Condominium high-rises sprout like weeds along the East River waterfront in Williamsburg. Longtime Harlem residents watch newcomers -- often young, affluent and white -- sink into the overstuffed couches of the new cafes and coffee shops along 125th Street, the main street of Black America. Owners of small businesses on the dirt and pothole-ridden streets of Willets Point worry they will lose their location, their customers and their livelihood. Reshaping the City: Who's Being Heard -- and Why?
All of these changes represent the new New York, one that has shifted from industrial and manufacturing to finance and services. To accommodate that shift and the population growth that has occurred with it, the Bloomberg administration has rezoned one sixth of the total land in the five boroughs -- more than the last six administrations combined, Bloomberg said during his State of the City address earlier this year. Of the more than 84 rezonings, the City Council has not rejected a single one.
Such impressive numbers, though, conceal a growing unease in many parts of New York. Advocates in some neighborhoods fear the administration is fueling gentrification by giving developers a relatively free hand in working class neighborhoods, while simultaneously protecting more affluent areas from larger-scale development.
Many people in affected communities claim they haven't been a part of the process -- their voices are left out on the policy fringe, teetering on the edge of irrelevance. In response, some planners and politicians hope to boost the community's role in the land use process.
41 comments:
I think this entire city will be unrecognizable in thirty years. And we should all make sure we send our children to go and pee on Amanda Burden and Bloomie's graves.
Gee, maybe this will be at HDC's next symposium in the winter.
Naw, THEY don't have to experience this.
How about an informercial on Bloomburgs NYC2030. We think the most important thing is to look at the investment opportunties that abound in that plan!
Assholes.
This is the dumbest article ever. Let's leave a bunch of ugly, empty factories on waterfront land instead of re-developing the areas for good use. Genius.
Why is it dumb? The city should have been offering incentives to manufacturers to reclaim those spaces and keep the lifeblood of this city employed instead of converting everything to yuppie condos.
The city of today is just as unrecognizable from thirty years ago. That's what cities do - they change. Especially over thirty years.
I meant unrecognizable in a bad way.
Up until 10 years ago, my neighborhood was EXACTLY the same as it had been thirty years before. Now all of the overdevelopment has negatively impacted the neighborhood. Going to park my car anywhere is now a nightmare. There are now even more sewer backups than ever in my area. The school is overcrowded. Would you like your kid in a portable classroom in the schoolyard? The railroad is so damned crowded and so is the 7 train. I can't wait until Willets Point gets developed! Please don't tell me you call all of this progress.
And oops, I almost forgot. What about all of homes being converted into rentals? That is NEVER good for any area.
Why don't you move to Ohio Italian girl. Farmland doesn't change much.
Of course it does. Farms go out of business and the land is subdivided for housing. But it's not hideous 3-family housing on an 18-foot wide lot like in Queens.
Anonymous said...
"Why don't you move to Ohio Italian girl. Farmland doesn't change much."
Nah, I'll stay here, thanks. Ohio's not my style.
Ok then stop complaining.
Nope, I LOVE complaining!
The same thing is happening in many cities.
Why do you think we will spend over $20 billion on the big dig in Boston? To make traffic flow faster? Hasn't happened. The drive times from the north and south shores are the same as they were before the dig.
That money went to create more open real estate as well as improve the view from existing real estate. And oh, yes, we have a green space named after Teddy's mom. Which by the way will have to be paid for by the toll payers on the Mass Turnpike.
(It also gives the MA Turnpike Authority a reason to exist for decades beyond what was promised)
Thanks big government.
Manufacturing was gone and not coming back. The city can give incentives all it wants, it is still cheaper to manufacture away from the city. Redeveloping the areas to provide more housing and retail is the smartest thing to do.
Have you seen Ohio?
Its trashed like the rest of the country is becoming. All its towns are ghost towns. No work.
Working class people in this country, if they live in Greenpoint, or Youngstown, are getting the short end of the stick.
yes your point might make sense if not for the manufacturers like brooklyn brewery that want to stay in the city but can't find the manufacturing land they need to do so because it's all yuppie condos now.
Bah, humbug!
City Planning is really
the Department of City Plotting!
Isn't that so John Young
(as I had asked you once before
at a CB#7 public forum) ?
HDC ?
You mean those Manhattan biased Hysterical Do-nothing Con-men?
Many of us taxpayers don't share the vision of a mission to develop and destroy a viable city for benefit of a hand full of Mayor Mike's greedy real estate pals and thus imposing a new level of serfdom upon its residents!
Why don't you bastard/builders move out of NYC and go "develop" Ohio ?
You Neanderthals belong in the boonies and not in a civilized metropolis !
Bloomberg has
just repackaged an old Robert Moses plan by introducing this phony
"New York City 2030" concept.
