A few weeks ago, I was walking in Central Park on the Upper West Side. As I strolled past some benches near the Diana Ross Playground, I saw a young man, likely in his late twenties, with his face buried in a huge, white-covered book. When I got closer, I noticed he was reading a brand-new copy of Robert Caro’s 1974, 1,300-page biography, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York.
It struck me that I was witnessing a quintessentially New York act—to buy the Power Broker and read it in the park. In such an act, we glory in our ability to enjoy ourselves in the vast urban wonderland that is Central Park while reading a book about a man who built more parks in New York than anyone and yet who today is vilified as a power-hungry titan who initiated the fall of Gotham.
The Caro Narrative
It also occurred to me that Robert Caro’s legacy is not just that he provided a chronicle of 20th-century New York’s most important public figure but has also affected the course of public policy.
Caro’s story is about the abuse of power—how Moses transmogrified into a Kurtz-like figure in The Heart of Darkness. Moses began his career as an ambitious idealist Progressive. His genius and endless drive to create parks and parkways pushed him forward and showed New Yorkers how government can improve people’s lives. Yet, with each success, he became increasingly power-hungry and gamed the system to feed his bottomless appetite.
Because of the arrogance that was so basic to his nature…Moses’ susceptibility to the addiction of power was unusually strong….Once Robert Moses had sought power only for the sake of his dreams, only as a means to an end; even then, however, there were signs that he was beginning to seek it for its own sake, as an end in itself. And the avidity with which he sought power—and the lengths to which he went to get it—revealed the depth of his need for it.
After World War II, as Caro’s portrait goes, Moses became deeply entrenched in his “Fortress of Solitude” on Randall’s Island as head of the Triborough Bridge Authority. With a wave of his hand, he clear-cut the “slums” that resulted in massive residential displacements; he ramrodded expressways through vibrant working-class neighborhoods; and his highway construction program drove New Yorkers to become automobile junkies while generating rampant white flight and the collapse of the subways.
Caro provides a gripping tale. We all love a Greek tragedy—the king who becomes so blinded by his power and is convinced of his own perfection that he is unable to see the damage he causes.
Robert Moses in 1939 viewing a model for a Battery Bridge (a tunnel was built instead). Source: Wikipedia.
The Caro Effect
Yet, whereas Moses, the man, was in power until the early 1960s, Caro’s portrait of Moses has been “in power” since 1974. He hovers as a living ghost that haunts New York and holds vast influence, perhaps more so than the flesh-and-blood version ever did.
This is not to say that Moses’s career was not problematic. His policies were not race- or class-neutral and often harmed people of color and the poor to benefit the white middle class. As a master bill writer, he crafted legislation that left him untouched by the democratic process to implement his programs as he saw fit. He swatted away community pushback with the epithet, “You can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs.”
Bogeyman Moses
However, the overly simplistic residual of Caro’s book—the belief that people cling to—is that because Moses was a power-hungry bully after World War II and presumably harmed New York, we shouldn’t build important megaprojects that the city needs today (megaprojects that other cities worldwide are building easily).
Because Moses brooked no community input, the logic seemingly follows, we must allow full-on community input, and, by extension, local veto power that stops the city from addressing its problems head-on. The defining legacy of Caro’s book is that we have become paralyzed by the fear of Moses’s ghost which Caro conjured to life.
The Harm
New York faces 21st-century crises that need to be addressed directly and strongly. Most notably, the city must become resilient against climate change, dramatically expand its housing stock, and upgrade and produce other services, including mass transit, to improve quality of life and prevent the high cost of living from pushing people out.
Today, Gotham is tiptoeing its way to climate change resilience. It builds out the shoreline here, adds some bluebelts there, and buys out some households over there. But the truth is that a patchwork of programs only offers partial protection against increasingly damaging storms, flooding, and sea level rise.
New York is on the path toward building $52 billion worth of seawalls that will be used sporadically to stop storm surges. Politically, erecting seawalls away from any residential neighborhood is the easy path, but practically, its cost-benefit ratio is questionable. Billions more will be spent against sea level rise and coastal disappearance.
The Housing Affordability Crisis
Just as important is housing affordability. Over half the city’s renters are rent-burdened, paying more than 30% of their income for housing, and one in three low-income households is severely rent-burdened, paying more than 50% of their income for an apartment. There is hardly any rental housing to be found with the current vacancy rate at a mere 1.4%, the lowest in half a century.
To his credit, Mayor Adams’s City of Yes Housing Opportunity will attempt to add more housing in each neighborhood, but it’s unlikely to have a meaningful impact on affordability. He has to tread gingerly to avoid total rejection of his plan.
Additionally, climate change resilience and housing affordability are not independent. Housing will become scarcer and more expensive as more land is removed from use because of rising sea levels or to mitigate flooding.
The Interchanges to and from the Cross Bronx Expressway ca. 1973. Source: Wikipedia.
Moses: A 20th-Century Centurion
In the decades following the Power Broker’s publication, there have been more nuanced reevaluations of Moses’s career and impacts. The most forceful and comprehensive is the 2007 book, Robert Moses and the Modern City: The Transformation of New York, edited by Hillary Ballon and Kenneth Jackson (which contains a comprehensive list of Moses’s New York City projects). But the revisionists have been drowned out by the howling of the Caro’s spirit.
Lost in the collective memory is that Moses was a product of his time. He rose out of the Progressive Movement, frustrated with machine politics’ failure to eradicate urban ills like overcrowding and lack of fresh air and sunlight. His genius was in figuring out (for good and for bad) how to overcome nimbyism and status quo politics. He had the support of leaders and the people because he delivered the results that they wanted.
Moses existed within the political spectrum of reformers. On the far left were the socialists who sought to abolish private property. Just to their right were those who wanted to master plan the metropolis, deconcentrate it, and create a network of garden cities. Moses pushed back against those that he saw as being too extreme. He decided that a project-by-project strategy was to be preferred to grand schemes. The populace agreed with him, being suspicious of grand plans that would disrupt the culture of laissez-faire New York.[1]
Slum Clearance
Moses did not invent slum clearance.[2] It had been the dream of reformers since after the Civil War with the rise of hyperdense slums in Five Points. In the 1890s, Jacob Riis’s expose, How the Other Half Lives, provided more fuel to the slum clearance movement.
