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Panel Discussion: New York Neighborhoods and the Impact of Development

Since Robert Moses's time, there has been a paradigm shift in the way development takes place in New York City. This panel will address the nature of that shift and explore how present-day developers and public agencies address such key issues as the design and scale of projects, local participation in decision marking, and the role of historic preservation in the future of the city's communities. Richard A. Kahan, winner of the Robert Moses Achievement Award and president of The Urban Assembly, will be joined by Paul Goldberger, author and architecture critic for The New Yorker; Michael Kwartler, principal of Michael Kwartler and Associates, and founding director of the Environmental Simulation Center; and Robert Tierney, chairman, New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission.

Since Robert Moses’s time, there has been a paradigm shift in the way development takes place in New York City. This panel will address the nature of that shift and explore how present-day developers and public agencies address such key issues as the design and scale of projects, local participation in decision marking, and the role of historic preservation in the future of the city’s communities. Richard A. Kahan, winner of the Robert Moses Achievement Award and president of The Urban Assembly, will be joined by Paul Goldberger, author and architecture critic for The New Yorker; Michael Kwartler, principal of Michael Kwartler and Associates, and founding director of the Environmental Simulation Center; and Robert Tierney, chairman, New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission.

Photo of Aaron Donovan
Before he began blogging about land use and transportation, Aaron Donovan wrote The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund's annual fundraising appeal for three years and earned a master's degree in urban planning from Columbia. Since then, he has worked for nonprofit organizations devoted to New York City economic development. He lives and works in the Financial District, and sees New York's pre-automobile built form as an asset that makes New York unique in the United States, and as a strategic advantage that should be capitalized upon.

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