A Call for a New Design Advocacy Platform

William Menking pens a withering critique both of the de Blasio Administration in and the state of design advocacy in the city. The editorial starts out by pulling no punches:

The New York architectural community’s relationship to Bill de Blasio’s mayoralty is a complicated one. Not only does the mayor not understand or value the contributions that design and architecture can make to the quality of everyday life, but he also turns his back on many of the positive contributions the Bloomberg administration made in that realm.

But Menking is also willing to blame that reality solely on Mayor de Blasio:

It is an open question and one worth asking: How much is the architecture community contributing to de Blasio’s perception that architecture is only for the wealthy and middle class?

The editorial provides a call to action to the New York design community to take the substantial effort they collectively devote to design research and refocus it toward design advocacy.