This was an article that focused heavily on ways to make the city more sustainable long-term, given limited resources. In particular, living space was an important topic. In this country specifically, there is this mentality that you must have a house with a lawn and backyard to have achieved your goals later in life. Given the space available in New York City, that is clearly not sustainable. The article mentions that a way in which population density could be better managed if there was a shift towards moving families into apartments. However, there are several problems with this idea. Clearly, rent is skyrocketing and people would much rather own their property than share it with other. In addition, the social stigma of living in an apartment after a certain age would turn many away from such an idea. While it is obviously clear that apartments that are much larger than the ones that exist in the city today and much more abundant in quantity, would be a great help in making use of limited space, there are several social issues that would block such an idea from getting popular and gaining support from real estate companies.
That is not so say that all of the potential plans that the authors of the article came up with are unfeasible. As quoted by the paper and written by Rees, “Urban planning in the 21st Century should evolve towards an ecologically-oriented macro-architecture, fully integrating the design and location of energy-and material-efficient buildings and urban infrastructure with overall spatial planning further to minimize material throughput. (1999, p. 216)” It is clear that many of the buildings in Manhattan, especially high-rises and business towers that will eventually inhabit rich families and wealthy businesses are increasingly adopting ‘energy-and-material-efficient’ architecture and that being environmentally friendly with regards to new buildings is gaining steam. The concern however is that such as moving in real estate seems to: (1) be limited to the real-estate that will serve as buildings for rich individuals and businesses, rather than become the norm in building your average apartments for your average New Yorker, (2) such a change in building infrastructure will increase prices in a city where many already cannot afford to live in. There needs to be ways to incorporate such efficient building techniques into the city’s infrastructure that also remains cost-effective enough to not serve as too big of a burden for the pocket’s of average New Yorkers.
