Live Blog - April 16th, 2010

Lunch plenary

2010-04-16T17:04:28Z

Plenary address: Robert Yaro, President of RPA.

RPA's history of regional plans: 1929, 1969, and 1996. Developing notion of regional linked metropolitan centers. Proposal in third plan was to develop whole linked natural reserve areas.

An additional major area of concern is mobility. Developing regional rail system and then highway system in plan of 1929, plans that were developed during New Deal. Third plan focuses on regional rail system, but this is never developed to the same extent as highway system. Projects include 2nd avenue subway. PlaNYC concludes that we can accommodate most of mobility needs around a regional rail system.

Working on America 2050, a program for promoting a national infrastructure system based on mega-regions such as the Northeast, Pacific Northwest. Goal is to develop a high-speed rail system within the nine or so mega-regions in the country. Here's a map of the different mega-regions.

Next up was New York State Lieutenant Governor Richard Ravitch, who had some extremely sobering words to say about public finance of the kinds of infrastructural projects proposed by forward-thinking organizations such as the RPA. He said that it's hard to think what NYC will look like if the current refusal to levy public financing for major infrastructural projects is sustained. The point here is that one can spend as much time as one wants theorizing about wonderrful forms of sustainable urban planning, but without political capital to realize such projects, you end up with, well, nothing.

On that sober note, I need to wrap up here. The RPA conference goes on, however, for the rest of the afternoon. Here's the program for the rest of the day's events.

Ecosystems: Building a Great Infrastructure

2010-04-16T16:22:51Z

Panel participants

Moderator, James Polshek, Senior Design Counsel, Polshek Partnership Architects

David Burney, Commisioner, NYC Department of Design and Consruction

Helena Durst, Assistant VP, The Durst Organization

Caswell Holloway, Commissioner, NYC Departmetn of Environment Protection

Guy Nordenson, Partner, Guy Nordenson and Associates

Jeffrey Raven, Director, Sustainability + Design, the Louis Berger Group

Intro: James Polshek: Intention of the panel is to showcase best green projects; to identify best standards; explore how new thinking moves from concept to realization. We should all look at Alex McLean's book Over: The American Landscape at the Tipping Point, is depressing book to look at; intro by Bill McKibben.

Polshek shows a series of slides from the book. First section is called "Way of Life," and focuses on perpetual development in U.S., including 4,000 room hotel room in Las Vegas, boat engines and aircraft in U.S, people who build 26 bathroom homes, sprawling self-storage facilities (2.2 billion square feet).

"Automobile dependency" photos of U.S. interchanges, regional shopping malls, church with 27,000 members and massive parking lot.

"Electricity Generation" and coal-powered plants generating light for Las Vegas. Sea-level rise evident in Battery Park city and few feet between water and land.

"Waste and Recycling": Mississippi mup, trash, landfills, oil storage tanks.

"Urbanism": 70 million housing units estimated to be build in next 35 years. Sun City, AZ and Phoenix. Ideal is NYC and Chicago, cities that breathe and have density while in theory being ecologically sensitive.

Cass Holloway: we're doing well tracking water quality, but we need to do better. Maps showing fecal coliform levels in NYC water. Ultimate goal is water quality. Bloomberg's goal in PlaNYC to make 90% of waterways open. we produce 1.1 gallons of waste water per day. Clean Water Act and end of ocean dumping drive accelerated treatement of urban waste. Problem for NYC is that we're dense, and 75% of surfaces are impermeable. 70% of city is combined sewers, which leads to overflow when it rains. We capture 100% of what city produces on dry weather day, but not when it rains, impairing water quality. 14 waste water treatment plants. Goal is to end combined sewer discharge. How? Brooklyn facility that will reduce combined sewer overflow by billions of gallons, but this is incredibly expensive and space is at a premium. Best strategy for left over waste water would be variety of technologies such as blue roofs, green roofs, Staten Island bluebelts (this takes room), streetside swale pilot projects that capture storm water at the source, and rules that decrease amount of allowable water runoff from new developments (which will have to implement green building solutions such as blue roofs, green roofs, detention tanks, storm chambers, perforated pipes).

David Burney: slide of midtown Manhattan with green roofs. 46% of city covered in buildings and lots. 75% of buildings have roofs capable of carrying green roofs. No single silver-bullet solution, but rather multiple solutions. These can be done inexpensively, without increasing roof load too much. Architects come up with solution of using rainfall from roof in Remsen Yard in Brooklyn, to be used in vehicle washing, diminishing water needs by 50%. Another project is at Queens Botanical Garden, where water is collected on roof and then channeled to rest of gardens, where it's used to irrigate plants. People have even suggested urban gardens on green roofs. If you don't want to do green roof, do a blue roof; not tar beach but pool roof. Sustainable Urban Design Manual available on NYC DDC website.

