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From the Boston Review:

“During the nineties the PT built on earlier electoral successes by developing a strong record of administrative competence at the local level. Porto Alegre, the capital of Rio Grande do Sul, was the PT’s first great administrative acheivement. In 1990 the PT municipal government introduced ‘participatory budgeting,’ a form of public deliberation on budget priorities with more than 20,000 people participating annually, which quickly emerged as an effective approach to distributing basic public goods — roads, sewers, clean water — at the local level. Participatory budgeting was extended to 103 cities in 1997, and it has been adopted as policy by other political parties in Brazil. In 1994 Cristovam Buarque, the newly elected PT governor of the Federal District, introduced a program called Bolsa Escola, a sort of minimum-revenue policy for poor families with children who attend school. In 1996 participatory budgeting won the United Nations Habitat Award, and Bolsa Escola has also won several international awards.”

More:

“Resource allocation through PB [participatory budgeting] is decided by community representatives, generally from low-income districts. Each city adopts different formats to define investment criteria, to select community representatives and deal with the city government, its bureaucracy and the city councilors. In general, community representatives get together to decide on priorities. There are distributive criteria to assure a progressive distribution of the resources so that poorer areas receive more funding than the well off ones, regardless of what the representatives want. PB affects mostly decisions on infrastructure investment, not the entire budget. Moreover, authorization of expenditure on priorities is a function of the executive; PB allocates budget to agreed priorities.”

From the Gotham Gazette:

“The concept of gathering signatures on petitions dates back to the late 19th century. It was supposed to help eliminate the political parties’ control of the ballot, according to Douglas Kellner, a commissioner at the Board of Elections. (See timeline of New York election law )

Before that, there were no printed ballots in New York. Voters simply went to the polls and wrote down the candidates of their choice. To instruct voters on who was running, political parties printed up a slate of candidates, which the voters could take with them to the polls.

This system had many problems, one of which was that political parties often printed counterfeit lists of candidates to deceive supporters of the opposition. "A counterfeit ticket would list a few of the party’s prominent candidates - just enough to fool the unwary - with the rest of the names coming from a rival slate," said Kellner.

To clear up the process, the government began in 1880 to print a uniform ballot that would be presented to voters to fill out at the polls on Election Day. Political parties were allowed to nominate their candidates to be listed on the ballot. But in addition, candidates not selected by the party could get on the ballot anyway if they could submit enough signatures from voters.

To ensure that the signatures were valid, a series of rules were put in place - many of which are still used today.

Ironically, these rules set up over a century ago to assure a more open, honest and democratic process of elections have become just the opposite — a powerful tool for political parties and incumbents to maintain their advantage. To these New York politicos, the best elections are those in which there is only one candidate left on the ballot for voters to choose.

Many incumbents, backed by their political party, have teams of lawyers who will go over a challenger’s signatures, line by line, looking for minor mistakes like missing zip codes, misspellings, and voters who have signed petitions not knowing whether they live in the district or not.

In the past, candidates have been knocked off the ballot for such infractions as writing the abbreviation ‘St.’ instead of ‘Street’ or forgetting to staple a cover sheet.

If the person gathering the signatures - called a petitioner - makes a mistake such as forgetting to write the borough on the bottom of the page, all of the signatures that he collected can be thrown out. If enough signatures are declared invalid, a candidate is eliminated.”

A paper in the September issue of the American Journal of Public Health, “Promoting Safe Walking and Cycling to Improve Public Health: Lessons From The Netherlands and Germany” by a couple of researchers in New Jersey and Brussels examines:

“The public health consequences of unsafe and inconvenient walking and bicycling conditions in American cities to suggest improvements based on successful policies in The Netherlands and Germany.”

What they found:

“Cyclists and pedestrians in the United States were two to six times more likely to be killed than their German or Dutch counterparts. Per kilometer traveled, U.S. pedestrians were 23 times more likely to get killed than the occupants of a car, while bicyclists were 12 times more likely to be killed.” [source]

With this in mind and my previous post on the link between sprawl and obesity, I note that on July 24, the House Appropriations Committee voted a transportation appropriations bill out of committee that eliminates funding for the Transportation Enhancements program.

