Four years after 9/11, the nation is facing another disaster, not on 16 acres but over an entire city. What have we learned about land use planning in the aftermath of 9/11 and will any of it apply to the rebuilding of flood-floored New Orleans? I think there are five major lessons.
Leadership matters in the immediate response to such tragic events. Local, state and national leaders set the standard for the rescue efforts when they show they care about the victims, and demonstrate their commitment by personally engaging in the response. Even long-time enemies of Rudolph Giuliani admired his courage and caring, qualities that also were found in the widespread relief efforts by individuals and civic groups from around the world. In New Orleans we are watching arrogant officials point fingers at each other while they blame the victims and shift the burden to poorly equipped civic groups.
Major disasters elicit solidarity and sympathy with victims that in turn can stimulate healthy public discussion and debate about plans to rebuild. In the first year after 9/11, the press was filled with ideas from all over the world about how to rebuild lower Manhattan and Ground Zero. Coalitions like the Civic Alliance to Rebuild Downtown New York, Rebuild Downtown Our Town (R.dot), NY New Visions, and the Labor Community Advocacy Network organized extensive discussions and contributed many innovative ideas. So strong was this outpouring that when the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC) commissioned its first plan for the World Trade Center site in 2002, it received an overwhelming thumbs down from the public because it was too much about office space and not enough about people. The LMDC changed its plan somewhat and held an international competition to chose a new design. Architect Daniel Libeskind’s conception was chosen and it incorporated some key ideas from the civic discussion.
In New Orleans, the public mood is hardly ripe for constructive engagement like this, though it is sorely needed. Major questions such as whether to rebuild or relocate the city, and what the new city should look like, require serious study and deliberation. Many people are rightfully outraged at the government response to Katrina and are even less likely to lend legitimacy to a top-down plan advanced by those who neglected the victims. This may well encourage the White House, state and local governments to forge ahead on their own and continue to ignore a public they know mistrusts them.
Within a week of 9/11, developer Larry Silverstein, who owns the largest lease on the World Trade Center site, declared his intention to rebuild the Twin Towers as an act of defiance against terrorism (and no doubt good for his property). This idea was shunted aside by even Silverstein’s strongest supporters, including Governor George Pataki, who understood the public mood of mourning and outpouring of sympathy with the victims. Michael Bloomberg, soon to be the mayor-elect, expressed reservations about dumping 11 million square feet of office space back on the trade center site. Bloomberg reminded us that when it was built, the trade center depressed real estate values in lower Manhattan, and midtown is the largest business district (and would become even larger with his rezoning of the West Side).
But talk about buying out Silverstein, or swapping the Port Authority’s land at Ground Zero with city land at the airports, went nowhere. Silverstein persisted, moved ahead with his building program, and got $7 billion in insurance money. 7 World Trade Center is almost completed. He and his architect David Childs untwisted Libeskind’s Freedom Tower into a look-alike of one of the original towers. And it’s not clear that any of the cultural facilities or the memorial will be significant enough to make it the mixed-use development that the public overwhelmingly favored. The new World Trade Center is shaping up to look like yet another office park.
In New Orleans, the biggest property owners may well call the tune as well. Press reports say that many of the refugees don’t want to go back. Those who have no property have nothing to go back to. Those that owned homes will probably have no place to go for many months, if not years. But there were valuable commercial properties and homes in the city’s historic district, and these owners, who are more likely to have had flood insurance, will want to rebuild and probably have the most political influence. The oil and petrochemical industries will no doubt want to rebuild. The problem we face is that for them to fulfill their wishes, we will have to fork over many billions of dollars in subsidies to de-contaminate and flood-proof the city. A government that gave massive tax cuts to the rich should have no problem with this as long as it helps their core constituency, the “deserving rich.” (This was the same government that cut public infrastructure spending in the region, which increased the city’s vulnerability to flooding.) In the end, the oil and petrochemical industries might go on welfare permanently and a rebuilt New Orleans might be little more than a reproduction of its former self for tourists, heavy on theme parks and shopping malls.
In New York we learned that refusing to recognize the environmental impacts of disasters can cause serious illness and death. After 9/11 federal EPA head Christie Todd Whitman declared that the air in lower Manhattan was safe to breathe, a statement consistent with Mayor Giuliani’s call for people to go about business as usual. It turns out that the White House had more to do with that declaration than the EPA experts. As a result, residents and workers who were exposed to toxic particulates face long-term risks of cancer and respiratory disease.
