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September 7, 2006
Ratner and the Gentry
The NY Sun editorial board stands alone among the local dailies for its criticism of Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project. They've editorialized on the use of eminent domain and massive subsidies; today they look at the gentrification conundrum:
In a sense, Mr. Ratner is in a pickle of his own creation. He wants government subsidies and eminent domain condemnation power, so he needs to provide some public "benefits." In the upside-down world of New York City, stemming gentrification — meaning stemming a rise in property values, a decrease in crime, better shopping, and finer dining — counts as a public benefit. By our lights, the most logical of the Ratner critics fear that the high percentage of the project that is to be devoted to "affordable" — that is, outside the normal free market — housing, combined with the shadows cast by the huge towers, will lead not to gentrification but to a reversal of the improvements already underway in Brooklyn.
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Meanwhile, Mr. Ratner is carpeting the county of Kings with mailings claiming “The New York Times, Daily News & New York Post agree: Atlantic Yards is good for Brooklyn.” A subsidized apartment for the reader who can figure out which newspapers are for the project because it would promote gentrification, and which are for it because it would stem it.
Posted by lumi at September 7, 2006 6:37 AM