One of the earliest examples of slum clearance was that of Mulberry Bend, a dense cluster of tenements in the Lower East Side that was notorious for its poverty, crime, and vice. It was cleared in 1904 and the land was converted into a park (today Columbus Park).
When Moses was in his heyday, slum clearance advocates were in positions of power through the New Deal programs. After World War II, Title I and public housing funds were made available on a level never seen before in human history.[3] Moses was able to grab the lion’s share for New York. He was largely supported in his endeavor because he was carrying out the work that previous reformers had been unable to accomplish. Moses was their Trojan Horse.
The Automobile
Moses did not invent America’s love of the automobile, and we can’t blame New Yorker’s car addiction on him (and which is certainly no worse as compared to the rest of the country). It’s good that he didn’t get his way in various projects, such as building elevated highways across Greenwich Village and SoHo, and it’s bad that he did not consider neighborhood impacts when helping to build America’s highway system within Gotham’s borders.
But America’s automobile dependence is based on a much larger institutional and cultural framework—subsidies for cheap oil, various Federal Highway Acts (the National Highway Act of 1956 had the Federal Government covering 90% of localities’ highway construction expenses), and the fact that people highly value the personal freedom that comes with cars.
Moses’s radial highway system for New York City was not his invention. As historian Leonard Wallock states:
Far from being novel, [Moses’s] ideas for a circumferential system of roadways were nearly identical to the ones proposed by the Regional Plan Association in 1929, which in turn were based on Edward H. Bennett’s Brooklyn City Plan (1914) and Daniel Burnham’s Plan of Chicago (1909).
Parts of New York that Will Be Underwater if Sea Levels Rises by Six Feet (a likely projection by 2100). The green areas are those likely to be prone to flooding. Map Source: NOAA.
Moses and “The Fall”
The most influential element of Caro’s book has been its subtitle, “Robert Moses and the Fall of New York,” as if Moses destroyed New York. Yes, Moses did some bad things, and blaming him for Gotham’s post-industrial woes makes for good copy, but it’s just plain wrong.
In fact, after the massive wave of deindustrialization that hit manufacturing cities in the 1960s, New York fared better than most. It lost population from 1970 to 1980 but rebounded after that, and today, the city holds its highest population ever. Detroit and St. Louis, on the other hand, are still losing people. Chicago, Boston, and Newark, for example, have rebounded, but their populations remain far lower than their peak in the 1950s.[4]
More broadly, while Moses is seen as godlike in his impact on New York, the truth is that there was nothing wholly unique about his building spree. As Wallock writes:
In The Power Broker…Moses is not merely the lawgiver but the creator, for he transcends the role of his Biblical progenitor and usurps the place of God. By making Moses the prime mover responsible for the city’s genesis, [Caro’s] interpretations disregard a crucial fact: from the 1920s through the 1960s, New York’s physical and spatial development was markedly similar to that of other large American cities….The Power Broker fail[s] to explain why other cities, not blessed with a Moses figure, assumed the same physical and spatial configuration as New York.
But Caro was writing in the late 1960s and early 1970s when New York was seemingly coming apart at the seams. To many, including Caro, the “fall” was brought about by Moses’s opening the barn doors. In hindsight, this seems to be a confusion of correlation with causation.
Ironically, in his Introduction, Caro hedges on Moses’s net impact, which is quite rich, given how powerful his book has become. He concludes:
Would New York have been a better place to live if Robert Moses had never built anything? Would it have been a better city if the man who shaped it had never lived? ….
Moses himself, who feels his works will make him immortal, believes he will be justified by history, that his works will endure and be blessed by generations not yet born. Perhaps he is right. It is impossible to say that New York would have been a better city if Robert Moses had never lived.
Time to Move On
It’s time to move on. Let’s put Moses in the past where he belongs. We need to learn the true lessons of Moses and use them as a guide to improve New York’s future, rather than clinging to outdated myths that keep the city nearly paralyzed. The true lessons of Moses are that big projects that will benefit New York can and should be built, but they also need to minimize the negative spillovers and unintended consequences and be done in a way that engenders trust and confidence in the government. Getting community input is vital, but community input should not mean complete veto power.
How to Vanquish Moses’s Ghost
However, once lodged in the public consciousness, myths are hard to kill.[5] We long for simple explanations for complex phenomena, and when the “truthiness” of the simple explanations is strong, we cling to them. Blaming Moses for the planning mistakes of the 20th century is easy because he stood in the center of these changes and was seemingly waving his magic wand like Lord Voldemort.
So, how do we remove the Moses Myth from blocking policies needed to keep New York safe, affordable, and viable in the 21st century? I believe the answer is twofold. One approach must come from the top down and the other from the bottom up.
Trust Building
First is that our leaders need to engender trust. Nimbyism is, in large part, motivated by a failure of confidence that the government will do what’s good for individual residents and that large-scale building projects will do more harm than good. The legacy of Moses and Caro was to remove this trust.
Enabling communities to have strong veto power over large projects forces policymakers to employ half-hearted measures instead. When these measures fail to achieve their purpose, residents blame the government for its inability to solve problems, thereby reinforcing their mistrust.
Leaders need to say, “Yes, people like Moses were heavy-handed and their decisions led to projects that today we feel were poorly implemented, but we must move forward. Some large problems require big solutions, and we can’t tiptoe our way to the future. The cost of inaction is much greater than the cost of action and we have learned from the mistakes of the past and will not repeat them. Here are the ways that we have your back….”
Just as importantly, leaders need to create the institutional mechanisms that will bring residents and communities on board. Community input is vital and should be part of the bargaining process. However, all large-scale policies need to lay out the costs, benefits, and the likely negative spillovers, and directly address how these spillovers will be mitigated to reduce the fear of change. (I have spelled out examples here). One mechanism is that a large project also comes with a compensation fund to which people can apply if directly harmed and which is objectively administered by an impartial board.
Rebranding Moses
While leaders work on the issue of trust and compensation, we, the people, need to rebrand Moses and reframe how he is seen in the public eye.[6] Yes, Moses did many things that, in hindsight, were regretful. But he also did many wonderful things. What’s wrong with a story about a complicated man who was a product of his time?