Since 1991, 10% of federal funds distributed to states through the Surface Transportation Program has been reserved for transportation enhancement activities. This meant roughly $600 million a year of federal funding for locally driven, pedestrian centered projects.

“Congress established the TE program in 1991 as a commitment by Congress to constituents that a small percentage of their gas tax dollars would be targeted to small-scale, community-initiated, locally selected transportation projects such as multi-use paths, pedestrian and bicycle facilities, historic preservation, and improvement of streetscapes and landscapes.” [source]

“Since its inception, the TE program has provided $6 billion to support 16,699 projects nationwide, including thousands of historic preservation projects. Now, Congress is acting to reverse this decade-long community building program and return to a regressive ‘roads-only’ policy.” [source]

The Rails-to-Trails Conservancy has posted a detailed state-level breakdown of projects funded under Transportation Enhancements program.

H.R. 2989, the Transportation and Treasury Appropriations Bill for 2004, actually increases highway spending to $34.1 billion — $6.1 billion more than 2003 and $4.5 billion more than President Bush’s request.

There is still hope, but we must act now. Before the full House votes on the bill it can still be amended. Congress resumes after Labor Day and is expected to vote on the bill in early September.

An amendment removing section 114 from H.R. 2989 would grant approximately $812 million to the Transportation Enhancements program. Unless reversed, individual states would be allowed to put all funds into highway projects instead of setting aside the 10% now reserved for bicycle and pedestrian projects.

See these action alerts to learn more, for contact information and talking points.

With all that’s going on, the issue is probably not high on everyone’s social justice agenda. But there’s an immediate and brief opportunity to save this great program right now.

UPDATE: On September 4 the House approved an amendment which strikes section 114 from the bill — restoring funding for the Transportation Enhancements program to the appropriations bill. On September 9, the House passed the full appropriations bill and sent it to the Senate. Thanks to everyone for taking action!

Chicken&Egg Public Projects “conceives and develops interpretive environments and interactive strategies that advance public understanding of cultural and social issues.”

Coming soon:

“Architecture of Segregation explores how racial attitudes shaped urban, suburban, and rural landscapes that maintain divisions in American society. This multidisciplinary project examines the ways in which forces ranging from violent individuals to institutional practice to government policy embedded racial biases in everyday spaces, places, and structures during the second half of the twentieth century. Through collaboration with a network of scholars and institutions, Architecture of Segregation will comprise a major publication, national traveling exhibition, web site, and educational activities. These products, conceived to engage a broad audience, are intended as a stimulus for public discussion, continued scholarly research, and new directions in public policy.

The Supreme Court’s 1896 approval of separate and ‘equal’ facilities for blacks and whites permitted Americans to build an exclusionary, unequal society. The Civil Rights, Voting Rights, and Fair Housing Acts of the 1960s gave hope but did not lead to the dismantling of the architecture of segregation. Today, Americans do not realize how decisively discriminatory motives guided the construction of everyday landscapes. Scholars in many disciplines have examined segregation but have not provided a broad view of its physical structure, from housing to highways.

Architecture of Segregation asks: How have racial attitudes shaped the built environment? What are the structures of a closed society? How do these keep races apart, even in the absence of prejudice? Architecture of Segregation will encourage the general public, scholars, policy makers, and the media to consider these questions as they reexamine the twentieth-century construction of the American home. By concentrating on familiar spaces and activities, it will encourage the public to understand the forces that shaped the landscape and to recognize how that landscape shapes their behavior and beliefs. With this understanding, they can consider rebuilding a divided United States....

A book, published by The New Press, will take a geographically diverse, cradle-to-grave look at black and white worlds. Essays will be written by leading scholars, such as Jacqueline Jones on work in the rural south, Raymond Mohl on the interstate highway system, and Gwendolyn Wright on housing. Contributors include Mindy Fullilove (birth), Waldo Martin (education), Lise Funderburg (neighborhood), Maurice Berger (leisure), June Manning Thomas (worship), and John Vlach (death). The Graham Foundation has provided a grant to support publication.

A national traveling exhibition is scheduled to open in 2004 at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., which is producing the project in conjunction with Chicken&Egg Public Projects, Curatorial Assistance Traveling Exhibitions, and a planned consortium of museums in New York, Boston, Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, Minneapolis, and San Francisco or Los Angeles. Using powerful visual media within a striking spatial configuration, it will include artifacts, photographs, and artworks representing white and black environments from all regions of the United States. The exhibition will serve as a springboard for public programs, including discussions, lectures, workshops, tours, and film series. Architecture of Segregation will engage the public in an exploration of the relationship between race and place in the United States.”

