Band-Aid Solutions

A plan to get post-pandemic New York back on track lacks imagination.

A Post-it Note or two could easily contain the substance of the 159-page document called “New New York: Making New York Work for Everyone,” issued jointly in December by New York City mayor Eric Adams and New York State governor Kathy Hochul:

  • Change zoning (and state law) to allow increasingly vacant Midtown office buildings to be reused as housing or non-office workspaces, or torn down and replaced with new housing.
  • Midtown Manhattan more pedestrian friendly (which is funny if you think about it)
  • Fix the subway, for God’s sake! And while we’re at it, make the subway and suburban systems like Metro-North work as if they were part of a single, interconnected transportation system.
  • Make New York City a more equitable place by improving access to education and day care.

But I felt compelled to read, or at least peruse, the whole thing because I was waiting for the showstopper—what home makeover shows call “the reveal”—the mo…

Karrie Jacobs has been writing about cities and other human habitats long enough to know: It’s not what they say, it’s what they build.

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