Regardless of /why/ cars create pollution, the reality is that they do. If you want to change that, you'll have to make drivers pay the cost of the pollution --- either indirectly, by enforcing emissions regulations, and the higher car prices that ensure, or else directly, through a gas or emissions tax. Either approach will discourage driving; the degree depends on how restrictive the emissions regulations are.

It's fairly specious to say that trees are a solution to air pollution. Although trees can remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, they most certainly do not remove the soot and other large particles that come from motor engines and cause asthma, cancer, and heart disease. Personally, I'm strongly in favor of trees, but because I find them beautiful, relaxing, and pleasant, and not because I think they're going to clean up the air.

chris,

The choices made by drivers /have/ been shown "to produce some sort of verifiable harm". Whether it's the tens of thousands killed in auto crashes every year, the public health consequences of urban air pollution, or the destruction of communities because the public realm is unsafe, the choice to drive has clear and negative consequences that are not borne by drivers.

The policies you recommend (emissions regulations, gas taxes) are good policies, but we as a city and as a state have decided not to act on them. So, as with many other urban issues, we fall back on zoning as an alternative, more communist and less effective approach.

Emissions regulations are the way to address pollution. A greater number of connecting streets (which Manhattan has no lack of) is a good way to address a lack of bikeability or walkability. A heightened gas tax or a vehicle mileage tax would be a good method of reducing congestion, miles traveled and overuse of the infrastructure. There are ways to do these things without curbing consumer choice. I think that many of the readers of this blog simply have a quasi-utopian vision of the good life that they wish to impose upon everybody. It isn't about the environment -- it's about an aesthetic preference for a particular vision of urban life.

+1 on more trees. It seems like many urbanites care mainly about preserving trees that they never see, even while suburbanites have far more trees in their immediate presence than people who live in SF or Manhattan.

Drivers only "create" pollution because the car companies (US Especially) didn't want to make fuel efficient cars and/or no emission vehicles.

It's interesting how everyone is so concerned about pollution, but they are not trying to plant any trees, no one is fighting for more trees in the metropolitan area, they clean the air...

Horror of horrors, raspberries in the winter! We must put an end to this at once! People should only be able to enjoy their favorite fruit within the confines of a proscribed set of months, namely those established by those who consider themselves more qualified to decided for everybody else what is best for them!

"And yet we have a Greenmarket movement that is helping people buy delicious, fresh, sustainable local produce and it gets stronger every year. Perhaps we will also wise up to the fact that locally owned stores and restaurants are more beneficial (and enjoyable!) to their communities than big box stores and start working to change the legal and regulatory environment that disproportionately favors big box development."

I think consumers can decide what their preferences are for themselves. I don't need you dictating what I should eat or what time of the year I should be eating it.

"I grew up in suburbia and moved to New York to get away from this! This is horrendous! Manhattan does *not need* a big box retail outlet with oceans of parking, and it *encourages* people to drive cars not only around the city but into the city, thus adding to our noise, pollution, and congestion woes (not to mention injuries and fatalities)."

and...

"Sure, there are times when you might need to drive to the store, but there are smarter ways to do things."

And I suppose that the two of you consider yourselves qualified to dictate to other people what they "need" and what the "smarter" ways of doing things are, yes? Look, if Manhattan residents do not need a Home Depot, they won't shop there, and the branch will quickly close. If they decide differently and do shop there and if the branch thrives, I guess that will prove you wrong, won't it?

Small businesses don't have any right to a guaranteed income. If they can't provide goods and services that people demand in a manner that customers provide preferable to their competitors, they deserve to go bankrupt. Their local-ness doesn't make them any more worthy of support. (Sentimentality for local-ness is something I will never understand. Modern civilizations are made possible through scale -- the last time humans operated in a truly localized economy, they were hunter-gatherers.)

