Another community member is not fooled by Brad Lander's BG (Bridging Gowanus) sleight of hand: Monday's CG CORD post Brad Lander's Magic Show, Brilliant Sleight of Hand--- And Slight to the Community....has inspired our readers to share some of their thoughts and experiences. Please read on and see what S. L. Yung has to say:
Dear CG CORD,
The politicians we have in City
government are jokesters and contrarily seem to work against the local
community people by dividing us into class differences and infusing the
community with 700 units of luxury new dwellers onto the canal. This new
influx will determine the future with explosions of further polluting
the neighborhood with car fumes & noisy gridlocks; increase sewage
problems; school & park overpopulation; garbage overflows; etc. All
this increase before the Gowanus Canal's cleanup will cause further
delayed infrastructures.
I attended "Bridging
Gowanus" event at Bell House and felt helpless as I put 10 tix in
nebulous labeled jars and sticked post-its on a priority chart that did
not have enough columns for amount of attendees present. Even reading
the text can make anyone a slow reader due to deciphering the double
wordings and overlapping nonessential or irrelevant choices i.e.
increase public transportation to (Park Slope). I even tried to talk to
the smiling young interns that these choices have nothing to do to
prevent gentrification and expedite Superfund cleanup. These interns
like robots smiled and gave no educated input or response to my
inquiries. They just insisted to use the tix and pre–printed post-its to
express my opinions. This only took 5 mins to do and then what? Go to
the bar and celebrate with alcoholic drinks and be sociable with
neighbors. A simple hard day's work done. However, I felt uncomfortable,
disappointed and unsociable with a crowd of executives, family members,
workers, homeowners and just a few artists, so I left
I
really felt I am being channeled into making bad decisions on behalf of
city gov't priorities rather than expediting and solving better
solutions in Carroll Garden's community. I had witnessed the same
operation that occurred in Chinatown Working Group's attempt to prevent
gentrification guided by Pratt Center for Community Development. In the
long run, CWG were duped into researching population concensus and
submit a bill that got rejected by the City Council anyways. This did
not prevent the ongoing gentrification of Lower East Side with further
developers increasing building heights. Thus, this parallelism is
occurring in Carroll Gardens. Here is further information of Brad
Lander's connection to Pratt's Community Development founded in
Wikipedia which explains how 4th Ave's gentrification.
Brad Lander,
a graduate of the Pratt Community Economic Development Internship
Program and Pratt’s Masters’ in City and Regional Planning, and director
of the Brooklyn-based CDC Fifth Avenue Committee, became director of
the organization, embarking on a strategic plan that led, in part, to
renaming the organization the Pratt Center for Community Development.
The strategic plan identified three initiatives for the Pratt Center — Helping Communities Build, Planning for Equitable Development, and Sustainability and Environmental Justice.
Thank you for publishing my pitiful thoughts.
S. L. Yung
And thank you, S. L. Yung!
We encourage you to send your comments to cgcord@gmail.com.
We will only reprint if YOU specifically request us to do so. We will never print your comment without your permission. Don't be shy...this is YOUR neighborhood!
We will only reprint if YOU specifically request us to do so. We will never print your comment without your permission. Don't be shy...this is YOUR neighborhood!
CG CORD
For More Info Please See:
Brad Lander's Magic Show, Brilliant Sleight of Hand--- And Slight to the Community...
