Shape of the City
Con Howe and Dean Macris
Architecture critic Paul Goldberger speaks with Dean Macris, Director of Planning of the City of San Francisco, and Con Howe, Director of the Manhattan Office of the New York Department of City Planning. This is the final part of the fourth-annual Shape of the City series at the 92nd Street Y. Macris summarizes the new plan for San Francisco which was written in 1983 and passed into law in 1985. The plan greatly reduced “what can be built in downtown San Francisco,” improved the funding of housing developments, and encouraged the installation of public art. Howe likewise discusses the content of a recent midtown zoning ordinance. Macris and Howe compare planning policy standards, noting that the San Francisco planning commission has significant power over what is built in the city, down to a subjective determination of “architectural quality,” while New York has just a baseline of standards that developers must meet to build in the city. The discussion is followed with questions from the audience.
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