social (i.e., health and environmental) costs of building projects, forcing the biggest buildings in the city to cut emissions by 40% within five years, and ordering other buildings to install green roofs and solar panels. These measures, by the councilman’s own account, do not sit well with the real estate lobby, which has been countering the legislation in the Council Hall. The nuance in this type of legislation is in the enforcement, a point raised by Leslie Cagan during her talk. In New York City, this means following through on promises to not give any loopholes to big buildings, but also to understand how to expand the plan to include smaller buildings, where costs more easily affect residents and small businesses. Although this aspect of the panel involved the least novel ideas, it was the most surprising. It was amazing to realize that, right in front of our eyes, a group of legislators was preparing to pass sweeping regulations on one of the biggest businesses in the city without the measures being significantly defanged. In Nassau County, you don’t see local leaders or state representatives with as much passion for progressive causes: most are moderated by the wealth of the suburbs, the insular nature of their neighborhoods, and the greater population of conservative voters. Seeing a man who possesses all the makings of a perfectly average local politician speak with such conviction and expertise about the impact and importance of this legislation was inspiring.

While most of the concrete legislation being planned has focused on these regulatory measures, the panel focused more on the potential of new policies to address the climate crisis proactively. This is where restitution plays a key role. Annel Hernandez emphasized 4 areas of work for “environmental justice.” These are extreme heat and community preparedness, air quality, green infrastructure, and energy efficiency. Because the federal government is slow to adopt change, both in general and at the moment, Hernandez placed great weight on state legislation and individual communities’ roles in implementing the aforementioned “just transition.” We have addressed issues of resource allocation, affordability, and neoliberal policies’ detrimental impact on the poor, but the conversation on the panel took on a broader perspective. It was alarming to note the concrete evidence of environmental racism and historic scars left on communities where highways, landfills, and fossil fuel-burning power plants have been located. Khalil, a Community Board member from the Rockaways, noted the higher rates of asthma in his community, where low-flying planes pollute the air. All of this evidence, as well as the accepted knowledge of historic poverty and discrimination against communities of color and other disadvantaged populations, led the speakers on the panel to advocate for investment in these communities that have either been most impacted by manmade pollution or will be in the most danger from the current extreme weather events associated with a warming climate. Costantinides and Hernandez both sagely noted the necessity for coastal resiliency against rising sea levels and extreme flooding. How telling that Lower Manhattan received a climate resiliency plan, but northern Queens, home of the largest housing project in the nation, and Hunts Point, both a low-income neighborhood and also the site of NYC’s food distribution center, did not.

The need for equity and justice forces the creation of the third R- revolution. The only way to move beyond regulation and achieve these optimistic goals is to radically adapt the economy and the attitudes of the public and government to the reality of the climate crisis. The centerpiece to the revolution is to abandon the slow-plodding policy of allowing technology to incentivize the free market to adopt clean energy on its own. Such a strategy has failed for over twenty years- a fact brought to light by the fact that petroleum companies were found to have acknowledged the threat of climate change, but denied it in order to get a monopoly on new, clean energy solutions. Andres Bernal presented a new solution: a systematic change in the economy. Instead of treating climate change as solely an environmental or technological problem, we need to acknowledge it for what it is: a threat to every aspect of our way of life. In response, it is necessary to take this opportunity to shift our government spending into overdrive, much like the response to World War II. Bernal cited the departure from the gold standard, and how the United States used the move to finance the conflict, as a paradigm for supplying the money for a federal job guarantee at a living wage. Why a jobs guarantee? It provides for the labor needed to transition from a fossil fuel-based society to a green one, but also helps to address other issues we currently face: stagnating wages, under-utilization of the available workforce, and historic socioeconomic discrimination against minorities. Truly revelatory was Bernal’s statement that we have come to see the current state of economics as a science rather than a flawed model for how states should conduct business. I found his argument that the government can spend as much as needed to keep the economy at full capacity without inflation highly convincing. We always question how to pay for universal healthcare or free college. What is never mentioned in these conversations is that, right now, we are not able to pay for the Social Security, Medicare, and the military without debt! It is therefore not unnatural to suggest that the US should engage in new spending that will not find its match in taxpayer dollars. The basis for all these ideas are found in Modern Monetary Theory (MMT for the Bloomberg-reading nerds). If you remember what you learned in macroeconomics and feel like this is upside-down and inside out, I’ve linked to an article introducing the idea above this post.

