Three articles in the New York Times caught my eye this weekend. Bill Cunningham cast his stylish eye on the revelers at reinvented Coney Island, the About New York column did a follow-up on trashed clothing found outside H&M and Walmart, and the City Critic wrote about the potential for water taxis in Hudson and East Rivers. 

They all come down to infrastructure and how you use it. Places, things, and ideas that we’ve abandoned often deserve a second look; they can have new value as our own values change. We used to think it was great to have a car and drive everywhere. Now, gassing it up, jockeying for lane space, and trying to park it can be an expensive pain. A fresh air and salt spray commute sounds like a great alternative.

Rethinking assets was an underlying idea of the Planning Department’s recent Rethink Montgomery speaker’s series. Bringing in experts on everything from playgrounds to oil consumption, gave us ideas about  new ways to think about all our assets and their potential.

The series is over, let the thinking begin!