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Comprehensive-Planning Fantasies
New York’s city council hopes that by extending the land-use process, it can make hard choices easier.
New York
Economy, finance, and budgets
In 1936, New York City adopted a new city charter, creating the City Planning Commission and charging it with drafting a master plan that would “provide for the improvement of the city and its future growth and development and afford adequate facilities for the housing, transportation, distribution, comfort, convenience, health and welfare of its population.” Somehow, the Commission never got around to producing this master plan, but the next version of the charter, in 1961, was even more ambitious, adding “business,” “industry,” and “recreation” to the list of “adequate and appropriate” facilities to be included in the plan. Mayor John Lindsay, elected in 1965, was determined to produce a plan as called for by the charter; in 1969, the Plan for New York City was released as a draft in six volumes.