aqua i'm not really sure what your beef is here. sounds something like wanting nyc to resemble a not yet existent futureworld asian city or something. frankly, you seem to have traveled some lately and are cherry-picking combined multiple cities into some kind of perfect city dream of your own. nothing wrong with that, we all do it, but it seems to have skewed your reality of what is really available and happening in nyc.
first of all, yes there are elevated and underground walkways across nyc. the overhead ones just fell out of fashion and the underground passages became dangerous and were closed. not a nimby issue at all, they could revive someday.
next, nyc has made incredible strides removing car traffic and adding bike lanes & ped plazas. broadway and times square alone took out massive amounts of car traffic. certainly improves your times sq, madison sq, union sq, etc. experience, including shopping. appears thats not good enough for you, but it is fact. hang on for more to come.
speaking of, another beef of yours seems to be shopping experience. by the variety and the way people vote with their wallets i would say nyc shopping areas are doing quite well just as they are -- and no wonder the city is home to a big chunk of the fashion industry. the experiences are as pleasant/unpleasant as anywhere. are you trying to say, for example, that omote sando is better because it has an unusually wide (for tokyo) sidewalk or harajuku is better because traffic closes off? not sure. that aside, there are indeed quiet shopping streets with no or little traffic. fulton mall in brklyn is a prime example and an old one at that. orchard st predates the modern retail of most of your listed cities. any side-street below 14th st is narrow and london-like, bleeker, village, ev, meatpacking, nolita, les, bpc, etc., etc. even the ritzy boutique shopping up along madison has very little traffic vs hectic 5th avenue and it is very pleasant...if you can afford it.
as to pedestrian only streets, surprisingly there are many. fulton & orchard as mentioned. street fairs are daily this time of year. traffic is closed in central park. weekend flea markets, do they count? london-esque stone st downtown has no cars and is newish & very popular. bpc also has almost no cars. not to mention the real gap in your nyc understanding -- randalls, governors and roosevelt islands. thats right nyc has entire islands that are ped only, and one of them is among the densest of neighborhoods in america.
i could go on, but the point is nyc is an even bigger place than most people think and in fact it has examples of almost evrything under the sun. perhaps just not weighted to your liking at the moment, or built to your vision, but the tourists sure seem to like it and the census shows an increase in residents.
now that i went off track too i think we should get back on topic -- which is redevelopment of the highline!!!