When I was in high school, I was very attuned to the issue of climate change and the political processes associated with it. I followed the UN’s COP sessions and even spent a semester working on a Nigerian climate resiliency plan for a research class. But I must confess that after Trump was elected, I became disillusioned with our country’s ability to address the crisis in any substantial manner. I stopped paying attention and grew accustomed to the idea that climate change would simply take millions by surprise when it was too late. This panel left me extremely optimistic because, while I was discouraged, these people had been getting to work. Local solutions with community involvement are the precursors to change at the state and regional level, which will cascade upward to the federal government. And as for accusations from railing against a social justice mentality and the dangers of socialism- I’m over it. The inequality is too severe, the threat of disaster too large, to spend time quibbling about the essential goodness of capitalism. It’s time to act. If you live in New York City, call your councilperson and urge them to pass Int 1253. Log on to the New York State Senate’s website and follow the NY Climate and Community Protection Act; if your state senator is on the Environmental Conservation Committee, call them and voice your support. The resolution of this global crisis must start locally, and New Yorkers are poised to the lead the way, if only we’ll take up the mantle history has provided us.

Everyone’s been hearing of the high line for the past few years, and that won’t stop anytime soon. As an inhabitant of NYC, I myself found to visit the Chelsea high line once, which is quite surprising due to the fact that I didn’t go on my own but rather for an observational assignment. So this project added a diverse element to the West Side of the city, a public space renovated to serve the concept of adding more greenery and re-purposing the area and zoning codes. We label is at a public work and park, something for the people but it became a tourist attraction. Ask New Yorkers and they’ll most likely say they barely visit the high line. It’s indeed beautiful and open scenery compared to the rest of Manhattan, but what brings its con is the immense number of people that walk on it, which adds to disturbance and takes away the serenity. As mention in a New York Times article, “The High Line is pretty, all the plantings are beautiful, and it’s idyllic to look at — at least at seven in the morning… Maybe not when 20 million people are walking” (I.)

This hectic tourist attraction is now losing its founding purpose as real estate pricing in the neighborhood significantly boomed, creating havoc for residents and business owners. This is where my main article of choice comes:

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/may/06/dangers-ecogentrification-best-way-make-city-greener

 

If the high line was meant to serve residents, it totally failed due to the fact that it served residents. Businesses heavily suffered here customer base was lost due to the influx of tourists as residents moved out due to the inflating prices and demand to live in the areas surrounding the high line. The article highlights that “environmental gentrification” was what happened in terms of the high line, transforming the landscape and segregating existing residents from the newly incoming ones. Bringing attention to the point that developers and planners were indeed narrow minded in serving these works for the public. On my terms, a public space or park should serve the residents of a neighborhood, catering to their pass time activities and open space to engage with. The youth are also important for a city like New York, as providing clean and friendly spaces for future generations will promote growth. Unlike the high line project, which is a narrow, long strip of elevated lines filled with greenery; which really invites tourists rather than residents because it’s like a walk down a green museum almost in a sense rather than a space where people come together for specific purposes. The article highlights the success of smaller scale, methodological approaches in many other cities in Europe, which over time built things gradually, instead of a massive project like the high line. When you think of this, it comes clear that a gradual approach would not force residents out due to any differences in pricing or gentrification because the concept of adaptability would exist. Thus, coming to present day, the project that Mayor Bill de Blasio put in place in the Community Parks Initiative (CPI). “When we talk about improving parks in New York City, we’re really talking about improving the lives of New Yorkers, said Mayor Bill de Blasio” (II)

This community investment is what the city needed, in terms of gradually renovating different parks in different communities. Investing $318 million to clean up and develop parks in a more sustainable way, the Mayor received praise from many state representatives. As a kid, the park was where I wanted to spend my time and play with others, and being there taught me a lot of skills but also lessons in terms of communicating with others and how the demographics of the area exist just by others at the park. Parks are the souls and centers of neighborhoods and so therefore, it is indeed a great feat to be accomplished. So, we have this effort versus the High Line, where the High Line now serves no purpose but a nice walk down the lower West Side and tourists, with attractive architecture and art. Meanwhile, we have this CPI initiative that is putting the people and residents at the forefront, serving them improvements in their public and park spaces, to bring together the residents, rather than push them away. See, this gradual improvement of parks will not raise housing prices, it’s subtle yet impactful. So, you be the judge, which initiative makes more sense for the growth and sense of community?

