Monday, March 31, 2008

Boom goes bust

More than $20 billion worth of high-profile developments across the city - many designed by world-renowned architects and touted by top officials - are dead or at risk of never getting off the drawing board.

More than $20B in developments dead or at risk of never seeing light of day

The crumbling economy has forced developers to scale back their grand visions and has endangered projects that range from architectural marvels like Frank Gehry's Atlantic Yards towers in Brooklyn to crucial pieces of thecity's infrastructure, like Manhattan's Moynihan rail hub in midtown.

"It really was an amazing run for cities and particularly for New York," said Elliott Sclar, an urban planning professor at Columbia University. "But it appears that it may be over now.

"The obvious fear now is that these projects won't materialize and the revenues the city expected to get from them won't materialize, either."

"All of these projects have been driven by a form of planning called fiscal planning, where the city is not concerned with the physical structure of spaces but only maximizing real estate values or tax revenues," Sclar said. "That's not the right way to promote healthy development."

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

A BLESSING !!!
All that would have only priced the middle class right out.
When the fat cats start to fall the underdogs usually take over

Anonymous said...

Well I guess that megalomaniacs
like Bruce Ratner will have to be using their hands for extra marital sex these days.

Those high priced Luv Guv/hookers
are out of the question now!

Ahem.....
and better cancel that tour
of the Greek isles, a redux of
the townhouse,and an Accura will have to do instead of a Bentley!

Times are tough !

Anonymous said...

WE TOLD YA SO !

The bubble's gone bust
and the hot air (phew)
is running out of
all you big time windbags!

Yer finally gettin'yours!

Good riddance!

Anonymous said...

don't celebrate yet. now there's going to be congestion pricing, hte funds from which will probably go towards these architectural monstrosities. this city's going to hell.