New York planning chief offers tips

Imagine sidewalk cafes everywhere. Add trees and greenery at parking lots. Mix in seating in both the sun and shade along the waterfront.

Those are just some of the changes Amanda Burden has made since 2002 as chief of New York City’s planning commission, overseeing vast redevelopment from the Lower East Side in Manhattan to the Brooklyn waterfront to revitalizing 125th Street in Harlem — home to the famed Apollo Theater.

“We want people not just to come to New York, but to stay in New York,” Burden told an audience at the University of Toronto on Friday that included politicians, planning students and community activists.

The way to ensure people stay in New York, Burden said, is providing affordable housing, local retail, jobs throughout the city and public spaces like playgrounds for kids.

“We direct development of the city by shaping its neighbourhoods, its business districts, its waterfront and its industrial areas,” she said. “New Yorkers judge us by how a street feels.”

That’s why Burden has focused attention on making her city of nearly 8.4 million more pedestrian friendly, less gritty and more economically vibrant. Much of her success, she credits to strong political leadership in Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has given her the freedom to do what she believes is right.

Add in her obsessive tenacity and a passion for her city, Burden has brought dramatic changes in eight years. “My goal is to have New York City grow but not change,” she said, referring to the need to preserve single-family neighbourhoods in Queens dependent on the automobile while at the same time encouraging development along transit routes.

“Zoning is a blunt instrument. It really pushes the envelope and the framework,” Burden said. “And it’s also my role to encourage architectural innovation.”
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The bolded part stood out to me because I think that is at the core of why Detroit has become such an unattractive place. Every density map I have seen of the city suggests that the most hollowed out sections of the city are those that were once densely populated with residents who relied on public transit.

The least abandoned areas in Detroit today are those that have always been largely automobile dependent. Detroit needs to get back to its roots as a mixed use city if it wants to save itself, and scrap that bullshit about shutting down sections of the city.