On the sixth anniversary of the September 11th attacks, Grist has an interesting post about Manhattan’s financial district. The community’s struggle to rebound has given rise to something the area hasn’t seen in a long time: a residential neighborhood.
The Twin Towers were not a good addition to the financial district from a livability point of view; one of the main goals of the reconstruction there has been to “recreate the grid”; that is, the various smaller blocks that used to be there, the kind that make up the vibrant street life that Jane Jacobs first discussed in her classic book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities.
Grist‘s Jon Rynn points out that this project probably wouldn’t have been possible without billions of dollars in federal aid. But now that the ball is rolling the community is beginning to take care of itself.
Wouldn’t it be nice if the same thing happened in other places?
