MAY
31

nyc_2016.jpgNew York City 2016

I've always had a closet fascination with urban planning. How cities grow, sprawl and the micro-decisions made along the evolutionary path that either puts a city on a track toward urban bliss, or plunges it into a residential albatross. Not surprisingly, New York City faces considerable challenges as an expected influx of 1 million new residents make the Big Apple their new home over the next decade or two. At first blush, you may not think going from 8 million to 9 million would be such a big leap, but in a city with nowhere to sprawl to, it could be a logistical nightmare if not planned for correctly and creatively.

We can't just bulldoze and slap up some towers - we've learned some lessons from the sixties - and it isn't just half a million new homes that we need. Those million need offices, factories, labs to work in. They need subways, buses (and ferries and trams) to commute in. They need places to park and places to play, plus the power to light their homes. All in a city that can't sprawl.
After 10 years of living in Vancouver, I have been exposed to urban planning done right. Cities from coast to coast in North America have taken cues from the urban planning successes of Vancouver, especially as it pertains to how the city has managed to make downtown-living such a green friendly, sought-after residential lifestyle. How will New York City handle continued population growth while improving, or at least not sacrificing the current livability of the city?
Sprinkled like jewelry across this new city fabric are projects, some fabulous, some already outdated, by both the dinosaurs and fledglings of the architectural pantheon. Yes, we're getting our Gehry (one, two, three, four, maybe more), but also our Morphosis, our ShoP, our TEN Arquitectos.

But often in some peculiar locations. Piano across from the Port Authority? Gehry in Brooklyn? Vinoly by the Williamsburg Bridge? The New York of 2016 doesn't husband all the new design ideas in Manhattan but spreads them out. (One can't help but get a little giddy with all the big names, but there is a dark side to hiring all these out-of-towners. Too often they serve as ambassadors to the upper-middle class for owners with an agenda, cloaking the same old towers in a park.

New York City is by no means unique in the challenges it faces but it clearly will boast a potpourri of architecture talent to help craft and stitch together a vision of the future. How will the confluence of ideas come together and play out in the lives of resident New Yorkers? Time will tell. One thing we do know for certain, is that New York's successes and failures will be placed on the world stage for all global residents to praise and criticize.

Building the (New) New York [New York Magazine]

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MAR
28

waiter.jpgThe Art Of Tipping

Tipping is a pretty big deal in a city like New York. But if you're a big city neophyte, it's hard to know exactly when to tip and how much is appropriate. Fodor's recently came out with a guide to tipping in NYC.

Tipping the maitre d' is unnecessary unless you are specifically trying to be a 'big shot'. The standard 15% tip for servers is still the norm, although for the more upscale restaurants that number rises to 20%.

Tipping at a bar is usually a buck-a-drink. But, if you're knocking back some expensive cocktails you may want to up the tip ante to $2.

Whether it's a dinner reservation, hailing a taxi cab, or a can of shaving cream at 2am, the hotel concierge can be your best friend while away from home. For simple tasks a $3-5 tip is ample. However, concierges can also 'hook you up' with things that may be hard to come by like great seats at a Rangers game or a sold-out broadway show. If your concierge comes through for you in a big way, a $10 tip or more should be considered.

But what do we really know about the practice of tipping, and does tipping well mean you get better service?

Here are some interesting facts on tipping:

- Studies have shown that there is practically no relationship between the quality of service and the size of the tip.

- Tips are higher in sunny weather.

- If a waittress draws a happy face on the restaurant bill, she increases her tips by 18%. If a waiter draws a happy face, he decreases his tips by 9%.

- The more a culture values status and prestige, the more likely it is that culture uses tipping to reward service.

But is all of this tipping a good idea? Many parts of Europe use 'service charges' instead of tipping and while North America is heavily steeped in the practice of customer-driven tipping, there is a vocal minority against it.

In fact, the justification for tipping, more specifically using tips to reward good service or to penalize bad service may work far better as theory than real-world practice.

Michael Lynn, an associate professor of consumer behavior and marketing at Cornell's School of Hotel Administration, has conducted dozens of studies of tipping and has concluded that consumers' assessments of the quality of service correlate weakly to the amount they tip.

Rather, customers are likely to tip more in response to servers touching them lightly and crouching next to the table to make conversation than to how often their water glass is refilled - in other words, customers tip more when they like the server, not when the service is good. (Mr. Lynn's studies also indicate that male customers increase their tips for female servers while female customers increase their tips for male servers.)

What's more, consumers seem to forget that the tip increases as the bill increases. Thus, the tipping system is an open invitation to what restaurant professionals call "upselling": every bottle of imported water, every espresso and every cocktail is extra money in the server's pocket. Aggressive upselling and hustling for tips are often rewarded while low-key, quality service often goes unrecognized.

In addition, the practice of tip pooling, which is the norm in fine-dining restaurants and is becoming more common in every kind of restaurant above the level of a greasy spoon, has gutted whatever effect voting with your tip might have had on an individual waiter. In a perverse outcome, you are punishing the good waiters in the restaurant by not tipping the bad one.

So what can be learned from all of this? No matter what city you are in, tipping is really all about you. The most important thing to remember when tipping is to never stray from your comfort zone. It's far more important to leave a tip that you're happy with, than leaving a tip you think the server or the establishment expects.

Tipping in New York [Fodor's]
What do we know about tipping? [Marginal Revolution]
Tipped Off [New York Times]
Some interesting stats and observations on tipping [Kottke]
Image Credit: [Stockbyte]

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