« Taking Private Land | Main | Lawyer to ESDC: don't condemn buildings with rent-stabilized tenants »
October 5, 2006
Financialized Corporate Era (FCE) part 1
Picketing Henry Ford
Atlantic Yards critics frequently warn that the project's ten-year horizon will inevitably slip or stall. For Forest City Enterprises, that's part of the business plan:
The corporation markets itself to investors by focusing on long-term value. FCE’s website describes its strategy: “Our goal is to build long-term asset value by maximizing the spread between the return on our total capital employed (including debt and equity) and the cost of such capital.” As a corporate strategy, this one seems fairly innocuous. By examining the history of its New York City affiliate, Forest City Ratner (FCR), however, the local implications of the strategy become clearer.
Blogger Stuart Schrader considers questions about, and implications of, this strategy in the first of a two-part article about "financialization":
FCR has been able to sell the Atlantic Yards project to many nearby residents by promulgating the appearance of responsible local stewardship. On the contrary, however, this enormous long-term construction project will toss the edge of my neighborhood, Prospect Heights, into the swirling matrix of global capital flows.
Posted by lumi at October 5, 2006 8:12 AM