Journal of Landscape

ISSN: 1862-6033 (Print) 2164-604X (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjla20

Beyond appearances: Community activism and City’s

Diane E. Davis & Stephen F. Gray

To cite this article: Diane E. Davis & Stephen F. Gray (2019) Beyond appearances: Community activism and ’s High Line, Journal of Landscape Architecture, 14:3, 74-81, DOI: 10.1080/18626033.2019.1705586 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/18626033.2019.1705586

Published online: 17 Jan 2020.

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Beyond appearances: Community activism and New York City’s High Line

Diane E. Davis and Stephen F. Gray Harvard University Graduate School of Design,1 USA

Abstract Conventional views of the High Line emphasize either its formal and ecological design attributes or its role in gentrification and displacement. While accurate, such assessments mostly ignore the agency-driven, activ- ist agendas that brought the project about and that continue to propel its equity mission both locally and around the world. This essay places the High Line’s implementation and longer-term impacts in the context of citi- zen advocacy. It reveals the strategies and tactics used by local residents to undermine initial opposition by city officials and local developers; it identi- fies the ways that project supporters understood themselves to have become victims of their own success; and it details the organizational and program- matic responses undertaken by the Friends of the High Line to compensate for the project’s negative impacts, ranging from the development of inclu- sive programming to the establishment of an inter-city advocacy network for sharing ideas about how to repurpose industrial infrastructures as pub- lic spaces that reinforce equity and inclusion.

Community activism / neoliberalism / gentrification / landscape urbanism / urban design

74 Journal of Landscape Architecture / 3-2019 Introduction In a neoliberal world where the built environments of cities tion on either its formal and ecological design characteristics or can reveal and readily reinforce the overwhelming power of its gentrification impacts,5 such critiques fail to recognize that capital, glitzy design projects insert themselves as key pro- the project emanated from_and continues to reinforce_com- tagonists in revved-up real estate speculation and the atten- munity activism, both locally and beyond. We further argue dant processes of gentrification. In recent years, a number of that although the citizens who led the struggle to repurpose landscape architects have entered the fray, partnering with an abandoned rail infrastructure into a public park may not ‘starchitects’ to create aesthetically dynamic and ecologically have fully appreciated the project’s larger gentrification risks, performative high-end projects. The double whammy of iconic they soon understood these and other undesirable impacts architecture combined with a landscape sensitivity to natu- following the High Line’s opening, including the possibility ral and green space interventions has generated considerable that the project’s successes might undermine their otherwise acclaim, thus bearing witness to an epistemological and meth- virtuous aim to address local community needs. With a com- odological turn in the design fields known variously as land- mitment to learning from their mistakes, the High Line’s scape urbanism or ecological urbanism.2 While a critical rea- original proponents soon refocused their mission on public lignment of urban design with nature will be essential to our programming for a more diverse citizenry. They later initi- planetary survival, the overshadowing of social considerations ated a ‘trans-local’ advocacy and knowledge-sharing network by ecological sensibilities in contemporary landscape urban- built around anticipating and confronting potential gentrifi- ism also has many adverse effects on urban communities by cation and social exclusion impacts in similar projects being greasing the wheels of market-led property development so deployed elsewhere. With the foundation of the High Line as to benefit an urban elite. Designers creating public open Network in 2017, its community activists now stand at the spaces within this new paradigm risk celebrating ecological centre of inter-city knowledge production that extends far improvements that exacerbate social and income disparities beyond the physical, temporal and geographical space that and increase private property values in their surrounds, thus the High Line currently occupies. Although not readily appar- undermining affordability and expelling long-standing res- ent to the eye of observers who visit the High Line, this iconic idents with limited financial means. project has thus produced much more than what is conven- One might in fact argue that the deployment of landscape tionally identified in landscape urbanism and gentrification interventions in the aestheticization of high-end, speculative discourses, including a growing network of insurgent com- developments has rarely paved a pathway towards broader munity activists seeking to produce ecological designs capa- publicness_in spite of a presumed professional guiding design ble of addressing social concerns. ethos that is eminently public. Even when green spaces that are integrated into private developments are open to the pub- The High Line: lic,3 if attached to upmarket or extravagant architectural pro- Urban design meets landscape urbanism jects they are unlikely to produce a more democratic public As a design intervention, the High Line is equal parts infra- sphere, and often do little to change the consumption logics structure, landscape and architecture, built around an articu- that make green space the next new speculative commodity. lated commitment to post-industrial retrofitting, urban revi- Questions thus arise about the main beneficiaries of design talization, the recuperation of public space and the allure of projects associated with landscape urbanism: how are contri- the natural environment. It is seen by many as a catalyst for butions to (or detractions from) the public sphere measured? the physical transformation and economic growth of a rela- Under what conditions might well-designed public spaces, tively run-down neighbourhood, and has been lauded for its ecologically-informed or otherwise, produce or strengthen significant role in transforming the image and identity of urban inhabitants’ ‘right to the city’,4 and at what scales will ’s entire West Side. such outcomes materialize? What other conditions_social, To many observers, the High Line is perceived as a suc- spatial, political or economic_must also exist to ensure cess. But such views have been tempered by equally pointed socially just outcomes through landscape design? criticisms. In particular, what has drawn concern is the asso- In this brief essay we address these questions with a focus ciation of the High Line’s opening with the dramatic accel- on New York City’s much celebrated_and in some corners, eration of a relatively dormant property market, which has much reviled_High Line. We suggest that although conven- benefitted private investors and fuelled the engines of spec- tional assessments of the High Line rightly focus their atten- ulation, gentrification and, ultimately, displacement. The

