New York for Sale: Community Planning Confronts Global Real Estate (Urban and Industrial Environments) [Hardcover]

Tom Angotti (Author), Peter Marcuse (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 26, 2008 | ISBN-10: 0262012472 | ISBN-13: 978-0262012478

Remarkably, grassroots-based community planning flourishes in New York City--the self-proclaimed "real estate capital of the world"--with at least seventy community plans for different neighborhoods throughout the city. Most of these were developed during fierce struggles against gentrification, displacement, and environmental hazards, and most got little or no support from government. In fact, community-based plans in New York far outnumber the land use plans produced by government agencies. In New York for Sale, Tom Angotti tells some of the stories of community planning in New York City: how activists moved beyond simple protests and began to formulate community plans to protect neighborhoods against urban renewal, real estate mega-projects, gentrification, and environmental hazards. Angotti, both observer of and longtime participant in New York community planning, focuses on the close relationships among community planning, political strategy, and control over land. After describing the political economy of New York City real estate, its close ties to global financial capital, and the roots of community planning in social movements and community organizing, Angotti turns to specifics. He tells of two pioneering plans forged in reaction to urban renewal plans (including the first community plan in the city, the 1961 Cooper Square Alternate Plan--a response to a Robert Moses urban renewal scheme); struggles for environmental justice, including battles over incinerators, sludge, and garbage; plans officially adopted by the city; and plans dominated by powerful real estate interests. Finally, Angotti proposes strategies for progressive, inclusive community planning not only for New York City but for anywhere that neighborhoods want to protect themselves and their land. New York for Sale teaches the empowering lesson that community plans can challenge market-driven development even in global cities with powerful real estate industries

Editorial Reviews

Review

"In New York for Sale Tom Angotti places his deep knowledge of New York's development policy, his years of active personal involvement, and his strategies for achieving greater equity within a sustained narrative. The book is welcome reading for everyone who has followed his incisive commentaries on development conflicts in the city over the years. His acute observations of the threat to community residents underlying the drive for 'global competitiveness' and his analysis of the tactics available to progressive community planners constitute essential reading for everyone concerned with using planning as a means to obtaining a more just and democratic city."-- Susan S. Fainstein, Department of Urban Planning and Design, Harvard University Graduate School of Design

"Too many books focus merely on the problems of center cities or propose planning solutions only applicable in greenfield sites. Angotti chronicles a significant alternative--the 100 or more community-based plans developed in New York City since the 1960s. This is an important and compelling story of 'urban policy from the bottom-up.'"--Ann Forsyth, Department of City & Regional Planning, Cornell University

(Ann Forsyth )

"Too many books focus merely on the problems of center cities or propose planning solutions only applicable in greenfield sites. Angotti chronicles a significant alternative the 100 or more community-based plans developed in New York City since the 1960s. This is an important and compelling story of 'urban policy from the bottom-up.'" Ann Forsyth , Department of City & Regional Planning, Cornell University

About the Author

Tom Angotti is Director of the Hunter College Center for Community Planning and Development and Professor of Urban Affairs and Planning at Hunter College, City University of New York. He is the author of Metropolis 2000: Planning, Poverty, and Politics, the coeditor of Progressive Planning Magazine, and a columnist for the online journal Gotham Gazette.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 328 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press (September 26, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262012472
• ISBN-13: 978-0262012478
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.8 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,507,502 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Superb Book on Planning and Fighting for New Yorkers October 1, 2009

By LEON L CZIKOWSKY

Format:Hardcover

Angotti is an advocate of progressive community planning, meaning he rejects the exclusionary community planning that is for the wealthy and usually only for white people. It is planning that considers equality and assisting people with needs. Angotti notes that real estate interests have great influence in New York's planning process and that many established neighborhoods are being destroyed by these powerful real estate interests.

Angotti favors using progressive planning for preserving communities rather than displacing its people and its businesses. Planning needs to consider the needs of all the economic classes and racial groups within a neighborhood. Angotti dispels the myth that planning is politically neutral.

New York has seen strides made towards inclusionary zoning that looks at what low income residents, working class residents, and people of color need. New York has seen environmental justice become part of its planning process.

Jane Jacobs in 1961 wrote how the traditional rational-comprehensive planning that was common that relied on scientific knowledge was used to create building height limits, parks, wide streets, etc. This planning led to large development that destroyed neighborhoods and the people living in those neighborhoods. Real estate developers profited from the physical determinism of this traditional Keynesian model that argued that massive building projects would lead to solving poverty. Instead, poor people were displaced as their homes were sold to make room for high priced development that served wealthier people.

The difficulties witnessed from the rational comprehensive model led to the rise of the neoliberalism movement in the 1970s. It argued public intervention was making things worse and called for land to be set to the free market, privatized public operations, removing government regulations, etc. This movement was grasped in the 1980s by the Reagan Administration.

Jane Jacobs set the stage for progressive community planning. Advocacy planning that encourages residents to plan for their own communities is at the roots of this movement. This idea has been expended beyond a legal advocacy It also incorporates sustainability planning that plans for future generations by protecting the environment.

Angotti calls for local progressive planning that includes concerns for equality, social inclusion, environmental concerns, and neighborhood land use. He argues for preserving land for public use, including nonprofit and public trust land, and seeing it is not turned over to private real estate interests.

New York has strong real estate interests. Many have become well known, such as David Rockefeller, Donald Trump. as well as Harry and Leona Helmsley. The New York real estate market has many global investors.

New York has a long history of large planning efforts and neighborhood organized opposition and input. Conflicts arise and the planning process often becomes one of much conflict.

The 311 phone system, is monitored by city government. It is a way residential complains are heard and is used to help guide city planning.

Developers continue to be strong interests. They are large forces in current major planning projects, such as rebuilding on the former World Trade Center site, developing Hell's Kitchen'Midtown West, which included a proposed sports stadium that was halted, and Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn where local residents have objected to proposed large business developments. At Atlantic Yards, the developer agreed to make half of new rental units be for low and middle income tenants, a move that divided community opposition.

Angotti calls for maintaining affordable housing which includes resisting gentrification and other efforts aimed at displacement, connecting residents to clean and safe modes of transportation, food, and water, protecting the public interest, using land banks for long term planning goals, democratically regulating common areas for neighborhood needs, increasing the number of community land trusts to combat overdevelopment, making the quality of life a prime planning consideration, recognizing local, regional, and global roles, undergoing comprehensive planning, and considering generations ahead.