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January 14, 2009
GL Analysis: It’s Time to Completely Rethink Atlantic Yards
Gowanus Lounge
Symbolically, the final shoe dropped yesterday. One of the people chiefly responsible for Atlantic Yards, Borough President Marty Markowitz told the New York Times that in the paper’s words he was “calling on the developer and state officials to review the design with an eye toward paring costs so that the long delayed project is more financially viable." We are not getting into another long Atlantic Yards diatribe. There have been many problems with the Atlantic Yards approval process including that it has been one of the most anti-democratic and divisive exercises in the last half century in urban America. It has been a textbook case in how not to plan a major urban project.
...We’d even go so far as to say that the proposal as it currently stands is so radically different than what was shoved down the public’s throat that it should be scrapped and the entire project should begin from scratch. Perhaps with another developer. If the price tag is a decade of emptiness, so be it. The tragedy is that the state allowed blocks of Prospect Heights to be leveled that will now become blights on a community. Maybe by the time everyone comes up with a workable plan, there might even be a financial market healthy enough to finance the revised plan.
Posted by eric at January 14, 2009 9:18 AM