“I like to say that our ambitions are as broad and far-reaching as those of Robert Moses, but we judge ourselves by Jane Jacobs’s standards,” Ms. Burden said.
REALLY?
Her fans say that Ms. Burden is a visionary who will leave behind a much-improved city. “There is no question that under Amanda’s leadership, New York has experienced a renaissance,” said Vin Cipolla, president of the Municipal Art Society of New York, “with more development of parkland, waterfront and infrastructure over the last 10 years than in the 100 years before it.” But critics say that the sum total of Ms. Burden’s ambitions will be a gentrified city that no longer has a place for working-class New Yorkers. “The overall effect of the city’s rezonings has been incredibly dramatic in terms of the creation of expensive, market-rate housing and typically middling at best in terms of affordable housing,” said Andrew Berman, the executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation.