 

Sources:

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/may/06/dangers-ecogentrification-best-way-make-city-greener

I. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/realestate/the-high-line-a-place-to-see-and-be-seen.html

II. https://www1.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/news/913-17/mayor-de-blasio-11-sites-added-community-parks-initiative

 

The first time I walked the length of the High Line, this elevated railway turned park, was for a school project freshman year. My class was tasked to go and watch a dance, an interpretive dance, one of the many art forms the High Line provided. So, I went, and I watched, and I waited for the moment when the story the dancers were trying to tell would make sense. Spoiler alert: it didn’t. As I made my way down the track I noticed some things. Apart from the bodies slowly twisting and turning, there was a wall of paintings supplied by local artists, a few yards away from the overpriced frozen yogurt cart. I remember going to this so-called park, and finding it odd that the dancers didn’t dance to any music, that not a single child was playing with a ball, that there was no playground, that dogs were not being walked. All of this was a stark contrast from my local parks, which were loud and full of life, a different kind of life.

To introduce the CityLab article I chose to share, which highlights an interview with one of the High Line’s co-founders, I think it is only fitting to provide a quick history of the park. West Chelsea’s up-and-coming tourist destination was once nothing more than an idea between two Chelsea residents and friends. Robert Hammond and Joshua David were from the community and wanted to use the space to benefit the community, but Hammond was asked if that goal was accomplished and his response was “’Ultimately, we failed.[i]’” The High Line has more than 8 million visitors a year, and while nearly one-third of Chelsea’s residents are people of color, the majority of those enjoying the Highline are tourists and “overwhelmingly white[ii].” In fact, it strays so far from what is expected given the racial and ethnic composition of the area[iii] or the fact that the Highline is bookended by two affordable housing units. Hammond, who now runs the Friends of the High Line organization that built the structure and helps maintain it, and David tried to take the communities input, but only on a superficial basis of design. Hammond now regrets that choice, saying that the question he should have asked was “’What can we do for you?[iv]’” In an effort to rectify this, Hammond and his organization sponsored a set of listening sessions and asked Chelsea residents of their concerns about what they needed, which was jobs and a lower cost of living, both of which were made difficult with the High Line’s arrival. Residents had three main reasons for not visiting the High Line “They didn’t feel it was built for them; they didn’t see people who looked like them using it; and they didn’t like the park’s mulch-heavy programming.” It was a project that masqueraded as one for the people, only to be duplicitous in its purpose: it was a money-making machine estimated to bring in in over $1 billion in tax incentives in the next couple decades[v].

So why and how did a noble cause dwindle into a structure silently polarizing a community? The answer is simple and according to the CityLab article even has a name: “adaptive use”. And while this just repurposes existing spaces, city governments very rarely spearhead the projects opening them up to private investors, who set the structures up however they please creating prescribed “public” spaces, that more often than not do not serve the communities they hail from, as seen in almost 17 other adaptive use cases[vi]. That is not to say that these projects are failures, they do beautify communities and make money for the city and part of that is attracting tourists. But they act as powerful gentrifying forces that change these communities, making them unrecognizable and unwelcome to those who call it home. It ostracizes citizens from their own communities. And so finally I present you with the age-old questions: do the ends justify the means? And if projects are done in the name of the greater good, who do we get to include under that vague umbrella?

 

[i] Bliss, Laura, Laura Bliss, and CityLab. “The High Line’s Biggest Issue-And How Its Creators Are Learning from Their Mistakes.” CityLab. February 28, 2017. Accessed April 01, 2019. https://www.citylab.com/solutions/2017/02/the-high-lines-next-balancing-act-fair-and-affordable-development/515391/.

[ii] Reichl, Alexander J. “The High Line and the Ideal of Democratic Public Space.” Urban Geography37, no. 6 (2016): 904-25. doi:10.1080/02723638.2016.1152843.

[iii]“The High Line and the Ideal of Democratic Public Space.”

[iv] “The High Line’s Biggest Issue-And How Its Creators Are Learning from Their Mistakes.”

[v] Friends of the High Line. “The High Line by the Numbers.” The High Line Magazine, 2016.

[vi] “Projects.” High Line Network. Accessed April 03, 2019. https://network.thehighline.org/projects/.

 

After its opening in 2009, the High Line has become one of New York’s top tourist attractions (in fact the High Line broke top 15 on 7 different “things to do in NYC” posts on the first page of google). A railway track that hasn’t run a train since the 1980s got turned into a sprawling public park that now has over 5 million annual visitors. Using that as a model The Trust for Public Land and Friends of the QueensWay have proposed a High Line-esque 3.5-mile public park in Queens called the QueensWay.

As explained in the video, the QueensWay would be a multi-use linear park that includes playgrounds, educational spaces, gardens, and much more. The old Rockaway Beach Rail Line is planned to connect the towns of Rego Park, Forest Hills, Glendale, Woodhaven, Richmond Hill, and Ozone Park to each other as well as to shopping centers and various subway lines. The park will increase foot traffic to the businesses along the track and would, in turn, increase the property values of nearby homes by a predicted 5-7 percent; all this while also lowering CO2 emissions in the area by 10,000 metric tons per year.

