Currently, multiple agencies are accountable for managing New York City’s public realm.
Functionally, this creates a lack of coordination that results in missed opportunities. Each agency or department works within their own silos, unable to build upon each other’s work and develop multiple public benefits. This isolation creates conflicts for determining who is responsible for maintenance and design, and exacerbates inconsistencies and inequities. Most importantly, this has profound real-world impacts on public space and vulnerable communities throughout the city.
We need a new way to integrate our thinking on these critical areas. Our public spaces are better when we think about them together. APSL proposed creating a new Office of the Public Realm that would have a role in decision-making around public works projects, maintenance of the public realm, and the design and function of public space. We enthusiastically support the Mayor’s announcement to create this critical position. New York needs this citywide facilitation to foster effective coordination, allowing individual departments and agencies to do their best work to ensure we all have equitable access to space and resources.
New York City is not doing enough to create and maintain equitable public spaces.
Let’s change that.
What is the “public realm”?
The public realm in the broadest sense encompasses all publicly accessible exterior spaces. Composed of streets, sidewalks, parks, plaza, waterfronts, natural areas, and more, this system of public spaces represent roughly 40 percent of the city’s land mass.
Open space is a more narrowly defined term for publicly accessible parks, playgrounds, waterfronts, and plazas used primarily for leisure, play, or sport, or that is set aside for the protection and enhancement of the natural environment.
“When walking down a New York City street, the average person doesn’t experience public space in terms of jurisdiction. But, unfortunately, that is the approach historically taken when planning and building the public realm.”
— Mitchell Silver, Former NYC Parks Commissioner
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