Letters to the Editor
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
‘Toll Barrier’
The Bloomberg administration’s five-borough economic development strategy is bearing fruit as the city is enjoying the most robust housing investment since the early 1970s [Editorial, “Toll Barrier,” January 10, 2007].
The facts simply don’t support The New York Sun’s assertion that the city’s zoning and charter-mandated public land use review process stymie development.
The proof of our success is in the numbers: almost 125,000 new housing units issued permits since the beginning of 2002, virtually double the previous five-year period.
To ensure that the city’s zoning continues to meet the needs of the city’s growing population, 67 re-zonings covering more than 4,500 blocks have been adopted to direct growth and economic development where it is appropriate and protect communities from out-of-character construction.
Using zoning and other incentives to build and preserve 165,000 affordable housing units, the city has created the largest municipal affordable housing plan in the nation’s history. Reforms to the 421a tax incentive program will encourage still more new housing.
We are proud of these accomplishments and the profound benefits they yield for New Yorkers.
AMANDA BURDEN
Chairwoman
City Planning Commission
New York, N.Y.
‘Great Cities Need Great Builders’
Edward Glaeser misses the point [Arts & Letters, “Great Cities Need Great Builders,” January 19, 2007]. City builder Robert Moses believed that central planning works better than markets. But he was wrong. Any eminent domain, even if in accordance with cost-benefit analyses, violates fundamental property rights and so disrupts markets and the right to property.
Although New York has withstood Moses’ strategy, the state and city have lost the economic leadership that they enjoyed before Moses. Thanks to his legacy, New York State now leads in investment, income inequality, and private-use eminent domain, but is almost last in population growth. A&P was founded in New York in the mid-19th century, but Brooklyn visionary Howard Schultz went to Seattle to develop Starbucks.
Jane Jacobs, who came from the left, demonstrated better understanding of the importance of spontaneous order and property rights than the Republicans and real estate developers who have used phony economic cost-benefit rationales for urban planning.
MITCHELL LANGBERT
Associate professor
Department of Business and Economics
Brooklyn College
Brooklyn, N.Y.
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