I even say this as a person who doesn't own a car. I ride my bike everywhere, including to Fred Meyer (the big box of the Pacific Northwest), Target, Home Depot, Trader Joes, and other big chains. The closer in they are, the less necessary it is to drive there. I know that Portlanders will travel to the suburbs to go to useful big box stores, and I am pretty sure that Manhattan residents do the same. Many are probably shopping at Home Depot as we speak, but had to drive all the way out to New Jersey or Long Island to do so. By putting one in Manhattan, you are reducing their trip time and making it possible for people to arrive by alternative means other than a car.

I refuse to believe that the mere fact of having chain stores in Manhattan means we should lie down and passively accept whatever new development horrors come our way. You could argue similarly that because we lost Penn Station to the wrecking ball, there's no point in fighting to preserve our architectural patrimony.

The agricultural industrial complex has completely taken over our grocery stores and supermarkets so that we have raspberries from Chile and apples from Washington State--during New York apple season, no less! And yet we have a Greenmarket movement that is helping people buy delicious, fresh, sustainable local produce and it gets stronger every year. Perhaps we will also wise up to the fact that locally owned stores and restaurants are more beneficial (and enjoyable!) to their communities than big box stores and start working to change the legal and regulatory environment that disproportionately favors big box development.

I think we can encourage new stores without ruining these neighborhoods. In 15 years no one will want to drive and having a nice walkable shopping center will help with real estate values-- please don't stiff Harlem and the Bronx by saddling us with these property value sucking, air-quality destroying white elephants!

Speaking as someone who writes about the commercial real estate market around the country, any boom in retail development creates a glut, and in areas where "power centers" have appeared in big numbers there is a glut.

I see our absence of a glut as more of a threat. Why? Because a shortage eliminates the cheap storefronts that allows the new entreprenurial businesses that people say they want to get started. It is the absence of affordable space that is killing off creativity.

And keeping space affordable by issuing "placards" to allow existing stores to stay in place, which some propose, would just allow them to charge more for worse service due to the absence of competition.

Before the 1961 zoning, commercial space was permitted much more widely. It was restricted intentionally, because interests at the time thought there was too much.

The next wave of "cool" retailing is going to pop up in the burbs -- in cheap storefronts made available by overall excess of supply of space relative to demand.

What era of NYC are most of you living in?

I'm living in the era of a $5-and-rising gallon of gas. What era are you living in?

There is such an absolute point of view on here, so ready and so quick to react to anything that doesn't agree with that accepted, mass point of view. You don't win converts that way. Ever.

Gee, here I thought we had some stimulating discussions on Streetsblog, with a diversity of viewpoints but mostly agreeing on the value of livable streets, widely respected and attracting new readers daily. I was so wrong! Thank you for opening my eyes to the groupthink that goes on here. Please, Jan, what should we do? How can we win converts? You are so clearly experienced and successful at thoughtfully explaining things and winning hearts and minds without name-calling or alienating people. Share your wisdom with us!

The builder wouldn't be developing big box stores with parking if there wasn't an intra-city demand. No one in the suburbs will be driving into Harlem to go to a big box. The development is for city dwellers with (and without) cars which means, if you follow the argument to its logical conclusion, that there are many city dwellers with cars. So that is the era of NY that we live in.

And since Sex & the City and Bloomberg have attracted former suburban dwellers with money to NYC, many have cars and many expect suburban accoutrements. Also, many lower income residents have cars and want access to these stores as well knowing family members from outside the city who get to shop in these stores.

I am not advocating this development but will this property be developed otherwise? Will it lie fallow? Can it be done with input for river access like IKEA? Can it be done with a nicer attitude than automatic demonization of the developer? Yes.

I also find arguments like "Oh no Walmart is next" silly. If I had a family and the cost of food is rising incredibly and I lived within a close driving distance of a Walmart, you don't think that I wouldn't take advantage of low prices to provide for my kids? Walmart may do some bad things but it is not inherently evil. I am just using that as an example.

Also, I live by Rego Park Mall II and go there twice a month and will avow that a huge majority of people are on foot or public transportation. How is that a parking-rich shopping center? Traffic flows pretty well around there.

There is such an absolute point of view on here, so ready and so quick to react to anything that doesn't agree with that accepted, mass point of view. You don't win converts that way. Ever.

People didn't sleep or sit on the floor before the advent of IKEA.