A word on recent New York City developments

Yet another "bright lights, big city" rendering, this one of Coney Island.

With real estate development such a hot topic now, and so well covered by so many diverse outlets, it's clear that nearly everyone is interested in new built environment projects in our city.

Of course, I've been scanning all these articles and feeling a certain obligation to say something about them, but finding myself at a loss for words. I'm so, well, BORED, by the story that underlines everything: the Brooklyn Bridge Park, Columbus Circle, Washington Square Park, and Coney Island. All these projects seem to have the same story arc, one well-articulated by Nicholas Ouroussoff in this week's article about the Brooklyn Bridge Park. It's mostly about the tug-of-war between public (common good, community) and private (profit, developers). Reductionist? Perhaps. But what does one say?

It's not that I don't care about what gets built or how its done or anything like that, of course not. It's just that there seems to be little variation on the way things are done. After so many years of the same process creating so many similar impasses, it's feels crazy that so little has been done to improve the situation.

Where's our leadership for the space our city inhabits? We have leadership on social issues that shape our neighborhoods - homelessness, schools, small business entrepreneurship. How about some leadership specifically for our built environment? For a premiere city, it's such a shame that we have no public space vision, no collective idea on how we would want to see how city built. All our projects seem subject to the same conflicts, over and over again. It doesn't matter whether it's in the far-reaches of Brooklyn, or Long Island for that matter, or in the tony areas of Manhattan.

It's no wonder then that the New York Magazine writer entitled his article about Coney Island, "The Incredibly Bold, Audaciously Cheesy, Jaw-Droppingly Vegasified, Billion-Dollar Glam-Rock Makeover of Coney Island:
A first look at its not-preposterous future" or that master planning consultants resort to "Bright Lights, Big City" renderings. How else to spice up yet another story about something that now seems quite ho-hum.