It’s worth noting that it’s been the New York Regional Plan Association that’s been catalyst for the remarkable post 9/11 Civic Alliance, focused on the future of Lower Manhattan, that I described in a late July column. In times past things probably would have been different: the officially-constituted Lower Manhattan Redevelopment Corporation and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, with limited public input, might well have called all the shots. Correct or not, many people would have seen a repeat of the political maneuvering, insider deals, top-down approaches typical of New York (and so many other cities) through their history.
But when there’s a broad-based, citizen-based organization ready to join the debate — one like RPA — the dynamic shifts quickly. And not just civically, but geographically. Lower Manhattan’s future is not just a New York City affair– it matters immensely across the other boroughs, in New Jersey and New York. RPA is able to bring those voices into the discussion, and did at the July 20 event attended by over 4,000 citizens.
Not that managing the new Civic Alliance is easy. It started that way, notes RPA president Bob Yaro, as more groups than he anticipated poured into the early post-9/11 organizational sessions. But now, he notes, “We have 85 contentious members. We take this De Toqueville stuff of an active civic sector very seriously. But believe me, the care and feeding of coalitions is not for the feint hearted. You have to listen and compromise and share responsibility.”
The other big innovation, the focus of my column last week, was the highly imaginative, high-tech citizen consultation process designed by Carolyn Lukensmeyer and her AmericaSpeaks group. Carolyn’s earlier breakthrough had been in a big citizen-based planning effort for Washington, D.C. It’s not perfect: synthesizing big group reactions on the fly is a science in the making. But clearly Carolyn set a standard others will be emulating into the future.