We need to change the narrative. We need to get the word out that Old Man Moses died in the 20th century and we refuse to be afraid of the Spooky Ghost Moses. Let’s put him in the history books along with other 20th-century figures like Al Smith, Franklin Roosevelt, and Fiorello La Guardia. It’s time to create a future with new leaders who help build New York by incorporating the lessons from the best version of Moses while leaving behind those from his worst side.
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Notes
[1] When Jane Jacobs emerged on the scene in the early 1960s, her antidote to planning was to eliminate it altogether. Death and Life directly response to the wide-eyed planners who wanted to remake the city from scratch or to build towers in the park. Her “cure” for neighborhoods was to leave them alone (or allow residents to veto any new construction) and permit mixed uses. In terms of city planning, her recipe for utopia was to build more playgrounds and cut long blocks in half to create more sidewalks and street frontages.
[2] Moses did not invent the tower-in-park style of housing either. It was an invention of reformers and visionaries, such as Le Corbusier, starting in the 1920s. The planning consensus during the Great Depression and beyond was that building towers surrounded by green space would cure urban ills.
[3] Arguably federal mortgage programs that created redlining and with which Moses was not involved had a greater effect on cities like New York than Moses’s housing and slum clearance projects.
[4] Ironically, public housing—something in which Moses had a more behind-scenes role in developing—today is a success story in New York. Given the massive affordability problem, NYCHA housing provides a huge benefit for those with low incomes. See Nicholas Dagen Bloom’s book, Public Housing that Worked: New York in the 20th Century. More broadly, given recent economics research on the impacts of highways (such a Brinkman and Lin, 2024) and slum clearance on cities (such as Collins and Shester, 2013), measuring the net impact of Robert Moses on New York relative to what happened in other cities, would not be too difficult. To my knowledge, no one has specifically measured whether Moses’s projects were a net plus or negative for the city’s economic growth.
New York is a resilient city. In 1975, it was left for dead when President Gerald Ford failed to help stave off its Fiscal Crisis. But, the rise of high-tech and high-skilled industries has reinvigorated its economy, while the drop in crime has brought back consumers and tourists alike. Then, when the Covid-19 Pandemic hit, the commentariat was, once again, predicting the death of Gotham. Yet, the city endures.
New York’s problems today are, in some sense, crises of success rather than failure and abandonment, like in the 20th century. Housing is more unaffordable than ever. Too many people are chasing too few units, and prices have soared. On its streets, too many drivers are overwhelming roads never designed to handle such capacity. Decades of economic growth enabled by fossil fuels have put us on the brink of climate change catastrophes.
And what is New York City doing about these things? It’s playing Pin the Tail on the Donkey.
That is, Gotham is groping its way forward with half-baked policies that hardly address the problems at hand. The decentralized nature of its governance also means that agencies and authorities operate with little consideration that housing, transportation, and climate change are inextricably linked.
Thanks to its wealth and determination, New York may well muddle its way to the future. But this is wasteful, unnecessary, and will cause undo suffering.
Time for a New Master Planning Philosophy
It is time for a new master plan based on 21st-century thinking, not like the master plans of old that tried to tame the city or to micromanage what happens on every block. Rather, a city is a dynamic system of interrelated parts that feed back on each other and evolve based on changing forces both from within and outside the region. These forces create a type of order–a kind of controlled chaos, that should be embraced rather than squashed. A new master plan is needed that “listens” and adjust policies and investments as the times change in order to encourage improvements, adaptation, mobility, and growth without adding unintended harms.[1]
Housing Woes
Since New York’s renaissance began in the 1990s, there has been a pervasive sense that rising housing prices are the norm, and nothing can be done to change the tide. There is a deep mistrust of developers and the free market for housing since the thinking goes that if left unchecked, the market will exacerbate gentrification and cause prices to rise even higher.
As a result, the government has cobbled together a suite of policies that ignores the necessary solutions and worsen the problem. First has been the doubling down on rent stabilization. This policy only makes sense if you believe access to New York’s housing is a zero-sum game. Rent stabilization remains in effect if the citywide vacancy rate remains below 5%. But it remains below 5% in large part because of stabilization!
The other programs rely on subsidies to incentivize the development of affordable housing units. Sure, they have helped the lucky few who get access, but they have not addressed the fundamental problem–a demand-supply imbalance.
Over the decades, New York has erected many barriers to prevent the housing market from doing its job. Rent stabilization is only one problem; overly restrictive zoning is another. In Gotham, more than two out of every three residential properties are either above or very close to their allowable floor area caps. That is, it’s illegal or impractical to add more housing on these lots.
By law, the City prevents new housing and then blames developers for not providing it. When prices go up, it “punishes” “greedy” landlords by enacting price controls.
Stuck in Traffic
New York’s transportation situation is just as bad as its housing market. Regarding automobiles, no new roads have been constructed since the 1960s when Robert Moses was in power. But the system was never designed to handle the traffic of a metropolitan region with 19 million people and their truck-based freight. Too many cars are “chasing” too few roads, resulting in massive congestion, frustration, waste, and harm. Meanwhile, the MTA is struggling to get its straphangers back.
More broadly, the larger transportation network is run by a hodgepodge of agencies. The Port Authority oversees bridges and tunnels from New Jersey, and the Department of Transportation oversees bridges, tunnels, and roads within Gotham. Then there’s the MTA, which oversees subways, buses, and commuter rail. There is practically no coordination between them, even though they all provide the same product—mobility.
Climate Change Catastrophes
On September 1, 2022, Crain’s New York Business ran the headline, “One year after Ida, New York leans into nature-based climate strategies.” The article discusses how the City is increasing the number of “bluebelts”—natural wetlands that can absorb water from surges or torrential downpours.
This is certainly a promising program, but when you think about it, it’s just another example of how New York is groping its way to climate change resiliency. Bluebelts can only be one minor fix in very specific neighborhoods. The broader resiliency strategy thus far has been piecemeal and ad hoc: add to the bluebelt here, beef up a shoreline there, build a seawall here, etc. There is no larger framework, nor any consideration of how its actions will affect the cost and access to housing.
Yes, learning by experience and tweaking policies on the ground are important parts of the equation. But when you look at what’s being done, it’s clear that New York is taking the path of least political resistance—it “sneaks in” its resiliency projects where residents are not likely to complain. Hardly a rational plan.