I wonder how the exhibition organizers are working with groups engaged in current struggles, and how those groups can use the event to build some public pressure.

“In Israel, a forest of 6 million trees is being planted in the Judean hills between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, in the words of B’nai B’rith, ‘as a living memorial to the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust.’ Begun in 1954, this planting clearly takes on several layers of practical and symbolic meaning in Israel: it remembers both the martyrs of Nazi genocide and a return to life itself as cultivated in the founding of the State. Rather than remembering the victims in the emblems of destruction left behind by the Nazis, thereby succumbing to the Nazi cult of death, these trees recall both the lives lost and the affirmation of life itself as the surest memorial antidote to murder. It was also with this traditional veneration of life in mind, as symbolized in Jewish tradition by the Etz Chaim (tree of life), that Yad Vashem has planted a tree to remember and to name every single Gentile who rescued a Jew during World War II.” [source]

......

“Israel’s Defence Ministry is investigating reports that Palestinian olive trees uprooted to make way for a security fence are being sold illegally to rich Israelis and town councils, sometimes for thousands of pounds each.

The illegal trade in olive trees has flourished as Israeli contractors, supported by armed guards, clear Palestinian agricultural land where an 80-mile electronic fence is being built to seal off the West Bank.

Thousands of olive trees have been dug up to make way for the 150-ft wide barrier and security zone. Its route usually passes inside Palestinian territory, not along the old pre-1967 border, and thousands of Palestinian farmers say their livelihood is being taken away.

Sale of the olive trees emerged after the owner of a contracting company offered two reporters from a popular Israeli newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, 100 large olive trees for £150 each.

The reporters found one enormous tree, said to be 600 years old, on sale at an Israeli plant nursery for £3,500. They said the trade was conducted with the complicity of an official in the civil administration, the Israeli military government in the occupied territories....

Olives are the lifeblood of Palestinian agriculture, almost the only crop which grows on the stony hillsides of the West Bank without irrigation. Most Palestinians are unemployed after two years of violence and their staple diet is bread and olive oil.

About 11,000 Palestinian farmers will lose all or some of their land holdings to the fence. Sharif Omar, from the village of Jayous, near the Israeli town of Kochav Yair, said: ‘I have lost almost everything. I have lost 2,700 fruit and olive trees. And 44 of 50 acres I own have been confiscated for the fence.’

His village lost seven wells, 15,000 olive trees and 50,000 citrus and other fruit trees. ‘This area is the agricultural store for the West Bank. They are destroying us,’ he said.” [source]

Reader Desmond B. writes:

“Browsing through your site, I was interested by your relatively neutral presentation of the ISO programme. You presented some interesting aspects of the bureaucratic inanities, as well as some of the difficulties of applying euro-centric standards (the symbology not being applicable worldwide) on a global scale. It seems as though there are many positive aspects to the ISO programme (your mention of Toyota’s practices), it appears that there is relatively little citizen/democratic control or oversight of this organisation. It’s one thing to standardise container sizes, but environmental management procedures should perhaps be a more public affair. Curious to see some critical comment from you regarding this, especially considering the frequent mentions of ISO on your site.”

True enough. In my two posts that mention the ISO I was fairly neutral. I was less concerned about democratic accountability of the ISO because the standard setting process is fairly open and decentralized, and standards compliance is entirely voluntary. It is up to governments, not the ISO, to legislate, regulate, or enforce implementation of the standards.

Standards are developed by consensus of broad-based technical committees and working groups. According to the ISO site:

“In these committees, qualified representatives of industry, research institutes, government authorities, consumer bodies, and international organizations from all over the world come together as equal partners in the resolution of global standardization problems.”

Though the views of these interests are taken into account in the standard development process, only ISO “member bodies” can actually participate in the final vote. A member body of ISO is the national body ‘most representative of standardization in its country’. Only one such body is accepted from each country.

