The last few weeks have been a slippery ride here in the tri-state region, from over-hyped "Snowpocalypse" and "Snowmaggedon," to the more mundane reality of flooded crosswalks and slushy streets.

Heavy snow is something of a resilience test for cities. Here in New York City, we do pretty well. No matter how heavy the previous night's fall, the path from my building to the sidewalk has been cheerfully cleared and gritted by the super's husband. Under the ominous snow-laden sky, plow-equipped sanitation vehicles roll lights blazing, and buses keep rolling on their chained wheels. The all-night whale song of plows grinding up the hill outside is exciting, different, yet reassuring. There's something awe-inspiring and dramatic in this city's effective response to snow, even though more mundane services like daily garbage collection tend to fall by the wayside.

Earlier this winter, I enjoyed several weeks of exceptionally wintry weather on the other side of the Atlantic, in my native Great Britain. Right after Christmas, a deep freeze settled over the UK. Snow fell, and then it stayed put. The extent of the snow was dramatically illustrated by a front page satellite photo showing a white island, with darker blobs indicating the cities. As well as breathtaking photos, the front pages also carried a blizzard of snow drama, increasingly shrill and doomy: National grit stocks running low! UK's only two salt mines working around the clock! Chaos! Cold snap to last til April! Table salt manufacturers donating salt for roads! Gas rationing ahead! Government in emergency talks! Grit runs out!

It was certainly very cold and very icy, by British standards. But much of the news coverage was over-excited - gas remained on, trains ran reasonably on time, and major roads were cleared (perhaps thanks to table salt).

But pedestrians got a bum deal. Unlike in American cities, where responsibility for the sidewalk lies with the adjacent property owner, British "pavements" (as we call them across the ocean) are maintained by each city or town's government. And perhaps because such heavy quantities of snow were unusual, local governments were not up to the task, and our pavements were mostly left uncleared. Progress on foot was slow and treacherous - I fell over several times, and saw many others fall.

After several days of slipping and sliding, my appreciation for East Coast snow management strategies began to rise. Where are your bags of Eze-Melt, Sno-B-Gon, snow blowers, and those giant plastic shovels?, I thought. My British neighbors clearly did not have the right tools: the sight of one elderly gentleman bent double, scattering cooking salt and trying to break up ice with the back of an axe sticks in my mind. Why doesn't every home have a bag of salt and grit? Where is the appreciation for chemical de-icer and those magic blue pellets so beloved by building owners? Get out your backhoe, yo. Can't we Englishmen understand that snow can be defeated - if you simply use enough salt, grit, and fossil fuel?

As the ice melted, so did my fantasies of flamethrowing municipal vehicles and aerial drops of blue grit. Nagging fears about the material and energy intensity of snow control started to resurface: What is that blue grit anyway? All that salt can't be good for local water bodies, right? More broadly, are our material and energy costs correctly calibrated, if we consider it proper to use backhoes to clear parking lots, and then drive that ice miles away for off-site dumping?

Recently, I heard about Helsinki's use of small pebbles instead of salt - spread onto the sidewalks and layered up over the winter, they are collected for re-use next year. Stones that get washed into the drains can easily be filtered out and saved. Perhaps this is a model for cities here - the quarrying and transport of tiny stones must be more efficient than one-time use of salt.

I have no firm answers here, just thoughts pushed one way or another by the wintery white stuff falling on both sides of the Atlantic. Whatever the means used, I know I'm grateful for a city that continues to work, even in snowy weather.

Long Island really has it all. Safe neighborhoods with beautiful homes, great schools and universities, a beautiful coastline, and a high-quality rail network that links it to one of the economic and cultural capitals of the world.

Then again, Long Island also has congested roads, unaffordable homes, diminishing open space, limited employment opportunities and a shrinking population of young people.

Which is the true portrait of Long Island?

Truth is, both are. And so, as any makeover expert will tell you, if Long Island really wants to put its best face forward and remain a competitive and attractive place in the region, it should focus on enhancing its best qualities and improve on its weaknesses.

RPA was recently involved in two projects on Long Island, the results of which offer a kind of guide to making the most of the Island's assets. If willing to consider a new way forward, Long Island could just be transformed into the Island it was born to be.

