In Tarry Hum’s article on Sunset Park’s redevelopment, the topic of the waterfront is brought up. Jamestown Properties want to build a hotel at the waterfront and many felt concern because the waterfront was always occupied by small businesses. The small businesses are important to the local economy and the Latinos and Asians immigrant employment base located in Sunset Park. Building the hotel there will displace many of the current local work forces and decrease employment prospects for the people actually living in Sunset Park. In his other article, “There is Nothing Innovative About Displacement”, it is mentioned that the branding of this elite hotel will essentially erase the authenticity of Sunset Park. Building this hotel will lead to gentrification because Jamestown Properties is promoting this hotel to a new and elite public that doesn’t involve the working class and people of color living in Sunset Park. This gentrification will then cause massive displacement with people moving out either because the rents have risen too high or they need to find employment prospects outside of Sunset Park.
However, I am still “techno-optimism” because there are businesses that have programs to train local people and hire them as employees. For example, Kerry Murtha’s article on businesses finding talent just down the block, faculty from CUNY’s New York City College of Technology will teach classes for potential employees in the Innovation Lab especially for those with no more than a high school education. The program will prepare them with the skills that are needed. The low entry jobs will also help them prosper into higher positions so there is a silver lining in the midst of takeovers by big businesses if it is done well and inclusive with the local people.
Jenny, you are right that the job training can connect workers to potential employers–if the employers really want to hire them. But the numbers of jobs will start small, and the growth of jobs depends on attracting enough more new employers to rent space in Industry City. The hotel(s) and the retail shops and restaurants are supposed to accomplish two goals: to make the work spaces attractive to new kinds of industrial tenants and to generate rents that are higher than the manufacturing rents. So a lot depends on whether all these strategies will work.