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June 21, 2012
DISCARDING THE ORNAMENTS
Affordable Housing Institute : US
by David A. Smith
Here's a lengthy yet entertaining look at media coverage of the Atlantic Yards affordable-housing bait and switch.
When it comes to Atlantic Yards’ excruciating development process, the affordable housing has always been a political ornament – a sparkling bauble prominently featured in the submission, proffered as a reason why the applicant should be given concessions today in anticipation of repaying that with goodies tomorrow.
...The contrasting tone between the two pieces, Times and Journal, is remarkable. For the Times, everything is sunny:
Almost six months before the Barclays Center opens its doors to the Nets, Brooklyn’s first major professional sports team since the lamented Dodgers —
A classic bit of Pollyanna nostalgia. The Dodgers left Brooklyn in 1955 and the Mets arrived in 1962, but as the Mets play in Queens, not Brooklyn, and call themselves New York, not Brooklyn, why then there is a hole in the city’s psyche that no amount of affordable housing can fill.
— the reality is that the Atlantic Yards project has already done the very thing that critics feared and supporters promoted: transform surrounding neighborhoods prized for their streets of tree-lined brownstones and low-key living.
Shops along the workaday stretch of Flatbush Avenue south of the arena that for generations sold unglamorous products like hardware, paint, plumbing supplies, prescription drugs, even artificial limbs [Things New York Times editors are unlikely to buy? – Ed.], are seeing new businesses pop up that sell high-heel shoes for $3,500 a pair, revealing party dresses, exotic cheeses and, of course, high-priced martinis.
This, the Times would have us believe, is progress.
Posted by eric at June 21, 2012 11:08 AM