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May 18, 2007
Building-Making versus City-Making
Spotlight on the Region
By Rob Lane, Director, Regional Design Programs, RPA
Newsletter from the Regional Planning Association
Now Atlantic Yards is the posterchild of bad planning and poor process:
...there’s been too little critical thinking about whether the public approach to development that has evolved over the last three decades is up to the task. Perhaps the best case for examining where we might be headed is to look at the most massive single project that has recently received public approval.
The Atlantic Yards project, which will remake a large piece of Downtown Brooklyn with millions of square feet of development, has moved into the hand-wringing and lawsuit stage. Merits aside, it is worth at least reflecting on what this experience can teach us, because the Atlantic Yards experience is a microcosm not only of big-time development and politics in New York City, but of the often erroneous ways we are building our cities throughout the U.S.
At the heart of the controversy and debate over Atlantic Center is an important and fundamental question: when should a development “project” be considered simply a house or office writ large, and when is it an example of “city-building,” signifying an essentially different thing in kind as well as degree? And what is the difference?
Also, Atlantic Yards may alter the "space-time continuum:"
The difference between project building and city building comes down to two criteria and how much of each are used: space and time.
A project that makes the leap into city building involves changing space in a fundamental way. In city building, this means altering the existing public realm of streets and other public spaces in a substantive way. Streets are being closed, or new ones proposed. Parks and squares will be built, or existing ones altered. Altering this bottom layer of streets and essential public spaces must be considered with exceptional care because the streets and open spaces we create today will shape the neighborhoods of tomorrow for the generations that follow. When we change the streets, we’re not just writing a new picture on a piece of canvas; we’re changing the canvas itself.
NoLandGrab: There are some interesting thoughts about urban planning in this article, though the author isn't big on details. The proposed Atlantic Yards project ISN'T in Downtown Brooklyn and "Atlantic Center" is an existing mall situated on the site once coveted by Brooklyn Dodgers' owner Walter O'Malley for a new ballpark.
Atlantic Yards Report, The RPA on AY: we must do better at "city-making"
Norman Oder fleshes out some of the points Rob Lane makes as they relate to Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project.
Posted by lumi at May 18, 2007 8:27 AM