Plan Unplanned: Ideas for Affordable Chinatown
Citygroup, 2021

The Chinatown Working Group (CWG) Rezoning Plan proposes a path for future development in Chinatown and the Lower East Side. The plan increases affordable housing, community amenities, and neighborhood-oriented small business while avoiding the displacement, economic segregation, and loss of character that has followed rampant real estate speculation in most neighborhoods of New York City. Zoning is written in a highly technical language that is often indecipherable even to experts. This language presents a barrier to rallying support for the plan. Architects and artists were invited by Citygroup to create images that clearly communicate the principles of the CWG Plan and demonstrate its impact on the built form of the neighborhood. Plan Unplanned: Ideas for an Affordable Chinatown supports the community led effort to preserve one of the last affordable neighborhoods in downtown Manhattan.

Participants:

Soft Firm, AJ Artemel, David Tasman, Jennifer Siqueira, Flora, Philip Poon, Ryan Oskin, Andrew Fairweather, Carrie Smith, Office of Things, Reade Bryan, Ruben Gutierrez, Andrew Grant