Thursday, July 27, 2006

I Dont Know Man It's a Trade-Off

Brooklyn's development

Change is in the air here in Brooklyn, the CEO of the US's largest real estate developer has his sights, and a plan scheduled to go into effect in 65 days, on making 'sleepy' and livable Brooklyn more Manhattan-like with $4.2 billion worth of development not least of which is 16 skyscrapers, most at least 50 stories high.

So sunny downtown Brooklyn is scheduled to be covered in shade. Now that sucks. Plus, people are upset as to how the developers got their land (is that not the case in our state-capitalist society; where public policy oftentimes equals pay-offs. Power corrupts, but that my friends, is another story).

TBS, development is good. Thats why its called development instead of say, regression or retrogradation. And as Garth and Wayne said, "we fear change". We do need more places to live and at less costly prices. But I hope it doesnt turn out like downtown Washington DC where all these sterile new yuppie condos were built and turned it into some kind of a superficial latte-sucking hellhole. And the overbuilding hurt the property values of longterm residents.

There are always trade-offs to every action. It's good to see a healthy public policy debate in Brooklyn on top of this one.