The QueensWay would be a benefit to Queens and would foster improvements for the wellbeing of its citizens. Firstly, having an accessible greenspace can greatly improve the mental health of residents of a space. This NPR article references multiple studies that have concluded with result that support the facts “having access to even small green spaces can reduce symptoms of depression for people who live near them” and “our bodies physically respond well to environment and nature because of our species’ historical past.” Secondly, having the QueensWay would also improve physical health. In contrast to the High Line, the 3.5-mile QueensWay park will be contusive to exercise as it will allow visitors to jog, run, bike, or walk along the paths as well as having playgrounds for children and fitness centers for adults to get exercise. With 322,000 people living a mile or less away from the QueensWay it is an easy access spot for parents to get to with their children after work or school that is close to home. The QueensWay will also gift an educational advantage to schools in the area, especially the 12 schools that are less than 5 minutes away, by being a space for class trips while also having outdoor educational spaces open. Finally, the park will provide a safe walking space to avoid areas of heavy traffic such as Queens Boulevard or Woodhaven Boulevard where it was common to have to cross almost 10 lanes on a busy street. Building the QueensWay will help to further the Community Parks Initiative to improve New York City neighborhoods by adding a new and helpful park to Queens.

The QueensWay park will ultimately provide a space for the people of Queens to use as their own to improve their health, safety, and wellbeing. It will give the opportunity for people of the communities it reaches to come together and share in each other’s cultures and lives which will bring new life to the railway that hasn’t been used in decades.

 

Sources:

Google Search, Google, www.google.com/search?q=top tourist attractions nyc&oq=top tour&aqs=chrome.2.69i57j0l5.3854j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8.

Chatterjee, Rhitu. “Replacing Vacant Lots With Green Spaces Can Ease Depression In Urban Communities.” NPR, NPR, 20 July 2018, www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/07/20/630615148/replacing-vacant-lots-with-green-spaces-can-ease-depression-in-urban-communities.

David, Joshua. Reclaiming the High Line: a Project of the Design Trust for Public Space, with Friends of the High Line. Ivy Hill Corp., 2002.

NYfacts.com. “The High Line.” NYfacts, nyfacts.com/the-high-line/.

“The QueensWay Is a Community-Led Effort to Transform a Blighted, 3.5 Mile Stretch of Abandoned Railway in Central Queens into a Family-Friendly Linear Park and Cultural Greenway.” QueensWay, thequeensway.org/.

Warerkar, Tanay. “New Looks at the High Line-Style Park Proposed for Queens.” Curbed NY, Curbed NY, 17 May 2017, ny.curbed.com/2017/5/17/15653774/queensway-park-railway-new-renderings.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg had transformed New York to a degree that rivals Robert Moses’ accomplishments. In a political atmosphere that focused on Jacobsian ideals like diversity, eyes on the street, green spaces and neighborhood preservation, Bloomberg took the facade of Jane Jacobs but had the political savvy to carry out construction in Moses-like fashion.

This was done in a neoliberal fashion: Bloomberg, effectively, rezoned many neighborhoods to allow either grand-scale development, or the opposite, to prevent the construction of apartment complexes. The neoliberalism stemmed from the urge to compete against other great cities, which meant that more housing units would be built and city population would grow. The 108th mayor of New York City instilled fear onto New Yorkers, as if New York was falling behind great cities like London, Paris, and Shanghai. With fear-driven politics, Bloomberg made development a central key point to his agenda. His neoliberal policies put many low-income citizens through tougher financial stresses, as they tried and still try to keep up with rising rent prices. For Bloomberg, the question was not about whether the city needed new housing. It was clear that it did need them, as, for example, in 1990, there was a deficit of 500,000 people for housing unit. In other words, more people were immigrating (or being born) to New York than there were enough homes to support them.  If you want to get an idea of how much Bloomberg “developed” to cater for the rising demand for housing and other amenities, take a look at the interactive map below:

http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2013/08/18/reshaping-new-york/index.html

The question that Bloomberg needed to answer was, “for who should the new housing units be built for?” Bloomberg was quoted as wanting the best and brightest (notice the Donald Trump reference,) but does that mean that the poor needed to get kicked out? If so, who would do the labor work that runs the city? Bloomberg’s rezoning did kick out the manufacturing centers in Willet’s Point, already, but this has come at the cost of poorer workers losing their jobs. In making New York more attractive to talented outsiders, Bloomberg took on a globalist perspective at the cost of using his own citizens as a means to an end. (Does this remind you of Robert Moses?)