That said, the ISO’s consensus process is becoming less open:

“As part of the streamlining of existing procedures, ISO committees will in future, subject to certain conditions, have the option of dispensing with the committee stage — the part of the ISO process during which national positions are debated in order to reach consensus within an ISO committee — and with the final approval stage, during which the texts of final standards are submitted for formal approval by the full ISO membership.” [source]

The ISO’s patent policy highlights the need for more public participation, accountability, and oversight.

The ISO requires individual or corporation’s holding patent rights on any part of an ISO standard to grant usage rights freely or under “reasonable and non-discriminatory terms and conditions” that apply throughout the world. While this may seem fair, the working committee of the relevant standard determines what is “reasonable and non-discriminatory.” This policy has kept some technical standards out of the public domain and from being implemented in some Free Software projects. For instance, it is impossible to write Free Software which can encode or decode MPEG-2 video or encode or decode MPEG-1 Layer 3 audio in the United States. When the organzation that sets standards for the Internet, the W3C, floated its own draft policy considering “reasonable and non-discriminatory” licensing fees, it was widely condemned in public comment and eventually dropped in favor of a draft with royalty-free licenses.

As Desmond notes, though, environmental management procedures are a different matter from, say, standard paper sizes.

The major requirements of an Environmental Management System (EMS) under ISO 14001 include:

• Issuing a policy statement which includes commitments to prevention of pollution, continual improvement of the EMS leading to improvements in overall environmental performance, and compliance with all applicable statutory and regulatory requirements.
• Identification of all aspects of the community organization’s activities, products, and services that could have a significant impact on the environment, including those that are not regulated
• Setting performance objectives and targets for the management system which link back to the three commitments established in the community or organization’s policy (i.e. prevention of pollution, continual improvement, and compliance)
• Implementing the EMS to meet these objectives. This includes activities like training of employees, establishing work instructions and practices, and establishing the actual metrics by which the objectives and targets will be measured.
• Establishing a program to periodically audit the operation of the EMS
• Checking and taking corrective and preventive actions when deviations from the EMS occur, including periodically evaluating the organization’s compliance with applicable regulatory requirements.
• Undertaking periodic reviews of the EMS by top management to ensure its continuing performance and making adjustments to it, as necessary. [source]

“ISO 14001 does not establish performance requirements or specific criteria and indicators for defining sustainable forestry. Among the misleading practices that ISO wants to put an end to [is]... giving the false impression that... ISO 14000 is a label signifying a ‘green’ or ‘environmentally friendly’ product. This is not so. They are not product standards.” [source]

Nor does the auditing process include public oversight.

“Companies write their own public environmental policies — compliance with these policies, or even compliance with the law, is not a condition of certification. ISO 14001 certifications neither audit nor verify on-the-ground environmental performance. Public consultation is not a requirement of the certification process, nor are public summaries of certification audits required. Because ISO 14001 has no forestry performance standards, any forestry company — from the most environmentally destructive to the most well-managed — can be certified. Contrary to claims by the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association, third party audits to the ISO 14001 standard do not ‘ensure sustainable forestry’.” [source]

Indeed, Greenpeace criticizes the ISO 14001 standard and its use by the Vancouver-based company International Forest Products (Interfor) to “greenwash” its logging operations in old growth rainforests along the coast of British Columbia.

“Weaknesses of the ISO 14001 standard include:

• Compliance with the environmental policy, or even compliance with the law, is not a requirement of certification — the company sets the environmental policy
• ISO 14001 neither sets nor endorses any environmental performance standards, in forestry or in any other industrial sector
• ISO 14001 certifications neither audit nor verify on-the-ground environmental performance
• Public consultation is not a requirement of the certification process, nor are public summaries of certification audits required
• ISO 14001 is not an environmental labeling system
• ISO has no effective controls to prevent misleading marketing claims related to ISO 14001 certifications.

Environmental management system (EMS) certification schemes are completely different from environmental labeling schemes. As the ISO points out, “Two organizations carrying out similar activities but having different environmental performance may both comply with its [EMS] requirements.”

Environmental labeling, on the other hand, requires performance above a threshold. The environmental label is only awarded if a product or service has reached this level. The distinction between ISO 14001 and environmental labeling is essential. Because ISO 14001 has no forestry performance standards, any forestry company — from the most environmentally destructive to the most sustainable — can be certified. An ISO 14001 certification tells the consumer nothing about the relative environmental performance of any company’s, including Interfor’s, forestry operations.” [source] (Emphasis added.)

