Subtitile: Mike Bloomberg has a brass pair of balls. http://www.nyc.gov/html/planyc2030/html/plan/plan.shtml In a nutshell, the plan... -Creates housing for mid and low income families -Ensures all NYC'rs live within a 10 minute walk of a park -Adds 1,000,000 trees to the streets -Cleans up all contaminated land (brownfields) -Creates backup water systems -Restores and preserving waterways to make sure that 90% are open to recreation -Repairs all of the roads -Adds mass transit (mainly express bus) -Implements a congestion pricing scheme -Upgrades energy infrasturcture -Cleans the air -Reduces global warming emissions Are bold plans like this the future of city planning or is this a gross overreach of government?
Yesterday, I went to a meeting of the Regional Planning Board of NY/NJ/CT at the Waldorf Astoria and the entire conference was based on efficient expansion and green devlopment. The cornerstone was the PLANYC concept. Mike Bloomberg did the lunchtime keynote speech and sold the hell out of the plan. It turns out that there are over 100 initiatives within the plan and it seems to me like every one of them needs to get done and start now. NJ has a similar, though more general plan which was supposed to be delivered as the morning keynote by Gov. Corzine until he broke himself. One of the most exiting developments to me is the plan to convert school tar roofs to green gardens in Harlem. Harlem has an obscene asthma rate and the increased heat in the area is a major factor. Roof gardens reduce that significantly while making buildings more useable and more pleasant. Going forward is also exciting. The building code in NYC has been revised to eliminate black colored roofing material. It also turns out that the suburbs are really on the stick now. the town of Babylon has taken the lead and has mandated that all buildings over 2000 plan feet must be LEED certified. Certainly exciting stuff.
for some, government overreaches itself simply by building roads or running schools at all ... i think you've got a great thing going here, but i think this is the best place to show what's in the works here in lyon. as background, the city (well, one particular concrete-mad mayor named louis pradel) made a major mistake in the early 60's that is turning into a boon for us 50 years later. briefly, the theme was all-for-the-automobile. the autoroute from paris to marseille was made to go through the center of town (the renaissance old lyon, then in near ruin, was alost bulldozed to do it) and a huge interchange and wholesale market planted right on the peninsula which is the heart of the city, and the riverbanks became thoroughfares. the autoroute has since become so saturated that the route through lyon has been supplanted. and a whole area, not a block, or a housing project, but the equivalent of a whole new arrondissement has opened up right in the center. this dreary but very promising site, between two rivers and 500 meters from the exact center of town: will get housing (the costly first, but mixed by the end of the project) http://www.nexity-logement.com/upload/visuels/programmes/CLEO/0026/09517/PRG_PHOT_9517.jpg http://www.bouwfonds-marignan.com/m_app/bigpersp/FILE2922.jpg plans for which must be approved and which must make a statement worthy of the emplacement a marina, parks and public areas: http://www.lyon-aderly.com/lyon/con...enfete copyright Depaule PAD Asylum petit.jpg a new natural history, asian and african art museum http://www.futura-sciences.com/uploads/tx_oxcsfutura/comprendre/d/images/577/geo_lyon.jpg now if all this is overreaching, i say overreach away! http://www.lyon-confluence.fr/
and that's what's coming. what we've already done is recover the expressway on the left bank of the rhône for a) the cité internationale by renzo piano and a 5 mile long promenade which has become the place to be on a sunday now if you have even a drop of government is bad blood in your veins, you're going apes... right now, because all this is a decidedly expensive undertaking, and even if there's a lot of private investment and involvement, the whole thing is and really must be imagined and headed by the public powers that be. of course in all this there's only one loser... the automobile! and good riddance!
As for urban planning in NYC, the idea of Vertical Farming is insanely interesting. http://www.verticalfarm.com The designs are exciting. I'd love to see something like this happen in the near future.