Julie Iovine writes for the Wall Street Journal about "activist" zoning in the Bloomberg administration: "It not only shapes the blocks and writes the skyline, but also aims to curb obesity by offering incentives for fresh-food markets in low-income neighborhoods; buck up the mom-and-pop store; and promote an astonishing range of other quality-of-life benefits."

Regional Plan Association senior fellow and Center for Urban Innovation director Julia Vitullo-Martin observes that, "Zoning has always concerned itself, for better or worse, with social matters, such as banishing noxious uses. What's different now is that the planning commission is moving from zoning that's negative on social issues to being positive, like mandating green markets and bike rooms."

Since New York invented zoning in 1916, it has overhauled its code exactly once, in 1961. Perhaps it's time to do so again.

Last month, City Planning Director Amanda Burden opened the discussion by sponsoring a 50th birthday conference for the 1961 revision that regulates building bulk, density, land use and parking, and forms the basis for the current 3,500-page zoning code. Called Zoning the City, the gathering looked at how to update the code to position New York as a more competitive, sustainable, equitable and beautiful city on the world stage.

At a conference this month celebrating the 1961 Zoning Resolution, Deputy Mayor Robert Steel announced the city's 50th birthday gift to its 3,500-page zoning code: a set of "green zoning" proposals that would encourage energy-efficient construction, retrofits and installation of solar panels and green roofs.

Green is good. But the idea whose time has truly come after half a century is performance zoning rather than regulating on the basis of outdated categories.

"Hey, that's really Michael Bloomberg himself, in person, so this must be important," said the young tourist next to me, raising her camera high as the mayor congratulated his top aides for designing and completing the East River Waterfront Esplanade.

Running a mere 600 feet between Wall Street and Maiden Lane, the esplanade that was officially opened yesterday is of outsized importance. When completed, it will be the last link in the pedestrian waterfront loop between the East River and the Hudson, one more critical piece of real estate in the ancient dream of a fully accessible New York waterfront. Of the city's 520 miles of shoreline, much of it once industrialized and polluted, relatively few spots allow human beings actual contact with the water itself - but this is one of them.

The view from pier six on the Brooklyn side of the East river is breathtaking: the majestic skyline of downtown Manhattan boasts its latest addition, a new residential tower designed by Frank Gehry. In the distance to the right, the spires of the Empire State and the Chrysler buildings reflect the sunlight as if dipped in molten gold.

But the pier itself is not such a happy sight. A wasteland of concrete, rusty steel frames, rotting blocks of wood and mounds of gravel, it is testament to the decline of this stretch of Brooklyn, as well as to the neglect that for many years has defined New York's relationship with its waterfront.