Generally, I am somewhat suspicious of the seemingly good intentions held by large corporations. Even if a corporation honestly means to do good for a community, the leaders are usually out of touch with the needs and demands of the residents. I believe that this is the case with the proposal for an MLS soccer stadium in Flushing Meadows Corona Park.
Officials with the MLS claim that they want to create jobs for the surrounding communities. MLS has also offered aid to help maintain the park and some aspects of the surrounding neighborhoods. In their proposal, they claimed that the presence of a soccer field in FMCP will bring increased business to local shops and restaurants. This is, of course, assuming that those who come to the games will stay around neighborhoods like Corona afterwards. This idea is very top-down, that is, it assumes that placing one economic engine in a neighborhood will somehow revitalize the entire neighborhood.
This way of thinking is incorrect. There is no way that the presence of one business can aid dozens and dozens of others. Besides that, what about other business types that have no sort of association with the demands of soccer fans? What do they have to gain? Also, what about the residents of Corona who work outside of it, but make use of the open space in FMCP as it is?
The lack of resident inclusion in the decision making process here is alarming. A company cannot honestly say that they are looking out for the needs of the people if they aren’t reaching out to the people. What do a few executives at the top know about neighborhood dynamics and the true needs of its residents? Little to nothing, most likely.
Hopefully, one of three things will happen here: the MLS will realize that they are not truly catering to the needs of the public and they will create new proposals that will be more inclusive of the residents, the city will hold them accountable for their claims of improving the surrounding neighborhoods, or the people of the surrounding neighborhoods will raise their voices and let the MLS know what they really want, or that they want to be included in the decision making process. If none of these things happen, the residents of Queens just might remember this year as the year they let themselves get taken advantage of for the financial gains of others.
