“My Brooklyn” and the two models of successful city life
In “My Brooklyn” there are two model visions of a Fulton Mall area, one is from the City Council, one is from original residents in Downtown Brooklyn. Downtown Brooklyn is a neighborhood in Brooklyn that is closest to Manhattan, and Fulton Mall area was a popular social place for people hangout and shop since the 60s. It brought people from different parts of Brooklyn to there, because there used to have the latest fashion, hip hop music also came from there and lots of unique small shops. All of these attractive reasons made Fulton Mall area a hot spot to gather people together. All of sudden the City Council wanted to change the Downtown Brooklyn to a more profitable neighborhood so they purposed the Downtown Brooklyn Plan. This is a model that they wanted to make this neighborhood like Los Angles, they wanted to gentrified this area to a city which could made New York to a even stronger city because it could bring in more rich successful business developers. For the developer model, the goal was to make the area to a office space so it could bring in construction jobs, permanent jobs, housing units and public infrastructure improvement. They wanted the space could be able to provide more job opportunities and make Downtown Brooklyn a place that upper classes would be willing to live in. However, the original residents were very mad about this plan. Fulton Mall area was a very special place for them because lots of them grew up in there or shop in there
since they were very young. The space has their childhood, memory and relationship with people. For them this area was a way to keep and show the African American culture. So they definite did not want to get rid of the space. Also, most of the residents there were in lower classes, Fulton mall area was the best place they could get the cheap price for stuff. As I mentioned before, the developer plan was to make the place a office space, bring jobs and opportunities and this is how they believe that would make the area and people better in Downtown Brooklyn. On the other hand, the locals wanted to keep the area and not to change anything about it. Some of them might thought that Downtown Brooklyn plan was a good idea as long as it bring in jobs rather than higher the rent to make the place not affordable. But most of locals just want to keep the space what it used to be because this is their culture. These two models were came from two groups of people that have totally different culture background and social classes. People purposed the developer model were mostly white who has power and money so they did not have any connection with this space, they have no feelings with it but they knew it would be a perfect place to bring in money. The model for the locals, this area and community was their home and culture. Everyone were like a family for them in the neighborhood. The way how these two models presented was also in a completely different way. The developer plan was always announces on the media, through news, newspaper and TV show. They did not really talk with the residents face to face, even they opened the public
hearing and let the residents shared the ideas, they still not concerned anything for the residents. The locals started a organization call Furee, they collected residents opinions of the plan and how they wanted to change for the neighborhood, they presented to the City Council and they also protest because they wanted to let the governments and the developers to hear their opinions of the plan. Actually the Downtown Brooklyn Plan is not a really bad plan, but it should not be get rid off the locals who were in the lowers class and changed the space only affordable for high classes. Because these two models are proposed by two different groups of people so they have different thought and feeling for this space. It could be said that to considered the locals opinion was an important key that could made the plan not as controversial. People who has power should also think about others while making money, the plan was about people, relationship, culture and community not only about profit.
