9′ X 18′

Now that we have all grown up in the twenty-first century, we are beginning to realize our generation’s core values and how we will later contribute later on in life towards our community and legacy. Conserving resources is one of those core values we all share nowadays, and for good reason. However, even with all of the recycling initiatives, electric cars, and ‘squeaky clean’ energy sources, we still have a crisis trying to manage with what we have. We live on an island and it’s not getting any bigger. We might be reducing our water and electricity usage but New York is not using any less land. Since we must work with what we have, 9′ X 18′ becomes a very important number and concept.

Michael Kimmelman explains what the 9′ X 18′ concept is and its purpose in his article Trading Parking Lots for Affordable Housing. It is easy to see that New York City is in an affordable housing crisis; rent keeps going up but so do the amount of people who want to live in New York, specifically Manhattan. It’s about time that the secret behind the enigma 9′ X 18′ is revealed. 9′ X 18′ is the size of a standard parking spot, but there are plenty of those to go around in public housing developments. Once a formality to ensure a fair amount of parking spots for tenants, urban developers have seen that residents are more keen on using mass transportation rather than personal automobiles. The big plan here is to convert the spacious parking areas and possibly convert them into more housing units, public service buildings, or businesses that would produce revenue for the development.

The history of the United States has been a story of expansion, a story that began with Puritans sailing to New England and hit its climax when the pioneers journeyed westward. The urban areas of the United States are phasing into a different era now, an era of conservation and environmentalist values. New York has consistently been a model for the future, and it is only fitting that it keep setting the standard with more modern and efficient urban planning. The 9′ X 18′ plan of converting parking spaces into buildings is not guaranteed by means because of political red tape and the potentially tremendous costs, but the plan is important for especially one reason. 9′ X 18′ is a sign that our leaders in both the political and financial landscape realize that, in the short-term, the city is in desperate need of more affordable housing and, in the long-term, New York will be at the forefront of an environmentally conscious society.