You are echoing what Aaron Gordon wrote on his Substack earlier this month: "New York has become a city of second-hand policies implemented by third-rate politicians playing with yesterday’s ideas. Behind on everything and late to every party, New York is being governed on tape delay."
One reason for why it takes so long for city-controlled transportation improvements to happen is a relative new obsession with community consultation. We used to just trust experts like engineers and planners. Now we undercut them by letting every moaner and complainer have their say in endless public meetings. Exhibit A: McGuinness Boulevard. None of this is necessary. We don’t insist the public weigh in on where we put vaccination sites or when the trash gets picked up, do we?
> We used to just trust experts like engineers and planners.
I think your 'we' is doing a lot of work there. A huge number of people had plenty of distrust for planners and other experts prior to new public input requirements. And with good reason; they saw their neighborhoods destroyed to make way for projects they would never benefit from, because of unilateral decisionmaking from people who didn't care or know much about them. I agree we're generally not doing a great job effectively soliciting democratic input, but the reform can't just be 'return unilateral control back to historical bad actors.'
The way our political system solicits democratic input is through elections and elected officials. Community outreach is very far from a democratic process and it empowers tiny interested and selfish minorities at the expense of the wider community, and especially incomers. We need a better way because right now our ability to construct infrastructure is crippled. We have effectively turned governance in this area over to lawyers and judges.
You are echoing what Aaron Gordon wrote on his Substack earlier this month: "New York has become a city of second-hand policies implemented by third-rate politicians playing with yesterday’s ideas. Behind on everything and late to every party, New York is being governed on tape delay."
One reason for why it takes so long for city-controlled transportation improvements to happen is a relative new obsession with community consultation. We used to just trust experts like engineers and planners. Now we undercut them by letting every moaner and complainer have their say in endless public meetings. Exhibit A: McGuinness Boulevard. None of this is necessary. We don’t insist the public weigh in on where we put vaccination sites or when the trash gets picked up, do we?
> We used to just trust experts like engineers and planners.
I think your 'we' is doing a lot of work there. A huge number of people had plenty of distrust for planners and other experts prior to new public input requirements. And with good reason; they saw their neighborhoods destroyed to make way for projects they would never benefit from, because of unilateral decisionmaking from people who didn't care or know much about them. I agree we're generally not doing a great job effectively soliciting democratic input, but the reform can't just be 'return unilateral control back to historical bad actors.'
The way our political system solicits democratic input is through elections and elected officials. Community outreach is very far from a democratic process and it empowers tiny interested and selfish minorities at the expense of the wider community, and especially incomers. We need a better way because right now our ability to construct infrastructure is crippled. We have effectively turned governance in this area over to lawyers and judges.
It's good to know that I'm not the only one who re-reads chapters from "The Power Broker" periodically....