Tag Archives: New York City

Other cities want to copy the success of New York’s High Line but this isn’t easy to do

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According to the BBC, a number of cities around the world would like to learn from New York’s High Line:

In Shoreditch, east London, the idea of building a new park on top of the old railway arches at the Bishopsgate Goods Yard, abandoned since the mid 1960s, is being considered.

Chicago is proposing to redevelop 2.7 miles (4.3 km) of disused elevated railway line into the Bloomingdale Trail. Its fellow US city Philadelphia is looking at transforming the Reading Viaduct into an elevated linear park. And in Rotterdam, Netherlands, another old elevated track is being considered as a site for a park and shops. The High Line itself echoes Paris’ Promenade Plantee, inaugurated in 1993…

James Corner, the British landscape architect who designed the High Line, is working on the transformation of London’s Olympic South Plaza into part of the future Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Corner is also working on a proposal to redevelop Liverpool’s 1980s Everton Park.

A competition to design London’s answer to the High Line has just been won by a project to grow mushrooms in unused mail tunnels under Oxford Street. It’s unlikely to be built, but it was this kind of radical thinking that made the High Line a hit.

This is not uncommon: cities often look to other cities to see what has worked. New ideas can be risky, particularly ones that require a large outlay of money (the article says New York’s High Line cost $112 million but will add about $900 million in tax revenue over 20 years). Therefore, if this can work in New York and other cities would not only like to have similar success (not only creating an exciting public space but also one whose benefits spread to nearby locations) but also want to “catch up” with one of the world’s leading cities, undertaking similar projects can be attractive.

However, I wonder about two related factors that might be necessary to remember when learning from the High Line:

1. Just because this worked in New York City doesn’t necessarily mean that it can work elsewhere. Different cities have different conditions and contingencies. Simply replicating the project may work – and it may not.

2. These new projects need to be representative of the city they are in, not simply an imported item from New York City. In other words, they have to have some or a lot of local flavor and influence. Otherwise, the High Lines become another commodified space like shopping malls and generic tourist markets.

I’m guessing these other big cities are aware of these issues but this makes it a much more difficult process as leaders and residents think through how similar physical spaces might turn out to be very different places when constructed in different cities.

Using social media to commemorate September 11th

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In recent decades, cultural sociologists have spent more time examining how people today create and experience newer memorials like the Vietnam Wall. But the nature of memorials changes quickly; here is a sociologist discussing how 9/11 is remembered on social media.

Brian Monahan, a sociology professor at Pennsylvania’s Marywood University, said social media helps Americans remember 9/11 in an anniversary year that is not a milestone 10th, 20th or 25th.

It also provides ways to remember events other than the structured process of scheduled memorials, said Monahan, who has studied coverage of 9/11. There was a proscribed way before of how to be solemn. The symbolism went through official channels.

“It was an informal process but it was structured,” he said.

Social media takes all the barriers away.

The conversation about 9/11 is also different now on Twitter and Facebook, especially after the killing of Osama bin Laden, Monahan said.

“There was only one way to talk about 9/11 and that was tragedy,’ Monahan said. “But now it’s about core American values.”

Maybe we are headed toward a world where physical memorials simply don’t matter as much. Existing and new memorials may still attract a lot of visitors and certain locations, such as government centers or big cities, might still be expected to commission and maintain memorials. For example, the 9/11 Memorial in New York City which I had a chance to see in July, may still be important because it is rooted in a certain space. Here is one picture from the site (with the to-be-completed museum in the background):

The collective memory may be rooted in the World Trade Center site but it is now more diffuse. Public commemoration can now be done from anywhere. The 9/11 site can be experienced through websites and Google Street View. Videos can be watched online. People can share their memories from that day and where they were when they heard the news. Now participants can more widely share their memories and opinions rather than just relying on the “big narrative” to which memorials often point.

Perhaps these social media expressions were in part foretold by these new memorials themselves which encourage reflection and having viewers read their own interpretation into display. The classic example is the Vietnam Wall in Washington, D.C. which was deliberately designed to move around controversial views of the war and allow people to reflect on the lives lost. See this classic 1991 piece in the American Journal of Sociology by Wagner-Pacifici and Schwartz titled “The Vietnam Veterans Memorial: Commemorating a Difficult Past.” Social media simply furthers this process but also possibly gives interpretations from individuals the potential to reach wider audiences.

