Nicholas Confessore has written another intelligent piece about the Atlantic Yards Development in today’s Times, this one tackling the thorny issue of race. Developer Bruce Ratner has muddied the waters since day one by giving money in the guise of “community benefit agreements” to local housing and job advocates who in turn have demonized those opposed to the monolith as rich white yuppies. Intemperate comments have been made (and retracted) by both the heads of Build and Acorn and the umbrella group for the opposition, Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, of which I am a member.
The wisest words in the story came from an academic (fancy that) who has been studying the potential effects of supersized development. Permit me to quote at length:
“If you live nearby, you have a nice home and you have a job, you’re probably not that excited by the benefits, and you’re swamped by the drawbacks,” said Brad Lander, director of the Pratt Center for Community Development, citing the project’s potential to worsen traffic and overshadow the brownstone communities nearby.
“If you live a little farther away, and you don’t have a job and a nice house, then you probably get a lot more of the benefits,” Mr. Lander added. “None of that is about race per se. But when you layer on that the people who live nearby are more likely to be whiter and wealthier, and the people who live farther out are more likely to be people of color without good jobs or housing, the race elements have become stronger.”
A neighbor asked me, “How could people come into an established community to benefit from what’s here with no regard to the effect it has on the people who live here?” It wasn’t until I had gone all the way around the block with the dog that I thought of a corrolary, of sorts. Anyone who spends any amount of time in the summer in the Hamptons knows the ambivalent relationship some locals have with us tourists. A man told my wife about a townie pulling a knife on him over a parking spot in Sag Harbor. These are the sons of fishermen and day laborers, people who grew up out there who can’t afford to buy a house anymore, and our nods of sympathy, delivered as we load local sweet corn into the back of the Volvo, are lost on them. Just as anyone in Crown Heights who might come to work at the new Nets stadium might be unmoved when I tell him I can’t park in Fort Greene anymore.
The money equation is different, of course. And nearly everyone in the Hamptons is white.