The first project, the NYMTC-funded Long Island 2035 Visioning Initiative, was a collaborative effort between RPA, Vision Long Island, Sustainable Long Island and University Transportation Research Center, and it was guided by an Executive Committee managed by the Long Island Regional Planning Council. The purpose of the project was, in effect, to hold a very large mirror up to the Island. (And it was one of those high-magnification mirrors with lights that really show all the bumps and wrinkles.) By looking ahead to the year 2035 - when NYMTC projections show that the Island could be gaining 461,000 new residents and 280,000 new jobs if the capacity is available - the report outlines what challenges the Island will confront if it continues to develop as it has so far. But the report isn't all bad news.

More than 150 of Long Island's municipal leaders and stakeholders participated in an interactive, visioning workshop to identify strategies to accommodate the economic growth projected by NYMTC without sacrificing Long Island's greatest assets. Poring over a very large map of Long Island with small chips, each representing a certain number of new residents or new jobs, participants were asked to place these chips in appropriate locations throughout the Island.

It was immediately clear that current sprawl development patterns could not accommodate the growth projected by NYMTC - there simply is not enough land left. And so, participants developed three alternative scenarios that do accommodate the projected growth and preserve the natural landscapes that are Long Island's best feature.

One scenario was called "Distributed Growth," and it closely resembled the Island's current sprawl development pattern, but in a more controlled and thoughtful manner, with some more growth accommodated in existing downtowns, and some valuable open spaces preserved.

Another alternative, "Transit Communities," would capitalize on the extensive LIRR rail network by focusing much of the growth in the Island's over 100 downtowns and station areas, where existing infrastructure can easily accommodate more development.

A third alternative, "Growth Centers," also looks to downtowns, but emphasizes building intense mixed-use communities in large underutilized spaces, including former industrial sites and airfields. These last two alternatives would take development pressure off Long Island's remaining open space, which could then be permanently protected with aggressive open space preservation measures.

None of these scenarios would do away with the Long Island we all know and love. The Island would continue to be predominantly made up of single-family neighborhoods. The only difference is that most new housing development would be in multi-family neighborhoods, mostly in downtowns and on land that is currently underdeveloped. This is a dramatically different approach than Long Island is taking today.

But just how much developable land is available within downtowns and around rail stations on Long Island? How many homes could be accommodated?

Those were the central questions of a second recent RPA research project, this time for the 2010 Long Island Index. The new "Places to Grow" report shows that there are roughly 8,300 acres of unbuilt land in over 150 village downtowns and rail station areas. The Long Island Index Interactive Map website shows parcel after parcel of parking fields, vacant lots and otherwise unbuilt land, right in the heart of downtowns all across Long Island. Developing only half of the 8,300 acres with a mix of townhouses, garden apartments and apartment buildings could yield 90,000 residential units. By contrast, 90,000 single family homes would consume the rest of the Island's remaining unprotected open space.

The "Places to Grow" report helps to shine a light on those downtowns with the greatest development potential. The good news is, there are a number of municipal leaders and elected officials on Long Island who understand these opportunities and are working to re-make their communities into 21st century editions. As they set the example, there is hope that Long Island can use these coming years to unlock the great potential within.

After years of "will it? or won't it?," it appears this week that Moynihan Station will, in fact, happen. While we're still a long way from the entire state-of-the-art-light-filled-Amtrak-train-hall-in-Farley project, the stars have finally aligned for initial transportation improvements that will begin to turn the Farley Post Office into a rail station.

On Tuesday, Moynihan Station was awarded an $83 million federal grant to complete the budget for a $250 million first phase that includes providing two new entrances to the station through the corners of the Post Office building, doubling the length and width of the West End Concourse (mostly used by LIRR) so it provides access to more platforms, adding 13 new sets of escalators/elevators/stairs down to the platforms, as well as other less sexy but equally important infrastructure upgrades (ventilation, catenary, etc.).

The new glass-domed train hall that New Yorkers have been promised for years will be built as part of Phase Two, and will cost more than $1 billion. Funding for that phase has yet to be identified, other than the fact that the site comes with two million square feet of development rights. But Phase One is a necessary pre-requisite to Phase Two, and even if Phase Two is postponed, the improvements part of Phase One will have immediate and tangible benefits. For one, commuters will be able to exit the platforms and the station west of Eighth Avenue, avoiding Penn Station altogether and relieving congestion there.

