In the latest issue of urban-planning mag City Journal, writer Nicole Gelinas examines the role of eminent domain in the creation and destruction of cities. In the process, she looks back on the failed experiment known as Metrotech:

Nearly two decades ago, Gotham decided to build a walled camp in the middle of a lower-class area of Brooklyn to lock white-collar jobs in. This project would accomplish two goals, pols thought. In addition to keeping jobs in New York, Metrotech would spark further development in a slummy neighborhood that never had grown on its own, despite its proximity to lower Manhattan. City and state officials used eminent domain to displace 250 owners and tenants so that developer Bruce Ratner could build the suburban-style office campus.

Metrotech tenants have received about $270 million in state and city subsidies (of which more than $200 million went to JPMorgan Chase). But Metrotech hasn’t kept the nation’s financial-services jobs in New York…Nor has Metrotech, completely cut off from the surrounding streetscape, encouraged the growth of an unsubsidized business community in its neighborhood. Metrotech is what it was when it opened: a suburban-style office campus carved out of inner-city downtown Brooklyn.

We actually don’t know that much about Metrotech–does everyone agree that it is an unmitigated disaster?
Taking Away Your Property for What? [City Journal]
4 Metrotech Center Photo [Scott Murphy]