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November 8, 2011
Public Hearings For Big Real Estate Projects: Refining Your Sense of the Absurd
Noticing New York
What’s the difference between “surreal” and “Kafkaesque”?
This is the kind of distinction you will find yourself making if you want to become a connoisseur of the flavors that public hearing futility comes in.
I just wrote about public hearings held where it is a forgone conclusion that those testifying are going to be ignored by those holding the hearing. And I wrote about a famous incident where, at one hearing, Jane Jacobs was arrested for protesting such absurdity. (See: Wednesday, November 2, 2011, Big Politically-Connected Real Estate Projects: Ignoring The Public Majority With Futile “Participatory Democracy” Hearing Process.)
Jane Jacobs suggested the intent of the hearing she was attending might have been considered simply as a steam valve by those holding it to help abate public indignation and wrath. And that gets into something else discussed, whether when attending such a hearing you should address yourself to those holding the hearing who won’t listen to you or, to make yourself feel better, to an audience of other members of the public who feel as you do. That assumes you are let into the hearing at all.
Posted by eric at November 8, 2011 10:40 AM