Helena Durst: developer of sustainable residential properties in NYC. Lower vacancy rate (4%) than in rest of NYC (14%). Different approach means that tenants are more loyal. Pickle barrel can be used to harvest run-off water. Future demand will be green: people will want to know where and why their products are coming to them. But all of this ignores the really large structural questions.

Jeffrey Raven: green infrastructure as poster-child for integrated planning across spatial scales, urban sectors, and jurisdictions: building, site, neighborhood, city, subregion, region, nation. Project he's worked on called Masdar in Abu Dhabi, a city that's a green compact city. Focused on adapting and thriving in harsh environmental conditions while also meeting carbon reduction goals. First goal is to reduce the energy demand; going back to some traditional strategies to do this. Most cost-effective and robust solutions actually require fewer resources. In the Masdar project, green infrastructure creates cascading benefits. Headquarters building is a positive energy building, which produces more energy than it consumes using passive cooling strategies and focus on public realm. This includes traditional Arabic forms like dense street networks. Phasing out internal combustion locomotion to create far more livable spaces. Also working on a project for a provincial capital in Vietnam, creating a system of corridors that provide stormwater retention while also aligning with prevailing summer breezes and urban design elements. These steps lock in long-term urban resilience. Finally, the Star Community Index is going to be a national sustainability designation system, to be released in 2011.

Guy Nordenson: "On the Water" project developed at Princeton University, now in exhibition at MOMA. Combining climate change and sea water rise issues. Looking at consequences of increased sea-level rise. Solution of hard storm-surge barrier, developed in detail by SUNY-Stony Brook, along lines of those in Holland and UK. Different approach based on soft infrastrcture through creation of islands, barrier reefs, and other barriers that will reduce impact. Taking this problem and turning it into an opportunity, making bay into a central place for the region in the same way that Central Park created a public space in the late 19^th century. As in Venice, water can become a central place for the region. Looking at "the edge" of the waterfront; noting that the edge is variable and needs to continue to evolve. We develop an atlas based on measuring height of sea walls all around bay. Developing database that can be used to measure damage from storm surge. This can then be used to measure impact of islands on storm surge. This is difficult technical problem, but we anticipate that velocity of water surge can be reduced. Using windmills and oyster beds along Bayonne. Barrier reefs made from subway cars. Wetland islands. Also transformation of lower Manhattan through archipelago that will protect it from surges. Also, need to create transportation infrastructure. MOMA-P.S. 1 project that combines architects, geographers, and ecologists: Rising Currents project on MOMA website. Project turning Liberty Park into research lab and park that recognizes consequences of sea-level rise, as example.

Discussion: will green innovation have a strong impact on urban form? Intervention around idea of significant potential for green jobs through green infrastructure - we shouldn't simply be looking for low-maintenance projects. PlaNYC is a great project, but what's going on at federal level to support increased coordination and job building.

In addition, we need democratization and inclusion of designers in process. Too often, solutions are coming out of policy makers, who have little awareness of innovative design solutions and all too often are not aware of community priorities and needs. Also, we need to start educating people about threats and responses from an early age - establish secondary education programs.

No discussion of hydraulic fracturing or fracking in order to get at natural gas supplies in shale formations upstate as a threat to NYC's water supply.

Moreover, there's no real discussion of the big picture and long-term solutions to the problems confronted by the city. Okay, some of this is done in PlaNYC. But I wish there's been an update that focused on solutions that make the city truly sustainable. No analysis, for instance, of efforts to create zero waste. No discussion of sustainable energy solutions. No discussion of low-energy transportation initiatives. Other panels may address these issues in fragmented fashion, but this particular one should have tackled all of these issues at once.

Perhaps most striking, though, is the lack of urgency. This may be uncharitable, but given the enormity of the climate crisis and the lack of any genuine attempt to address the problem on a global and national level, there seemed to me to be far too much of an air of business as usual among the people in the panel. Everything that they discussed seemed very admirable, but it also all seemed relatively trivial given the grave crisis we face collectively.

Plenary Panel

2010-04-16T13:34:33Z

Nicholas Thompson, Senior Editor of Wired magazine, kicked off the plenary by asking participants to talk about one important innovation that will transform New York in coming years.

Robert Atkinson, Prez and CEO of Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, said that we're looking at a fourth generation of smart technologies that will create a grid that will make us constantly aware of things like air temperature outside the hotel, etc. Lovely, but where's the power going to come from?

Christopher Ward, Executive Director of the Port Authority, argues that most important coming innovation will include information technology that will allow us to extract wealth that will fund total redesign of physical infrastructure of tri-state area that is now necessary. He discussed the way in which IT will allow us to track exactly where shipping industry is bring commodities from and where they're going to, allowing us to track global flows and price things accordingly.