Journal of Landscape Architecture / 3-2019 75 Beyond appearances: Community activism and New York City’s High Line Diane E. Davis and Stephen F. Gray

Figure 1 Derelict urban infrastructure in West Chelsea, Friends of the High Line. In: James Corner Field Oper- ations, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, The High Line Foreseen:

F riends of the H igh L ine Unforeseen (: Phaidon Press, 2015)

answer to who benefits, of course, is mixed. One such group in 1999 by Robert Hammond and Joshua David, who several is the public sector, which has gained from the massive rev- years later founded FHL. They mobilized alongside a wide enues generated through property taxes; another is property range of advocates who were collectively motivated by a desire and business owners of local commercial establishments; a to create public spaces that would enhance the overall qual- third and much smaller group includes those employed near ity of life for residents. As a volunteer organization seeking to the High Line in the dizzying array of new retail operations. lobby New York City government to change its plans to demol- According to figures shared by the Friends of the High Line ish an abandoned rail line, Hammond and David did rely on (FHL), the civic organization that mounted the public cam- support from local donors, including wealthy New Yorkers, paign, the High Line’s economic benefits have reverberated at various stages of the project.8 Yet it is important to remem- throughout West Chelsea with spill-over effects including: ber that the idea for the High Line was set in motion by citi- ‘More than 12,000 jobs; 3,000 new residential units includ- zens, continually infused with a commitment to experimen- ing 700 designated as affordable; 1,000 hotel rooms, $5 billion tation and activism in the face of setbacks, and only realized real estate investment; and $64 million in tax revenue for the through ongoing negotiation and conflict between city offi- city each year [pre-Hudson Yards figure], contributing to the cials, motivated designers and mobilized citizens. This, in fact, $1.4 billion in tax revenue for NYC over 20 years.’ 6 For pre- is the High Line’s insurgent history. And thus, the value of cisely these reasons, the High Line has come under intense the High Line cannot be accurately assessed merely by look- criticism, seen by some as an exclusive space for urban elites, ing at its economic impacts, the wildly speculative real estate with three-bedroom apartments that sell for millions of dol- boom to which it contributed, or even its innovative design, lars and where rents have risen nearly ten times faster than without placing them in historical and deliberative contexts. in other Manhattan neighbourhoods. Only by understanding the project’s community-based In light of these economic impacts, the High Line might origins, the vigorously contested and hard-fought process be characterized as a victim of its own success, particularly of implementation that eventually brought the High Line as reflected in the failure to anticipate the speed and scale at into being against all odds, and the subsequent equity and which development would occur around it, and in its role as an social justice concerns that its unanticipated ‘successes’ pro- accelerator of gentrification. These realities have generated the duced among its original advocates, can the true character sense, for some, that the project produced more negative than of the High Line be fully revealed. This history has helped positive externalities because of the adverse impacts on low- it morph into an activist incubator and knowledge-sharing income neighbours, some living in nearby subsidized hous- hub for other cities concerned with implementing pathways, ing.7 Such concerns are warranted. But it is also important to thus suggesting that there is so much more to the story of the understand that the High Line was originally conceived as a High Line than its formal qualities or its role as yet another project of cultural advocacy and citizen design, set in motion cog in the wheel of capitalist speculation in New York City.

