LETTER TO THE EDITOR
URBAN PLANNING 101
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Received From Karin Barnaby, Sea Cliff, July 28, 2015
To the Editor: Before they allow RXR to build a single additional multiple-housing unit or apartment complex, accessible only by car, Glen Cove’s leaders would do well to take to heart some urban planning basics that best serve the entire Glen Cove community’s long-term interests—not just serve developers' short-term interests and provide politicians with quick fixes. Glen Cove—a city without a strong urban core, bisected by a highway, with a train station at one end of town, supermarkets at another end, and with existing and planned apartment and townhouse complexes nowhere near either transportation or shopping—surely lays claim to some of the poorest urban planning around. Rather than allow developers to add to its overgrown, haphazard and unwieldy sprawl, as this RXR project threatens to do, city leaders should reimagine the best options toward making Glen Cove a successful and vibrant waterfront city—at the very least: bring back a modern, efficient version of the trolley and/or extend a spur of the LIRR northward into town, rather than further immobilize and choke Glen Cove residents with their own automobile traffic. Glen Cove leaders might want to take some pointers from the city of Buffalo, once called America’s best designed city—that is, until the 1950s, when city planners built highways that cut through the city and cut it off from its waterfront (similar to Glen Cove’s highway, but on a larger scale), a project they now call the “mother of all mistakes.” There is no reason why Glen Cove, too, cannot envision and implement its own renaissance as a well-designed waterfront city. All it takes is imagination, will and courage on the part of its leaders and its residents. Here are some of the key initiatives the city of Buffalo is undertaking to restore it to what Frederick Law Olmsted called “the best-planned city in America,” even before he designed its park system: - Remove highways that a) cut through the city and b) cut Buffalo off from its waterfront - Restore Buffalo’s streetcar system - Save and restore old buildings - Restore Olmsted’s park system - Create walkable, bikeable urban neighborhoods - Add 10 miles of bicycle ways a year Karin Barnaby Sea Cliff, NY BACK TO WEEKLY |
For a terrific video about Buffalo’s “renaissance”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBsi5FGbY2Y
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