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June 12, 2008
As Cranes Fall and People Die
Economic Development for Whom?
CounterPunch.org
by Judith Levine
In an essay decrying the conventional wisdom that in a construction boom, accidents will happen, Brooklyn author Judith Levine fingers a ubiquitous bogeyman.
Developers—like Forest City Ratner, preparing for Brooklyn Atlantic Yards—demolish affordable housing to build “sub-market-rate” housing, which is unaffordable to most New Yorkers. Meanwhile, the City announces that budget cuts will force 15% rent rises in public housing and the closing of community centers and programs.
...Perhaps City Hall has always been a wholly owned subsidiary of the equivalent of Forest City Ratner. Perhaps there’s never been a time when New Yorkers didn’t wake up to the sound of jackhammers, when life here was not noisy, crowded, and chaotic. When workers did not fall to their deaths from skyscrapers and cranes.
But the question is always the same: who benefits?
The job of public officials is to ensure that the answer is the public—not just developers, but the rest of us.
NoLandGrab: Well, we know Bruce Ratner and his cronies benefit. The check for everyone else is in the mail.
Posted by eric at June 12, 2008 2:33 PM