Robert Yaro, President of the Regional Plan Assocation, talked about how, when they began to put together the third RPA plan in 1990, people were talking about tele-commuting. But there was also a contrasting conversation about how people want physical propinquity, and that as a result, cities will still be important. The latter vision seems to be the correct one. Nonetheless, Yare admitted that NYC is behind not just advanced economies but also many developing ones in creation of a high-speed rail system. This, he argued, is going to make it possible for tactile connections and innovation networks, as well as labor markets, are going to be able to expand regionally. Whole thing, he argued, could be powered through alternative energy, wind, solar, biomass (yikes!). By mid-century, 70 million people will be living in Northeast.

Julia Vitullo-Martin, Director, Center for Urban Innovation, argues that George Orwell was wrong, a point that Peter Huber makes in "Orwell's Revenge." Orwell believes that advancing technology is going to increase the authoritarian power of government, when in fact what has happened is the opposite. In fact, IT has led to devolution, decentralization, and empowerment of the individual. The profusion of consumer technologies commented on by Huber in mid-1990s is now an explosion, she argues. NYC has to take this very seriously because of the extent to which metropolitan authorities are tied down by bureaucracy, ties that can be countered by technology. Unproductive work-rule she cites is cost of unionized employees in hotels who help set up technologies for public presentations. Principle of decentralization is going to make us free in the future.

Thompson replied to this celebration of IT by asking about dystopian fears. Atkinson said that technologies can go forward without any privacy infringements. We could dramatically improve healthcare if we could track diseases using IT, but this has been impeded by privacy concerns. World leaders in ITS are Japan, Korea, and Singapore, where privacy concerns are not paramount.

Ward talked about need to rationalize the trucking industry so that we get away from complete free-market distribution paradigm that we now have, which is wreaking havoc on roads, bridges, and other parts of our urban infrastructure.

We're behind the curve, Yaro argued, in terms of creating a deep-water port. Big containers are likely to go to other ports such as Baltimore, and then clogging I-95. Morocco is creating the world's biggest deep-water port, anticipating shipping going through expanded Panama canal and to North Africa and Southern Europe.

Vitullo-Martin talked about how London's waterfront is open to the whole public because of a combination of security cameras and electronic access to buildings, so what seems like a form of control and exclusion actually becomes inclusive. If London can set up effective camera system, why can't we? But inclusiveness for whom, I would ask. No one on the panel challenges her point initially. But eventually Ward says that the major problem is that we've ringed waterfronts with highways; that celebration of security cameras in order to promote access to waterfront is a problem. Obsession about privacy and crime may define us too much, taking attention away from creating a sustainable urban economy.

A central point that seems to be emerging from this panel is that NYC and the U.S in general is massively behind the curve in comparison to many nations/regions in Europe and Asia. This panel is the opening salvo, Yaro says, in conversations that are going to cohere in 4th RPA regional plan. Technology increases need for face-to-face conversations, increasing effectiveness of personal interactions. Examples he cites include the revitalization of Times Square as Bertelsmann and Newscorp relocate from their regions to origin to NYC because of concentration of media workers. This is the future for NYC, as higher end, knowledge production is going to be increasingly important. Vitullo-Martin replies that we're also seeing explosion of high-end, small manufacturing; problem is that we don't have live-work zoning in NYC.

Thompson asks the panel about new technology and equity. Yaro replies that GPS is first used by NYPD in automated crime-reporting system, which is at base of dramatic reduction of crime in NYC. Pothole filling program introduce by Bloomberg is another example. But challenge is that routine activities performed by semi-skilled workers is being thinned out. Lots of jobs potentially created in expanded distribution economy, for example. Ward argues that we cannot allow politicians to demagogue issues like race and class around issues like congestion pricing; defeat of this measure was a tremendous blow to poor in NYC. Most important things we can do for the working poor of NYC is to maintain the subway system.

Keynote address

2010-04-16T13:30:11Z

Trouble on the subway got me to the conference venue, the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, just as the keynote speaker, the well-known green architect William McDonough, was wrapping up his keynote address.

He outlined plans for a green city in - predictably enough - China, describing it as an organic city that would be socially just. So far so good. Wish I'd heard the rest of the address. The pictures I saw included solar panels, crops on roofs, and other gee-whiz technological innovations, but no people. Perhaps this is part of the protocols of architectural presentations, but it's still rather revealing.

Innovation and the American Metropolis

2010-04-16T11:32:40Z

Today is the 20th annual regional assembly of the Regional Plan Association, one of the most important urban planning organizations in the New York metropolitan area. I hope (is there's access to wifi) to debut live blogging for Social Text while attending the RPA conference.

Even before setting off for the conference, I'm deeply skeptical about its orientation. The RPA website for the conference describes attendees as a mix of "top business, civic, philanthropic, media, and government leaders from across the metropolitan region and nation." There's no mention here, you'll note, of grassroots organizations. To what extent will the American metropolis of the future conjured up by the RPA be on in which issues of social justice and equity figure prominently?