New Orleans was an environmental disaster in the first place, the center of a region of petrochemical industries known as Cancer Alley, built in a vulnerable flood plain without adequate protection. We now know the flood waters had extremely high levels of coliform bacteria, but more than a week after the flooding, officials could not say what chemicals were in this toxic brew.
Since global warming may increase the likelihood of storms like Katrina, perhaps the most important element of post-disaster planning should be to address this phenomenon. But as long as the Bush administration continues to deny that global warming is a reality, it will become more difficult to plan for future disasters.
In the post-9/11 atmosphere of anti-immigrant prejudice, immigrants are the least able to take advantage of relief and rebuilding funds. We will never know how many immigrant workers and business owners were too afraid to approach authorities after 9/11 to seek help. And the enormous outpouring of international solidarity after 9/11 did not translate into a planning process that seriously incorporated ideas and energy from across the globe. In New Orleans, the Mexican, Vietnamese and other immigrant communities may be the most silent victims, especially given the role of many of the federal, state and local law enforcement officers who were given orders to shoot-to-kill.
Finally, the most difficult issue in New Orleans was but a minor matter in New York City: racism. There was a disproportionate absence of New York City’s multi-racial majority in the public and private forums that led to the plans for rebuilding lower Manhattan. Prominent black architect J. Max Bond, Jr. told The New York Times in October of 2003, “If there had been a greater variety of people, someone would have questioned the program.”
But in New Orleans race and poverty are center stage. Even normally conservative TV news channels had no trouble seeing that those left behind were black and poor. They were not included in the disaster planning and didn’t have the means to get out in time. They were the victims of chaos and military-like search-and-destroy missions, and are branded “looters” so they can serve as scapegoats for government incompetence at every level. Will they be invited to the table when plans are made for the future of New Orleans?
Tom Angotti is Professor of Urban Affairs and Planning at Hunter College, City University of NY, editor of Progressive Planning Magazine, and a member of the Task Force on Community-based Planning.Â
The transformation of the waterfront may seem remarkable to those who live in Manhattan and Brooklyn, but what is most remarkable about it is how little is happening in the other three boroughs. A couple of scattered improvements include the new Hunts Point Riverside Park on the Bronx River and the new esplanade along the Upper Bay, and Kill van Kull on the North Shore of Staten Island. But much more should be done – and could be done, if the next mayor focused on three ways to create real momentum for improving the waterfront.
Part of what makes the waterfront such complicated terrain is that it is governed by state and federal laws and agencies. For too long this regulatory complexity has been looked at as a limitation rather than an opportunity.
For instance, the Water Resources Development Act that was approved by the United States House of Representatives in July authorizes federal funds for waterfront improvements throughout the nation. In our area, Perth Amboy, Carteret and Bayonne are all named beneficiaries, but little is named in New York City other than Flushing Bay and, for the first time, Newtown Creek.
Federal money could do much for the East River, where miles of crumbling esplanade are restricting access, or even Pugsley Creek, which is proof that not all parks are actually park-like. The same kind of federal aid that is going to restore the New Jersey Meadowlands would go a long way to help Jamaica Bay, whether solving the mystery of the disappearing marshlands or creating access along the east side of the bay where communities are walled off by JFK Airport.
In Albany, legislative leaders have hatched a bond issue to appear on the ballot this fall that hopes to authorize billions for transportation projects statewide. There are a handful of intelligent projects, such as the $19 million proposed for the Bronx River Greenway. But there is nothing for the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway, nothing to address the chronic traffic congestion in our central business districts, nothing that addresses the movement of goods in the city. Perhaps most unfortunate is the neglect of water transit, another missed opportunity.
Both the Department of Environmental Protection and the Department of Sanitation have massive capital projects in various stages of planning or development. The environmental agency has set the bar high with their work at the Newtown Creek Water Pollution Control Plant, which includes not just cost over-runs (covered well by the daily newspapers), but also (ignored by the press), a canal walk along Whale Creek, a little-known arm of Newtown Creek. Such a community improvement, when developed alongside an infrastructure improvement, illustrates the balance that public agencies throughout the nation are increasingly taking to help offset the traditionally negative impacts such facilities have on local communities.
