Wake up, Manhattan, New York’s skyline is one of the most distinctive in the world. But the city should stop trading on past glories:

When did New York get so old? Le Corbusier once called the city “a geyser whose fountains leap and gush in continual renewal”, youthfully vigorous, of the Zeitgeist, while Old Europe slumbered. These days, though, the fountains trickle; cranes don’t swing over Manhattan quite like they used to; every time I visit now I notice how wrinkly the dame is looking these days, the marks of age all the more shocking beside the ebullience of its youth. The city that 70 years ago was the epitome of Modernism had its crown stolen by Los Angeles in the 1950s. These days, if you want fast-paced urbanism head to Shanghai, not Fifth Avenue.
Manhattan has become history, permanently frozen as it wants to remember itself, in a Buddy-can-you-spare-a-dime, browny-grey Gotham pallor of neon and Art Deco. That’s just how urban history goes. It had its day, between Edith Wharton and the Son of Sam. Now, in its dotage, New York has simply joined the ranks of all the other former greatest cities of the world – Athens, Rome, London, Vienna, Paris, et al – envying those racy whippersnappers in the Far East and occasionally indulging in dodgy midlife makeovers.

Everyone knows the action is happening in Brooklyn, baby.
I don’t have much to say, but with the current crop of developers and civic leaders, maybe we should all just take a ten minute break…