Both Bartha Lewis and Kent Barwick, in their respective pieces for City Limits, agree that New York City and the borough of Brooklyn in particular, are in dire need of affordable housing. Median incomes have fallend while rent prices have risen over the last few years as Brooklyn is experiencing a population boom. Affordable housing is at the forefront of discussion over new housing developments. However, they disagree on whether the currently proposed Atlantic Yards project effectively addresses this important need. 

Kent Barwick believes that the city’s current policies for affordable housing are not taking the right approach . Atlantic Yards was designed with the idea that developers should be incentivized with permission to build larger high-density buildings. According to Mr. Barwick, New York City should follow the example of Bostona and San Diego and institute a city-wide rule for all new developers to incorporate affordable units as part of their construction, as opposed to individually negotiating over each new project. He also suggests that the city could consider adding new streets or finding new ways to connect different parts of the city in order to create public spaces, instead of having projects like the Atlantic Yards. However, it appears as though Mr. Barwick is criticizing Atlantic Yards not because it’s bad but because it’s not good enough. Although the ideas he talks about are creative and approach the affordable housing problem on a grander scale than what is being done at Atlantic Yards, it doesn’t seem feasible to put new housing projects on hold while these bigger ideas are being developed.

Secondly, Kent Barwick states that the Atlantic Yards project was not developed with a truly democratic process. He believes that the community did not have enough input in the planning. This is quite contrary to what Bartha Lewis writes in her article where she passionately argues that the private developers of Atlantic Yards worked closely with a neighborhood organization, ACORN to come up with their final plan for how to provide affordable housing. Ms. Lewis is of the opinion that Forest City Ratner was open to suggestions and responsive to needs. To prove this, she gives examples of how Atlantic Yards will make mixed income living a reality in Brooklyn. From the two articles, Ms. Lewis certainly has the better argued position.

However, Ms. Lewis’ argument about the “real world” and pragmatism is a little hard to accept. Atlantic Yards seems to be a reasonably well thought out project, and it has the potential to ease the burden on the housing market in Brooklyn. These are good arguments for why the project should receive the support of the residents. But to argue that Atlantic Yards is a good idea because it is the best that Brooklyn can hope for and that the residents should be realistic about how much progress they can make on this issue, seems counter-intuitive to Ms. Lewis’ point. Affordable housing should be the priority in new developments not secondary to firms’ desire to make profits. Residents should  be able to ask for and get well planned projects in their communities, not be forced to accept compromises.

That being said, in my opinion, the Atlantic Yards project has many advantages. It is exactly the kind of project that is going to add fuel to the boom in Brooklyn. Additionally, the specific details mentioned by Ms. Lewis show that the affordable housing issue was a major consideration during the planning process and some good solutions have come out of the negotiations. Residents of all income ranges will be distributed throughout the buildings and there will be no indication made to show that adjoining units are differently priced. Affordably priced units will also be offered for all sizes. I’m not sure if it is indeed feasible to make income a non-issue among neighbors in an apartment complex, but this is a step in the right direction.

In “Opposing Atlantic Yards: Fails to Accomplish a Delicate Balance,” Kent Barwick discusses issues with megaprojects such as Atlantic Yards. Bertha Lewis explains the benefits of these projects in “Supporting Atlantic Yards: Simply Not Enough Housing in Brooklyn.” In “Eminent Domain as Central Planning,” Nicole Gelinas criticizes the city’s use of eminent domain for developments.

One of Barwick’s main complaints was that the high rises of Atlantic Yards would ruin the neighborhood’s character. At first, I agreed with the idea that maybe such tall buildings should only be built in the neighborhoods where they belong. As I started thinking about it though, I started wondering if keeping such a neighborhood’s character was even feasible considering the demand for housing in New York City. The city has a large and growing population but limited land to house such a population. Lewis’ article explains that New York City has a huge need for affordable housing and compromises must be made because there is no perfect solution to the problem.

The article by Gelinas made me think about how unfairly areas were selected for eminent domain. Gelinas pointed out that almost all neighborhoods exhibit the criteria for a blighted neighborhood. When thinking about the city’s use of eminent domain as a class issue, I was surprised to realize that this process is very similar to one that occurred much earlier to wealthier residents of the city and has simply expanded. I believe the real issue is simply that New York City’s population and economy have been outgrowing the city itself. Changes must be made for the city to support its population. I believe this process began in the early 1900s when the mansions of New York City’s wealthy families on Fifth Avenue were replaced with high-rise apartment buildings. Development in New York City had expanded to its borders and, as land became scarce, it became more valuable. This, among other changes to New York’s society and culture made the idea of a family owning such a large home on such a large piece of land seem ridiculous. From there, the city continued this trend. What is occurring in Brooklyn with Atlantic Yards follows the same idea. There is not enough room in the city for housing, especially low-income housing. Therefore, the buildings with fewer floors that aren’t making the most of the land are being replaced with buildings that do.

One thing about this process that has changed is the use of eminent domain as a mechanism of acquiring the land that is to be redeveloped. While I do understand the issues that some people have with the methods the government used to make this land available to developers, I wonder how much of a difference it really makes. I would think that, as the city grows and demands more space, land values will increase and owners of properties that don’t use the land efficiently will end up paying more for taxes and possibly expenses. At this point, the residents would probably be priced out of their homes and they would be just as angry as they are about the use of eminent domain. Even if this did not happen and the residents were able to keep their keep their homes, I think there would be far more unhappy people struggling to find housing that they can afford in New York City.

