We could go example / counter example all day long. The highways cut through living neighborhoods destroyed the southern Bronx and it's never recovered. Development can be done well or it can be done poorly, but to decide which is which we need to first agree and what we are trying to achieve. Personally, I don't think much of "character of the community" arguments. If you want that move out of one of the quaint bedroom communities in Westchester, Nassau or Jersey.

@misiti3780 The original Penn Station was a beautiful, light filled, Beaux-Arts style building. It was knocked down to put up Madison Square Garden (a sports arena) and an office building. The current Penn Station is a depressing, underground, dirty warren. The NYC preservation movement has its beginning in the uproar over tearing the old one.

I'm pretty anti-NIMBY, but the Penn Station example is my line. So long as you're not doing something of that magnitude, you should be free to build whatever you want.

what is the "penn state story"?

Where Pennsylvania Station in NYC (and Madison Square Garden) sits today was once a grand station building designed by McKim, Mead, and White. When Penn Central went bankrupt, the air rights were sold off and the railroad station was moved completely underground. The demolition of the old Penn Station was widely regarded as essentially cultural vandalism and arguably played a role in a shift of attitudes toward a more preservationist mindset. (Others argue that this storyline is an oversimplification and there was growing pushback about 60s era urban renewal in any case.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_Station_(New_York...

As most Robert Moses stories go, it's about car culture and using highways and other physical barriers to enforce some bad socioeconomic policies - which was very common around the world at the time. In the end, they ripped down the old iconic station to build arguably the ugliest sports stadium in the world (Madison Sq Garden) and equally unimpressive #1 Penn Plaza.

Note that the tracks and platforms haven't changed much since 1905 with the exception of the demolition of the "Northern" yard and highline when they build the Javitz center.

The new WSY will be build atop the existing platforms... so 3 iterations of station on top of unchanged train platform in a bit over a century.

Penn station used to be as magnificent as grand central, but was torn down and replaced by a mire of grimy tunnels.

It wasn't the original owner's fault, they were going bankrupt and were being forced to sell off their assets

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_Station_(New_York...