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May 5, 2006
Thank you Mayor Bloomberg
We'd like to thank the Mayor for a lot of things, but the best thing Bloomberg has done for Brooklynites critical of Bruce Ratner's $3.5-billion-and-counting boondoggle is to elevate the profile of the debate over eminent domain, the power to seize people's homes and businesses for a "public use."
These days in NY City, "public use" means taking people's property to hand over to well connected real estate moguls. "Jobs, Housing and Hoops" is the new public use.
Yesterday, fellow media mogul Rupert Murdoch used column inches in his tabloid to criticize Bloomberg's campaign to save eminent domain abuse.
Until now, neighborhood groups in West Harlem, Central Brooklyn and Willets Point have been trying to get someone, anyone, to pay attention. Developer Bruce Ratner, who is emerging as the Urban Planning Czar of Brooklyn, repeatedly uses eminent domain to expand his own private real estate empire, but who cares?
So thank you, Mayor Bloomberg, for being so tone deaf to the one issue that unites the entire political spectrum, and for getting busy New Yorkers talking about eminent domain.
The NY Post, TIME TO MELLOW OUT, MIKE
The Real Estate Observer, Murdoch on Bloomberg on Eminent Domain
The NY Times, Bloomberg Says Power to Seize Private Land Is Vital to Cities
The NY Sun, Columbia's Domain
Posted by lumi at May 5, 2006 8:49 AM