NYC 2030: City of Gloss

I usually throw out the glossy pages hiding between the folds of my New York Times – especially when, like today, they fall on the grimy floor of the L train – but I found these particular pages of interest. Ten of them, glossy as previously mentioned, filled with photographs, regular graphs, and witty captions about Plan NYC’s plan (or lack thereof) for the next twenty-five years. Factoids, too – did you know that a third of New Yorkers pay more than half of their income towards rent? Or that two million New Yorkers live more than ten minutes from a park? Or that together we can create a sustainable city? Alright, the last one isn’t a factoid, but it is in the report, and it does sound nice.

The insert – which I saw on the ground again later in the day, this time on Jay Street, glossy pages too heavy to flap in the Dumbo wind – is heavy on the statistics and heavy on the idealism, asking (and answering): “By 2030, will you still love New York? It’s up to you.” And just so we take things seriously, page three features the following admonition: “We should be proud. But we should not become complacent.” The insert continues: “Previous generations looked ahead… now it is our turn.” So, one asks, what is the modern equivalent of the forward-looking thinking behind Central Park, the subway, and the water tunnels? And must it involve glossy inserts?

Well, the Mayor’s Sustainability Advisory Board will tell you, first you’ve got to get a handle on the problem. To provide this handle, they list the “top three things you should know about New York over the next 25 years,” a list I actually like (in an intellectual way – the reality of the situation is depressing): First, one million new New Yorkers; second, aging infrastructure – subway signals from the ‘40s, water tunnels from the ‘30s, energy grid from the ‘20s; third, pollution. The urbanophile in me is tickled pink, but the flaneur is a sickly green from imagining hoards of dirty people on deteriorating trains drinking contaminated water. Something must be done.

Unfortunately, for all the worthy goals in the insert’s conclusion, the particulars are lacking. Not that such an insert needs to be a call to action, but its silence on specific projects indicates a timidity, a refusal to engage in the brick-and-mortar (or, if Frank Gehry has his way, the steel-and-glass) politics of the day. Any “official” document dealing with the future of New York City must either deal with these, or become a historical footnote. Or blog fodder. Or both. (To its credit, Plan NYC’s website attempts to give some specifics, though most are limited to the household.) Pretty pictures notwithstanding, this publication is an invitation to think of urban reality as larger-than-life, or, at least, larger-than-me.

Clearly, I’m a pragmatist. I find this idealistic vision of the city standing in the way of necessary action. It either inspires overly large urban transformations – Atlantic Yards anyone? – or leads to impossibly long delays – the Second Avenue Subway and East Side Access, a LIRR tunnel to Grand Central, have both been on the books for decades and are just receiving necessary funds. The Mayor’s Sustainability Advisory Board is too optimistic – their glasses are half full because the subways are only half full, though they say that, without improvement, the subways will be all full by 2030. Then the advisors’ glasses will be half empty, or all empty, jostled by elbows and winter coats on a downtown 6, because nothing will have happened besides more press conferences, publications, and public hearings. As things stand – which is to say, clutching a pole while trying to do a crossword puzzle with one hand – the City of Dreams needs to wake up and go to work.