Is New York falling behind Shanghai and Chicago? It will, the Bloomberg administration argues, unless the city replaces aging commercial buildings with giant new office towers in East Midtown — a 73-block area around Grand Central Terminal, up to 57th Street, between Madison and Third Avenues. An ill-conceived rezoning proposal, now wending its way through the approval gantlet, is a parting attempt by the administration to remap this large swath of Manhattan before Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s term ends in December. Transit advocates; various elected officials, among them Daniel R. Garodnick, a City Council member from the area; along with design and preservation groups and an alliance of seven community boards, have all raised concerns about the plan.

It is awaiting recommendation from the Manhattan borough president, Scott M. Stringer, before moving toward a City Council vote. Mr. Stringer has an opportunity to make a public-minded stand, as he recently did with Penn Station.

What’s the problem with the plan?

For starters, its priorities are upside down, focusing on buildings, not what’s around them. There is too little concern in this proposal for what the architect Robert A. M. Stern has, in an Op-Ed article for The New York Times, rightly called “place-making.”

New York can surely never win a skyscraper race with Shanghai or Singapore. Its future, including the future of Midtown real estate values, depends on strengthening and expanding what already makes the city a global magnet and model. This means mass transit, pedestrian-friendly streets, social diversity, neighborhoods that don’t shut down after 5 p.m., parks and landmarks like Grand Central Terminal and the Chrysler Building.