Figures: more deaths per capita in horse accidents in NYC in 1900 than in auto accidents today

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I ran across an article titled “From Horse Power to Horsepower” that contains these interesting figures:

Horses killed in other, more direct ways as well. As difficult as it may be to believe given their low speeds, horse-drawn vehicles were far deadlier than their modern counterparts. In New York in 1900, 200 persons were killed by horses and horse-drawn vehicles. This contrasts with 344 auto-related fatalities in New York in 2003; given the modern city’s greater population, this means the fatality rate per capita in the horse era was roughly 75 percent higher than today. Data from Chicago show that in 1916 there were 16.9 horse-related fatalities for each 10,000 horse-drawn vehicles; this is nearly seven times the city’s fatality rate per auto in 1997.

Of course, as the article notes, there were other issues with having thousands of horses on the street each day.

I’ve written before about the risks of driving today, particularly compared to other behaviors which many might think are more dangerous but are not. Yet, these figures are a reminder that we are safer today on the city streets, at least while driving something in the streets, than in the past. It may not seem to be true but I suspect this has more to do with how much we hear about accidents (and crime) more than the actual reality of how dangerous it is.

Argument: McMansions are turning Queens into Brooklyn

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A writer argues Queens, New York is being ruined by McMansions:

Then one day, the McMansions came roaring in. Progress! People cut down trees, bricked up laws and built their houses right up to the property line. Children started “playing” on their computers indoors. They started getting heavier as the utility companies grew richer because oversized homes use a lot more energy than smaller homes with trees close by to shade them. I sure hope the utility companies are sending those McMansion owners holiday greeting cards to thank them for their extra business. I’d say they owe them at least that much.

More and more, green lawns in Queens are transforming into the cement sidewalks of Brooklyn. One of the reasons that Queens homeowners are paving their lawns is because the multiple families dwelling in those roomy McMansions are creating a shortage of parking spaces. What’s the solution? Pave your lawn so you can transform it into a front driveway. Or, maybe they don’t like grass. Why move to Queens then? There’s always Brooklyn. Brooklyn already has lots of cement sidewalks. They even have cafes! Wouldn’t it be easier to find a setting that suits your needs than dwelling in a setting you have to transform?

This is not my neck of the woods but I have a few thoughts about this:

1. It sounds like there are a lot of teardown McMansions in Queens.

2. Blaming McMansions for the rising weight of children seems silly. Only kids who live in McMansions are sitting inside more?

3. I wonder if it is really McMansions that are the issue here or that change is coming to Queens. The main point of the argument is that this writer doesn’t want Queens to be like Brooklyn. Presumably, it should remain distinct which includes having different kinds of housing. McMansions could be just a symptom of larger concerns about neighborhood change.

Using Twitter to predict when you will get sick with 90% accuracy

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A new study uses tweets in New York City to predict when a user will get sick – and does so with 90% accuracy.

Using 4.4 million tweets with GPS location from over 630,000 users in New York City, Sadilek and his team were able to predict when an individual would get sick with the flu and tweet about it up to eight days in advance of their first symptoms. Researchers found they could predict said results with 90 percent accuracy.

Similar to Google’s Flu trends, which uses “flu” search trends to pinpoint where and how outbreaks are spreading, Sadilek’s system uses an algorithm to differentiate between alternative definitions of the word ‘sick.’ For example, “My stomach is in revolt. Knew I shouldn’t have licked that door knob. Think I’m sick,” is different from “I’m so sick of ESPN’s constant coverage of Tim Tebow.”

Of course, Sadilek’s system isn’t an exhaustive crystal ball. Not everyone tweets about their symptoms and not everyone is on Twitter. But considering New York City has more Twitter users than any other city in the world, the Big Apple is as good as a place as any for this study.

While one could look at this and marvel at the power of Twitter, I think the real story here is about two things: (1) the power of big data and (2) the power of social networks that Twitter harnesses. If you have people volunteering information about their lives, access to the data, and information about who users are connected to, you can do things that would have been very difficult even ten years ago.

It is interesting that this study was conducted in New York City where there is a high percentage of Twitter users. How good are predictions in cities with lower usage rates? Are we headed toward a world where public health requires people to report on their health so that outbreaks can be contained or quelled?

Mayor Bloomberg, NYC want developers to build “micro-units”

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Tiny houses may just be catching on in urban areas: Mayor Bloomberg and NYC are pushing developers to build 300 square foot units.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Monday invited developers to propose ways to turn a Manhattan lot into an apartment building filled mostly with what officials are calling “micro-units” – dwellings complete with a bathroom, built-in kitchenette and enough space for a careful planner to use a fold-out bed as both sleeping space and living room.

If the pilot program is successful, officials could ultimately overturn a requirement established in 1987 that new apartments here be at least 400 square feet.

