Michael, Hudson Yards has changed the Far West Side in obvious ways, but what kind of impact has it had on the city as a whole?

Partly, the impact is symbolic and psychological. Hudson Yards’s skyscrapers are, for many people, a daily visual reminder of the ways in which the city seems to be surrendering itself increasingly to the wealthy.

Why has Hudson Yards become such a big symbol of the divide between the haves and have-nots?

The immense scale of the place, the way its luxury mall turns its back to 10th Avenue, its whole purposeful otherness — all of that is a strategy to create an enclave, something the developer thinks its clients desire.

But this otherness also reinforces an impression that Hudson Yards is more Singapore than New York; that it doesn’t quite belong to the city — to New Yorkers — and instead belongs to its owners; and that City Hall, under the Bloomberg administration, turned over this precious chunk of Manhattan to an exclusive development for private profit.

That may not be entirely fair or the whole story. Look, lots of big companies have moved into Hudson Yards, which is good news for the city because it means New York is where they want to be.

But I’ve also talked with public officials who say Hudson Yards has made it harder to have a productive conversation about building taller and denser, which we need to do to create more affordable housing. It has complicated negotiations over other large-scale mixed-use projects and neighborhood rezonings.

Why did Related Companies backtrack on a wall?

Because a wall was clearly not going to fly. But this is a long process.