Our Future Environment

Now that we have elaborated neighborhood needs by examining the role of public space and treescapes in urban life and how we might map such roles we will move more specifically into the PlaNYC2030 goals.
CURRENT NYC PRACTICES
PlaNYC2030 is a push to create a more sustainable and ‘green’ city by 2030. Part of this proposal includes an Open Space plan. This plan argues that neighborhoods are at risk of expanding without providing for the parks and open space that help create healthy communities. PlaNYC2030 discusses New York City in a holistic, urban ecology framework. The proposal argues inside this framework because of its emphasis on the scale, intricacy and interdependency of the physical challenges we face which require us to realize that each choice impacts another (10). For example, the Open Space plan, as part of the PlaNYC2030, recognizes that planting more trees encourages residents to use outdoor space, leading to a decrease in New York City’s above average obesity rate while simultaneously decreasing our energy consumption because of trees’ many natural environmental benefits. Although the plan does take this holistic approach it fails to fully integrate the human population into every infrastructure decision. This failure will be discussed after reviewing the Open Space plan.
The Open Space plan consists of three main approaches. First, the plan will improve existing sites already available to New Yorkers. This first goal will be reached by opening schoolyards across the city as public playgrounds, increasing options for competitive athletics and completing underdeveloped destination parks. Secondly, the plan will expand usable hours at existing sites by providing more multi-purpose fields and installing new lighting. The third approach, and the most applicable to this research project, is the Open Space plan to “Re-imagine the public realm” by “re-conceptualizing the streets and sidewalks as public spaces that can foster the connections that create vibrant communities” (31). The open space plan argues that the scarcity of land and housing creates a situation where we cannot fully solve the challenge of providing more open space by simply buying and converting more land into parks. New approaches are needed.
To expand and review the re-imagining the public realm approach we will now discuss the two initiatives that hope to drive it. The first initiative, Initiative 6 of the entire plan, will create or enhance a public plaza in every community. The city is currently in the process of initiating or completing thirty-one plaza projects. According to the plan, each of the fifty-nine community boards has at least one opportunity to transform underutilized space into a plaza. The plan states that beginning in 2007, community initiative and need will become part of the selection criteria for upcoming projects in these community boards. The plan will prioritize neighborhoods with the lowest ratio of open space to population. The plan will also consult with communities to discuss how the space is designed, constructed and programmed.
The second initative, Initiative 7 of the entire plan, will green the cityscape and improve the pedestrian experience. Re-imagining the public realm creatively describes how New Yorkers begin and end every daily trip and activity as a pedestrian. Walking to school or the subway, taking a stroll on a nice day, or playing a makeshift game of baseball in the street are staples of New York life. Using sidewalks and streets, argues the Open Space plan, is enhanced and influenced by trees. Neighborhoods with trees are generally more pleasant than those without and, as we have discussed earlier, city trees cool summer temperatures, reduce air pollution, conserve energy, and contain numerous other benefits. The second initiative hopes to capitalize on the benefits of trees by undertaking an aggressive campaign to plant trees wherever possible and raise the street tree stocking level from 74% to 100% by 2030. In addition to tree planting this initiative will expand the Greenstreets program, a project initiated in 1996 that has transformed thousands of acres of unused streetspace into green space.
When reviewing the last two initiatives the discrepancy between when the local community will be consulted and when they will not immediately stood out. In the second initiative, the plan will plant trees in empty sidewalk soil space as well as sidewalk space that can be turned into soil rather than kept as concrete. Although the initiative is striving to be innovative it does not emphasize prioritizing neighborhoods with the lowest ratio of tree-stock to population as does the first initiative. The second initiative, also contrary to the first, does not include consulting with communities to discuss how tree planting will be designed, constructed and programmed. Because PlaNYC2030 emphasizes a holistic, urban ecology approach when considering next steps it seems that this last initiative would consider resident needs in order to ensure a healthy and beautiful New York future.

Filed under: environmental planning on April 6th, 2008