That diminutive prick can't even come up with an original idea of his own so he steals from another bastard.
Moses up-rezoned the city in 1961 expecting one million more residents that never came.
They won't be coming in 2030 either.
This is just Bloomberg's carte blanche for his builder/buddies to f--k up New York and bank the profits while we're left swimming in shit!
jerry rotondi said...
"Bah, humbug!
City Planning is really
the Department of City Plotting!
Isn't that so John Young
(as I had asked you once before
at a CB#7 public forum) ?"
Is it just me or does anyone else think he's gay?
giving industry incentives to bring back manufacturing just won't work. This entire country has lost much of it's manufacturing capacity years ago to foreign competition. Besides, in an expensive city like NY with it's unions, it's not likely that industry would want to come back.
alf
morons,
all morons,
These people have developed run down ghettos and made ny beautiful.
what do you want grafitti filled tenements again.
fools total fools.
Huh? They took manufacturing areas and turned them into residential areas. What graffiti-filled ghettos with tenements are you talking about?
Oh....so we shouldn't ever think that we need manufacturing jobs in NYC to balance out our economy and that they're gone forever....eh?
But turning our city into a "Disneyland NYC" with few other major viable options besides depending on tourism seems to me like we're putting all our eggs into just one basket!
joe t is on the money! Even if they weren't ghettos, these areas were empty useless eyesores. Now they are nice, useful and add value to our great city. Genius.
Except they aren't in Manhattan, aren't selling like they used to, and soon will either be turned into dorms or barracks for the tweeded. I guess this was part of the master plan.
I wasnt only talking about areas like the meat packing district, I'm also talking about neighborhoods like greenpoint & williamsburg & bed stuy where everyone on this website complaines when there is a new high end co-op or condo going up or a nice coffee shop or restaurant going up in these neighborhoods, would you prefer urban blight like in the 70's & 80's. I'm sure you dont have a problem with your housing value tripling in the last 10 yrs. and I have a real problem with your quote about whites in harlem that completely racist against whites, first of all harlem used to be a white neighborhood, and would it be politically correct to say that its a shame bensonhurst has hispanics living in it now it used to be and epicenter for Italian-Americans. You are all hipocrites. you should move to cleveland, philadelphia, baltimore or buffalo for a month, you'll be begging to come back to this great overdeveloped city!!!!
joe t is right! The small-minded people who comment on this board and who fear and hate anything different, and who are jealous of others' success, are dwindling in this city, and we are all the better for it.
" I'm also talking about neighborhoods like greenpoint & williamsburg & bed stuy where everyone on this website complaines when there is a new high end co-op or condo going up or a nice coffee shop or restaurant going up in these neighborhoods, would you prefer urban blight like in the 70's & 80's."
More proof that you have no idea what you are talking about. Greenpoint and Williamsburg were manufacturing based. Bed Stuy...don't remember much attention being paid to it here. You might have QC confused with another site.
It's called IDENTITY, stupid. When a huge influx of outsiders comes in and changes things, the neighborhood loses its soul via the close of its small merchants and loss of its distinctive architecture.
So you must be a Native American, because I assume that no one in your family ever moved into an area where they were not from originally. Genius.
Native Americans came across the Bering Strait from Asia. Genius.
Thanks for a completely irrelevant statement about the Bering Strait. Genius.
Just as relevant as your Native American comment. Genius.
Let's see. A person made an ignorant comment that "outsiders" shouldn't come into his neighborhood and change it. Well, native americans were the first people to settle on this land. Unless this person can trace his family history to its original settlers, then someone in his family was an "outsider" at some point and he is simply a bigoted hypocrite.
Your comment on the Bering Strait has no significance on the discussion. Maybe you were trying to say that Native Americans travelled here from somewhere else, which is irrelevant.
Genius.
Bringing up native Americans, who were violently forced off their land, is also highly irrelevant. Genius.
Ok, so you still do not get it. At one point in the hypocrite's family history, someone was an "outsider" to his neighborhood, unless he can trace his family back to the original settlers of the land, the Native Americans. Hence, the relevance. Try to keep up please. Genius.
that's 7 geniuses and counting
joe t says queens crapper is a coward for censoring me. what are you afraid of.
by the way moron williamsburgh and greenpoint are 80% residential and much more a residential neighborhood than an industrial neighborhood. as for the other dope who is worried about the soul of the neighborhood new comers are what america is about. but i guess this will be the last time i'm on this blog because queens crapper is a coward and has censored me so i have to blog from a friends pc.
joe t has issues then because I have not censored anyone with regards to this post.
Crapper, are you blocking comments that you don't like, again? I remember when you wouldn't post a comment I made criticizing a person who made a racial slur against Helen Marshall. Sad . . .
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