Posted on Sunday, March 29, 2009 - 4:45 pm:

quote:

With their crowded neighborhoods and web of public services, cities are not only invaluable cultural incubators; they are also vastly more efficient than suburbs. But for years they have been neglected, and in many cases forcibly harmed, by policies that favored sprawl over density and conformity over difference.

Such policies have caused many of our urban centers to devolve into generic theme parks and others, like Detroit, to decay into ghost towns. They have also sparked the rise of ecologically unsustainable gated communities and reinforced economic disparities by building walls between racial, ethnic and class groups.

Posted on Sunday, March 29, 2009 - 5:01 pm:

quote:

When state officials unveiled a plan in 1997 to expand the expressway’s entry ramps, easing truck traffic to the city’s commercial food markets, the community rebelled, and Pratt began to develop a counterplan that would dismantle the expressway altogether and free up 28 acres of land. More specifically, the plan would extend local streets across the site to a new riverfront park, provide up to 1,200 units of affordable housing, create a new sewage facility and restore wetlands along the river. Commercial development could be linked to a planned commuter train station.