And then on Wednesday, Gov. David Paterson announced that New York State and Amtrak had signed a Memorandum of Understanding that outlines the terms of agreement under which Amtrak will move to Farley once the actual station is built. Paterson also officially charged his Empire State Development Corporation as well as the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey with seeing the project through. This will involve coordinating the multiple agencies involved, negotiating a final agreement with Amtrak, and seeking out federal funding. Since the Port Authority is a bi-state agency, Gov. Christie and the Port's board will also have to agree to take on the project.

The money's lined up, the MOU with Amtrak is signed, environmental approvals are in their final stages, and design plans are nearly complete. I'm afraid to say it out loud, but construction might actually begin by the end of the year.

The Broadway experiment will not only remain, but will prosper.

The flow of more people walking, strolling and sitting inside the city's beating hearts of Times and Herald squares remain. Not just good, but great!

This month the New York City's Department of Transportation recommended that the trial experiment of closing portions of Broadway at Times and Herald Squares to vehicle traffic and opening them to pedestrians be made permanent.

In coming to its recommendation, the city's DOT under Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan assessed how well the experiment performed in several desired objectives.

One motivation for this project was to eliminate the diagonal though-street that complicates and slows traffic where Broadway crosses both Sixth and Seventh Avenues. The report concluded that the traffic got better in the north-south directions and little worse in the east-west directions - overall a plus but not an overwhelming one.

While the benefits to vehicular traffic were minor, those to pedestrians, to businesses and to the general atmosphere of these people centers were immense.

Sidewalk space in Times Square doubled and even tripled in spots, easing the crush of pedestrian congestion. Previously, walking through the area was unpleasant; pedestrians were unable to walk side by side with friends; others were forced to walk in the street to make any progress. For those not interested in gawking at the sights like tourists, it was impossible to walk at New York speeds.

Now the plight of pedestrians has eased. A sure sign is that walking off the curb and into the street has dropped by 80%. Crosstown crosswalks are shorter now that former street space is dedicated to walkways. The result: 29 fewer injuries in the last six months, which works out to about 600 fewer in the next ten years. No small feat.

The biggest plus: there are now places to sit and watch the City go by, either to rest a while from the rigors of touring or just take a break from the stresses of the day.

Finally, this project's success will lead to others around the City, as New Yorkers realize that catering to vehicle traffic at the expense of the rest of us is a mid-20th century approach that must now move over to the approach of making the City a more livable place for all of its residents and those that visit us.

New York is in a growth mode, but are New Yorkers prepared to accommodate that growth? Clearly, increased density has to be embraced, both as an economic goal and a social good, but are New Yorkers ready to accept more people? Residents of the city (and region) often react reflexively against the idea of more people in their neighborhoods - at the same time that they protest the rising costs of living here.

Far too frequently, development has gone forward without the upgrades to infrastructure and services it demands. Thus many New Yorkers doubt that the city has the transit, roads, water, schools, and power in place to handle its projected one-million-people increase in population - and end up opposing virtually any new project proposed.

Meanwhile, the city has for decades suffered from a shortage of affordable housing that has barely been eased by the tens of thousands of new units built since 2001. The key to reducing the cost of housing is increasing its supply. But how do we do that in an economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable manner?

The Radical Housing panel discussion at RPA's 2010 Regional Assembly will break through the clichés and familiar arguments to highlight new solutions to a seemingly permanent housing crisis. RPA Senior Fellow and Center for Urban Innovation Director Julia Vitullo-Martin will moderate the discussion among five leading innovators in housing policy and production.

Jerilyn Perine, former City Housing Commissioner and currently Executive Director of the Citizens Housing & Planning Council, contends that land throughout the region should be leveraged to accommodate the coming population growth. At the moment, though, the opposite seems to be happening. The policy impulse of New York's City Planning Commission for the last few years has been towards downzoning residential neighborhoods - precisely the ones that could house more families if density were encouraged. She cites research under way by NYU's Furman Center that indicates that downzonings have outweighed upzonings, reducing housing capacity in vast swaths of the city.

