An interesting story in the Washington Post highlights a very tangible downside to the rapacious gentrification and condopalooza overtaking the five boroughs: a form of food insecurity tied to geography, not income.

Alicia Rivera has no good supermarket within walking distance of her Brooklyn home. A leg injury keeps her from taking the bus, so every three weeks a friend picks her up and drives her to a different neighborhood to stock up on green peppers, milk, chicken wings, ground beef -- as much as she can fit in her kitchen to last until the next shopping trip.

"It's hard," Rivera said as she unloaded her haul from the car into a cart. She buys mainly what she can freeze, and that means few fruits and vegetables. "I wish there was a good store close by," she added.

There's more.

I'm not normally a Bloomberg booster, but the mayor's PlaNYC is really praiseworthy. Daniel has done a great job linking to reporting and analysis on the specific proposal for congestion pricing. He notes, correctly, that the devil is in the details. I want to argue that when you consider the details, congestion pricing comes out looking like an excellent - even crucial - idea.

It's true that congestion charges, viewed in isolation, would constitute a regressive tax (though New Yorkers paying an $8 fee would have it easy compared to Londoners, who pay twice as much). But the regressiveness can be mitigated. As Jackie Ashley wrote in the Guardian in February, "We need sharp, specialised instruments, not blunt ones." Congestion charges could be offset somewhat by reductions in other regressive taxes or fees; those who are particularly reliant on their cars - for instance, people with disabilities - could be provided with exemptions. This article in the Daily News suggests additional ways to ease the burden where appropriate: for instance, by allowing drivers five free trips a year and by reducing bus fares in neighborhoods not served by subways.

Balancing the burden would help make congestion pricing less regressive. But in a larger sense, it's a very progressive idea - especially when you consider that fewer than 5% of New Yorkers actually drive to work in Manhattan. Like a carbon tax, congestion charging would be a means of using tax policy to discourage behavior that hurts the public interest. Traffic congestion damages public health and costs the city billions of dollars a year; it also contributes to global climate change. And it is inherently progressive - redistributive - to focus transportation policy on improving mass transit as opposed to automobile traffic.

The real key, and the reason Mayor Bloomberg deserves a good deal of praise, is that congestion pricing is understood as being only one element in a far-sighted plan to address the considerable challenges New York faces over the next two decades. Give Bloomberg credit - he recognized a moment of fiscal and political opportunity, and rather than squandering it, he's using it to the public's advantage. It's only when you look at how congestion pricing fits into this larger strategy that you realize how progressive it actually is.

Think of PlaNYC as comprising four complementary plans. Congestion pricing is important to and made more progressive by each of them:

Several news outlets have covered the Duffield Abolitionist homes.

The Real Estate Observer gives us a nice shout out.

Curbed summarizes the last DailyGotham post.

The Gowanus Lounge also wades in, and NY Magazine offers a few words.

NoLandGrab offers original analysis by picking up a point published here. AKRF/NYCEDC chose to print a map without its legend, and NoLandGrab suggests that the missing legend offers support of the residents' oral histories.

Thanks y'all for keeping this on the burner!

Warning: the following post includes confusing details meant to discourage public participation. Some patience and bravery is advised.

In a stunning move of extreme waffling, the office of Melinda Katz has rescheduled the public hearing on Duffield Street from April 11 to May 1. Or maybe it will be April 17, but we won't know for sure until a few days before the meeting.

Action Advisory:
Email Christine Quinn at quinn@council.nyc.ny.us and
Melinda Katz at katz@council.nyc.ny.us

Write that the destruction of the Underground Railroad deserves a fair hearing. The City should not waddle through the seizure by eminent domain of private homes in a haphazard manner.

Stick to the announced date of May 1 for the public hearing on the Duffield Street Abolitionist homes!

In their messy attempt to help squelch any further exploration of this history, the City Council has in the space of about three weeks rescheduled the public hearing on this three times. The EDC, with AKRF (a private entity dedicated to destroying communities in the way of big development plans), spent two years studying the historical record. The 500+ page report was released 3/13/07 and the first public hearing was scheduled 3/20, giving the public no time to review the report. After some pressure from Tish James and others, they rescheduled the meeting to 4/11. On April 5 at about 5:00 pm, Council Member Katz's office let word out that the meeting will be delayed until May 1. Or maybe not.

The Times reports that Wal-Mart may have given up on its attempts to build a store in New York City:

Frustrated by a bruising, and so far unsuccessful battle to open its first discount store in the nation’s largest city, Wal-Mart’s chief executive said yesterday, “I don’t care if we are ever here.”