From the Chicago Tribune, July 26, 2003:

Greening of the Iron Curtain
Gorbachev backs proposal to make border a preserve

“Mikhail Gorbachev, who as Soviet leader presided over the troops and tanks that guarded the Iron Curtain, now wants a nature reserve along the full length of the former Cold War border, from Finland to the Adriatic.

German and other European environmental groups have devised a plan to create nature parks out of the no man’s land that separated the Soviet bloc from the West.

Kept forcibly free of people during more than 40 years of the Cold War, the border between Eastern and Western Europe became a refuge for plants and animals. Construction in the region now threatens these unintentional but important nature reserves, environmentalists fear.

‘Ecology isn’t something we can only leave to politicians,’ Gorbachev, who is president of the environmental organization Green Cross International, said when lending his support to the project at a recent conference in Bonn, Germany.

Although the idea of making parks along former Cold War borders has been around since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the conference was the first time that representatives of all the border countries had met to discuss the feasibility of having parkland run the length of what was the Iron Curtain.

Plans for the park are furthest along in Germany, where the border between East and West Germany once stretched for 870 miles. A recent study found that 85 percent of the land is still undeveloped enough to be included in a national park.

Plans were delayed while courts determined the status of the land, but most claims are now settled, and the German Finance Ministry recently announced it might be able to donate the 65 percent of former border land still in government possession.

Environmentalists emphasize that the reserve would not simply be the area it covered or the number of endangered species it contained but also that it would link many groups of organisms, known as biotopes, in the longest continuous stretch of undeveloped land left in Central Europe.

In the other former border countries, plans for a park are in only their early phases. The most likely route would be around the eastern half of Austria to the Adriatic, while another area would encompass Albania, whose border with Yugoslavia was always heavily guarded, and would then pass along the northern border of Greece.

Several speakers at the conference observed that Gorbachev — who could have rolled back Eastern Europe’s anti-Communist revolutions by force as his predecessors did — was on hand and had, in effect, made the border park possible.

Steffen Flath, the environment minister of what is now the German state of Saxony, once part of Communist East Germany, turned to Mr. Gorbachev and said, ‘I remember July 1989 when things were starting to bubble, and our government said, “Send us tanks,” and you, Mr. Gorbachev, you didn’t send those tanks.’

With the congratulatory words about vanishing borders in central Europe, however, some of those who follow events in this part of the world feared that events farther east were being ignored. Tamas Marghescu, European director of the World Conservation Union, said nervous states about to join the European Union were creating new divides. He cited what he said was a new impenetrable fence along the border between Poland and Belarus, which he said split an important park that straddles the border. ‘It’s the new Iron Curtain,’ he said.”

The Thayatal National Park, in Austria, and the Podyji National Park in the Czech Republic already exist along the river known in Austria as the Thaya, and in Czech as the Dyje, a former boundary of the Iron Curtain. [more]

via Planetizen

A U.S. reservist in Iraq emails a photo to a friend back home. Friend posts it on his blog. The image is widely circulated by email, and ultimately finds mention in The New York Times a month later.

The war drags on. Tours of duty are extended. U.S. soldiers continue to kill and be killed. Dissent among the military and military families smoulders.

And the scholarship funding? Job skills? Veteran’s benefits? One weekend a month?

See these articles about the myths and messages in military graphics and advertising sold by recruiters to high school and college students across the United States of America.

“Designing the High Line” is an exhibition of ideas for the conversion of the High Line elevated rail structure to public space. The exhibit is showing in Grand Central Terminal until July 26. 720 entries were submitted from 36 countries. More than 100 of the proposals, including the competition winners, are displayed in the Grand Central exhibit. All 720 entries are displayed on the Web site.

In addition to the four principal winners, designs were selected for special cash awards for depicting the most compelling solution for universal access to the elevated structure, and for incorporating plants and wild flowers native to New York. (Pictures are posted here and here, though difficult to read.)

