How do New York City’s Recent Rezonings Align With its Goals for Park Accessibility?
In 2007, New York City adopted a long-term sustainability plan that announced a goal of ensuring that almost every New Yorker lives within a ten minute walk of a park of substantial size. At the same time, policymakers are rewriting the City’s land use map through an unprecedented series of neighbor...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Loyola Marymount University
2010-01-01
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| Series: | Cities and the Environment |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/cate/vol3/iss1/6/ |
| _version_ | 1818036193194934272 |
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| author | Vicki Been Josiah Madar Simon T. McDonnell |
| author_facet | Vicki Been Josiah Madar Simon T. McDonnell |
| author_sort | Vicki Been |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | In 2007, New York City adopted a long-term sustainability plan that announced a goal of ensuring that almost every New Yorker lives within a ten minute walk of a park of substantial size. At the same time, policymakers are rewriting the City’s land use map through an unprecedented series of neighborhood level rezonings that involve changing the use type and residential capacity of affected lots or groups of lots. Despite the confluence of these interventions, no research has analyzed how the rezonings interact with the City’s park infrastructure, and specifically, whether residential capacity changes in areas close to parks differ from those in areas further away. In this research, we employ a database of every tax lot in New York City to investigate how well the City-initiated rezonings correlate with the goal of providing New Yorkers with good access to the City’s parks. Our results indicate a mixed picture; while most ‘upzoned’ lots (lots where residential capacity was added) were near parks, we also find that the majority of ‘downzoned’ lots (lots where residential capacity was reduced) were also close to parks. The net impact of these rezonings was a modest increase in residential capacity for the City as a whole, but the increases were disproportionately focused in areas further from parks. |
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| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-0d33eb9368fc4848bd5a05b3608dd908 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1932-7048 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-10T07:07:03Z |
| publishDate | 2010-01-01 |
| publisher | Loyola Marymount University |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Cities and the Environment |
| spelling | doaj.art-0d33eb9368fc4848bd5a05b3608dd9082022-12-22T01:58:09ZengLoyola Marymount UniversityCities and the Environment1932-70482010-01-0131Article 611 ppHow do New York City’s Recent Rezonings Align With its Goals for Park Accessibility?Vicki BeenJosiah MadarSimon T. McDonnellIn 2007, New York City adopted a long-term sustainability plan that announced a goal of ensuring that almost every New Yorker lives within a ten minute walk of a park of substantial size. At the same time, policymakers are rewriting the City’s land use map through an unprecedented series of neighborhood level rezonings that involve changing the use type and residential capacity of affected lots or groups of lots. Despite the confluence of these interventions, no research has analyzed how the rezonings interact with the City’s park infrastructure, and specifically, whether residential capacity changes in areas close to parks differ from those in areas further away. In this research, we employ a database of every tax lot in New York City to investigate how well the City-initiated rezonings correlate with the goal of providing New Yorkers with good access to the City’s parks. Our results indicate a mixed picture; while most ‘upzoned’ lots (lots where residential capacity was added) were near parks, we also find that the majority of ‘downzoned’ lots (lots where residential capacity was reduced) were also close to parks. The net impact of these rezonings was a modest increase in residential capacity for the City as a whole, but the increases were disproportionately focused in areas further from parks.http://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/cate/vol3/iss1/6/http://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/cate/vol3/iss1/6/ |
| spellingShingle | Vicki Been Josiah Madar Simon T. McDonnell How do New York City’s Recent Rezonings Align With its Goals for Park Accessibility? Cities and the Environment http://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/cate/vol3/iss1/6/ |
| title | How do New York City’s Recent Rezonings Align With its Goals for Park Accessibility? |
| title_full | How do New York City’s Recent Rezonings Align With its Goals for Park Accessibility? |
| title_fullStr | How do New York City’s Recent Rezonings Align With its Goals for Park Accessibility? |
| title_full_unstemmed | How do New York City’s Recent Rezonings Align With its Goals for Park Accessibility? |
| title_short | How do New York City’s Recent Rezonings Align With its Goals for Park Accessibility? |
| title_sort | how do new york city s recent rezonings align with its goals for park accessibility |
| topic | http://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/cate/vol3/iss1/6/ |
| url | http://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/cate/vol3/iss1/6/ |
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