Planyc for Smart Growth in New York

NYC Smart Growth

In 2007, then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg initiated PlaNYC. Based on the principles of Smart Growth, the PlaNYC aims to prepare for and balance New York City's population growth, economy development, and environmental issues. By the year 2010, the city of New York received the National Award for Smart Growth Achievement from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency with an overall excellence. Taking the direction of a greener and more efficient development means that it is time for the city that never sleeps to rest.

One of the main concerns of American urban governments today is to limit urban sprawl, to expand revenue sharing, to increase affordable housing, and Smart Growth fits in with these objectives. Bloomberg's approach for New York's development is an example of American metropolitan governments have returned to regionalism, yet with a newer perspective and strategies. A city with a long history and great economy, such as the city of New York, shifting toward and focusing on a greener and greater plan, sets a good model for many developing cities in the U.S.; or even around the world. PlaNYC is set for success, as it is being updated every four years.

This paper will examine the efforts of PlaNYC with respect to instituting the principles of Smart Growth. The progress than the city has made thus far will be analyzed critically for its successes and for the areas of improvement that are needed. Furthermore, there have been critics of the plan, and some of what they have to say will be taken into account in this paper as well. The conclusion of the paper will effectively point out the state of Smart Growth in New York and highlight potential areas for improvement.

Methodology and Variables

The paper is research intensive, first to understand what Smart Growth is, and how PlaNYC fits within that framework. Then, the successes that New York has enjoyed will be examined, based on Smart Growth measures. A variety of sources will be used, including sources specific to Smart Growth and to PlaNYC, as well as academic journals, media articles and other publications that can provide some background and insight into this topic. Academic journals are entirely inadequate -- for some reason they do not think this is something important to study. As a result, government sites and .org sites were the most commonly used sources for this information.

The Smart Growth website (2015) highlights the areas that are taken into consideration in Smart Growth. These include "health, schools, taxes, traffic, the environment, economic growth, fairness, opportunity" as key categories where success can be measured. The underlying principle is that these are the ideas that citizens care about the most -- they reflect what goes into building happier lives in a civic environment. These concepts are adapted from the ICMA/EPA circular first published in 2006. Growth is considered "smart" when it improves communities in a wide variety of categories, allowing not just for better communities but the ability to sustain those better communities.

Some of the key tenets of Smart Growth are mixed land uses, compact building design, a range of housing types, walkable neighborhoods, and fostering distinct communities with a strong sense of place. Increased density allows for better transportation options, for better efficiency in development, and to reduce the impact of growth on farmland, open space and areas of natural beauty (EPA, 2014). The EPA created the idea of Smart Growth, and supports it through research, the production of reports, benchmarking and facilitating partnerships -- in essence the EPA is a thought leader in this area, but it remains incumbent on communities to be the producers of the real work in Smart Growth, through their powers of taxation, land use zoning, public transportation and the creation of a centralized vision for its communities, rather than allowing development to become haphazard and unplanned, something more associated with the developing world and its unsustainably sprawling megalopolises.

According to the official website of EPA (2015), the concept of Smart Growth "covers a range of development and conservation strategies that help protect our health and natural environment and make our communities more attractive, economically stronger, and more socially diverse."

Analytical Discussion

As a large, dense city, New York City was always well-positioned to demonstrate Smart Growth principles. As Feuer (2010) notes, in 2005 New York had 1% of total national carbon emissions despite having 2.7% of its population, highlighting the inherent efficiency that large cities enjoy. In that respect, New York was always going to be a good model for Smart Growth -- the potential is built in with its transportation networks, its dense neighborhoods, but in a sense there are also many challenges for New York as well. One tenet of Smart Growth is to improve green space, and this would be difficult in a city so built-up, to find ways to reclaim green space. One of the things that New York was able to do is contribute to the East Coast Greenway, with a 44-mile stretch that winds its way through all the Bronx and Manhattan, but which will eventually encompass parts of Brooklyn and Staten Island as well (Greenway.org, 2015). This pathway links New York with the rest of the Eastern Seaboard on the greenway, but it also increases recreational opportunities and the ability for residents to access greenspace throughout the city.

Another project has been the conversion of a disused rail line in the New York High Line. By repurposing this industrial wasteland into greenspace, the city is reclaiming green space where it would otherwise be impossible due to the many buildings. This is innovative land use, and because it is a city park, was driven specifically by the City, work beginning prior to the PlaNYC as a showcase of what could be done.

