High Line takes a hit

It is very exciting to have Robert Hammond here in October for the Thriving Neighbourhoods conference. But there is a debate around some of the unintended consequences (though I am not sure that they have been well-articulated in this passage from Sahra Mirbabaee of the Sustainable Cities Collective):

The High Line has been a catalyst for gentrification that, according to Neil Smith, "is no longer about a narrow and quixotic oddity in the housing market but has become the leading residential edge of a much larger endeavor: the class remake of the central urban landscape." The project exudes a "cool" image of feigned neglect, despite the troubling irony in this aesthetic. Commodifying ostensibly lower-class spaces for supposedly higher classes is both patronizing and divisive. Liz Diller, one of the lead architects for the High Line, joked that "the great success [of the project] has been introducing New Yorkers to doing nothing." This comment rests on a key oversight: Not everyone earns enough from their work to afford even a few hours of "doing nothing" at the High Line. And would crowds of people without disposable income be welcome in a neighborhood increasingly structured around spending money? Some experience a sense of not belonging there, as one visitor remarked: "I felt like I was in the home of a neatnik with expensive tastes, afraid I would soil the furnishings."

It will be interesting to explore the High Line model within issues of gentrification and the cost of housing in October...