I’m Readin’ Here

The Principles of Good Urban Design could become a valuable resource for New Yorkers, if they would take the time to read it. First published in 2017 by the Department of City Planning (DCP), the guidebook codifies an urban design vocabulary and makes it publicly accessible—all with the aim of abating the gap between residents, designers, and policymakers and fostering a more participatory approach to design evaluation. Theoretically, the DCP’s project meets people where they are.

In reality, the original edition was cumbersome and hard to follow since the principles were presented only as ideas, without concrete examples illustrating how they could be put into urbanistic practice. The volume has been freshly updated and reworked to consider feedback from 1,500 New Yorkers who provided input online, a figure that Dan Garodnick, DCP director, foregrounded at the launch event, saying, “The question of who participates in designing our city should be a matter of principle, not privilege.” In a world where my phone screens CDC calls as “Scam Likely” and it’s almost impos…