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May 10, 2006
Farewell to Jane Jacobs (and to Williamsburg, too)
The Brooklyn Rail salutes Jane Jacobs by letting her speak for herself.
Ed.’s note: In one of the final written statements about urban planning, the legendary Jane Jacobs (1916-2006) commented on the future of the Williamsburg-Greenpoint waterfront. Last May, the Bloomberg administration and the city council rezoned the waterfront, providing for high-rise towers on the waterfront and a privately built waterfront esplanade, with some affordable housing to be built in Bushwick. Jacobs’ contrasts the local community’s plan for the area versus the developer-friendly rezoning that ultimately prevailed.
Jane Jacobs to NYC Mayor Bloomberg and NYC Council:
But the proposal put before you by city staff is an ambush containing all those destructive consequences, packaged very sneakily with visually tiresome, unimaginative and imitative luxury project towers. How weird, and how sad, that New York, which has demonstrated successes enlightening to so much of the world, seems unable to learn lessons it needs for itself. I will make two predictions with utter confidence. 1. If you follow the community’s plan you will harvest a success. 2. If you follow the proposal before you today, you will maybe enrich a few heedless and ignorant developers, but at the cost of an ugly and intractable mistake. Even the presumed beneficiaries of this misuse of governmental powers, the developers and financiers of luxury towers, may not benefit; misused environments are not good long-term economic bets.
Come on, do the right thing. The community really does know best.
Posted by lumi at May 10, 2006 9:53 AM