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April 22, 2009
Green for the Masses
Majora Carter: Forget the polar bears and focus on the jobs.
Newsweek interviews the Bronx's queen of green, Majora Carter, who explains why the big bucks go to the big boys, like Bruce Ratner.
For those of you who may be unfamiliar with Carter's work, check out the entire interview. The following is the bit with the Atlantic Yards reference:
You've talked a lot about work at the municipal level. Where does the money for these projects come from? Is that where the big battles are?
Yes, because the real vittles go to the folks who have power in any municipality. Poor people don't. In a sad way, it was completely telling that when the funds came down to New York from the stimulus package, Alfonse D'Amato was right up there trying to advocate for funds for the Atlantic Yards project. I was like, excuse me? If nobody's watching that, then how do we make sure the jobs are going to people who desperately need them? How do we make sure we're reversing the environmental degradation that we've done to the ghettos of our country? There are people who really know how to milk the system. The result is they've clustered huge amounts of noxious facilities in communities like ours all these years, at huge expense to public health and air quality.
NoLandGrab: To Carter's point, Bruce Ratner proposes to build a 19,000-seat stadium at the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues. Flatbush Avenue runs adjacent to neighborhoods with some of the highest childhood asthma rates in the nation.
Posted by lumi at April 22, 2009 5:11 AM