All of this is part of the city's 400-mile greenway plan. There are now 72 miles greenway routes throughout the city, off of the roads. This not only is a great use of public land in keeping with Smart Growth objectives, but it also pulls more people out of vehicles. While New Yorkers have always been users of public transportation, they have been hesitant to embrace cycling as a means of transport, in part because of the inherent dangers of cycling in traffic. These cycling routes will encourage more people to cycle, rather than drive, because they are safe, pleasant, and represent an efficient alternative to driving in a traffic-choked city. The city has built these corridors through a mix of revenue sources at the city, state and federal level (Transalt.org, 2000).

The new pedestrianized area of Times Square is another example of Smart Growth, which encourages pedestrian areas where possible. These areas highlight the vehicle traffic is not always given primacy is public planning. In the case of Times Square, tourists love it, but pedestrianized areas can be implemented in other areas of the city as well, so that they may benefit residents who prefer a quieter experience, and where there is sufficient density of businesses to support going car-free. This idea is not revolutionary -- it is common throughout Europe -- but it remains an important element in Smart Growth in America, and New York is looking for ways to embrace it.

The above elements are smart, but New York's growth must also be discussed. Where many cities throughout the East Coast are struggling to maintain their populations, and may have issues with urban blight, New York was at the fore of dealing with these issues. New York was not immune to such blight, in particular in the 1970s and 1980s, but has embarked on a long-term strategy to restore the city. Areas that were once no-go zones are now hipster zones, and the result is that the city has remained vibrant and growing. The population of New York in 2010 was estimated at 19.378 million, and this has grown to 19.746 million in 2014, a 1.9% growth rate. This may not seem like much, but New York is already a highly-dense city with no room for outward growth, only growth through increased density.

This highlights one of the key tenets of Smart Growth. If the city needs to accommodate more people and it wants to increase greenspace and alternative transportation corridors, then something has to give. This is where smart building design comes into play. The City has the ability to influence building design, because it has the power of taxation, and because it has the power over zoning. The City can create incentives -- financial or otherwise -- to encourage smart building design. New York's existing building stock has always relied on small flats as a means of achieving high density and efficiency, so the next step is to encourage new buildings to maintain these principles, but with better designs for liveability, for greenspace and for things like energy efficiency. Rooftop gardens, for example, or solar panels, are means by which a building can be smarter. Green building materials are another area, and again the city can use tax incentives to encourage their use in new construction. New construction areas can be better planned, so reduce the haphazard sprawl of some parts of the city. All of this allows New York to better achieve its smart growth objectives.

For its part, PlaNYC continues to be a component of the city's urban planning, which is natural given that implementing such concepts will typically take a long period of time. City Hall created the Mayor's Office of Sustainability in order to develop, guide and implement PlaNYC. This is a necessary component -- resources have to be allocated to strategies such as this in order to give them any hope of succeeding. The office has set a number of target metrics, in a number of areas.

For example, New York is seeking to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 80% from 2006 to 2050. Carbon emissions are a key element of smart growth for two reasons. One, carbon emissions are a terrible cost to the environment, which ultimately threaten human comfort, if not life. They are also something that has not to this point been adequately priced in our economic system -- they are a negative externality, the cost of which will be paid eventually. So there is significant imperative to New York reducing its carbon emissions and showing the rest of the world's cities a pathway for doing the same. Reducing carbon also means shifting the emphasis on the way that life is designed. This is a key element of smart growth -- the idea that a traditional, lazy growth model of sprawl, strip malls and concrete is antithetical to a high quality of life. Thus, new visions of living must be created, and these will typically reflect a shift away from carbon dominance.

An 80% reduction is highly optimistic. There are many personal trips that can and should be done without cars, but many commercial trips are more difficult, and public transportation still relies on carbon. But the City feels that by creating better non-carbon transportation infrastructure, where communities are walkable, bike lanes commonplace, and public transportation options viable, that carbon use in transportation can be substantially reduced. The City's PlaNYC website (2015) points out that thus far, carbon emissions in NYC have been reduced by 19%, and that this puts the city on target for the 80% reduction by 2050 that is has set as its target. The first thought is that the early reductions are the low-hanging fruit that can be done easily; reductions will not be as quick in the future. The second thought is that when there is a shift in way of life, sustained reductions are possible because of the design of communities and the mindset of the people have changed. In essence, carbon reductions are like a diet -- you cut some carbon consumption, and because everything works better you only want to cut more. Under such a philosophy, the 80% target is still achievable.