Constrained New York. This graph shows that two out of three residential properties are at or above their allowable floor area ratio limits. Source: NYC PLUTO.
The VEAM Principle
It’s high time that the City updates its thinking about how cities work, how policies should be enacted, and how governance should be structured. It’s high time that Gotham creates a new master plan for the 21st century. The plan should be based on economic realities and not on visions of utopia or catering to narrow special interests. Such a plan should adhere to what I call the VEAM Principle.
V: The Value of Land
First is the value of the land. Land values represent the value of geography. Central places are more valuable than suburban ones. Blocks near train lines or parks are more valuable than those further away. And where land values are highest, more housing should be allowed and encouraged.
Because the zoning framers feared density, they set up a city where most of its land is forced to remain low density. As a result, there is hardly any flexibility for high-amenity neighborhoods to increase the amount of housing. In many places, the zoning codes are the same whether a property is one block or one mile from a rail line or large park. It makes no economic sense.
E: Externalities
However, the main problem of dense development is that it creates a host of negative externalities or harms that affect residents and visitors. Tall buildings can create shadows, and density can create congestion on the streets. City planning needs to minimize the damage without hurting residents.
Historically, in the name of limiting shadows and congestion, the City has resorted to building bulk limits. But this is a very blunt instrument because it creates housing scarcity and simultaneously curbs the negative and positive externalities.
If shadows from new construction are a problem, tax shadows or tax bulk or height above some “reasonable” level that gives back resources to the community to improve the quality of life.
A: Affordability
In New York City, rent stabilization remains in effect if the citywide rental vacancy is less than 5%. But rather than saying, “vacancy is too low, we need to implement price controls,” how about we imagine a world where citywide vacancy is always say 10% naturally—a world where there is so much housing and so many choices that rents are inherently affordable without unnecessary restrictions. The government needs to have more faith in the invisible hand. That’s not to say it can’t use a velvet glove to help adjust things from time to time.
M: Mobility
The goal of transportation policies should be to move the most amount of people with the least amount of congestion. This means rail, subways, roads, and the prices of using each should be coordinated to give people several choices and limit congestion. The more options people have, the more naturally they will eschew their cars. The key: all elements of the transportation system are linked—cars, buses, subways, commuter rail, walking, cycling, and scootering are all different forms of mobility and should be treated as such within a larger mobility framework.
Just as importantly, transportation goes hand in hand with housing—rail lines and subway stops should have more housing because not only is the land more valuable, but it also makes life easier for thousands of people. The City can’t just build a route to connect Queens and Brooklyn and say that it solved a problem. The new line will drive up the cost of housing and land. Without upzoning along the corridor and beyond, the affordability problem will worsen.
Pandemic Effects. Since the pandemic started in early 2020, mass transit ridership has been down, while driving has surpassed its pre-pandemic levels. Source: Newmark Research.
Elements of A Master Plan
A master plan, of course, is a detailed document. But here, I offer some key elements that adhere to the VEAM Principle.[2]
Rethink Zoning
The current zoning system, enacted in 1961, was based on the belief that density was bad. Today, cities embrace density for all its benefits. Thus, Gotham needs a zoning plan that reflects this. This could be done in, say, one of two ways. The first would be to upzone all neighborhoods initially and then provide local “bump ups” in the allowable floor area ratio (FAR) based on land values. Let demand dictate density.
The second possible strategy is to eliminate floor area ratios altogether and have developers pay impact fees or externalities charges that are a function of land values and current density. In suburban neighborhoods, the fees would rise dramatically, say after the fourth floor, whereas in Manhattan, fees would rise after, say. 30 stories. This way, the externalities are paid for without stifling needed housing construction.
Zoning regulations have also prevented the City from enacting transit-oriented design (TOD) policies. In many neighborhoods along the subway lines, it’s impossible to densify. A genuinely forward-thinking plan would encourage densification along the subway and commuter rail (which would also naturally increase ridership).
Congestion Pricing Everywhere
New York is on the brink of establishing “congestion pricing” for cars and trucks entering lower Manhattan (though parochialism may kill it yet). However, it’s not really a congestion charge since the fee will not move up or down based on how many cars want to enter (that’s a toll). Again, this plan illustrates the lack of systematic thinking. It charges only one price and is very localized, applying only to those entering Manhattan south of 59th Street (and does not consider that parking or traffic just outside the zone will likely become that much worse).
I have written on this subject before, so I will only say that a proper congestion pricing system goes citywide. It charges tolls on all the highways, bridges, and tunnels based on actual usage during the day. And fees for highways are linked to mass transit—if roads become crowded, the costs of using buses or subways fall simultaneously. Integrate the entire system.
Climate Change Impact Maps
New York should produce climate change impact maps that show the likely damages from surges, flooding, and other shocks.[3] The maps will give property owners the information they require, and will also suggest needed government investments for resiliency. The maps would work alongside the zoning maps and transportation plans so that a master resiliency plan does not backfire by harming other aspects of city living and affordability.
Tie Services Upgrades to Density
Upzoning and TOD mean higher-density neighborhoods. The master plan needs to outline the process by which local services, such as schools and parks, automatically get upgraded as the local population increases. This way, the government agencies are prepared ahead of time, and residents can rest assured that population increases will not reduce their quality of life.
Transition Requires Compensation
Rethinking and reorienting policies means change. However, people naturally resist it because they fear the new outcome will be worse than the status quo.[4] Thus, Nimbyism is a tremendous barrier to moving New York to a better place.
As I have argued elsewhere, a new master plan needs to spell out how transitions will proceed in a manner that makes people better off. One way to do this is to compensate those who will be harmed, such as offering land value insurance for homeowners and subsidies to renters who need to move when their building is redeveloped.
Housing Vacancy. This graph shows NYC rental housing vacancy rates since 1960. It has never risen above the 5% threshold needed to end rent stabilization. Source: NYC Rent Guidelines Board.
The Steps to a Better New York
What are the steps needed to create and enact such a master plan? The first thing is leadership—perhaps the scarcest commodity of all. The process would begin with the mayor and with a paradigmatic shift in thinking—that the metropolis is a complex system that, if guided properly, can generate order without design.
