lukasherbert’s Recent Comments

• Click here to view comment in original post

  If you have NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg at the top of your list as an "environmental" mayor, then you've obviously had the wool pulled over your eyes  by a slick media campaign.  PlaNYC 2030 is nothing but a media PR campaign intended to distract people while Mayor Bloomberg pursues a developer-friendly agenda that has been destroying our local environment.  It is not a "comprehensive plan" in the uban planning sense. It is a decoy, it has no substance or policy behind it.

  If you want evidence look no futher than the new Yankee Stadium project, which Mayor Bloomberg championed. That project involved erasing over 20 acres of public parkland from one of the poorest communities in the nation, and replacing it with a stadium and parking. The neighborhood, which has sky-high asthma rates, lost over 300 mature trees, which can not realistically be replaced in the immediate area.  The neighborhood will get new replacement parks, but years later - and most of those parks will have artificial turf made from recycled tire waste, not real grass and trees like the community had before. At a community meeting I asked how Yankee Stadium would comply with PlaNYC 2030 to one of Mayor Bloomberg's staffers.  All I got was a "deer-in-the-headlights" look.  Of course it's not consistent with PlaNYC 2030.  But then again, what is PlaNYC 2030 anyway?  It's whatever Mayor Bloomberg says it is.  He can be "green" one day, and then violate those ideas the next day. That's the great thing when you are a billionaire media company owner who becomes an elected official.  You can use your strength with media manipulation to manipulate public perception.

  The truth is, Mayor Bloomberg has been a fanatic when it comes to replacing naturally vegetated areas with artificial turf, particularly in poor neighborhoods that are not deemed worthy of adequate parks maintenance budgets. He has championed privatization of park space in favor of wealthy residents who can pay for the space instead of keeping them open to all. He has incrased parking requirements throughout the city, necessitating more space for asphalt and less for open space. True, he supported congestion pricing, but think about it - everyone knew that idea was D.O.A. in our famously unprogressive State Legislature, including him. Maybe, just maybe, he just pushed it to beef up the illusion that he cares about the environment at a time he was thinking about a Presidential run?  Maybe, maybe not.  He's not going to fess up about it.

  The bottom line with Mayor Bloomberg is that if you live in a wealthy part of town, being wealthy himself, he'll really go the extra mile for you.  But if you live in those outer areas of the city, watch out - you might lose all of your green space to a developer. How is that progressive? How is that protecting the environment?  How is that environmental justice?  It's not - and you people at Grist have been duped. Check your facts next time!

  On 15 green-leaning mayors posted 6 months, 3 weeks ago 17 Responses

• Click here to view comment in original post

  Adolfo Carrion

  I'm not sure what you mean by "the overall image is of a decent local politician".  Adolfo Carrion is absolutely despised by people in the Bronx who care about the environment.  The guy helped to take away parkland away from some of the poorest people in the city and gave it to the Yankees (one of the richest sports teams in the world) so that they could build a taxpayer subsidized stadium (and parking) on free land! All the kids in the neighborhood now have to wait years for the replacement parkland to be constructed - and much of this new "parkland" will be atop of the new parking structures with artificial turf. It was such a despicable move that nobody here can understand why Obama would put him in charge of anything...unless politics is involved.

  As for Adolfo Carrion being an urban planner - whatever.  He only worked for the NYC Department of City Planning for about 3 years.  Ever since then he's been working for his own political ambitions.  The way the Yankee Stadium deal was done violated many principles of the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) Code of Ethics, particularly with Mr. Carrion's role in locking out the public from hearings and stifling the community visioning process.  I would have liked to have gone after Mr. Carrion for violating this code, but since he never bothered to get accredited as AICP, I couldn't.  Unfortunately, in the planning world, any witch-doctor can hang out his shingle saying he's an "urban planner" and get away with it because the AICP credentials are merely voluntary. Adolfo Carrion has taken full advantage of this system to say he's a "planner" while routinely violating sustainable planning principles as well as our Code of Ethics. On What Obama's picks signal for urban policy posted 10 months, 2 weeks ago 5 Responses