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January 1, 2012
Brooklyn blooms again, but not for all
Atlantic Yards project caps a decade of growth for borough, yet some areas remain mired in poverty.
Crain's NY Business
by Patrick Wall
When the roar of 18,000 Brooklyn Nets fans rocks the Barclays Center to life this fall, some will hear it as the clearest announcement yet that Brooklyn has arrived.
As Borough President Marty Markowitz put it, the sparkling new arena near downtown Brooklyn “will host the kind of events you used to have to leave Brooklyn to enjoy.”
To proponents, the Nets' arena at Atlantic Yards is the exclamation point of the Brooklyn Renaissance—a flourishing of creativity, construction and coolness over the last decade.
But critics note that Brooklyn's economic gains have occurred predominantly in the northwest corner of the borough, where the Atlantic Yards development is situated. The neighborhoods in the central and eastern parts of the borough remain poor, and Brooklyn's overall poverty and unemployment rates outstrip the citywide numbers.
NoLandGrab: And some critics, like, say, us, note that the alleged economic gains from Atlantic Yards are illusory for anyone not named Bruce C. Ratner.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Crain's points to Atlantic Yards as symbol of Brooklyn's bifurcated blooming, but misses the irony of unfulfilled promises
There's a huge, unmentioned irony here: Atlantic Yards may be a symbol of Brooklyn's progress, but, employing relatively few locals, has not delivered the jobs and housing promised, nor proven a good investment of public dollars.
...A gloomy future
The article concludes:
Just as there is no consensus on the root of Brooklyn's economic inequities, there is no concerted effort to address them. Instead, city planners and private developers tinker with economic issues on a project-by-project basis.
“There hasn't been, to my knowledge, a really comprehensive plan done under the auspices of any government agency,” said Brooklyn Economic Development Corp. President Joan Bartolomeo.
Maybe one could start by assessing whether the money spent on Atlantic Yards helped narrow Brooklyn's economic inequities.
Posted by eric at January 1, 2012 6:42 PM