76 Journal of Landscape Architecture / 3-2019 Figure 2 Developer campaign flyer, disguised as a grass-roots initiative to demolish the High Line. Chelsea Property Owner’s campaign ‘High Line

F riends of the H igh L ine F riends of the H igh L ine Reality’ (2002) F riends of the H igh L ine

Figure 3 Community Input Card, Friends of the High Line. F riends of the H igh L ine

Figure 4 Design competition proposals: Zaha Hadid Architects; Balmori Associates; Skidmore, Owings and Merrill LLP; studioMDA (2004)

Reimagining the High Line through the lens of citizen activism So what brought it about? Declining industry in the 1970s had left many West Side warehouses empty, the High Line aban- economic argument, not the least because some of the most doned and a diverse but sparse community, much of it low- tenacious and unyielding opposition came from private devel- income and spatially marginalized. Yet starting in the late opers, including the Chelsea Property Owners Association 1990s, the picture began to change. West Chelsea was trans- (Fig. 2), who wanted it demolished. To frame the project in a forming from a neighbourhood of meatpackers, leather clubs, language that could sway such opponents, in 2002 FHL com- NYC counterculture and publicly subsidized low-income New missioned HR&A, an economic development firm led by John York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) housing projects, into Alschuler, to produce a study of its economic feasibility. That one that captured the imagination of white-collar office work- report projected significant returns from tax revenue and ers and real estate developers. Notably, they thought the High from rising property values in West Chelsea over the next Line was in the way and had to go. But this was precisely when twenty years. Accordingly, community activists were forced local activists with strong roots in the community started to to adopt the language of the market in order to advance the push back, arguing exactly the opposite: that the High Line project, which originally was conceived in use-value more should in fact be saved (Fig. 1). than exchange-value terms. In the process, the fate of the High Beyond the persistence and mobilization needed to create Line became intertwined with ongoing political struggles new public amenities for local residents, the push to save the about the role of the market and how to square that with cit- High Line and transform it into a public park also required an izen advocacy.

Journal of Landscape Architecture / 3-2019 77 Beyond appearances: Community activism and New York City’s High Line Diane E. Davis and Stephen F. Gray

