The article discusses the troubling state of public spaces in New York City, exemplified by a neglected playground in Riverside Park that has become a symbol of urban decay. It highlights the ongoing issues of overcrowding, stalled projects, and a general reluctance to address the decay. While initiatives like congestion pricing show promise in alleviating traffic congestion, the article stresses the need for a comprehensive approach to rebalancing urban infrastructure to create a more livable city that can maintain its global status. Without it, public spaces risk becoming abandoned like the worn-out playground.
The playground will be rebuilt someday, though by then it may have sat, cratered and unused, long enough for toddlers to have grown into tweens.
The public realm, the 40 percent of the city that we all collectively own, is a Swiss cheese of neglect and procrastination, seasoned with stalled projects.
Congestion pricing is helping to thin traffic and smooth the way for the buses that, in the rest of the city, still inch agonizingly along.
For New York to endure as a global capital, it must definitively rebalance power in the streets, not just in high-density Manhattan but in Crotona, Hunts Point, and Canarsie.
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