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Yet Another Ani-Stadium Article - Political Corruption In NYC Real Estate
If you have lived in NYC for a few years, watching the way real estate deals are cut here, by both city agencies and state agencies, you can become very frustrated by the way business is run, prompting an intrepid blogger such as myself to forget all other responsibilities and write the mother of all articles that will finally reveal the great truths and set the people free. Fortunately it has already been writen and I can go back to focusing on something more mundane like bicyclists civil rights. City Journal in an article How Not to Develop the Far West Side, covers most everything that is wrong with Bloomberg's plans for the West Side Railyards and more broadly the overall backward management of NYC development policy. I do have to put a caveat here: City Journal is very free market oriented, so some of their solutions must be considered with a critical ear, for example they praise the current development of Times Square; and anyone who has even been to the new Times Square would question such an assessment; and they clearly are anti-union and pro-developer first, not necessarily pro-average person. Never the less, City Journal's overall critique speaks volumes to the way properties are being gift wrapped as Secret-Santa exchanges with developers and how executive ego is running roughshod over development opportunities for the city.
Complete Article here
Some Choice Quoteshere
(ps - how come the blog tools here dont have like a top teaser snip and then an extended body?)
Manhattan Institute? please.
I certainly appreciate the anti-stadium viewpoint of the article. However, the Manhattan Institute has a horrible track record for urban development policy. They work hand-in-hand with the Real Estate Board to have city policy favor the unbriddled real estate market over all other kinds of development. If it were up to them, they would do away with most kinds of zoning entirely, which would be horrible news for NYC's working families.
And do they criticize the "payment in lieu of taxes" (PILOT) scheme set up for private office space on the Far West Side, which shortchanges the city on property taxes and favors development on the Far West Side over Downtown Manhattan or Brooklyn? Nope- not a single word on it. Why should we subsidize office space in Manhattan but not affordable housing in the Bronx?
oop...sorry puppeteer - I jus
oop...sorry puppeteer - I just posted another comment and did not realize the comments had the collapsed view, I did not realize it until after I posted the other comment. All I had seen was your subject line and thought that was the extent of your comment.
Good points all, I agree completely - I cited the article because I think the arguements in it are well articulated, certainly not to promote the Manhattan Institute.
I know what you are saying ab
I know what you are saying about the Manhattan Institute, but did you read the article puppeteer? Despite the Manhattan Insitute being wrong the vast majority of the time, they get this one right. Most of the major contention points are very well articulated - IMHO. I pulled quotes from the article and higlighted them in an extended article on the site listed in my profile. Out of respect I am not going to post a direct link as the moderators cut that from my original post.
I did indeed read it
And your point about support from odd quarters is well taken, as is the point about NYC unions needing to be more supportive of the wider progressive agenda.
I do want to emphasize my point that the Manhattan Institute actually doesn't have any problem with subsidizing the real estate market en masse. They whole-heartedly supported the PILOT program for the Far West Side. They also favor giveaways to developers in the form of massive upzonings. I'm not being paranoid when I say that they are agressively trying to co-opt planning rhetoric for the sake of their free-market agenda.
and another thing comes to mi
and another thing comes to mind on this issue. The Manhattan Institute is anti-union. A position I do not support. But on the other hand the Unions have been shameful in their support of this Stadium project and so are not helping forge the right kind of cross-community support that we really need. Its a shame.