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July 2, 2008
Beveridge Fizzy On Future
The New York Observer
By Tom Acitelli
According to Dr. Andrew Beveridge, from an interview on demographic and socio-economic trends in NYC, projects like Atlantic Yards will be a burden to New Yorkers, or not, depending:
How will New York City be remembered from 2001 to the present? Like, the 1950s were extreme growth. The 1970s were a slow decay.
Let’s say we have a real problem. Things like Yankee Stadium, Atlantic Yards, Citi Field—the way in which those things have been financed … you’re looking at gimmicks that are kind of like gimmicks that happened before the last financial crisis, in the 1970s, where all the tax revenue goes to finance development projects and you don’t have any extra spillover. If it turns out we have a downturn, that may be what the Bloomberg years are remembered for: putting up a lot of projects that turned out to be very difficult to finance.
…If you had a real downturn, things could be really bad because you have all of these obligations that have been rolled up and it would be hard, probably, to meet them; so that’s sort of like the dark view.
If, on the other hand, even if we have a fairly short—what’d they call it—adjustment in the real estate market but the long-term growth continues, then this will all probably look like a real good idea.
Posted by lumi at July 2, 2008 4:48 AM