H. Lee Scott Jr., the chief executive of the nation’s largest retailer, said that trying to conduct business in New York was so expensive — and exasperating — that “I don’t think it’s worth the effort.”

Mr. Scott’s remarks, delivered at a meeting with editors and reporters of The New York Times, amounted to a surprising admission of defeat, given the company’s vigorous efforts to crack into urban markets and expand beyond its suburban base in much of the country. In recent years, Wal-Mart has encountered stout resistance to its plans to enter America’s bigger cities, which stand as its last domestic frontier.

In fact, it sounds as though it was more a moment of petulance than a strategic announcement: a company spokeswoman later tried to "amend" Scott's remarks and insist that Wal-Mart would still consider trying to place a store in the city.

Labor leaders, as you can imagine, were not exactly distraught over Scott's "announcement":

As the first ripple of Ratner's overdevelopment of Central Brooklyn crossed Flatbush into Park Slope, those Ratner backers who have grown to expect getting their way no matter what got a major surprise. Park Slope stood up to the Departmentof Transportation (DOT) and, if the DOT keeps its word (something I am doubtful of) this first of many Ratner ripples to cross Flatbush has been stopped.

The DOT has a plan that is intended to relieve some of the traffic problems that will be created by the Ratner overdevelopment plan. Of course I have heard Ratner supporters even deny that any traffic problem would result, but EVERYONE with any grain of sense realizes that the already horrendous traffic in and around Flatbush will be made considerably worse by Ratner's plan. So the DOT came up with a dubious plan, a mere band aid, designed to alleviate the problem. Narrow 4th Ave, reducing traffic and making it safer to cross the street while turning 6th and 7th Aves. one way to carry more traffic faster. Ignore the fact that 6th Ave. is too narrow and too residential to accommodate much more traffic and the fact that both 6th and 7th Aves. have many schools and churches and speeding up traffic along them will only increase the number of children hit by cars.

Does sloppy bookkeeping and oversight encourage confidence? Not in my mind. Yet the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) continues its shoddy oversight of Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yard's project. Keep in mind that the ESDC has up to now been nothing but a rubber stamp for everything the Axis of crony capitalism (Ratner and his political pawns) has wanted. Now they file an inadequate and incomplete financial projection for Ratner's overdevelopment plan that basically tells the taxpayers very little about what it will actually cost them in the long run. This comes from the number one organization that has been fighting Ratner's corrupt plan from the start, DDDB:

Financial projections released today by the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) purporting to show Forest City Ratner's (FCRC) projected profit for the proposed "Atlantic Yards" project appear to raise more questions than they answer - and to severely understate the developer's profit.

The financial documents, which were released only after State Assemblyman Jim Brennan and State Senator Velmanette Montgomery sued the ESDC for the information, fail to provide sufficient details or underlying assumptions, including information on "sources and uses" typically provided for a project receiving significant amounts of public funding. In some cases, the documents omit information altogether, for example, assigning no projected value to the project's planned hotel. The true value of the assets, once built, would appear to be much higher than the values outlined; several elements of the plan appear to be estimated below market value, let alone future value.

It's official: The Public Authorities Control Board has green-lighted the Atlantic Yards mega-project. After blocking the West Side stadium and the Moynihan Station project, Sheldon Silver has finally found a development proposal he can get behind.

This was the last major official hurdle Atlantic Yards had to clear . . . but why do I get the feeling that the fight is not even close to being over yet?

A Brooklyn reader sends me his open letter to incoming Governor Eliot Spitzer regarding his concerns about Ratner's gigantic plan for Central Brooklyn creating a new target for terrorists:

It is clear that the State run Atlantic Yards Development Project is headed for quick approval by the PACB. Once that occurs, rapidly followed by Governor Pataki’s exit, you will become the highest elected official responsible for the outcome of the project. Given that PACB’s decision will be based on materials prepared by the ESDC, which you have long criticized, it is equally clear that knowledge of the full impact of this project will not be available when they make that decision.

Unconscionably the ESDC has chosen to ignore all too many of the documented concerns of the communities surrounding this project. One area of profound consequence they have refused to address regards issues of public safety and security. Since the attacks of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina this has become a major focus of attention at all levels of government, yet any such consideration here was disregarded.

Beyond having just been overwhelmingly elected as Governor, this issue matters in terms of your current position as Attorney General. The decision of the ESDC to omit safety and security concerns, apart from violating common sense, also violates recent federal court decisions. For this reason it is likely that the state will be drawn into unnecessary litigation regarding the ESDC’s decision to prepare its Final Environmental Impact Statement as if concentrating three known terrorist targets at a single location will have no consequences and therefore need not be acknowledged.