I think megaprojects such as Atlantic Yards are a necessary part of New York City’s natural growth. I understand that there are going to be issues related to these developments and think as much should be done as possible to minimize issues but, in most cases, I think the good outweighs the bad.

In the introduction of the book Mega-Projects: The Changing Politics of Urban Public Investment, Altshuler gives an overview of how American government works. The unique relationship between cities and higher-level government creates a system that allows private investment opportunities. The higher-level government was encouraging local governments to find ways to develop their cities. Therefore, Local governments are constantly working hard to make themselves a more attractive candidate for become a partner with private investors.

A lot of mega-projects were taken place in part of city where occupied by poor people. Those mega-projects usually have a large influence on people as well as the whole city. However, it became harder to build a mega-project today because now there are many government programs that protect these poor. Another reason that explains why there are less mega-projects today is that many criticized that mega-projects destroyed homes of poor people.

Altshhuler mentioned three mega-projects types, which are highways, airports, and rail transit systems. These are the three major projects around the time, which cost a lot of money to build but hard to get any profits from them. I think that it is not a good idea to have public mega-project because when government needs funds for their public projects, one way of raising money is to increase the tax, but they weren’t making anything back.

One interesting point that Altshuler made in his introduction is that “political scientists concerned with urban politics have recently been preoccupied with business influence and economic development policy.” I agree with him that tax money and federal funds were definitely not enough for a city to grow, and to implement its entire project. Therefore local governments were “marketing” themselves, and try to make themselves to be more attractive to the private investor, so that private sectors will help to start projects that will benefits both the city and the private investors.

I think that when government and private investors work together, we will solve the problem with funding. Those private investors will make the funding possible; however, they may slow down the process and may reduce the government’s power in decision-making. This is what Altshuler mentioned in his book, in which our cities were highly depended on private sectors for decision-making. If the local politicians only focused on how to attract investors, not seek help from higher-level government, then I feel like our central government had lost part of its purpose.

Eminent Domain is the power for the government to take private property for public use. In the U.S., the Fifth Amendment gives the government the power to take property for “public use” as long as it makes “just compensation” for them. This leave a lot of room for debate, as there is the question of what is public use and just compensation. There is also a question of whether or not this power of the government is right, since peoples right to private property is taken away. When talking about eminent domain, it’s hard not to think about Robert Moses and all that he built and that many critics believed that he abused the power of eminent domain. Although that may be true and many people were displaced because of all of his projects, it’s difficult to imagine the city without the things he built. For me, when I read about the project that it in the works that will use eminent domain, such as Atlantic Yards, or Willets Point, it’s difficult to think that the positives and benefits of the project will out weight the negatives of displacing people but when I look back on projects, like those of Moses, it’s much easier to see all the positives and why there is a need and use for eminent domain.

In the case of Atlantic Yards, the justification for eminent domain was blight, but the author says that the consultants had to stretch for the area to be labels as blight. Prospect Height was not initially blighted, but after owners left due to the threat of having their property taken away due eminent domain, it became a state of decay. This really just does not seem right on the part of the government, but I imagine that this happens in many areas where there is the possible threat of eminent domain to be used for a development project.

When I first saw that the article was going to be about eminent domain, I immediately thought about my project topic, Willets Point, which is also mentioned in the article. There is currently a plan to replace the scrapyards, auto body shops, and industrial sties of Willets Point with a large shopping center, housing, office space, and some other things meant to improve the area, and could potentially use eminent domain to acquire the land needed for the redevelopment project. As the article says, there is the mindset that in Willets Point, “anything is better than grubby body shops.” But the area serves people that would have a difficult time find another job since it is mainly immigrants, with limited skills who work there. It’s also a destination area to get cheap work done which is good for people who may not really be able to afford to go elsewhere to get their cars fixed.

Something that caught my attention was the author’s assessment that eminent domain abuse is a symptom of a deeper problem, the government’s belief that central planning is superior to free-market competition. In the case of Atlantic Yards and Willets Point, it seems like the government just wants to a big developer to go in and boost the area and economy as opposed to allow the small business stay and perhaps boost the area with time. I think it’s understandable to use eminent domain to build a public highway, hospital, school, or something like that, but for entertainment purposes, it really doesn’t seem like it should be used. There is more to Atlantic Yards than the Barclays Center, but that is the main part of the development, and for Willets Point, it would be the shopping center. The other stuff just seems to make the redevelopment sound better and more like it’s really for public use. In theses situations, eminent domain seems to be used to enrich few private developers at the expense of many small private developers.

I think it’ll take time to see whether the Atlantic Yards development, or other similar megaprojects in the city will be successful or not, but so far it seems to be the approach the city is taking as opposed to just trying to fix up an area. As the article said, the courts also aren’t much help for homeowners, except maybe in the case of West Harlem. In the research I have done so far for the project about Willets Point, the resident of Willets Point and several business owners have filed lawsuits, but it does not seem like they will win even though they have before. It sounds like the redevelopment plan for Willets Point will be approved and go on as planned, but a part of me hopes that it won’t because I don’t really think it is the best thing especially if the use of or threat of eminent domain is used.