A logical next step would be for the agency to look at similar improvements alongside the gargantuan retention basins being built to capture the combined sewer effluent which pollutes our waterways during heavy rains.
A more pressing public works project is the planned retrofit and expansion of the city’s marine transfer stations by the Department of Sanitation. The long term solid waste management plan approved in June constitutes a giant step towards a smarter garbage policy. The importance of this work cannot be overstated, because since Fresh Kills landfill was closed by the last mayor (who did not take the time to create another plan), the amount of funding that New York City taxpayers are spending to support the transportation of garbage is even greater than the amount we are spending through the city budget to support New York City Transit subways and buses.
Looking ahead, this case offers two lessons for the next mayor.
The first is to work openly with community and interest groups to address pressing public issues. In the case of the solid waste plan, the Organization of Waterfront Neighborhoods led the way towards a more enlightened policy that places a greater emphasis on water and rail-based transit and eliminates thousands of miles of truck trips each day. Affiliated groups such as the Waste Prevention Coalition helped create pressure not just for more intelligent transportation, but also a different way of looking at garbage – we could reduce the 13,000 tons of residential waste we produce each waste.
Lesson two is that even your own agencies, Mr. Mayor, may not be able to do what you expect of them. Virtually every community activist has a war story to tell involving Sanitation pick-up schedules, or performance, and while these stories are increasingly tempered with good news about low-sulfur diesel fuel, or collaborative district managers who send a truck right when it is needed, history shows that the Department of Sanitation’s expertise is in pick-up and transportation, not recycling, not waste reduction, and certainly not the design or construction of facilities which anyone would call community friendly. In developing the long term solid waste management plan the city brought in the Economic Development Corporation to shepherd the project, but one has to wonder whether an organization classified as ”quasi-governmental” is the appropriate one to lead and manage perhaps the most expensive and complicated multi-borough construction project started since the wave of new sewage treatment plants came along more than 30 years ago.
Nevertheless, the new solid waste plan could also be a citywide waterfront revitalization plan if the next mayor makes it a point of focus.
The city's relationship with the Port Authority is too narrowly defined. While some say the Port Authority is merely an automatic teller machine for city or state elected officials, the reality is that the agency has much more to offer the city than just cash.
The current administration missed a tremendous opportunity during the negotiation over the leases for JFK and LaGuardia Airports. While the income to the city from the leases is laudable, both Flushing and Jamaica Bays are complicated environs that the city hasn't done enough to steward or revitalize.
For an agency charged with planning and developing facilities for the movement of goods, it is obvious the Port Authority could also meaningfully contribute to the development of the city's solid waste management plan -- if they were asked.
Perhaps much of this tradition of limited engagement stems form the fact that the Port Authority is governed by a board appointed in Trenton and Albany. New York City has no voice on the board, and no power to make appointments. The next administration should seek to change this.
The common thread in all these recommendations -- getting more out of Washington DC and Albany, using the capital projects of mayoral agencies to fund community amenities, and engaging the Port Authority in more strategic and direct collaboration -- is that the waterfront needs a massive infusion of resources and funding.
If the rezoning of Greenpoint and Williamsburg is the wave of the future, then will the price of creating public waterfront access be limitless creation of luxury residential development? Hopefully not.
Perhaps the next mayor will look at the success of our Business Improvement Districts and create Waterfront Improvement Districts that are funded, at least in part, by tolls on bridge crossings. After all, it is ironic how the very areas where these bridges grace our shores are also the areas that need the most waterfront improvements.
Carter Craft, an urban planner, is program director of the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance.Â
The graffiti block party on August 24th in Chelsea, which featured the painting of graffiti on nine imitation subway cars (life-sized but just two inches thick) by artists with names like T-Kid, Tats Crew, Min and Fuzz, was different from most street fairs in New York City in several ways. For one thing, a federal judge with a sense of humor had ordered it to go forward. The city had revoked its permit, after Mayor Michael Bloomberg had criticized the event for "encouraging people to hurt this city,” arguing that it would inspire people to deface real subway cars.
"By the same token, presumably,” Judge Jed Rakoff wrote in reversing the ban, “a street performance of 'Hamlet' would be tantamount to encouraging revenge murder."
