2. The basic problem of community boards is that they’re constructed to be parochial and toothless. The 197a plans are non-binding, which means the city ignores them; this in turn sometimes makes community boards write half-assed plans. And because board members are appointed and not elected, they don’t always have the legitimacy of popular support.

Often, making an office appointed reduces its power. I think it’s Arendt Lijphart who noted how in some parliamentary democracies, they deliberately have the ceremonial president elected by the legislature and not popular vote in order to avoid giving him too much legitimacy.

3. Democracy means living with decisions you don’t like. Not all community boards are going to be pro-transit or pro-walkable streets. When the city sells the 34th Street closures as reallocating space to pedestrians, don’t be surprised if people in Flushing and Sheepshead Bay make the same analysis of their neighborhoods and find that most of their people drive.

(Note: I sat on a Community Board in the 1980s)

There is nothing wrong with having interested citizens providing advice, but don’t think that unelected people should have decisionmaking power in a democracy, if we still are one (and with term limits and public campaign finance I think NYC, if not NY State, qualifies).

Perhaps there should be more of them: local block captains and the like.