Perine and Rosanne Haggerty, founder and President of Common Ground (which has consistently provided excellent housing for homeless people that is so neighborhood-oriented its developments fit seamlessly into their blocks), have been spearheading a campaign to re-examine the housing unit and advocate for changes in regulations that relate to housing and space standards, so as to meet the needs of a 21st century population in a 21st century city. They have found that some of the best solutions to the housing affordability quandary are illegal - forbidden by building codes, wage regulations, housing standards, environmental restrictions, and so on.

Dedicated to preventing homelessness among known vulnerable groups as well as eliminating chronic homelessness, Common Ground recently created a partnership with the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) and top social-services organizations to serve four major public housing projects in Brownsville, Brooklyn.

Brooklyn is the epicenter of innovation at NYCHA, as its new General Manager, Michael Kelly, embarks on the agency's first-ever demolition of an entire high-rise complex, Prospect Plaza. Other cities throughout the nation have replaced similar projects with smaller buildings designed to fit into their neighborhood context, but until now, New York has always chosen to renovate at great expense rather than to rebuild from scratch. Prospect Plaza may be a sign that New York is finally ready to rethink and remake its underfunded public housing - finding ways to move from segregating low-income families in forbidding, isolated towers to designing economically sustainable mixed-income communities.

In this era of climate change and energy consciousness, the green of economic sustainability goes hand in hand with the green of environmental sustainability - the focus of Jonathan Rose, president of the Jonathan Rose Companies, a leader in creating socially, economically, and environmentally responsible development and vibrant, healthy communities. The firm recently received the first Green Retrofit Program loan awarded by the Department of Housing and Urban Development from funds made available by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (aka the federal economic stimulus package). The loan will finance $3.6 million of a $7.4 million project to increase energy efficiency, reduce utility costs, and improve indoor air quality at the West 135th Street Apartments, 198 units of Section 8 assisted housing located in 10 contiguous six-story, elevator buildings in central Harlem. The great challenge for developers like Rose is figuring out how to systematically transform aging housing stock, as has been done elsewhere, particularly Germany. Can a replicable model be developed from individual green projects?

The problem of scaling up all kinds of successful local innovations to have widespread - national or even global - impact is of fundamental interest to Darren Walker, the Rockefeller Foundation's Vice President for Foundation Initiatives. As the former CEO of the groundbreaking Abyssinian Development Corp., he is especially interested in housing issues and solutions and will highlight key innovations across the country.

Beyond presenting their own pioneering initiatives, Radical Housing panelists will discuss an array of zoning, financing, and building techniques that should be used to produce homes affordably. The group will take on questions such as: What proportion of housing should be market-rate and what proportion subsidized? If subsidized, by whom? What governmentally imposed barriers to building will impede development? How can we redesign the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure to tie infrastructure review to development, as cities using comprehensive land use planning already do? How can we exploit the opportunities that come with downturns - lower financing and labor costs - to repurpose orphaned new construction for below-market residents? And what better context than the Regional Assembly to consider what options the suburbs offer for supplementing the housing stock - and helping the region compete for talent with other world metropolises?

New Jersey's planning framework is likely to change in significant ways before the end of the year. The State's affordable housing model, state planning system, environmental protection rules, economic development incentives, and transportation infrastructure funding mechanism all hang in the balance. Whether this change will be for the worse or the better depends on the choices the new Republican governor and the Democratic legislature make in coming months.

How did the political appetite to tackle so many complex and seemingly intractable issues suddenly develop, after years of procrastination and complacency? A new Republican Administration in Trenton - headed by former prosecutor Chris Christie - a re-energized Legislature, a newly assertive business community and a restless electorate, all prodded into action by the state's dire fiscal crisis and bad economy, seem to have created a collective willingness to consider, and perhaps embrace real change.