City planners envision a future in which the young, the cash-poor and empty nesters flock to such small dwellings – each not much bigger than a dorm room. In a pricey real estate market where about one-third of renter households spend more than half their income on rent, it could make housing more affordable…

Modern-day building codes and improved refrigeration and public health have changed what it means to live small, Bloomberg said. A typical mid-19th century tenement apartment on Manhattan’s Lower East Side might have been larger than one of the micro-units, measuring 325 square feet, but would have typically housed families with multiple children. The micro-units are to be leased only to one- or two-person households.

This could indeed be an interesting adaptation to demographic change. But I wonder: is New York City offering an incentive for developers to do this? Programs for affordable housing often come with some sort of incentive, something like if a developer builds a certain number of cheaper units, they are allowed to build a certain number of market-rate units. The article makes it sounds like there is significant demand for these smaller units in NYC which might negate the need for incentives. However, I haven’t yet seen any indication that developers believe building micro-units is worth it compared to what else they can build.

Redesigning the playground to free children and adults

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Here is an interesting example of architecture and design at work: putting together a playground in New York City that will free children and adults rather than burden them.

In Pamela Druckerman’s “Bringing Up Bébé,” the playground forms a fertile backdrop for her pop-sociological observations about child-rearing, French vs. American style. The upper-middle-class Manhattan moms (she can tell by the price of their handbags) follow their kids around the gated toddler playground narrating their activities. The French moms sit on the edge of the sandbox and chat with other adults. The Brooklyn dads follow their children down the slide. The French moms sit on a bench and chat with other adults. Her theory, a bestselling one, is that French parenting consists of more non, more équilibre, and thus more time for adults to be adults.

It never occurs to her that maybe it is the playgrounds that encourage parents to act this way. Most New York playgrounds are designed for the protection of children: padded surfaces, equipment labelled by age appropriateness, and a ban on unaccompanied adults. Frankly, it is hard to see why an adult without a child would want to enter. There’s often little seating, minimal shade, and no place to set down a coffee except in a stroller cup holder. As for those parents who don’t want to helicopter, the perimeter benches can be far from where children play, sight lines blocked by the bulky climbing structures. Standard New York playgrounds are made for a single activity—child’s play—not family socializing or even adult enjoyment.

The planners of New York City’s Governors Island, an ice-cream-cone-shaped piece of land a half mile from the end of Manhattan, see play somewhat differently, and are designing their first thirty acres of park and public space accordingly. “People spend several hours here” on the weekends, says Leslie Koch, president of the Trust for Governors Island. Free ferries from Manhattan and Brooklyn bring visitors in for extended afternoons. “You wander through the island, you have an idea or you may not, the kids run around. There aren’t precedents for that kind of place. It’s different than a beach or an urban park, or even a state park, where you go to barbecue.” She adds, “Early on we said we didn’t want to have playgrounds, but we didn’t say what that meant.”…

“If you create a park-like environment and people feel really free, adults hang out and participate like children do,” Geuze says. Contrast the concept for Liggett Terrace with the experience at Pier 6 at Brooklyn Bridge Park, an access point for the ferry to Governors Island. To date, Pier 6 consists of four landscaped, gated playgrounds, one with swings, one with water, one with sand, and one for climbing. There’s a separate beach-volleyball court, and a separate park building with food. If you aren’t pushing your kid on the swing, narrating every to and fro, the only place to sit is the springy rubber ground.

It would be interesting to hear more about how this new kind of park would change people’s behaviors. The article seems to suggest that certain park designs necessarily lead to certain behaviors; is this always the case? Does it require a critical mass of people

This reminds me of some arguments about parks from earlier days. Take Central Park in New York City as an example. Olmstead and Vaux designed the park to be more natural and take advantage of the natural topography and features. This was contrasted with more formal European parks which often had carefully cultivated gardens and water features. Central Park became beloved even as it is still fairly unusual in big cities as it can be difficult to find that much land and leave it relatively unencumbered.

 

“The [NYC 420 square foot] Studio Apartment with 6 Hidden Rooms”

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I’ve highlighted innovative small spaces before (see arecent post on a two-level 130 square foot apartment in Paris) and here is another one: a 420 square foot New York City studio has six hidden rooms.

In the Soho neighborhood of New York City, where living space is both expensive and limited, Graham Hill and his team at LifeEdited have turned a 420 square foot studio apartment into the Petri dish of future urban living.