Reforming Governance
The mayor needs to assemble all the relevant agencies, authorities, and local, state, and federal leaders and have them map out the elements of governmental coordination. New York needs to build the capacity for systematic thinking and action.
A Blue Ribbon Panel of 100
The next step would be for the mayor to convene a Blue Ribbon Panel of 100 respected leaders and accomplished community members to create the master plan. A diverse panel, chaired by a seasoned but impartial public servant, would give its output legitimacy, as the plan must be fair and not favor one group or industry over another.
Having the panel issue the plan makes an essential statement that change is a community effort. It says, “Let’s collectively imagine a world where housing is more affordable, where traffic and transportation woes are not a constant part of daily living, and where we don’t need to live in constant fear of flooding.” Imagine that!
Its members could come together to engage in systematic thinking. Parks representatives will hash things out with housing advocates. Climate change experts will hash things out with transportation representatives, real estate developers will hash things out with social service providers, and so on.
Selling it to the Public
With a plan in hand comes the hardest part of all: selling it to the public. The pervasiveness of Nimbyism and the widespread cynicism about government effectiveness make any significant policy change nearly impossible. The Blue Ribbon Panel and city and state leaders must demonstrate how the plan will improve New Yorkers’ lives—that housing will be more affordable, transportation will be faster, and climate change damage will be minimized. The Panel can sell the plan without succumbing to parochialism.
The Future Today
We have, unfortunately, created a crisis of creative thinking—a kind of a prisoner’s dilemma world where protecting our self-interest seems preferable to working towards the common good.
As as the nation grew wealthier, its citizens asked its leaders to help preserve their gains. Governments thus have erected barriers to slow down or prevent dramatic urban changes. This, however, has cemented the notion that the expensive and congested status quo is preferable to any and all possible changes, even those that have the potential to create great good.
Despite what we tend to think, the status quo is not inevitable. But moving to a better world involves leadership and a deeper understanding of how cities function and succeed. I believe it can be done.
Read my Skynomics Blog posts about New York City housing here.
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[1] I’m grateful for Alain Bertaud’s masterful book, Order Without Design: How Markets Shape Cities, which has inspired the ideas in this post. I do not, however, profess to speak for him or am I attempting to directly represent his views.
[2]For the sake of brevity, in this post, I avoid the discussion of real estate taxation, but any new master plan should consider a land value tax program.
Surely, in the light of history, it is more intelligent to hope rather than to fear, to try rather than not to try. For one thing we know beyond all doubt: Nothing has ever been achieved by the person who says, ‘It can’t be done.’ – Eleanor Roosevelt
Jason Breaks the Internet
On January 14, 2022, I, Jason M. Barr, broke the internet.
Narrator voice over: “He did not break the internet.”
The piece offered a plan to expand the island of Manhattan 2.5 miles (4 km) into New York harbor to serve two purposes at once: protect Lower Manhattan from climate-change-induced storm surges and sea-level rise and to build much-needed housing. Since Manhattan land is the most expensive real estate on the planet, leveraging this value could assist the common good. The leases or sales from the new land would more than pay for the costs of creating it (see below), producing income for other programs and improvements.
And with such a large amount of new urban space, we could recreate from scratch a vibrant, diverse neighborhood for an additional 250,000 New Yorkers. The shorelines would be built with wetlands, beaches, and berms to absorb surges, and the rest of the built-up areas would be constructed at a higher elevation to keep it protected. In the process, lower Manhattan, the heart and lifeline of New York’s $1.7 trillion economy, would also be protected.
The Medium Was the Message
The plan became instant news, which produced a host of ironies that I will discuss throughout this post. But the biggest one was that if I had simply posted this idea on my Skynomics Blog, like this piece here, it would have caused barely a rumple in the space-time continuum. However, having the imprimatur of the New York Times, who accepted my proposal as worthy of being launched into the public forum, meant that the medium became the message. The act of printing the proposal became the news.
The week following its release, I was interviewed on local WPIX news, Cheddar, Voice of America, and a handful of other outlets. The proposal was covered by the Daily Mail, the New York Post, Curbed.com, and Dezeen. To one outlet, the plan was “buzzy,” to another it was “galaxy-brained,” while to yet another it was “pharaonic,” and to one, it was just plain “loco.” Alas, if the reactions taught me anything, it is that proposing big ideas in the 21st century has become, let’s just say, impolite.
Since the Times is valuable real estate, I was required by editorial demands to keep my piece below 800 words. I now present more details along with some rebuttals to the “it-can’t-or-shouldn’t-be-done” constituency. So, dear reader, come with me on a journey about how it all unfolded and where we can go next.
New Mannahatta. A Plan to Expand Manhattan to Protect Lower Manhattan and Provide More Housing. Plan by Jason Barr.
Jason Interviews Jason
During the press interviews, the questions tended to be the same: How did I come up with this idea and what was the reaction?
How the Idea Sprang Into My Head?
The idea emerged in 2013 as I was researching my book, Building the Skyline: The Birth and Growth and Manhattan’s Skyscrapers. During that time, I came to see how from the Dutch colonial days to the present, Manhattan has been, in fits and starts, expanding its shoreline. When the Dutch settled along the island’s lower tip, they encountered lowlands like that from home. They built canals to drain the marshlands and erected retaining walls along the shorelines to fill in with new land to facilitate trade and commerce.
When the English took over in 1664, they continued making more land. In this case, they demarcated property lines extending out to the rivers where the riverbed was exposed during low tide. These “water lots” were auctioned off, and the buyers were responsible for filling them in and making them level with the street grade. The expanded shoreline was helpful for trade since ships could dock in wharves along the streets, even at low tide.
Manhattan’s expansion continued for decades so that by 1865, the lower tip of Manhattan was some 30% bigger than it had been before. It created valuable real estate and parks to help the city grow and remain vibrant. In the 1970s, the city’s last major landfill project, Battery Park City, was created from the excavated material from the World Trade Center site.
Superstorm Sandy
When I was writing my book, I was also researching the impact of Superstorm Sandy on New York real estate prices. When I viewed the surge map, I noticed that Battery Park City was largely spared from the flooding. About that time, Mayor Bloomberg also proposed in-fill and housing along the East River, which he called Seaport City, based on the Battery Park City model. It never got off the drawing board.