Few would dispute that there is much room for improvement: the state's affordable housing system and the Council on Affordable Housing (COAH), the agency responsible for administering it, have been bogged down in legal challenges for years and become a source of intense frustration for all parties involved, including affordable housing advocates. The State Planning Commission is on life support and seems unable to play any constructive role in public discourse. And the state's byzantine environmental protection regulations have become a straight-jacket that in the opinion of many actually frustrate improved environmental outcomes. This year, Transportation Trust Fund receipts - used to fund much needed transportation projects - will be entirely consumed by debt service, and without a state match NJ will lose its share of federal transportation dollars. Independent assessments repeatedly single out New Jersey as the state with the worst climate for business. By several accounts, the state has for years been hemorrhaging high net worth residents. And the property tax burden is the highest in the nation.

Faced with this burden of needed change, the new Christie Administration must work with a state government that is not only insolvent but highly dysfunctional. Particularly in the world of planning, state agencies have a history of openly feuding with each other, frustrating or negating each other's initiatives and investments, and failing to project a strategic vision for the state's future.

The new Administration has shown considerable gusto in tackling these issues, a refreshing change from previous administrations, which seemed content with a variety of gimmicks that postponed the day of reckoning. The new Administration's transition reports provide a window into this desire for change. They include suggestions not only for reducing the size of state government, but also for tackling some of the state's structural problems. The transition report for the NJ Department of Environmental Protection was particularly cogent in its analysis of the Department's shortcomings.

Meanwhile the Democratic legislature - having twice enacted a permit extension law against the strident opposition of many environmental groups - is tackling a wide menu of proposed legislation that would reform state planning, eliminate COAH, and overhaul municipal affordable housing obligations, as well as change some environmental programs and modify the state's planning enabling legislation. Depending upon whom one talks to, the proposed bills are seen as a promising breath of fresh air or an opportunity for bad things to happen. Possibly both. For while this legislative attention to planning matters is not unwelcome, there is a real danger that the vast and complex changes under consideration will create yet more chaos instead of providing the much needed solutions.

Perhaps influenced by the current wave of zombie and vampire movies, the Governor promised during his campaign to "drive a stake through COAH's heart," signaling his displeasure with the state's affordable housing agency. True to form, among the 13 Executive Orders he has signed in just a few weeks, EO 12 creates a Housing Opportunity Task Force with a broad mandate to propose, within 90 days, solutions for a wide range of issues involving state planning and affordable housing mandates. A tall order indeed, but a necessary one.

The Governor has also prudently asked the Legislature for a "time out" to allow this Task Force and his new Administration to sort through the myriad details and evaluate the implications of any proposed changes. This seems a wise move considering the complexity of the issues and the potentially long lasting effects of the resulting policy changes. We hope the legislative leadership will take this to heart.

It remains to be seen whether this window of opportunity will bring New Jersey much needed reforms. Initial indications are mixed. Even while manifesting a healthy openness to considering new ways of doing things, the Governor has also been hastily closing possible options for some of the state's structural problems. He has ruled out an increase in the state's gas tax (one of the lowest in the nation) or new tolls on some of the state's highways - ideas floated by his transportation transition team - as possible solutions to recapitalize the Transportation Trust Fund. Every door that is closed will make it more difficult to find an effective, lasting solution. And some doors, when closed, will hurt some people a lot more than others.

Particularly disturbing is that after less than a month in office the Governor has already demonstrated a lack of appreciation for the critical roles transit plays in New Jersey's economy and quality of life. His budget proposes cutting $33 million from NJ TRANSIT's budget, the equivalent of 1.5 months of state subsidies. While this is not the end of the world, it does set a certain tone. In his budget address, the Governor stated that "the state cannot continue to subsidize NJ TRANSIT to the extent it does. So I am cutting that subsidy. NJ TRANSIT will have to improve the efficiency of its operations, revisit its rich union contracts, end the patronage hiring that has typified its past, and may also have to consider service reductions or fare increases. But the system needs to be made more efficient and effective." Significantly, no reduction is proposed for NJDOT's much larger budget. Apparently transit patrons (3/4 of which ride the less than glamorous NJ TRANSIT buses) are better able to afford fare increases than motorists can bear an increase in tolls or the gas tax.

Plan for Red Hook to the Navy Yard (Community Boards 2 & 6)

Plan for Greenpoint & Williamsburg (Community Board 1)

Greenway Design Principles

Greenway Stewardship & Maintenance Plan