Economics of Bad Planning

A automobile oriented park, Bell Tower Park, Riverdale (Bronx), NY http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riverdale_NY

When planning efforts go wrong or are restricted in a maze of poor building codes, residents of the area usually pay the price. Riverdale, NY is good example of what can happen when poor planning and codes go wrong. In response to parking problems, Tom Brown, a senior planner noted that the parking problems have been created by destroying pedestrian culture- a lot of the commercial space that has been developed has been one story strip malls or the ground floor of residential apartments that has been limited to a select type of business.

The strip malls require people have a car to visit- they are completely car oriented normally along a busy street with a parking lot larger than the actual retail space (the parking is likely all subsidized). When the parking lot area is dedicated to more space than the actual retail space, it is obviously car oriented. In addition, it does not make sense for businesses to be on the second floor of a strip mall because they would not get as much business if they were located on a ground floor somewhere else.”Conversely, it makes commercial space astronomically expensive, as it has to make up for all the lost 2nd-7th floor development area opportunity,” according to Brown. Now there’s a parking problem at the strip mall for both employees, and customers, plus nearby residents are upset because they are at competition with their neighbors for parking spaces that they are using to go to the strip mall with.

I think Brown sums up the problem extremely well when he says:

This antiquated strategy has long been discredited as economically counter-productive, environmentally unsustainable, and corrosive to good, pedestrian- friendly urban design.

Worse, it has created in Riverdale a city neighborhood in which dozens of high-density apartment buildings lie beyond reasonable walking distance from basic daily goods and services. Tenants, understandably, have become overly dependent upon their cars and obsessed with parking.

Max Stember-Young, Rutgers University Student Intern, Vertices LLC

Material drawn from a letter to the Riverdale Press editor at: http://riverdalepress.com/full.php?sid=9164&current_edition=2009-07-02