Excerpted from the article by Nathaly Pesantez in Long Island City Post:

Long Island City will be front and center in a round of “citywide conversations” about inclusive growth and urban design that kicked off today, organized by an architecture nonprofit and “spurred by the heated debates” over the now-scrapped Amazon project.

The festival, titled “LICNYC: Site City Future” features a series of public engagement programs on the neighborhood and its dramatic growth, and will examine what’s next in light of the canceled HQ2 project at Anable Basin. The events, which will go to June, are organized by the Van Alen Institute.

“Well before Amazon proposed its 14-acre campus on the Queens waterfront, Long Island City was the fastest growing neighborhood in the country,” the nonprofit said. “This rapid growth has positively impacted street life, commercial activity, and local cultural institutions, but has also driven up housing prices and strained the capacity of local schools and public transit.”

It added: “HQ2 quickly became a proxy for the relationship between new development and citizen’s priorities, and while HQ2 is no longer on New York’s horizon, LIC will continue to grow.”