However, as I thought about it, New York also suffers from a housing shortage. Housing prices keep rising because the demand to live in New York outstrips its ability to supply new housing, especially for the middle- and lower-income groups. As I have documented in other posts, many parts of New York are essentially closed to building large amounts of much-needed housing. The new housing that is built tends to be in a handful of neighborhoods, primarily in gentrifying areas, where the demand keeps prices high. In essence, New York has painted itself into a housing corner.
With this in mind, I created a plan that goes big—that not only protects the city from flooding but can also make a dent in the housing market and help the city well into the 21st century. My idea, in short, was to do a larger version of what New York has been doing for centuries. Going forward, we will spend billions on climate change mitigation; we must build more housing; and we must protect lower Manhattan. I asked myself: Is there a way to do these things more efficiently and get a return on the investment? My answer: build out Manhattan 1760 acres into the harbor.
What Surprised Me About the Reactions?
The reactions to my proposal were bifurcated: people either loved it or rejected it outright. (Also, I have not heard from the Adams administration, and I have no idea what the mayor or his aides think). I was pleasantly surprised by the number of people who appreciated its big-scale aspect. Like me, many others are frustrated by the pessimism pervading our beliefs regarding government and society to think creatively and boldly about solving the problems we face. I also learned that my plan put me in the company of those who view sea-level rise as one of our most significant national security problems.
Regarding the negativity, I know that social media trains people in Pavlovian fashion to respond in the opposite direction of a post. If Person A, Tweets “X,” then a thousand people respond with “Y.” Again, the medium is the message. Social media, which also includes online newspapers like the New York Times, amplifies our tendencies to be contradictory for the sake of being contradictory. That just comes with the territory.
Radical?
But arguably, my biggest surprise was to hear that my proposal was considered radical and even outlandish. Yes, it’s big and ballsy, but it’s an extension, literally and figuratively, of something that New York has been doing for 400 years. And just as importantly, it’s being done worldwide, right now, as you read this.
Other big cities have land shortages and coastal problems, and they are taking action. We, on the other hand, are mired in our perverse fantasies that “it can’t or shouldn’t be done.” Our lack of interest in keeping abreast of what’s going on globally helps feed our collective sense that inaction is the best way forward.
New York helped invent the megaproject in the 19th and 20th centuries—be it the Croton Aqueduct, the subway system, or the Manhattan skyline itself. The embracement of the megaproject made New York City the world’s greatest metropolis, and its lessons were deeply learned across the world, where today mega is ordinary, and where Asian countries are using mega to beat the West at its own game.
Land Reclamation and Shoreline Remediation Around the World
I will not fill this post with the excruciating details of how inaction on coastal flooding will continue to devastate the United States. Rather, I will give a couple of brief examples from around the world, where other countries are not only protecting their coastlines but enabling their cities to grow and thrive.
The Netherlands
The Dutch have made an art of reclamation and shoreline resiliency to protect their country against the sea and create new land for its residents. That my plan could cause such a stir in the U.S. was considered comical to the Dutch on Twitter.
In English, the word “Netherlands” literally means “lowlands” or “under-lands.” According to one study, 65% of the country would otherwise be underwater at high tide if not for the dikes, dunes, and pumps. Land reclamation in the 20th century has added 637 square miles (1,650 km2; 165,000 hectares) to the country’s land area.
Today the Dutch are bravely dealing with climate change; they have strategies that include building beaches, shorelines, and canals to absorb floods. My plan not only allows for this but provides a way to pay for it. Sure, there are criticisms of past Dutch practices, but when a country is literally underwater, its projects are worth exploring for our own use or adaptation.
Hong Kong
Arguably, Hong Kong is the Asian master of land reclamation. When the British seized control of Hong Kong Island in 1841, they realized that there was relatively little land. Most of the city is rugged mountains with valuable strips along the coast. Officials auctioned off “water lots” to merchants early in its history, extending the island into Victoria Harbor. The practice has continued now for nearly two centuries. Today, about 6% of Hong Kong’s total area and 25% of developed land is reclaimed.
Two recent examples are informative. First was the creation of its airport. The old Hong Kong airport in Kowloon, Kai Tak, was built in 1925. Over the decades, the land around it was built up and made landing airplanes like threading a needle. It required the pilots to make a low-altitude turning maneuver before a rapid descent that “was so close to these buildings that passengers could spot television sets in the apartments.”
The New Airport
As this became unacceptable, Hong Kong built a new state-of-the-art airport. The end product, opened in 1998, was Hong Kong International, built on a large artificial island formed by flattening and leveling Chek Lap Kok and Lam Chau islands and reclaiming 3.62 miles2 (9.38 km2) of the new land. This project added nearly 1% to Hong Kong’s total surface. In addition, the old Kowloon land is now being redeveloped, which, when completed, will have 30,000 new homes, including 13,000 public housing units.
Lantau
My plan calls for a new 1760 acres. A new reclamation project under construction in Hong Kong entails 1700 hectares (1 hectare = 2.47 acres). So, my proposal is positively shrimpy compared to what’s happening in Hong Kong. The tremendous housing shortage has motivated the government to pursue it.
Reclaimed Cities. Upper Left: Expanded Manhattan circa 1865. Right: Reclaimed Dutch land. Bottom Left: The Hong Kong Lantau reclamation project in process.
More Details about My Plan
Returning to New York, the city will be on the hook for billions of dollars for climate change mitigation, including seawalls, berms, and shoreline expansion. Additionally, as climate change damage continues to mount, the cost to homeowners will increase and will make the housing affordability problem that much worse.
The “opportunity cost” of doing half-baked measures will, in the end, be much more expensive than embracing large-scale efforts (I will leave an analysis of these opportunity costs for a future post). And it will be the poor and marginalized who will bear the greatest burden.
So why not try to be more economical and socially helpful simultaneously? If judicially executed, the plan could not only pay for itself but also provide money to help the city in other areas of climate change mitigation and for environmental improvements. Once built out, the land would then be on the real estate tax rolls, increasing the city’s revenues.
New Mannahatta
I called the land New Mannahatta to reference Manhattan’s historical name from the Native American Lenape people. We could use the parks and shorelines to install native plants and trees to encourage the return of native birds, butterflies, and other species. Central Park today is one of the largest human-made flyways on the Northeast coast, so why not add to that? We could engage in historic preservation by referencing the historical landscape, like how we have historically preserved about a quarter of Manhattan’s real estate.
