The original piece “Developing Brooklyn”, which was shown on PBS’s The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer in 2005, can be found here.
Controversy
A developer by the name of Bruce Ratner laid out a massive proposal of redeveloping Brooklyn which was backed by some very influential people including the mayor, the governor, and a fair housing organization. At first, it seemed like a great plan. He was going to tear out an old train yard, build some affordable houses for 65,000 people, and just for the fun of it, a new arena for the New Jersey Nets. The fishy part of plan is that he was going to tear down hundreds of existing homes (some worth over a million dollars) and then let the original people move back into brand new homes under the exact same rate they were paying before. Why? Is he just that nice of a guy? I can see the point in redoing an abandoned train yard to create new housing. However, I don’t see the point in tearing down existing housing, building new housing, then charging them the same rate.
Not surprisingly, the citizens were outraged. Many had lived and worked there their whole lives and did not want to see their community changed. So why bother? The reason given to them was that Brooklyn could no longer compete with the outside world if it remained the way it was. The low-rise community was seen by the developer as old fashioned. That seems odd to me because old fashioned, low-rise Washington D.C. seems perfectly able to compete in the world and still provide housing to people at all levels. Maybe, just maybe if the developer had tried to tie in the new housing to compliment historic building, the citizens would welcome it and appreciate the harmony. Instead, they came up with this:
Really?...
Financing It
The developer seems to be approaching this project as a public/private partnership. Candace Carpenter of the group Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn said that they’re “asking for $2 billion in subsidies, which are taxpayers’ money, that will be utilized to line Ratner’s pockets.” Atlantic Yards Report, a watchdog group, wrote that citizens who did not immediately move out were offered $850 a square foot for their home, which was apparently paid for with public funds (source). A large some of private money would come in from the basketball arena; tentatively called Barclays Arena. Atlantic Yards Report also wrote that naming rights for the arena would be $200 million for 20 years.
One Last Thought
I noticed one very interesting thing in this video: almost all of the people who were for developing Brooklyn, indeed did not live there. This includes Mayor Bloomberg of Manhattan, Governor Pataki of Peekskill, New York, the ACORN spokeswomen from Chicago, and the developer Bruce Ratner of Cleveland. Because of this, I feel a sense of empathy for the citizens who actaully live there. A bunch of outsiders came to there town, told them they can’t compete in the world, then forcefully changed there homes in an attempt to “help” them. As one woman said “As one woman said “we don’t want to Manhattanize Brooklyn.” Maybe the video just didn’t show them, but it appears to me that there was not a grassroots movement in Brooklyn or a cry for help to the outside. They seemed to be very hardworking people and proud of city just the way it is.