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November 8, 2010
Cuomo's Urban Agenda: vague regarding housing and transportation, but rhetoric about community development promises local consultation
Atlantic Yards Report
New York Governor-elect Andrew Cuomo has an Urban Agenda (details in PDF), which sounds good in places, but is also vague and cautious. He was been criticized for issuing it too late and not grappling with big challenges like the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
Interestingly enough, when it comes to affordable housing, Cuomo says nothing about mega-projects and suggests, with perhaps more hope than anything else, that the federal government could play a much bigger role.
While the little press coverage focused on the politics of the agenda (e.g., outreach to the black community), the MTA, and housing, the document contains some impressive boilerplate in the direction of good planning.
Should such rhetoric be followed and Community Development Blueprints be created, projects like Atlantic Yards would be much more difficult to achieve, given the rhetorical importance given to community consultation.
But that's not necessarily how development gets done, especially when developers like Bruce Ratner have given campaign contributions and have the governor's ear.
Posted by eric at November 8, 2010 10:55 AM