Destigmatizing Infrastructure: Design of Community-Friendly Facilities

Abstract

In 1999, when New York City advanced plans to construct the Croton Water Filtration Treatment Plant in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, it faced strong resistance from the surrounding community, largely comprised of minority and low-income residents. But the plan had powerful supporters, including downstate construction unions that lobbied heavily in anticipation of construction contracts and upstate developers who believed the plant would reduce pressure to protect upstate watershed areas.