Friday, March 26, 2010

Queens upzoned more than the other boroughs

From the NY Times:

Amanda M. Burden, the city’s planning director since 2002, said the city’s approach to zoning was based on a “finely grained” process of listening to the needs of separate communities and neighborhoods. “We respond to communities where the threat is the greatest to the neighborhood fabric,” she said. “We upzone where it’s sustainable, and where reinvestment is needed.”

Mitchell L. Moss, a professor of urban policy and planning at New York University who has been an informal adviser to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, said that for decades, the city had been zoned for too many people, and that it was overdue for the kind of adjustment pursued by the Bloomberg administration. Ms. Burden “has done more to reshape the city than anything Robert Moses ever did,” he said.

Whether or not that is true, the Furman Center report starts to paint a picture of significant change, finding that city planners were, in many cases, successful in their goal of creating housing within half a mile of existing transportation hubs. In other places, though, zoning regulations that restricted new building have taken “capacity away from communities well served by transit,” the report says.

Most of the new residential capacity was created in Queens, followed by Manhattan and then Brooklyn. In the Bronx, rezoning measures that affected more than 18 percent of the borough added virtually no residential capacity, the report found.


No kidding! Queens has long been the place to dump more people on top of an infrastructure from the early 1900s.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Amanda Burden is a stupid cunt! She is a despicable tool of Mayor Moneybags. Her home and neighborhood should be trashed.

Anonymous said...

Finely grained -- um, like dirt?
She's another piece of garbage that doesn't answer her mail.

Anonymous said...

Uh, c***? Really? I know I should give more thought to the name of your site, but why does it seem like I'm wading in a cesspool when I come here?

And please, be honest, much of Queens infrastructure is from the middle of the 20th century, stop lying and get over the fact that we can stand to grow a little more. Build it better, plan it well, but we can afford to grow a bit more and enjoy the urban density that makes NYC great!

Remember--we live in NYC, not in the burbs with all of its sprawl!

Queens Crapper said...

We don't have enough parks and the ones we do have are not maintained well. Our electrical grid is held together with duct tape. Our sewers can't handle storm water. We have a combined sewer system, built in 1910, which pollutes our waterways whenever it rains. Our schools are bursting at the seems.

But, yeah, let's keep building.

Anonymous said...

The subway was built in the 1950s? No. That's part of infrastructure, genius.

Anonymous said...

Ms Burden should be proud of making Queens a 3rd world city that could rival Calcutta India today.

Of course she lives in Manhattan. Is she can be compared to Robert Moses that is saying much - negatively.

Anonymous said...

"Of course she lives in Manhattan. Is [sic] she can be compared to Robert Moses that is saying much - negatively."

have you been to Calcutta (properly referred to as Kolkata)? you speak as if you rarely get off your block, do you even know what the population density of your county is, let alone make ridiculous comparisons such as yours?

Manhattan, where you say Ms. Burden is from, has the highest population density of all 5 boroughs--which is nearly 3 times the density of Queens and a good deal less than Kolkata!

population density (people/square mile:
Manhattan: 66,940
Queens: 20,409
City Wide: 26,403
Kolkata: 71,126

this is the problem with you wing-nutters, you speak without facts and hurl hatred everywhere.

the crap of Queens, you are.

Queens Crapper said...

Um, what the hell are you talking about? Queens was developed as a suburb, genius. It became part of NYC at the turn of the 20th century, which is when the infrastructure was built to handle a population that would have a one or two family house with a yard. It was not built for a one family houses replaced by 6-story buildings, which is what Burden has accomplished without first making sure infrastructure could handle it.

Perhaps you need to read a book about Queens history in order to comment intelligently and stop worrying about referring to foreign cities by their proper name.

Anonymous said...

"Perhaps you need to read a book about Queens history in order to comment intelligently and stop worrying about referring to foreign cities by their proper name."

CW, i have read a great deal of history about Queens. just because someone holds a different view of things does not make your view right and the other view wrong. true, history isn't factual, but if it is done well it does respect the proper names brought into the conversation --be they people or places-- and an honest respect for facts that are out there.

Queens, like much of NYC, was not settled as a suburb of Manhattan. I believe the history of the five towns was never seen as the history of five suburbs as you imply it was.

Queens Crapper said...

There weren't 5 towns in Queens. There were 3 townships (Newtown, Flushing and Jamaica) comprised of multiple towns making up the county. The towns were settled by migrants from Manhattan and each township had its own government. "New York City" consisted of Manhattan only, until 1898 when the other boroughs joined it. The entire eastern half of Queens was left out and became Nassau County. There were active farms in Queens up through the 1950s and a few survived into the 1960s. The infrastructure was largely built in the 1900s-1910s after unification.

This isn't opinion, it is fact. And my initials are QC.

Anonymous said...

the solution is simple: oust the Council members who represent the overdeveloped areas.

Spy Vs Spy said...

I LOVE TO MAKE DIPSHITS LOOK LIKE, WELL, DIPSHITS!

Myth
Uh, c***? Really?

REALITY
YES, PEOPLE FROM MANHATTAN USUALLY TREAT QUEENS LIKE WE ARE IGNORANT CAUSE THEY LISTEN ONLY TO THE MORONS THE MACHINE PLACES IN FRONT THE MIKE.

Myth
I know I should give more thought to the name of your site, but why does it seem like I'm wading in a cesspool when I come here?

REALITY
CAUSE WE ARE TALKING ABOUT NYC GOVERNMENT. A PLACE WHERE YOU NEED HIGH BOOTS TO WADE.

Myth
And please, be honest, much of Queens infrastructure is from the middle of the 20th century, stop lying and get over the fact that we can stand to grow a little more.

REALITY
YES, THE SUBWAY BUILT IN 1955, QUEENS BLVD FROM AT LEAST 1962 AND SUNNYSIDE RAILYARDS NOT LATER THAN 1970.

FREAKN MORON.

ITS BUILT BETWEEN 1900 AND 1940.

Myth
Build it better, plan it well, but we can afford to grow a bit more and enjoy the urban density that makes NYC great!

REALITY
AH, WHY? HOW IS ANOTHER SEVERAL HUNNDRED THOUSAND FINANCED BY MY TAKES FOR HALF-ASSED INFRASTRUCTURE (BIKE LANES, TREES) GOING TO MAKE MY LIFE BETTER WHEN SERVCIES SUCK ALREADY?

Myth
Remember--we live in NYC, not in the burbs with all of its sprawl!

REALITY
HERE IS SOMEONE THAT HAS WANDERED AROUND STATEN ISLAND AND EASTERN QUEENS.

BUT EVEN IF THEY DID, THEIR HEAD WOULD BE STUCK UP THEIR ASS.

MUST LIVE IN A LANDMARKED DISTRICT