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March 11, 2010
A Sad Day for Brooklyn: Atlantic Yards Groundbreaking
The Huffington Post
by John Petro
If all of today's hoopla caused any of you to forget why Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project is Brooklyn's worst idea since the "Great Mistake of '98," John Petro of the Drum Major Institute offers up a must-read reminder.
In theory, it should be everything that a progressive urban policy analyst like me would want from a new development. Atlantic Yards would create lots of new housing immediately adjacent to mass transit lines. It would be a mix of residential, commercial, retail, and entertainment space. And it would create new affordable housing and green space.
But, somehow, Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner got it all wrong. The project required two things to make it feasible: the use of eminent domain to acquire the property and hundreds of millions of dollars in public subsidies. Public officials justified both by proclaiming that the project would also create public benefits. But these public benefits were always dubious. And as the project has progressed, they have all but disappeared completely. Now it seems that the project will be a money loser for the city and will scar the face of Brooklyn for decades.
So what went wrong?
NoLandGrab: Next time someone asks why you oppose Atlantic Yards, or says "I don't think it'll be so bad," hand them this article.
Posted by eric at March 11, 2010 10:26 PM