The single room studio apartment has been gutted and remodeled with convertible walls and furniture that transform into six different living spaces. “I wanted it all,” says Mr. Hill in his TED talk from a year ago, “home office, sit down dinner for 10, room for guests, and all my kite surfing gear.”

You have to watch the video to get the full idea.

A few quick thoughts about this:

1. What makes this space work are the movable walls. I wonder if this could catch on in larger homes.

2. There is no mention here of how much a place like this would cost. The suggestion is that they could be made cheaper if mass produced but might the price still be out of the range of many people? Is this primarily for young professionals? If these are seen as fashionable or trendy, it could drive the price up.

3. Graham Hill and Bill Weir suggest this may be the wave of the future in urban living. I’m not so sure. How many Americans actually want this as opposed to would take this only because something larger/cheaper isn’t available?

4. There is mention toward the end of the video that “stripping away the excess found in the McMansion has countless benefits.” Hill gets his facts right: we now have bigger new homes (about 2,500 square feet today compared to about 1,000 in the 1950s) and smaller families. Yet, it is a lot to ask to have people downshift from a single-family home (and the average new size of 2,500 square feet is probably not a McMansion) to a New York City studio apartment.

Urban differences: Portland, Oregon has only one doorman

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Here is an example of differences between cities: New York City is well known for its doormen but Portland, Oregon has only one.

[Richard] Littledyke, a tall, fair-skinned blonde of 28 years, has held doors open for Burlington residents for eight months. The previous doorman, Auggie Contreras, reluctantly vacated the position for a higher-paying bellhop gig at the Nines Hotel…

The Burlington Tower is Portland’s only residential building with a doorman. Other apartments have concierges and several hotels have bellhops at the front doors, but Littledyke is unique. Visitors to the area often use him as a landmark to find their parked car…

Both men said Portland’s lack of doormen probably comes down to the city’s size, age and housing stock.

In Portland, where far fewer people are cramped into limited space, people with extra money achieve status with a nice house and a well-groomed yard, Bearman says. New York’s cramped real estate requires doormen to serve the same purpose.

“They are tied into how to create elegance and luxury in apartment buildings, where space is limited,” Bearman says. “They also provide a bridge between the outside and the inside of a building that a yard serves to provide in a house.”

The explanation: when you have higher residential densities, more high-rise apartments or condos, and wealthier residents, doormen become more common as residents want to clearly signal their status and keep the outside world beyond the doors of their building. The suggestion here is that certain kinds of buildings lead to having doormen – I wonder if this is necessarily the case. Could there also be regional differences, places where it might be considered gauche to have a doorman? The article suggests several apartment buildings in Portland have concierges – how does this differ in the eyes of residents and others?

Even in economic crisis people are still drawn to New York City

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Even in the midst of tough economic times, plenty of people are still drawn to New York City:

So what is it that lures us here and keeps us beholden? Recently, the opportunity arguments have been harder to sustain. In March of last year, the unemployment rate in the city stood at 8.6 percent; 12 months later it jumped to 9.8 percent. Nationally, the unemployment rate has declined during the past year, to 8.1 percent in April.

But the past few years, defined by economic challenges, have seemed only to burnish the city’s appeal. An analysis of American Community Survey data by Susan Weber-Stoger of the Queens College Department of Sociology reveals that more people moved to New York City (over 223,000 of them a year on average) after the financial crisis in 2008 and through 2010 than did from 2005 to 2007, an increase of 10 percent.

Simultaneously, the number of people who have left the city since the recession decreased by 25 percent. Of those who have come, most have been from 25 to 34 years old, more than two-thirds of them with college or graduate degrees. More than a third of those who’ve arrived have come from abroad.

When I discussed some of these numbers with Miriam Greenberg, a sociologist who has written extensively about the branding of New York, she cited the highly strategized efforts the current mayoral administration has made to sell the city to the world. This may explain, in some sense, why people have come, but it doesn’t tell us why they remain, with their Zipcar memberships and disillusions.

If I had to venture a guess why this is the case, I might make this argument: New York City (and other big cities) are viewed as places where opportunities are. Even if the unemployment rate is higher (and I doubt many people checked before going there), the assumption is that there are more jobs to be had and there is a broader range of jobs available (particularly compared to smaller cities or more rural areas). Therefore, the potential for a good job is higher. This is process that is not unique to the United States; the incredible rates of urbanization around the world are also partly due to perceptions that cities may be the only places where jobs are available.

We could also flip this question around: should cities try to attract more people if there are not enough jobs for everyone? Greenberg suggests that the city has effectively marketed itself but in the long run, is this a sustainable strategy if there are not jobs (and other needs such as housing) for everyone who comes?