As we learned from Jane Jacobs, urban renewal isn’t necessarily a good thing. For example, if you construct new buildings in a city and demolish old ones, rent prices go up. This means that low-income citizens have one less place that they could get affordable housing. When Larson describes the reshaping of manufacturing zones to residential or commercial, this sort of thing tends to happen in high density low-income neighborhoods. It seems as if Bloomberg is adding more housing to a New York that would accommodate “a million” more people by year 2040. The problem that does not get addressed is the pricing of those homes in the residential areas. Most of those homes go up in price because the redevelopment makes those homes/apartment complexes new. This ends up attracting mostly wealthier, whiter people, changing the neighborhood demographics. On the other hand, under preservationist efforts in keeping the culture of a neighborhood, many areas got downzoned causing many apartment complexes to not be built, which resulted in the lack of housing to incoming immigrant populations. So the fact that Bloomberg accelerated the development of new housing complexes meant that older buildings had to get demolished.

In both high density and low density neighborhoods, people of color tended to lose. Bloomberg did not go out of his way enough to help lower-income families, which is why today he is partly to blame for the rise of New York’s homelessness population. Following Bloomberg’s tenure, research suggests that downzoned neighborhoods had illegally converted households that immigrants lived in, so they did not entirely lose their minority populations. Another trend that has occurred was the eastwardly migration of minorities, away from the upzoned areas of Brooklyn and Manhattan to neighborhoods in Queens. You could say that gentrification had occurred in Queens neighborhoods, because of the population mobility.

From the landlords point of view, the landlords have enjoyed the redevelopment, which had either added air space to the lots they own, or had allowed them to go through vacancy loopholes that let them take their property off the rent-stabilized property market. This allowed for expensive buildings to be built, which have higher rents, that led to the gentrification among many neighborhoods. The landlords are not to blame for the housing disparity. They are just doing their job in finding the rational way of maximizing their profits.

To get a scope of just how much Bloomberg changed New York economically, take a look at the following paper. It goes in a lot of depth so just read the first 30 pages or so to get a sense of what is going on. The paper is also really interesting to look at if you are considering a career in real estate:

https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/98935#files-area

This paper was, obviously, not read from the sci-hub.se website because that website is very illegal.

All the information I use in this blog comes from this timeline written by Amy Plitt for Curbed NY and from this amazing piece written by Michael Kimmelman. I highly recommend a slow scroll-through of the NYT article- the graphics are fantastic and the writing is very well done.

When I was 14, I visited the High Line for the first time. Lifting my gaze from the sloping benches, modern art sculptures, and gawking tourists, I saw them. A hulking group of towers looming over the near skyline, their metal skeletons still visible above their incomplete glassy exteriors. At that moment, I did not recognize them for what they were, but I wondered about their purpose and when they would ever be completed.

Last week, I saw in the New York Times that the strangest of those buildings, an Escherian honeycomb called “Vessel,” was completed and open to the public. In fact, the whole complex was now sheathed in glass and accepting offers from prospective tenants who wished for a luxury lifestyle on the banks of the Hudson. What was this project, and how could such a lavish and ostentatious neighborhood simply be created atop a train depot? It turns out the story of Hudson Yards demonstrates how Bloomberg’s use of zoning helped bring to life his vision for the city.

According to Curbed NY, Hudson Yards was originally part of the Bloomberg administration’s bid for the 2012 Olympics. It was to house a massive stadium that would become the New York Jets’ home and would also include retail and housing. In the end, all the plans were rejected, save for the zoning changes, which quietly passed in 2009. All around the future site of Hudson Yards, Bloomberg served up prime real estate to build the High Line and its surrounding towers. Soon, the rights to the air above the LIRR train depot were bought and the project seen today began to take shape.

This neighborhood was created out of nothing by Bloomberg and capital. The former mayor pushed for a vision of New York he believed was the most important development the city has seen in a long time. Through the rezoning of the depot and the surrounding area, the entire character of this part of the city was irrevocably changed. Who determined what became of this fallow ground? Certainly not New Yorkers. The air rights being sold to private developers meant that private capital determined how the towers looked and how the requirement for 50% open space was met. They created a space-age offshoot, a Jetson village with none of the show’s domicile joviality . Reading the descriptions of the apartments on Hudson Yards’ website is an exercise in disgust. At a moment when New York is in perhaps its worst housing crisis, does the city really need another four massive towers advertised as the finest in luxury living? New York is not Dubai. Though it is indeed a temple to capitalism, it is also an organic space, where people have flocked to participate in the dance of business and created a culture of urban interactions. Contriving this space into pretentious Instagram bait, claiming public access to an area shadowed by private dwellings, and even creating separate entrances for premium and subsidized tenants are all decisions not made in the best interest of New York.

