Norwalk is about the size of Manhattan, they both are 22.7 square miles, (’kay Norwalk is really 27.8) which is to say that large Chicago style and large New York style pizza are the same size. But I think about that often as I drive around town, past the boundaries that once defined the the three towns that joined together in some sort of land use civil union back in the day.

The New York Times ran a story today on the changing West Village, an area unlike would could have been urban renewalized yet instead has gentrified to the extent that even the first waves of gentrifiers are priced out of their history.

This clean, tree-lined stretch of Perry, still delightful and interesting, and thanks to the commission, still residential, intimate and human in scale, a survivor of the city’s earlier fabric, is also one of the prettiest streets in Manhattan. Over at No. 66, a stately Italianate brownstone from 1866, another busload of tourists, mostly women, has swarmed the block, and they are taking turns posing for pictures as they sit on the high stoop. They’re on the daily “Sex and the City” Tour ($37 each), and these are the very steps that Carrie Bradshaw, the character played by Sarah Jessica Parker, ran up and down at her apartment, which on the show was supposed to be in the East 70s.

I mention this not because Villagers like to show off, which we do, or because our geography is a fetish, which it is, but to illustrate why we Villagers are the hardest working tribe in New York.

“Yo,” I say as I pass them, “You know this house is from the 1800s, and so are most of the others on the street. If you like No. 66, check out the brownstone at No. 70, the best on the block, French Second Empire. Look over there — more Italianate, and over there, there are old Federals, there’s a Beaux-Arts, over there a bit of Romanesque Revival.”

Why it could almost be wall street couldn’t it? Instead we get the “revolutionary” idea that:

A plan to make over the city’s downtown will go before the Common Council tomorrow night at City Hall. The mixed-use redevelopment plan’s improvements would stretch from Wall Street to West Avenue, Leonard Street and Isaacs Street. The council will vote on the project’s master site plan and land disposition agreement - the contract between the city and the developer that includes everything from blueprints to infrastructure requirements and eminent domain information.

…

Members of the council’s Planning Committee praised the project last week, with Chairman Matthew Miklave calling it “revolutionary.” Members said the affordable housing the project could provide is vital. The plan includes 371 housing units, of which 30 percent - or 20 percent more than required by the city’s affordable housing ordinance - could be set aside at below-market rates.

As someone who thinks that every town needs to be doing more about ensuring that a range of housing exists, and that starter homes, rental units, studio and efficiency housing does not get shafted by the profit ratios on the 4 bedroom luxury condo, 4,000 square foot “starter” McMansions, I find it ludicrous to refer to a housing development as “revolutionary.”

A housing development, is a housing development, is a housing development. You can paint the lipstick of mixed use on it, but when you gleefully exhort the benefits of one aspect over the reality of the rest of the project, you end up projecting a one dimensional image. And we all know how one dimensional issues flame out when all the oxygen is used up.

Increasing the tax revenues from the $170k to the projected $2 million is a good thing. Why, you can almost see Dr. Corda whipping up a spending souffle to spend it now.

source: The New York Times, Next Stop, the West Village By GERRY SHANAHAN, September 23, 2007

source: The Advocate, ‘Revolutionary’ downtown plan goes to council for vote , By Tim Stelloh, September 24 2007