As the level of golf participation falls, a new course is rising in a park in the Bronx with the assistance of $97 million in public funds. Is a notoriously expensive, and elitist, sport the best use of land in a borough with a 30% poverty rate?
The controversy over the construction of a golf course, to be operated by Trump National and International Golf Clubs no less, on a major portion of Ferry Point Park in the southeastern section of the Bronx is not new. But with its budget swelling and recent news about nefarious links to a contracting company the city is using on the project and elevated levels of methane gas found just outside the golf course's perimeter, the course controversy has roared back to life.
"[T]hese recent issues," says Ginia Bellafante, "would seem entirely peripheral to the more
essential question of whether spending tens of millions of dollars and
turning over acres and acres of land to a sport whose hourly caloric
expenditure falls short of considerably less expensive forms of exercise
- Ultimate Frisbee, for instance, or jogging - is really the maximally
efficient use of the city's resources."
"As it happens, the development of the course is causing Ferry Point Park
to stand as one of the more egregious symbols of class division in a
city already so famously replete with them."
FULL STORY: In the Bronx, Throwing $97 Million Down 18 Holes

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Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
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