Reconciling Old & New, Preservation & Progress

Feeling torn between her philosophically modern stance and her nostalgia for the “Old Brooklyn” she loves to inhabit, writer Karrie Jacobs tries to come to terms with the building boom going on in Brooklyn:

Generally speaking I’m not against development or change, even in my own backyard. I’m enthused about other smaller-scale plans, such as the 500,000-square-foot residential project that Time Equities–a relatively enlightened developer–and Hamlin Ventures are building above the subway station at Hoyt and Schermerhorn Streets in Downtown Brooklyn…But I’m troubled that Brooklyn is being regarded as an opportunity rather than as a place. Ratner’s development scheme, the Downtown plan drafted by the city, and the vision for the Greenpoint-Williamsburg waterfront all seem to view the borough as a tabula rasa. It is that old urban-renewal thinking that overvalues the potential and understates the significance of what’s already here–exactly the kind of thinking that engendered a 30-year backlash. It’s not nostalgia or NIMBYism to want planning that intelligently integrates past, present, and future.

Oh Brooklyn, My Brooklyn [Metropolis]