According to New York Times architectural critic Michael Kimmelman, Hudson Yards implies “the peak ambitions of city life [are] consuming luxury goods and enjoying a smooth, seductive, mindless materialism.” There was very little public opposition to the rezoning of Hudson Yards. Distracted by the previous plans for a stadium and the failed Olympic bid, as well as the fact that no existing neighborhood was being razed, Bloomberg skated through the process of wasting an opportunity to create an equitable space that better prepared New York for the economic problems that began in 2008 and still linger today.

This story has a more subtle connection to zoning and power because of how little opposition there was, but the truth is that rezoning created the opportunity for private capital to swoop in and impose this behemoth upon New York.

This week’s reading(s) further confirm my suspicions that power is the root of everything: without power to back someone, they will never get anything done.  Robert Moses possessed a great deal of power over specific departments when it came to city planning, and that is why he was able to get so many things done.

A few decades later we saw the Bloomberg administration’s attempt to produce “the quantity of Robert Moses with the quality of Jane Jacobs” (Larson, 2013, p.142). Though the administration had a few set-backs where they weren’t able to get all of their projects done, that is not to say that, “the administration would not be able to force its Moses-like redevelopment on New York City” (Larson, 2013, p. 43) as time went on.  (Here, “Moses-like” refers to the expansion of the city; NOT the unethical ways that Moses went about his business, i.e., repossessing people’s properties in order to build what he wanted.)

The Bloomberg administration went on to produce some wonderful things in the city, such as the High Line, an elevated path which runs almost one and a half miles throughout the city.  But why were they able to produce these things?  Because they had power.

The main difference between Moses and the Bloomberg administration was that the Bloomberg administration kept Jane Jacobs’ humanitarian ideologies in mind when building and re-zoning.  They wanted to keep Jacobs’ in mind because they wanted to make the city a better place to live: but they were able to do what they wanted because they had power.  (When Jane Jacobs tried to get what she wanted, she lost to Robert Moses because he was the one with the power.)

Having power can be considered a good thing or a bad thing, depending on what is done with it:

There are cases where the Bloomberg administration might’ve taken advantage of their power, like Moses did, in order to get what they wanted: In the book Building like Moses with Jacobs in Mind, Larson describes an instance where, “Bloomberg officials continued to force the issue [that they were working on] by delivering repeated threats, deadlines and ultimatums” (Larson, 2013, p. 35).  Even though in this case their plans were never accomplished, the officials knew that they had power that could potentially be used to their benefit.

In other instances, that power could be used for the greater good: “In 2008 the New York Observer ranked Burden fifth on its list of the one hundred most powerful people in New York real estate, behind Bloomberg and a trio of developers and property owners…” (Larson 135).  Amanda Burden was the head of planning during the Bloomberg administration: as for the greater good, she always kept Jacobs’s ideologies in mind.  Most agree that she was excellent at her job, but the fact that she was in put in a position of power definitely allowed her to reach her goals, whereas if she did not have such power, it would’ve been much more difficult for her to get things done: “Any major land-use change in the city must pass over Ms. Burden’s desk – if it didn’t originate there in the first place… she is the shining star of the Bloomberg administration’s still-incomplete development legacy” (Medchill 2008 as cited in Larson, 2013, p. 135).

Amanda Burden was the leader of one of the city’s most creative rezoning efforts: the High Line. According to author Ryan Holeywell, “Burden created the rezoning mechanism that helped make the work possible. Owners of land underneath the rail line had wanted it demolished since it kept them from building vertically.  Her office allowed landowners to sell those air rights to nearby sites where higher developments would be permitted. That’s caused a real estate boom in the area surrounding the park, a stretch along the west side of Midtown Manhattan that had long been underdeveloped.”  Because Burden’s office gave landowners the power to choose what they wanted to do with that space, she was able to share her power to do things with the community, and thus able to move her project along.

 

Amanda Burden and the Bloomberg administration were able to get creative with rezoning because they had power and chose to share it. According to the article “Will the Next NYC Mayor Continue Bloomberg’s Urban Planning Legacy,” aside from taking risks,

Bloomberg also has a reputation for avoiding micromanagement, empowering his deputies and loyally defending them from any political fallout they may encounter…“Really, he gives you an enormous amount of leeway to come up with your plans,” Lieber says. “He’ll support you and defend you. This is what a chief executive does. He knows how to run a business. If you’re going to be effective at running a business, your effectiveness is being able to leverage the people that work for you.”

