Jane Jacobs Atlantic Yards Report Card #2: Avoidance of Monopolistic Centers of Real Estate? NO

This is evaluation item #2 (of 47) of the Jane Jacobs Atlantic Yards Report Card

Avoidance of Monopolistic Centers of Real Estate? NO

Jane Jacobs objected to large swaths of real estate being owned by the same owners and developers. Atlantic Yards, which could be developed like other modern projects by multiple developers, has been given over to only one without proper competitive bid. Through condemnation, the developer is being given additional unnecessary acreage to develop. That, together with adjoining sites already owned by the same developer, will create 30 acres of dense monopolistically-owned acreage. (In addition, the public is already subsidizing ownership of a significant amount additional acreage owned by the same developer not very far away in the downtown Brooklyn MetroTech Center.)

JJ Cites: [Monopolistic shopping centers: p. 4 Meanwhile, although monopoly insures the financial success planned for it, it fails the city socially. P.71 One-age construction in city areas is sometimes protected nowadays from the threat of more efficient and responsive commercial competition. This protection- - - which is nothing more than commercial monopoly- - -. . .. P. 192 The point of cities is multiplicity of choice. P. 340 But multiplicity of choice and intensive city trading depend also on immense concentrations of people, and on intricate minglings of uses and complex interweaving paths. P. 340]