In the service of the latter, FHL began fundraising to advance Amanda Burden, then New York City’s planning commissioner, its aims, all the while remaining dedicated to both an inclusive took on the project as partly her own, surely motivated by the public process as well as design excellence. In 2003, for exam- potential tax revenue accruing to the city as much as the idea. ple, they mounted the open design competition that resulted As underscored by Alschuler’s economic feasibility study: ‘Parks in 720 entries from thirty-six countries, mostly from students increase the value of nearby real estate, which leads to higher and ordinary people. Ideas ranged widely: a fairy-tale theme property taxes, and thus the addition of a new park on the High park, a mile-and-a-half-long swimming pool, a roller coaster Line could create an economic benefit for New York City.’11 Bur- and a giant golden lizard. There were also social commentar- den thus developed an urban planning and design strategy that ies including a park-prison-pool where citizens were forced to not only targeted intra-bureaucratic bottlenecks between the visually confront the prison industrial complex, and a black- parks department and transit officials; it also provided new market crawler featuring a woman shooting up in her leg. opportunities to build higher while preserving air and light in Notwithstanding their differences, the strongest common the areas immediately surrounding the High Line. These shifts thread across competition entries was an appreciation for the and the Mayor’s strong support for the project incentivized a existing, untamed natural landscape. Most people loved the wave of new businesses, luxury condominiums, crowds of vis- High Line for what it had already become without any exter- itors and further architectural experimentation. nal intervention: an urban wild (Fig. 3). To be sure, the city’s role in changing regulations to bring The public competition was followed in 2004 by the limited developers on board can be interpreted as the public sector competition with fifty-one entries, based on a formal request kowtowing to the pressures of real estate speculators and oth- for proposals (RFP) to professional design teams. Four teams ers who would derive significant and direct economic benefits were shortlisted, but few proposals seemed to have understood from the realization of the High Line. But it is also important the significance that FHL was placing on the existing ecology to remember that an organized consortium of powerful local of the site. In Zaha Hadid’s proposal, for example, there were real estate developers in the area were among the most vehe- few plants and trees. When asked about this, she said ‘Trees mently opposed to the High Line, working to thwart the pro- are things that architects put in the plan when they don’t ject up until it had nearly broken ground.12 In that sense, the know what to do with a space’ (Fig. 4). 9 city’s support for the project did not necessarily derive from direct pressure by all local developers. Perhaps a more compel- Beyond design imagination: Bureaucratic obstacles ling reason was concern for the economy of the city as a whole, and the struggle to produce a public good as opposed to the interests of local property developers in par- Developing a design for the public good and successfully exe- ticular, explained by the fact that the city was suffering from a cuting it in a vibrant metropolis are two very different things. deep post-9/11 economic downturn.13 That the city would gain In the early twentieth century, the original construction of financially further helped seal the deal,14 particularly given the the High Line involved threading a modular steel construc- fact that it could also claim to be responsive to the citizen-led tion system, built to carry heavy freight loads 14 feet (4.3 m) efforts of FHL to create a new public good. above the ground through a dense grid of existing buildings Some have been quick to point out that benefits associated and blocks. The challenge of the twenty-first century was dra- with building the High Line have been unevenly distributed. matically different, but perhaps equally daunting: to adapt This is true. While developers have reaped the rewards of sky- a historical structure into an elevated public park in a city rocketing property values, and both local West Chelsea resi- where a multiplicity of accumulated regulations and bureau- dents and the broader public gained a new open space, many cratic complexities hovered over and threatened to impede any low- and middle-income families in this and nearby commu- proposed design intervention. Thus, even with funding and nities have faced rising rents. Some local residents, including political support, coordinating these efforts did not come eas- those for whom the High Line park was intended, felt unwel- ily. Unavoidably, pressing questions materialized about how come and never showed up. When confronted with these real- to construct a park in the air, including which agencies had ities, however, FHL became both self-aware and responsive, jurisdiction and how their codes would apply. The project did reinvigorating their equity commitments and going back to not fit within the purview of the Department of Buildings, the drawing board to critically reflect on the question as to ‘for Department of Transportation standards were only applica- whom’ they were working so hard. They soon developed a range ble to motorway overpasses, and the Parks Department had no of initiatives, including diversified programming, intentional precedents or standards to which to refer. Nor did the High community outreach, targeted investments in surrounding Line receive much help from the real estate development com- neighbourhoods and employment of local residents in all these munity. Rather, it had long been seen as an impediment to activities (Fig. 5). And this is where the High Line’s innovative development, so much so that local developers had convinced design becomes central to an assessment of larger impacts: Rudy Giuliani, the mayor of New York when the idea to save indeed, many of the community programming and public ser- the High Line first emerged, to issue a demolition order as one vice activities that were developed by FHL were made possible of his last acts as mayor. When Michael Bloomberg took over by the considerable donations and resources raised by leverag- as mayor, this view changed.10 ing the notoriety of its unique form and image.

78 Journal of Landscape Architecture / 3-2019 F riends of the H igh L ine

Figure 5 Changes in attendance by non-white New Yorkers before and after the Friends of the High Line’s robust and culturally- targeted public programmes agenda (2009-2017). F riends of the H igh L ine

Figure 6 High Line Network partners (2019).

