Thursday, September 28, 2006

Development and Value

Seeking real development

As most Brooklynites know the face of the burrough will be changing dramatically over the next 10 years as the largest development project ($4.5 billion worth) in its history is happening at Atlantic Yards, which will include 8 50-plus story buildings and a basketball arena. See here for Workers previous blog on this.

Now it has been announced that the project will be 8% less than originally introduced. The thing here is what is the story behind the story. The development was going to go ahead one way or another -as its was in the hands of the state not the city etc - so now the 8% decrease may just be face-saving bone thrown to the parties in opposition to the development in the first place. In other words, see how well we can work together, but in reality is some kind of subterfuge to misdirect too much thought about the disequilibrium in the power structure.

Development is progress and progress is good (depending on your take on this eg unless you are a primitivist and there is nothing wrong with that). But the point is is that eminent domain abuse goes on in these large development projects so the bones being thrown are just that. What actually is the value of this development to society? It has hard to tell cause we dont know how it really was priced.