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August 10, 2006
Bruce Ratner must be stopped
Stellavision says Atlantic Yards critics pretty much have it wrong. Bruce Ratner must be stopped NOT because of lack of a democratic process or because he would ruin the neighborhood.
Conservatives are seeing red because Atlantic Yards would be a terrible use of taxpayer money and eminent domain.
It has to be stopped because it's using taxpayer money. (If Bruce Ratner can't make a profit on his own funds alone, why should I, or anybody else, be forced to help him?) It has to be stopped because people living on 13 acres of the proposed footprint are to be booted out via eminent domain. (Cavalier violation of property rights.)
NoLandGrab: While Ratner has tried to split the community, the project curiously manages to unite progressives and conservatives.
Nationally, the conservative-progressive split over property rights is slowly being bridged, as bleeding-heart liberals are beginning to realize that low-income/inner-city neighborhoods are most vulnerable to eminent domain abuse.
The affordable-housing debate is also an interesting one, and it's temporarily bringing together both sides over Atlantic Yards. Conservatives favor free markets and believe that the market can provide housing for all income levels; progressives are concerned that a majority of the available subsidies for affordable housing will be going to a single privately owned project that stands to make over a billion dollars in profit for a company in Cleveland.
There's more, but I'll leave it at that. Suffice it to say, NoLandGrab.org isn't promoting one side over the other, but regardless of your worldview, the upside primarily goes to the developer, Bruce Ratner.
Posted by lumi at August 10, 2006 7:13 AM