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Q&A
Addressing historical distrust while reforming current land use processes
1:39:41
·
3 min
Chair Richard R. Buery Jr. asks Jacob Anbinder how to reconcile reform efforts with the historical distrust of planners and developers that shaped current processes. Anbinder acknowledges the low-trust environment (past and present) but notes widespread current dissatisfaction with the system, suggesting reforms should harness this discontent by framing changes in moral terms that offer a better path forward.
- Anbinder connects the 1975 reforms to an era of low trust in government, similar to today.
- He argues the current system, born of distrust, now fails most stakeholders.
- Reform proposals should acknowledge the history of distrust but present a compelling moral and practical case for why change is necessary and beneficial compared to the status quo.
Richard R. Buery Jr.
1:39:41
I'll ask a question.
1:39:42
I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about, it's a very helpful historic perspective.
1:39:47
But let's talk about trust.
1:39:49
Because I think some of the processes that we describe that if you say are no longer doing the work they intended to do are reactions to a well earned distrust of of, pick your point then, developers, city planners of the past.
1:40:07
And so how do you how would you think about the system that, addresses the core problem, which is that it's not surprising if you constrain supply and have an effect on on cost, with the very, I think, well earned desire by communities, to have a voice in how their communities develop.
Jacob Anbinder
1:40:28
Absolutely.
1:40:29
I you know, it's it's it's such a good question.
1:40:31
And and in fact, it gets to many of the themes that I talk about when I talk about the '75 charter revision.
1:40:38
The core reason that, reforming city government to devolve city planning power to the level of the community boards, the core reason that that became so popular in the seventies was that similar today to today, it was an era of low trust in in government, not just in city government.
1:40:57
You know, this was an era when, crime was much higher than it is, today.
1:41:01
The city budget obviously was facing calamity.
1:41:04
It was not clear if your garbage was gonna get picked up in a given week.
1:41:08
And then, of course, low trust at the same time, in the federal government manifested in things like Watergate in opposition to the Vietnam War.
1:41:17
I I think a core issue, and I I realize that this this doesn't, answer your question so much as contextualize it.
1:41:24
A core issue for you guys today is that we are in an era when, in some ways, trust in government is not that much higher than it was in the seventies.
1:41:33
And in some aspects, you might argue that it's, lower.
1:41:38
The the one thing that I will say that is that creates an opportunity here is that it's clear from seeing how land use politics works in New York City today that all the parties that were on board with the system that was put in place in the seventies and and modified in the nineties, nearly all parties today agree that that system no longer serves really the interests of anyone except maybe the most NIMBY interest groups, in the city.
1:42:10
And as professor Bean pointed out, a system that was supposed to give neighborhoods the ability to sort of plan their own future has instead resulted in, one might even argue overdevelopment in places in neighborhoods that are more vulnerable that communities that have less political say and underdevelopment in neighborhoods where it's the opposite.
1:42:29
And and so I would say that my advice to you guys, and it's difficult, but it it needs to be on this to try to find a way to to con to frame the changes that need to be made to the city's land use policies, in sort of moral and ideological terms that take advantage of and harness that mistrust and and attempt to present to people, an answer as to why the system that's going to be put in place, more adequately responds to the dissatisfaction that people have with the current, system and how it's produced this housing shortage.