I used the Upper West Side of Manhattan (Community District 107) as a model. The reason is that it’s a highly diverse neighborhood with many types of buildings that range from old-style tenements to brownstones to high-rise apartments and skyscrapers. It has a population of 180,000 and 129,000 housing units, and I estimate it contributes $1.4 billion in real estate tax revenue each year. Though it abuts Central Park, it has an array of parks within its borders, from the 134-acre Riverside Park to several neighborhood and vest-pocket parks. The hope is that we can use this opportunity to think about adding to Manhattan’s biodiversity.
The Economics of Plan
There is an economic logic to the plan when you crunch the numbers (more details are here). First is the cost of creating the new land. The fill would likely come from dredging. I also believe that creative recycling of other inert or excavated materials from real estate construction sites in the region can be added to the mix. Battery Park City was created from landfill from the excavation of the World Trade Center site, which was comprised of 18th– and 19th-century landfill when Manhattan’s western shoreline was expanded outward. In this sense, Battery Park City was created using recycled landfill.
The Cost
The fastest way to get a ballpark cost is to compare New Mannahatta to the Lantau plan in Hong Kong. The total cost of the 1700 hectares is expected to be about $81.1 billion (and which is cheaper than New York’s $119 billion proposed seawall), for about $19.3 million per acre. For my plan of 1760 acres, the total cost would be about $34 billion.
The Cost of Fill
Every year, the United States produces between 200 – 300 million cubic yards (153 – 229 million m3) of material from port dredging. In fact, between 2014 and 2018, ten U.S. ports alone generated over 300 million cubic yards (229 million m3) of dredged material to keep their ports functional.
Locally, in 2016 the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ) completed a harbor deepening project (along with shoreline and wetland remediation). The shipping channels needed to be deepened to accommodate the larger, more efficient container ships. The PA removed 52 million cubic yards (32 million m3) of sediment, rock, and other material from the seafloor for $2.1 billion, for a cost of $40.38 per cubic yard (which by the way is incredibly high compared to the national average of $12, but it also includes disposal costs and shoreline remediation).[1]
I assume that New Mannahatta would need about 170 million cubic yards (130 million m3) of fill (roughly the average annual fill output from U.S. port dredging). Using the PANYNJ’s figure means the fill cost would be $7 billion. The rest would be used for infrastructure, creating the sheet pilings, and building new wetlands and beaches.
The Benefits
An estimated $34 billion might sound like a lot, but, literally and figuratively, it’s dirt cheap. The average real estate sale price of the Upper West Side in 2019 was $1,500 per square foot. Using a very conservative construction cost of $500 per square foot means a $1,000 “profit” per square foot that goes to the city for selling the real estate rights to developers.
Using the Upper West Side as a model, New Mannahatta, when fully built out, would have 240 million square feet of space, which could produce to the city a net revenue of $240 billion!!! Nearly an order of magnitude greater than the cost.
Let me repeat: the market value of the land would be worth $240 billion. The cost of producing it would be only $34 billion! That’s over $200 billion that could be used to make the Hudson River as clean and pure as it was in September 1609, when Henry Hudson first arrived. Even if the “profit” was “only” $500 per square foot, the net revenue to the city for building New Mannahatta would be $120 billion, still four times the costs.
Simply put, New Mannahatta makes sense because Manhattan sales prices are so much higher than the construction costs. New York has a chance to exploit and leverage this value for the greater good.
The Planning of New Mannahatta
For the sake of brevity, I will leave a more detailed treatment of an urban plan for the future, but a basic version was produced for the Times piece (my version given above). I kept the Grid Plan because I like it. It’s not great for some things, but it’s part of Manhattan’s DNA, so I think we should we keep it.
We could make blocks shorter and even add alleyways to keep trucks off the street. I added some bisectional roads à la Broadway, with one to be called New Mannahatta Boulevard. I added six internal parks, beaches and wetlands, and bike paths along the shorelines. Then there’s Governor’s Island (also a product of landfill) that would become the equivalent of Central Park. I included extensions of subway lines and places for ferries. The plan could even ban cars (but allow taxis and delivery trucks). Discussions of zoning and land use locations will be deferred for the future.
The Tiresome Tropes of the Hyper-cynical. Everybody has an excuse nowadays for why we are not allowed to think big and creatively in the 21st century. Source: Comments about my plan on the New York Times.
Addressing the Comments
Let me now turn to the laundry list of criticisms. They mostly fall under five major areas, which I summarize as: (1) it’s bad for the environment, (2) government can’t be trusted, (3) whataboutism, (4) it’s a giveaway to greedy developers, (5) there are cheaper alternatives, and (6) we should just abandon lower Manhattan to the sea. Let me address these in turn.
On the Environmental Concerns
Obviously, such a project will have environmental concerns. However, the key issue facing us is: how do we protect our society and the planet in the most efficient manner while minimizing the negative side effects?
Whether New Mannahatta gets built or not (which it most likely won’t), harbor dredging will continue apace, sea-level rise will continue apace, New York City flooding (and the sewage runoff into the Hudson it creates) will continue apace, housing affordability will continue to get worse, and so on. All the while, the cost of inaction will continue to escalate.
Nonetheless, to some ecologists and environmentalists, touching the water-based ecosystems, in and of itself, is taboo, regardless of the costs that leaving them alone may impose. True, much has been done since New York lost its manufacturing base to restore what were horribly polluted and degraded waterways and ecosystems. This is to be celebrated.
But if a person’s worldview is that you can’t touch the harbor because any economic activity that impacts it is “bad,” then there’s not much discussion we can have on this issue. However, we need to be clear that this is just another form of NIMBYism, which perpetuates and exacerbates our problems. And it drives policy makers to take short cuts that could wind up causing more environmental damages in the long run.
Regardless of the you-can’t-touch-the-estuary sentiment, seawalls will be built, shorelines will be extended, and harbors will be dredged (not to mention that rising ocean temperatures will likely cause environmental and ecosystem damage orders of magnitude greater than a well thought-out reclamation project). So, no matter how bad my plan seems to environmentalists, the question becomes: which is worse, the ad hoc approaches going on now (not to mention the damage caused by doing nothing) or a plan like mine? The answer is worthy of debate and discussion.