(https://www.governing.com/topics/transportation-infrastructure/gov-nyc-mayor-bloombergs-urban-planning-legacy.html)

Not only did Bloomberg himself have power, but he awarded power to the people on his team, so that they could also get things done: Rather than assuming all of the power for himself, he shared it amongst people who he knew would help benefit his goals if they had the ability to do so – in other words, the power to do so.

 

 

 

 

Times Square is THE place that comes to mind when people are asked to think of New York City. And yet, this was not always so. Times Square was thought of as the slums of New York only decades ago. The history of Times Square, like many other places in the city, is one of rise and fall. In this timeline of the plaza, the various states of Times Square can be traced. From a raunchy and unsightly area to the belle of the ball, the major overhaul of Times Square would not have been possible without the tactical interference by the government as seen in Reichl’s paper. The reconstruction of Times Square into the highly commodified area it is now was anything but coincidental.

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4kA7Zy5fwg

This trailer from a documentary about the redevelopment of Times Square shows how inextricable the influence of the government and the private sector is on the current nature of Times Square.

The direct consequence of this metamorphosis has been the conversion of Times Square into a space meant for tourists instead of those who live in the city. When considering rebirth or revanchism of Times Square, while it is true that the Times Square of now is akin to the brief moment of glamour of the 20’s, it cannot be called a reclamation because the Times Square now is not meant for New York residents–it is meant for tourism. Delany also brings to attention the way infrastructure and superstructure relate to and shape one another. The initial transformation of Time Square into a location for commercial gain has caused further reorder of the spatial organization in that area. The square has been pedestrianized to allow for more walkability. This has allowed Times Square to grow into a tourist attraction more than ever. How, then can Times Square be reclaimed as a space for New Yorkers, if that is even possible?

Sidenote: Times Square is nothing without the ToysRUs store I miss the big dinosaur 🙁

RIP Buddy 🙁

Times Square was “Disneyfied” before I was even born, and yet, my perception of the area is disdainful. Every time I have been there, I wished dearly that I was somewhere else.

Why?

As Reichl and Delaney point out, Times Square has always been designated for commercial entertainment,  simply with varying degrees of social acceptance. While it is undeniable that Times Square historically had much higher rates of drug use, prostitution, and crime than the surrounding neighborhoods, Delaney makes a very convincing argument that much of what was perceived as prostitution or crime was the mainstream recasting of homosexuality and poverty. He argues that pushing these populations out has only served to marginalize them.

I for one, simply out of my own personal experience, am convinced. Watch this advertisement, made by Expedia. Stop it at 22 seconds, and then again at 35.

 

 

 

Notice the sex appeal in the billboard advertisements. If the goal of rebuilding the area was to push out commercial sex and smut, then surely they have failed, only to replace it with a more socially accepted version.

Delaney talks about how Times Square is supposedly safer for woman, and that many honest working women have been displaced for development. But if the goal was to help woman, then the only thing accomplished has been their further objectification. (If increasing wealth for large companies like Disney, who according to Reichl have made quite a tidy sum without doing much for the city, then goal achieved.)

Apparently, according to developers, someone selling indecent pictures is ruining the neighborhood, but if her nipples are covered and she’s on a billboard with the “Aerie” logo on it, we’ve saved the city from itself. This phenomenon has been overlooked by both authors, in that the family atmosphere projected by Times Square does not really exist.

For example, I have seven siblings; I know from experience that a part of parenting is knowing exactly where the restrooms are at all times, because an accident is waiting to happen at any moment. The last time I went to Times Square, I had to try six different stores before I found one that had a bathroom. How can a space be family oriented if it does not serve the most basic of family needs?

And, look at the new furniture designs for the open sitting area.

Can you see children playing on the cubicles with plants in them? Or can you see working class people stopping to read a book in the middle of the Times Square bustle, especially on a seat that looks so incredibly uncomfortable? Can you see anyone doing that, even yourself?

It’s ridiculous, and highly lucrative. It reminds me of Jane Jacobs reference in her book to the square of grass in the tenement building, where the residents would like nothing more than a laundromat or a coffee shop.

Simply put, there is undeniable hypocrisy and contradiction in development policy. Furthermore, it’s been done in the name of helping the city in order to make massive profits from tourists, a population that does not have to live here, and will presumably drive or fly away at the end of the day. There is no utility in the space. The ultimate purpose of every building, every trapping, and every worker is to make money. There isn’t even something so simple as a public restroom.

That’s why I hate going there.