The High Line runs for 1.45 miles over Manhattan’s West Side, from 34th Street down through Chelsea to Gansevoort Street in the Meat Packing District. The High Line was built during one of New York City’s largest infrastructure projects, the West Side Improvement project. The project took place in the early 1930’s during the Great Depression and was presided over by Robert Moses. The Line carried freight above the streets of the West Side until 1980, when the last boxcars hauled a load of frozen turkeys down the tracks. The structure has been inactive since, collecting trash, shedding rust, and sprouting an elevated garden of weeds and wildflowers. [more history here]

In 1992, the Chelsea Property Owners, a coalition of two dozen businesses who own property under and near the Line — mostly parking lots, machine shops, warehouses, and the trendy Chelsea Market — won a conditional demolition order from the Surface Transportation Board. The proposal to tear down the Line was later supported by Mayor Giuliani. The plan never materialized because the coalition and the railroad’s owner at the time, Conrail, could not agree on an ultimate price tag for demolition. [source]

Through the economic boom of the 90’s, however, new residents moved into the neighborhoods below the Line, among them artists, designers, and galleries. In 1999, an altogether different group of neighborhood residents founded Friends of the High Line, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization with the mission of converting the structure to an elevated public space.

And, after much lobbying, it looks like the High Line might actually be redesigned. At the July 9 benefit preview of the exhibition, New York City Council Speaker Gifford Miller announced a $15.75 million funding commitment for planning and construction. The first $750,000 was allocated in the budget adopted by the New York City Council on June 27.

“The funds can be used for planning, design, and construction costs related to the High Line project during the fiscal year that began July 1. The remainder of the $15.75 million commitment will be allocated to the High Line in the following three fiscal years.

‘The High Line was built during the Depression to invigorate New York’s economy, and it will reinvigorate our City again today,’ said Speaker Miller. ‘As we have learned from our City’s great parks, public spaces create value and catalyze growth. Central Park was planned in a recession. Even in tough economic times, we have to invest in our future—by planning for the public projects that will keep us at the forefront of the world’s great cities.’

The funds will come from the City’s capital budget, which pays for project costs such as planning, design, construction, and long-term leases. The allocation will not affect municipal services, which are funded separately through the City’s expense budget.” [source]

The Friends of the High Line are also seeking private, corporate, foundation, and federal funds for the project.

The competition follows two detailed planning studies: Reclaiming the High Line, sponsored by Friends of the High Line and the Design Trust for Public Space; and a comprehensive economic feasibility study, commissioned at the City’s request.

In December 2002, the City of New York took the first step in converting the High Line to a public walkway through federal rails-to-trails legislation. FHL is currently waiting on decision before Federal surface transportation board to allow City to move forward.

“As the next phase in its project to preserve and re-use the High Line, Friends of the High Line will hold a series of open workshops with members of the community beginning in September, with a variety of the competition proposals serving as springboards for discussion. At the end of 2003, Friends of the High Line will incorporate the community’s comments into a Request for Proposals, which will lead to the development of realizable designs.” [source]

The High Line is currently private property, owned by the rail company CSX Corporation. CSX acquired the High Line when it purchased Conrail in 1997. Conrail was created by the federal government in 1970’s from the remains of the New York Central and other railroads bankrupted by “competition from trucks, subsidized by the federally-built Interstate highway system, and an archiac system of economic regulations which prevented railroads from responding to the needs of the market.” The corporation was sold to the public in 1987, in what was then the nation’s biggest IPO. [more on Conrail] Though the High Line is private property, the federal government, specifically the Surface Transportation Board, has control over the Line as a piece of the nation’s rail infrastructure. CSX has been ordered by the government to work with all interested parties to effect the best exit strategy for the High Line, and to remain neutral as to the High Line’s outcome.

The City can not afford to purchase land under High Line, so has instead proposed rezoning and property transfer, moving air and development rights out to sites around West Chelsea. One potential consequence would be a wall of huge residential towers springing up along 10th and 11th Avenues in otherwise moderately sized manufacturing and retail zones. One challenge faced by city planners is the prevention such “massing.”

The High Line snakes through many neighborhoods and buildings, but sits almost entirely within the area served by Manhattan Community Board No. 4. The current Line blocks sunlight, collects trash, and drops water, rust, and pigeon droppings on the streets below. However, according to a survey by the Board, most community residents support conversion over demolition. They want to make sure, though, that the results of the redesign are the best damn park possible. The community is wary of new large-scale structures or billboards that would block sight of or access to the Hudson River. The project should provide open space for cultural programing, be accessible, and safe, providing a way to get up or down quickly. But most of all, it should connect with and respect the community. Some residential buildings sit within 5 feet of Line.