It was also different because the entire block – 22nd Street between 10th and 11th Avenues -- was filmed by MTV and television news crews, and because both ends of the block had a big sign that said, “Warning: Anyone possessing spray paint, markers or other graffiti paraphernalia is subject to fine and arrest,” but that did not stop a crowd of young men in hip hop clothing, some wearing T-shirts that said “Graffiti Changed My Life,” from reverently lending their markers to the veteran graffiti artists for their autographs – excuse me, their tags.
But the graffiti block party was different, above all, because there was not a single sign-up table for a credit card, not one van with slabs of sweaty sausages on its mobile grill, not even tables full of underwear and socks for sale.
Block parties, street fairs, street festivals – there are a half dozen of them every summer weekend, there is at least one happening each week from May to November.The Saturday after the graffiti block party, which was organized by hip-hop clothing designer Marc Ecko, New Yorkers could attend:
And then on Sunday:
If New York City’s first street festival was organized way back in 1884 on East 116th Street, by the Church of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, the flowering of block fairs dates from the 1970s and 1980s, a result of the birth of neighborhood block associations in communities throughout the city.
So, if so many neighborhoods are so different, why are so many of the street fairs so exactly the same?
The reason for the monotony is simple. Many street fairs are managed by one organization, Mardi Gras Festival Productions.
Mardi Gras makes it easier both for the sponsoring organizations and for the vendors, by navigating what turns out to be a formidable permit process.
New York City street fairs are regulated by the Street Activity Permit Office of the Mayor’s Community Assistance Unit. The managers of any fair that takes place on more than one block or on more than one day must apply for approval to that office no later than December 31st of the previous year. Those block fairs that last only one day and take place only on one block can apply to the local community board. Manhattan’s Community Board 8, which includes the Upper East Side and Roosevelt Island, has recommended that the city approve 50 block parties this year in its area alone.
Mardi Gras helps the vendors obtain the necessary individual state and city permits they need. It also sells the vendors booths in the fairs it organizes -- and, if vendors buy a booth at more than one fair, they get a discount, which is why the same vendors appear in festival after festival. Mardi Gras also manages an aggressive corporate sponsorship program which is why you see the same oversized oddly-shaped plastic souvenir drinking glasses in festival after festival.
Many of the smaller block fairs are organized by neighborhood associations, and function as their main annual fundraiser, the money used to plant trees, fix lights and otherwise improve the quality of life in their communities. If they are enjoyable -- if they help the neighbors feel part of a community, and promote the neighborhood to the rest of the city -- so much the better. But their primary purpose is to make money.
The vendors are happy with this arrangement, the sponsoring organizations are happy, even the public is happy, judging by the crowds.
But not everybody is happy. The local merchants and residents along University Place in Greenwich Village were so sick of another identical fair week in and week out disrupting the normal street life that they circulated a petition against them.
And I am not happy that so many of the city’s street festivals have become nearly identical. I suppose it is wrong to denigrate Mardi Gras for doing to street fairs what developers and retailers have done to the rest of the city; after all, nobody is surprised to be able to board the 86th Street cross-town bus by the Banana Republic on Third Avenue and exit that bus by the Banana Republic on Broadway – or to cross a street to go from the Starbucks at 25 Astor Place to the Starbucks at 51 Astor Place, two of more than 150 identical Starbucks in Manhattan alone.
But there are plenty of street festivals that remain distinctive, some of them annual events. There are the grand spectacles, such as the lively Lunar New Year's Day parade in Chinatown , and the festival of the Giglio, in which 100 men carry an entire orchestra on their shoulders through the streets of Williamsburg.
And then there are the modest block parties, real neighborhood affairs managed not by Mardi Gras but by the neighborhood groups themselves. My wife and I reside in Yorkville, and one Saturday in June we attended a block party on East 87th Street to raise funds for the school at St. Joseph’s Parish. St. Joseph's has deep roots in Yorkville -– it started before the Civil War as a place of worship for an orphanage and became the church for Yorkville’s burgeoning German community in 1874 -– and this was evident in the June fair. A boy who attends St. Joseph’s school staffed a table selling used books. Another table functioned as a one-day “St. Joseph’s CafĂ©” –- full of goodies baked by the school’s parents or donated by local stores. There were children’s rides and a dunk tank. There was not one single place to purchase a tacky souvenir glass. It felt much better to attend a block party that was clearly a part of its neighborhood, and buy a book to support a neighborhood institution, than it would have to eat a sickening sausage at a roving shopping mall.
Marcus Banks is a librarian at the New York University School of Medicine. Â