Behind closed doors

As we saw from the food truck proposal last week, the public are huge supporters of street vendors – if they are given a chance to weigh in. But vendors and their fans are typically excluded from the decision-making process. Here’s how it works: a powerful business group commissions an architecture firm to draw up a plan to bring life to Water Street in Lower Manhattan, which is currently closed to vendors for most of its length. No vendors are invited onto the committee that prepares the report, which bemoans the lack of street life, but fails to recommend the simplest solution of all – reopening the street to vendors! Years from now, when the city and state have spent millions to reconfigure Water Street, they will surely say the process was fair and democratic.