Journal of Landscape Architecture / 3-2019 79 Beyond appearances: Community activism and New York City’s High Line Diane E. Davis and Stephen F. Gray

Going ‘trans-local’: Inter-city advocacy and Conclusion dissemination strategies for urban equity The opening of the High Line in 2009 was neither the park’s The fact that FHL has continued to maintain direct respon- first nor final achievement. In 2019, exactly ten years after sibility of the management and funding needs of the project the first section opened_and twenty years after Hammond since its inception is something to be admired as well as ques- and David’s first meeting_the High Line has not only trans- tioned, or perhaps even lamented by those who feel the pub- formed a neighbourhood by generating one of the most vis- lic sector should be financially responsible for public goods ited public spaces in the city.19 It also stands as an example of that benefit an entire city. Though the High Line would have the potential for landscape infrastructures to generate activ- never materialized without citizen activism, the spillover ism and critical social practice rather than merely reinforce benefits have not been well-redistributed, perhaps least of neoliberalism, gentrification and the production of elite space. all to the High Line itself, but also with respect to funding The High Line should be seen not merely as an infrastruc- more public parks in other less advantaged parts of the city. tural project that produced economic gains for the city and pri- Despite making up less than seven of New York City’s over vate developers. It also exists_and perhaps has had its great- 30,000 acres (12,000 ha) of parkland, and still generating over est impact_because of the agency-driven, activist agendas $64 million in tax revenue per year (more than 10 per cent of that brought the project about and that continue to propel its the entire annual NYC parks budget), FHL receives no public equity mission. A deeper understanding of the implementa- subsidies and only marginal private support in return for this tion processes_the community-led struggles and cross-sector enormous ‘gift’ to the city and its real estate sector. 15 And so alliance building with both public and private sector antag- this civil society group has to fundraise in perpetuity to keep onists that this entailed,20 plus the wilful self-criticism and the public park open.16 This irony has not gone unnoticed. openness to learning from failure as well as success_reveals Yet rather than merely decry this as the reality of neoliberal- the High Line to be a sociopolitical incubator as much as a ism and/or business as usual in a global city like New York, design and economic development project. Wildly success- FHL has turned this recognition into a weapon of potential ful design innovations like these are bound to produce spec- insurgency. In so doing, their focus has necessarily moved ulative revenues for those who have the power and desire to beyond their own backyard and towards other cities under- exploit land values for their personal gain, and a location in taking similar projects. one of the world’s most dynamic cities may have made this Motivated by a genuine aim to find ways to help other cit- almost inevitable. But the High Line came into being only by ies create more equitable public places, and reflecting on the linking design aspirations to community self-actualization_ High Line’s social, environmental and economic challenges, and through efforts that connected politics, policy, activism in 2017 FHL established the High Line Network, a peer-to- and public process in the service of a transformed built envi- peer community of infrastructure-reuse projects that spans ronment. This essay has explored the intersections of activism the country and the globe (Fig. 6).17 Network partners at var- and infrastructure embedded in an iconic landscape urbanism ious stages of development lend their technical assistance project, making the High Line one of the most noteworthy and and advice to one another about how to advance public aims far-reaching urban design projects of our time. through landscape. This ‘trans-local’ advocacy network dis- seminates knowledge on avoiding failures and missed oppor- Acknowledgments tunities that plagued the High Line’s advocates from the The authors would like to acknowledge and thank the entire beginning, ranging from ensuring social inclusion, manag- Green Prize jury: Diane Davis (chair), Stephen Gray, Jeannette ing gentrification to avoid displacement, institutionalizing Kuo, Paola Viganó and Charles Waldheim, for intellectually public programming and negotiating city revenues for pro- rigorous and robust late-night conversations about how to ject development. define urban design excellence. We would also like to thank Thanks in no small part to the High Line, cities across the the Green Prize curatorial and exhibition team for the in- world are reclaiming underutilized infrastructures and reim- depth research, analysis and content production that led to the agining them as public spaces. While contexts and resources writing of this essay. This includes Caroline Filice Smith, Dan vary widely among the cities and industrial reuse projects, the Borelli, Mariana Paisana and Forrest Jessee (posthumously). FHL now operate with a belief that they and every other project team have something to share and learn from each other. It is this capacity to reflect, be self-critical and to constantly rein- vent and expand their mission that sets FHL apart, and that should centre any appreciation for this project not only on its innovative landscape design or even critical design acclaim, but also on its activist origins and longstanding public com- mitments, both locally and ‘trans-locally’.18

