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July 18, 2006
Do The Right Thing
Veritas et Venustas
“A SmartCode that came out of a public process might allow an arena and a tower or two above the mass transit at Atlantic Station, but it would never permit the superblocks and 17 massive towers of Ratner's plan that are so out of scale with the surrounding neighborhoods. A SmartCode would be part of a democratic pro-active process, instead of the reactive process in which Forest City Ratner's money determines so much of what happens, and the city inevitably gets more bulk and less good design than its citizens want.”
...
A few years ago, after one of public meetings following the bombing of the World Trade Center, a Bronx planner said to me, "Planning in New York will never be the same." What he meant was that from that moment on, city planners would have to pay attention to public process, as planners do in most of the country. In fact, the LMDC ignored the public process and did exactly what it wanted -- leaving us with the mediocre plan we have today.
NoLandGrab: Too bad for Brooklyn the Bronx planner wasn't right.
Posted by lumi at July 18, 2006 6:19 PM