Another Problem With Zuccotti Park: It Isn't a Very Good Park

Zuccotti Park, the privately-owned public space that’s been the center of the Occupy Wall Street movement, is finally set to be cleared out for the first time since it began, so owner Bookfield Office Properties can clean it up. While the official line is that the protesters will be allowed to return, new post-clean-up rules banning tents and sleeping bags could very well put an effective end to the weeks-long campout. The action throws into stark relief the tension inherent in the privatization of public space that Nate Berg wrote about on September 29. But park mandates are problematic policy even in more normal times, a way of hiding costs that ends up giving us too little building and too few parks.

The park was built in the first place under New York City’s Privately Owned Public Spaces initiative, which lets developers get “density bonuses” if they agree to build POPs. More density means more leasable square footage (and thus more money), so the idea is that a firm will build a POP if the cost is less than the profits derived from extra density. It’s a win-win. Sort of.