Was reminded of this by Develop, Don't Destroy Brooklyn. Steve Gilliard was one of the top bloggers and his death is quite a loss.

This photo from Campus Progress:

One topic he wrote about was the sheer insanity and hypocricy of Ratner's Atlantic Yards project. This is only part of a long article he wrote for his blog, The News Blog:

Forest City Ratner basically told working class black people that they would get jobs and shiny new homes. Which is probably not going to happen.

Atlantic Yards is overscale, ugly and will destroy the character of the neighborhood. But more importantly, those jobs will not materialize, because they never do. Unless there are firm committments, nothing happens...

Lets understand something. Most of the people Ratner bougtht off want jobs and have ZERO power to enforce any deal...

This is a point NOT ONE SINGLE RATNER SUPPORTER HAS EVER ADDRESSED: holding Ratner ACCOUNTABLE for his promises. One of the few politicians who nominally supports Ratner's project who has advocated enforcement of his promises is David Yassky. The white-dominated media, the City Council, Marty Markowitz, etc. have in no way addressed how these bright, shiny promises of jobs and housing for working class New Yorkers will be guaranteed.

Now, about the stadium: what an insane idea.

No one in New York cares about the Nets. Their fan base is in Jersey. Their fans will drive in.
Atlantic Avenue with massive traffic jams three nights a week. Drunk Nets fans roaming the streets, filling bars. Remember, unlike Knick fans, Nets fans drive. They aren't going to stop.

A limited use building, for a team most Brooklynites will root against, filling the streets with traffic.

The Jets made the same promise, but the insanity of their plan was obvious. Here, Ratner went to people without the resources to check his promises and offered them money and support. The people who had the resources opposed the plan or it's scale.

Why do you need this monstrosity in downtown Brooklyn? Who does it serve? The five Nets fans in Brooklyn? Or rich developers, gullible "community activists" and even more gullible newspaper columnists.

One place where I differ with Steve here is that there were people both with the resources and the moral responsibility to check his promises AND THEY DIDN'T: these people are the media, the Empire State Development Corporation and our elected officials. These white dominated groups side with Ratner DESPITE knowing full well that he is lying to the city and they are facillitating his project in every way they can...even to the point of lying themselves. The average New Yorker is footing the bill, buying the land for Ratner, will suffer large rate increases for energy (according to Con Ed), will pay higher taxes while Ratner gets tax breaks, will suffer more sewage overflows, more traffic jams, more crowded schools, worse fire house coverage, higher insurance rates, etc...and we have no guarantee that there will be more jobs or housing for working class New Yorkers.

My fellow New Yorkers. We are being screwed. Screwed by Ratner, screwed by the media, screwed by the City Council, screwed by the mayor, screwed by the Empire State Development Corporation, and screwed by our elected officials from top to bottom. And it is something that will haunt us for a century to come. Thanks Steve Gilliard for telling it like it is, and thanks to DDDB for reminding us.

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