 

Jane Jacobs was a vigorous proponent for building cities for the people. She championed changes to the city that citizens supported, and fought against proposals that threatened the livelihood of the community. In a relatively recent instance, Jacobs wrote an open letter to previous mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg. In it, she criticized Mayor Bloomberg’s insistence on carrying out the rezoning of the Greenpoint – Williamsburg waterfront. The people living in the neighborhood, she argues, know best for their own community, and it would be best if the city council heeded their protests. She lists all the issues that would be brought forth if the proposal was approved, as stated in the full text shown below:

Jane Jacobs
69 Albany Avenue
Toronto, ON M5R 3C2
CANADA

April 15, 2005

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and all members of the City Council
c/o City Council President Gifford Miller

Dear Mayor Bloomberg,

My name is Jane Jacobs. I am a student of cities, interested in learning why some cities persist in prospering while others persistently decline; why some provide social environments that fulfill the dreams and hopes of ambitious and hardworking immigrants, but others cruelly disappoint the hopes of immigrant parents that they have found an improved life for their children. I am not a resident of New York although most of what I know about cities I learned in New York during the almost half-century of my life here after I arrived as an immigrant from an impoverished Pennsylvania coal mining city in 1934.

I am pleased and proud to say that dozens of cities, ranging in size from London to Riga in Latvia, have found the vibrant success and vitality of New York to demonstrate useful and helpful lessons for their cities—and have realized that failures in New York are worth study as needed cautions

Let’s think first about revitalization successes; they are great and good teachers. They don’t result from gigantic plans and show-off projects, in New York or in other cities either. They build up gradually and authentically from diverse human communities; successful city revitalization builds itself on these authentic community foundations, as the community-devised plan 197a does.

What the intelligently worked out plan devised by the community itself does not do is worth noticing. It does not destroy hundreds of manufacturing jobs, desperately needed by New York citizens and by the city’s stagnating and stunted manufacturing economy. The community’s plan does not cheat the future by neglecting to provide provisions for schools, daycare, recreational outdoor amateur sports, and pleasant facilities for those things. The community’s plan does not promote new housing at the expense of both existing housing and imaginative and economical new shelter that residents can afford. The community’s plan does not violate the existing scale of the community, nor does it insult the visual and economic advantages of neighborhoods that are precisely of the kind and that demonstrably attract artists and other live-work craftsmen, initiating spontaneous and self-organizing renewal. Indeed so much renewal so rapidly that the problem converts to how to make an undesirable neighborhood to an attractive one less rapidly.

Of course the community’s plan does not promote any of the vicious and destructive results mentioned. Why would it? Are the citizens of Greenpoint and Williamsburg vandals? Are they so inhumane they want to contrive the possibility of jobs for their neighbors and for the greater community?

Surely not. But the proposal put forth before you by city staff is an ambush containing all those destructive consequences, packaged very sneakily with the visually tiresome, unimaginative and imitative luxury project towers. How weird, and how sad, that New York, which has demonstrated city successes enlightening to so much of the world, seems unable to learn lessons it needs for itself. I will make two predictions with utter confidence: 1) If you follow the community’s plan you will harvest success; 2) If you follow the proposal before you today, you will maybe enrich a few heedless and ignorant developers, but at the cost of an ugly and intractable mistake. Even the presumed beneficiaries of this mis-use of governmental powers, the developers and financiers of the luxury towers, may not benefit, misused environments are not good long-term economic bets.

Come on, do the right thing. The community really does know best.

Sincerely,

Jane Jacobs

The most important part of Jacobs’ letter to me was where she listed all of the faults of rezoning plan. They went hand in hand with what she stated in Chapter 7 of her book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities – that cities require economic and social opportunities for the community to partake in, and in turn make the economic and social life of the city flourish. In the letter she argues that Bloomberg is ripping away these opportunities from the community, and in turn dooming the neighborhood to a horrible mistake.

Interestingly, Mayor Bloomberg ignored Jacobs’ criticisms along with the city’s protests and approved the plan. The area has now become a recreational spot, and the residential buildings have been reconstructed to high rise towers that are only available to those with the means to afford their astronomical prices. In this way Jacobs’ was right. Bloomberg’s plan did indeed end up promoting “new housing at he expense of both existing housing and imaginative and economical new shelter that residents can afford.” What makes me wonder though is, do the city planners who proposed this plan view the project as a success or not? In Jacobs’ eyes, it wasn’t a success, because it cost the community their space. However, as she mentions in her introduction, city planners often view her idea of failed projects as massive successes, and her successes as “slums.” Do the city planners recognize the stripping away of community from the neighborhood, or are they only concerned with the economic benefits they are reaping from the rich moving into the new spaces?