Five articles curated by the Wagner Planner staff: Here’s what the Wagner Planner staff is reading. This week: the evolution of NYC’s community gardens, making housing reform work in Montana, and the subway’s newest candy sellers.
NYC’s community gardens overcame obstacles, including Rudy Giuliani (Gothamist): “Bushwick City Farm may be an outlier in its full-throated commitment to addressing the migrant crisis in New York City, but it shares something with many other community gardens across the five boroughs: They’re public places where private citizens have to jointly decide the best use of a precious resource.”
The Candy Sellers (Curbed): “In recent weeks, the police have stopped her numerous times on the platforms to give her warnings. “They told me that if I kept selling with my children, they’d take them away from me and put me in jail,” she said. “But we do it because we have no other option.”
Why Housing Reform Worked in Montana (Bloomberg City Lab): “While the contentious YIMBY-v.-NIMBY dynamic has bricked other state legislatures over housing issues, Republican and Democratic lawmakers in Montana were able to find consensus. The state’s cultural remove and ample natural bounty might help to explain why: Its cities are smaller and its population much more rural than other states that have weighed zoning and permitting bills to boost housing production.”
There’s Been a Decade of Public Engagement on Atlantic Ave — and Years More are Coming Before Roadway is Fixed (Streetsblog): “But considered one of the most dangerous corridors in Brooklyn, little has been done to make Atlantic Avenue safer. In the three years since Sept. 1, 2020, there have been a whopping 472 reported crashes between Brooklyn and Washington avenues, causing 289 injuries and one pedestrian fatality, according to city data compiled by Crash Mapper. And last year, there were 166 reported crashes or one almost every other day, injuring 126 people.”
The Battle for 76 Place: Where Things Stand with the Sixers’ Arena (phillymag.com): “Deep down, the question of economic benefits may be beside the point. And the overwhelming cast of stakeholders makes it very likely that at least one group will be disappointed with the eventual outcome. To opponents of the arena, this is a battle for the soul of their neighborhood, one that has been home to an immigrant population that settled there 150 years ago, when it was an undesirable location, and built a community.”