The City has also added 950,000 trees and 6 million square feet of reflective rooftop -- gardens and parks -- to the landscape. Such additions help to reduce carbon, and beautify the city (NYC.gov, 2015). The trees are a carbon sink, and they increase the liveability of the city, and they can increase the greenness of the city without adding any new parkland. Furthermore, they improve neighborhoods, and encourage people to be less transient because they are living in a nicer place. Such an initiative sounds simple, but it works in terms of not only meeting Smart Growth and PlaNYC specs, but also in building communities that people genuinely want to live in.

As part of PlaNYC, New York has also needed to respond to the risks that the city faces. Since initiating this plan, New York has faced Hurricane Sandy, and it has seek several major snow events as well. Further, there is an issue with shoreline erosion that threatens both the greenspace of the city and also threatens the environment. Heat waves are common, especially in areas where there are few trees, so planting more trees and increasing greenspace helps to provide shade and to reflect heat back away from the city. The urban heat island effect is something that causes temperatures in the city to be significantly higher than those in surrounding areas, but increased green spaces, and reflective rooftops, will reduce the heat island effect significantly (NYC.gov, 2015).

Climate change has become part of the PlaNYC initiatives as well. The realization that there are around 800,000 people who live in the 100-year floodplain of New York has created an imperative to relocate people away from those lands by 2050 as part of the plan. There are also a number of projects to strengthen shoreline barriers, something that will improve the liveability of the city and reduce environmental risk to residents. As noted earlier, buildings are encouraged to incorporate the principles of smart design, but they are also mandated to withstand environmental risks, such as flooding, and power outages. This is done at the City level through building code changes, zoning regulations and incentives (NYC.gov, 2015).

Overall, the city of New York has created a comprehensive plan that is implemented by multiple different agencies within the city government. The City has created a centralized office in order to plan and manage these different initiatives, which succeed by pulling the resources of the city into the same direction, so that the actions of one agency are congruent with the actions of other agencies, aiming for the same objectives. The Department of Transportation is involved in public transit, bike lanes, and the creation of pedestrian areas. The Department of Health can contribute valuable studies, including design and construction studies. City Planning is a centralized authority that can guide policy. Tax policy, and zoning requirements, are among the different things at the civic level that are leading to changes as part of PlaNYC.

This is not to say that there are no critiques of PlaNYC and its Smart Growth. Kushner (2002) has expressed concern that "Smart Growth" and other, similar concepts are little more than code for gentrification. That line of argument can be read two ways -- one, that improving cities is a bad thing; or two, that such improvements do have a negative impact on certain people who can no longer afford to live in the improved areas. The quality of life improvement will come with real estate price increases, something that Kushner fears will push those with low incomes, including new immigrants, away from the city. New York has long been a hub of immigration, one of the things that lends the city its vibrancy, but if improvement were to happen to the entire city, there would be less room for immigrants in particular. They would be pushed into the surrounding areas -- there is evidence of this occurring already -- but more important that this could have a detrimental effect on New York's character and liveability.

Hughes (2011) has also examined New York's Smart Growth, in the four years since it was first announced. He notes that some feel the initiatives have been too slow to roll out -- given that 97% of initiatives were launched within four years this seems absurd -- but also that the benefits of the initiatives are not spread equally. While Hughes fails to provide specifics, the reality is that Smart Growth is not about equality of outcomes, because everybody has different interests. The objective is to create a better city for people to live in, where the growth in population is not detrimental to the environmental and economic outcomes of its residents. Guaranteeing that everybody benefits equally from a public policy initiative is ridiculous and unrealistic.

The only legitimate point of complaint here is that the poor may not benefit that much. Where they may see benefits, such as better access to transit and bike lanes to lower their transportation costs, they also will see themselves priced out of their own neighborhoods. Such concerns are legitimate, as Kushner noted they might also create a situation whereby there is an issue with diminished character in the city. But realistically the only other options are uncontrolled growth, which helps nobody, and maintaining a state of poverty, which doesn't even help the people who are poor, let alone anybody else.

Conclusions

It is too early to judge the totality of PlaNYC or the Smart Growth initiatives, as these types of policies take decades to implement. They essentially represent a shift in the way of thinking about how cities should be designed, and what a high quality of life looks like. They seek to find a new balance for a post-carbon world, and in that New York is off to the right start. The City has considerable resources at its disposal, and a good starting point in terms of being a high-density city with abundant public transportation. Furthermore, New York has the benefit of many of the world's smartest people living within its borders -- when you have a great starting point and a community full of idea leaders, it is not hard to imagine that you will succeed. New York has been able to transform itself from the post-industrial decay of the 1970s and 80s to reclaiming its stake as one of the world's most innovative, vibrant metropolises.