And, before creating the new land, careful scientific modeling can be used to reduce unintended consequences and produce strategies to help the estuary ecosystems. For example, the sheet pile walls for the fill can include curves, shelves, and other habitat features helpful for marine life, in addition to the new wetland habitats that would be produced.
Galaxy-Brained?
Willy Blackmore at Curbed.com called my idea “galaxy-brained.” Why? Because Robert Moses drained marshlands in Queens that flood to this day. I’m not proposing we drain anything; I’m proposing the opposite—that we create new wetlands that leisurely extend far out into the sea.
Blackmore is under the false impression that my proposal would somehow create a new floodplain. That’s absurd. The whole point is to create something that protects the current floodplain that is Lower Manhattan, which Superstorm Sandy swamped. Due to luck and high elevation, Battery Park City (BPC) was largely spared after Sandy. It motivated former Mayor Bloomberg to generate a proposal to recreate BPC on the East River. Mayor de Blasio’s plan was to extend parks into the East River as protection. My plan is similar but adds a new housing component.
After reading Blackmore’s post, one comes away with the impression that he needs to take the stand that “it can’t be done” because he, like many, is too cynical about government to solve our problems. His logic: Since Robert Moses wasn’t an environmentalist, it naturally follows that we should not consider my plan. Robert Moses was in power sixty years ago. I think we’ve learned a few things about shoreline remediation since then. Just ask the Dutch.
On “It’s A Giveaway to Greedy Developers”
Today, the average New Yorker blames gentrification and luxury condo construction on the greedy plutocrats who are taking over “their” city. To be sure, gentrification and condos for billionaires are important issues that warrant serious policy discussions.
But in my plan, the land is created by the city itself (or its designated authority). I will hold off on a more detailed discussion but, suffice it to say, the authority would have significant control over what gets built and for whom. Perhaps the easiest way to do this is to sell off long-term ground leases to developers with specific rules on how the units must be allocated to various income groups. In short, my plan allows for a variety of real estate types for all income levels.
On Whataboutism
A whole slew of commenters reproduced the tiresome trope of “whataboutism.” This logical fallacy says: we can’t do your plan because what about some other unsolved problem in the city completely unrelated to my plan? Sure, it’s easy to focus on the failures of the various government agencies. But nearly none of these directly address my plan on the merits or demerits.
One of the reasons I’ve offered this concept is because it would be absent many of the roadblocks that gum up the works (but, of course, there are a host of others). There would be virtually no residential displacement or disruption, and the new construction would take place far away from most people’s daily lives.
On We Can’t Trust Government
As for the “we can’t trust government” complaint, I think it’s sad that we’ve become so cynical. True, leaders are not angels, and they have made many mistakes in the past. But New York has become New York because of the “partnership” between the people and its government. The government constructed the subway system, the water system, and virtually all the infrastructure we have today.
That Robert Moses did things his way was arguably problematic. But we have turned Robert Moses into the Boogeyman of Bad Government. Highways, bridges, and tunnels would have been built nearly the same without Robert Moses. Did this one man destroy neighborhoods more than the thousands of other planners who ran their highways through Boston, Buffalo, or St. Louis? Debatable.
But here we are two-thirds of a century later since the Cross Bronx Expressway was plowed through the South Bronx, and we are using Robert Moses as a shield for NIMBYism. It’s time to say: “Yes, he made mistakes, but we can and have learned from them.” The truth is that only government can initiate some kinds of projects, and we need it now to help keep the city remain successful and affordable in the 21st century.
On There are Cheaper Options
Are there cheaper options? My answer is: indeterminate. In 2012, when Superstorm Sandy hit, the city got a loud wake-up call about climate change. When Irma recently hit, it showed the city had hit the snooze button and went back to bed. How many wake-up calls do we need before we take climate change seriously? The cost of inaction continues to mount. Half-baked measures plus the opportunity cost of these half-baked measures will likely be more expensive than creative proposals like mine.
Another frequent response was that New York should build more housing throughout the five boroughs. I couldn’t agree more. YIMBYism all the way! But the political hurdles to large-scale housing construction remain as strong as ever. Recently, Governor Hochul proposed legalizing accessory dwelling units (ADUs), and the NIMBYists fought back. Her plan has now been shelved.
Plus, just loosening the zoning and new construction rules may not fix the problem without policies related to reducing high construction and land acquisition costs and eliminating other hurdles preventing wide-scale housing construction (not to mention policies for improvements in the transportation infrastructure). I’m not holding my breath.
The point of my proposal is not that there are cheaper options (though this is debatable), it is that we should think creatively, efficiently, and holistically about solving our problems.
On Managed Retreat
One common trope is we should plan for the managed abandonment of lower Manhattan. I’ll just say that if you abandon lower Manhattan to the sea, you will put a stake in the heart of Gotham. Like it or not, Wall Street is the engine of an economy with 20 million people. If you force businesses to leave, it will start to tear apart the fabric of our society, and New York will slowly wither away (see: Detroit or Escape from New York).
What’s to Be Done?
To be honest, I don’t know if my proposal helps or harms the public discourse. We are so accustomed to automatically rejecting big ideas that my plan seems to have abetted the polarization. I’m not saying that my idea is the end all be all. But I do want it to help advance discussions about the best way forward for New York and our society more broadly.
To the knee-jerk naysayers, when a new idea is proposed in good faith, I ask that you don’t automatically reject it. Rather, think about ways to engage in meaningful dialogue that helps lead to solutions to our most pressing problems. Just because something “feels” like a bad idea, does not make it so. Perhaps you will keep this in mind the next time you post a critical comment on Twitter or the New York Times.
Sure, we may not get everything we want from new policies, but with reasoned discussion and debate, we can take control of our future and not succumb to self-defeating cynicism or become victims of our quest to preserve our own self-interest at the expense of the greater good.
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[1] In addition, the century-old Jones Act prohibits U.S. ports from hiring international dredging companies. Today, the Dutch and Belgium have the world’s largest dredging machines which can (safely) dredge for pennies on the dollar as compared to U.S. companies. As a result, Americans pay a hidden tax on imported products because the cost of maintaining our ports is that much higher.