80 Journal of Landscape Architecture / 3-2019 NOTES

1 In the interests of full disclosure, the authors of this article opment community as primarily against the project until it 17 Though the Green Prize Committee’s decision to select the were key players in a bi-annual global urban design competi- became more of an inevitability, owing the project’s material- High Line was unanimous, some in the broader design com- tion sponsored by Harvard University (Veronica Rudge Green ization to community activism. munity were vocally ‘unimpressed’ because they thought the Prize in Urban Design) that selected the High Line as its thir- project was already well-awarded and that there was nothing 9 Joshua David and Robert Hammond, High Line: The Inside teenth award recipient. Davis chaired the jury committee and new to celebrate. But their assessments were based primar- Story of New York City’s Park in the Sky (New York: Farrar, Straus Gray was one of four additional members on the jury, com- ily on form. The self-critical and expansive advocacy aspects of and Giroux, 2011). posed of architects, landscape architects and urban designers the project, as exemplified by the recently founded High Line and planners. This piece reflects the authors’ personal views 10 FHL launched a lawsuit against the Giuliani administra- Network in 2017, captured our attention, and explain why the of the deliberation process and why the jury arrived at the tion before gaining the trust and support of his successor, prize was only awarded to the project in 2018. For more infor- decision to award the prize to the Friends of the High Line, Mayor Bloomberg. Even so, ‘in early 2004 [FHL’s] winning ver- mation on the High Line Network, visit the following link: in recognition of the critical importance of citizen activism dict in the Article 78 lawsuit against the City was overturned. https://network.thehighline.org/. in the formulation of the project and its larger successes. The City had appealed, not wanting to allow a precedent to 18 When describing the High Line Network, Robert Ham- The authors are responsible for all views shared in this essay, stand that would require them to take similar cases through mond has said: ‘What I hope the High Line has done is make which do not necessarily reflect the official sentiments of the the land use review process in the future. [FHL] appealed the the crazy credible. The network helps all of us learn from Green Prize Jury and its members, or of Harvard’s Graduate new verdict and took it to the State Supreme Court. They lost each other so that our spaces can reach their full potential’, School of Design. For more information on the prize, the offi- that appeal, but it didn’t matter now, because Mayor Bloomb- https://network.thehighline.org/about/. cial statement of the award to the High Line, and the online erg had changed City policy to support the High Line, and archive of the exhibition mounted to honour the High Line, [FHL] were working closely with City Hall to carry the project 19 In 2015, 7.6 million people visited the High Line (Friends visit the following link: https://urbandesignprize.gsd.harvard. forward.’ Ibid. of the High Line). In 2013, the High Line had 713,224 visitors/ edu/high-line/. acre/year, while Central Park had 47,500 visitors/acre/year. 11 Ibid. See: ‘High Line Visitation Survey’, 2013; Central Park Conserv- 2 For more on this paradigm, see: Charles Waldheim, The 12 Notably, Alschuler’s (HR&A) feasibility study did not ancy Annual Report, 2013 (statistics provided by FHL for 2018 Landscape Urbanism Reader (New York: Princeton Architectural immediately convince sceptical developers of the project’s GSD Exhibition). Press, 2006); Charles Waldheim, Landscape as Urbanism: A Gen- value, least of all the Chelsea Property Owners who commis- eral Theory (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016); 20 See note 7. sioned a counter study that roundly identified the High Line and Mohsen Mostafavi and Gareth Doherty, Ecological Urban- as the primary impediment to development in West Chelsea. ism (Cambridge, MA/Baden, Switzerland: Harvard University ‘Their argument was that you’d get bigger, simpler, and more Graduate School of Design/Lars Müller, 2009), among others. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES valuable building sites without the High Line there.’ Ibid. 3 Steven Lang and Julia Rothenberg, ‘Neoliberal Urbanism, Diane Davis is the Charles Dyer Norton professor of Regional 13 Again, it is important to understand the High Line as Public Space, and the Greening of the Growth Machine: Planning and Urbanism and Chair of the Department of coming from a post-9/11 environment, a context in which New York City’s High Line Park’, Environment and Planning A Urban Planning and Design at Harvard University Graduate 3,000 people had been killed and 100,000 jobs were lost, and 49/8 (2017), 1743–1761. School of Design (GSD). Her research broadly focuses on the where both the public and the economy of the city were still relationship between urbanization and national development, 4 For a discussion of ‘privately-owned public space’, and how reeling from the shock. As John Alschuler noted in a public urban politics, and urban governance. Current projects exam- developers use the lure of open or green spaces to get permit- forum: ‘The question was the survivability of NYC as an econ- ine the relationship between private housing production and ting approval for high-end projects, see: Jerold S. Kayden, omy.’ A framing that, he argued, gave space for considering urban sprawl, the equity impacts of technological innovations Privately Owned Public Space: The New York City Experience something new and innovative. John Alschuler, ‘The High in transport, and the emergence of community land trusts and (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2000). Line: A Debate’, public presentation on 15 November 2018, other alternative property rights in gentrifying urban con- Harvard Graduate School of Design. 5 For a critique on the High Line's failure to democratize texts. At the GSD she also codirects the Master in Design Stud- public space, see: Steven Lang and Julia Rothenberg, ‘Neolib- 14 When public investment begets private investment, there ies (MDES) Risk and Resilience Program. eral Urbanism, Public Space, and the Greening of the Growth are mechanisms that enable the public sector to recover some Stephen Gray is an assistant professor of Urban Design at Har- Machine: New York City’s High Line Park’, Environment and of the value it ‘created’. In the case of the High Line, the city vard University Graduate School of Design (GSD) and founder Planning A 49/8 (2017), 1743–1761; Neil Brenner, ‘Open City or captured value through incremental increases in tax reve- of the urban design consultancy Grayscale Collaborative. His the Right to the City?, TOPOS: The International Review of nue due to increased density and property values, transaction recent academic work includes research lead for the Harvard- Landscape Architecture and Urban Design 85 (2013), 42-45. taxes and an increase in hotel tax revenue. The city also cap- Mellon Urban Initiative ‘Urban Intermedia’, blending archival tured value directly from the public park through the sale of 6 These and other references or quotes from the principals and design research methods to foreground systems of racism development rights and the acquisition of easements from came during personal interviews undertaken for the competi- in the infrastructural and sociospatial development of Boston; private property owners for public stairs and lifts, and back- tion selection process_unless otherwise noted. resilience research with the World Bank examining the inter- of-house spaces. Owners of sites under the High Line, previ- connectedness of social, natural and spatial systems as they 7 This is definitely the position taken in the HBO documen- ously unable to develop their sites, were allowed to monetize relate to informality and vulnerability in Metro Manila; and tary Class Divide, which exposes the social and spatial frictions their unused development rights by transferring those rights cofounding the Global Design Initiative for Refugee Children between families living in public housing and newly arriving to nearby properties. exploring codesign and implementation processes for child- high-income families. For further critiques of the High Line’s 15 Developers have contributed relatively little towards both focused spaces in refugee contexts. gentrification effects, see: Andres Duany and Emily Talen, capital and operating costs. Of the High Line’s US$220-mil- Landscape Urbanism and its Discontents: Dissimulating the Sustain- lion capital costs, developers near Sections 1 and 2 contributed able City (Gabriola, Canada: New Society Publishers, 2013). US$7million, and at Section 3 near Hudson Yards US$29 mil- contact 8 It is common knowledge that some of the main donors to lion. With respect to the High Line’s operating costs, develop- Diane Davis the non-profit that Hammond and David eventually created ers near Sections 1 and 2 now contribute US$0 annually, and 48 Quincy Street (FHL) were New York City property developers, among them those near Section 3 will contribute US$850 thousand/year Cambridge MA 02138 Millennium, who saw the long-term potential of having this towards the park’s annual operating costs of US$14 million. USA project realized. But as will be discussed shortly, a consider- 16 While the FHL has several large donors, they have Phone: +1 617 495 0728 able number of local property developers were opposed to the expanded their donor base to more than 10,000 individual [email protected] project. Moreover, the FHL did not materialize as an organiza- donors each year, exhibiting a broad and growing public tion by that name until 2004, on the advice of John Alschuler Stephen Gray appeal. For example, based on detailed financial records of HR&A and many years after Hammond and David’s initial 48 Quincy Street shared by the FHL, of the nearly 13,000 donors in 2017, efforts in 1999. And while in later phases some of the biggest Cambridge MA 02138 34 gave over US$100,000 and 9,748 gave between US$1 donors were developers, it is also fair to characterize the devel- USA and US$99 dollars. Phone: +1 617 496 0031 [email protected]

Journal of Landscape Architecture / 3-2019 81