As development proceeds, areas beneath and adjacent to High Line will become lucrative spots for retail. Indeed, represenatives of our businessman-turned-Mayor is keen to move some of that retail up onto High Line itself. Other possibilities include constructing adjacent buildings with roof access that would meet the High Line or produce huge urban stairs, parks that terrace up to the bed of High Line, which is about 30 feet from the ground.

At a panel discussion, I asked Robert Hammond, co-founder of Friends of the High Line, about their advocacy strategy and how design competition fits into it. The competition took a year to organize from beginning to end and was a way to get people excited, to generate activism and support, and to provide a public platform for discussion. He noted the power of crazy, weird ideas - and how it is often easier to draw attention and support for the crazy ideas than the conservative plans. Another panelist noted that, when not located to a specific neighborhood, the constituency of public open space is transient and often does not have a consistent voice. The competition was an opportunity “to get those ideas out there.” Over the years, many have developed redesigns of the High Line for their thesis projects.

I asked Mr. Hammond what has led to their success to date while civic budgets are being cut and other projects around the city have faltered. Mr. Hammond proposed that the support base was “not the usual mix of neighborhood advocates.... The strongest supporters are architects, artists, art dealers.” Indeed a list of supporters at the gala benefit includes many A-list authors, actors, and artists. Not your usual city planning scene.

Mr. Hammond also noted that the design of their campaign materials was also key. Several designers have donated services to develop graphically sophisticated materials. Brochures, Web site, postcards for public comment... “Everything produced looks interesting. It suggests that the final design will be as innovative.”

Ironically, development of the High Line may push many in the arts community to leave the area. When the project is complete, rents around the Line are likely to increase. Many arts spaces are already midway through their 10 year lease, and unable to afford the current market rents. Part of the development plans could create public spaces that would not command retail rents and could support galleries, though these would be limited.

So how will the crazy ideas not get lost, or bogged down by politics? And allow ultimate designer to maintain poetic vision? The challenge is yet to come. Once New York realizes that the project is possible, everyone will want a piece of the action. It will be important to maintain a clear vision, and to make sure the final product is as extraordinary, interesting, and strange as the High Line itself.

Check out these photo galleries on the current state of the High Line.

The High Line was mentioned here in one of my first blog posts.

Apologies for the lack of updates lately. I’m just back in town from travels and have a whole stack of notes to write up.

In the meantime, I’m very happy to announce that New York City has started recycling again. Plastic recycling resumed on July 1. Glass recycling will resume in April 2004. Here’s the Department of Sanitation press release and poster.

Recycling was suspended last year as part of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s plan to cut costs and fend off a projected $5 billion deficit. A year later, at a recent City Council budget hearing, Sanitation Commissioner John Doherty conceded that the projected savings from cuts to recycling never actually appeared. [source]

The City Council worked out the deal with the Mayor to resume recycling in a recent budget agreement.

The city will pay Hugo Neu Schnitzer East $51 per ton to handle the material, making the cost of processing the city’s recycling less expensive than processing its trash. According to HNSE, the city currently pays an estimated $105 per ton for the transportation and disposal of plastic and glass in the solid waste stream.

“[With the acceptance of the bid,] HNSE will build a multi-million dollar, state-of-the-art recycling facility in the Hunts Point section of the Bronx that will bring more than 40 high-paying, unionized jobs and numerous economic benefits to an impoverished area of New York City. Moreover, since HNSE operates one of the metropolitan area’s largest barge fleets, the development of the new recycling facility would create little additional truck traffic—indeed, the new facility would actually remove truck traffic from city roads and highways.” [source]

Building an recycling infrastructure in NYC is a wonderful thing, but I wonder about the environmental impact of the recycling plant itself. Residents of the South Bronx already endure much of the City’s waste transfer and incineration. Children living in East Harlem are three times more likely to have asthma than children living on the Upper West Side, and 25% of children from the South Bronx have asthma. As plans for the new recycling facility was just announced, the South Bronx Clean Air Coalition is seeking further information in order to evaluate the impact on health and traffic in the area.