Dude, where's my city?

Everywhere you look in this city, you see signs of permanent benefits being sacrificed for the sake of temporary ones.

Take the West Side Stadium. Mayor Bloomberg won me over during his first term of office, when he dissolved the inept and corrupt New York City school boards and replaced them with Community Education Councils, new advisory committees consisting almost solely of parents of children attending public school in the city. But now he's in danger of losing me again with this ridiculous scheme and his arrogant attitude. I'm against the stadium for a number of reasons, but more worrisome than the issue itself is the Mayor's attitude towards the Stadium's opponents. AOL / Timewarner, which owns Madison Square Garden, has offered to buy the West Side Rail Yards and has entered a competitive bid for the right to develop the property. He's derided this proposal -- in which the company would spend $700 million and which would put the land to multiple uses, including both commercial office space and low-income housing -- as a "joke". And now he's reportedly told AOL / TimeWarner that the Stadium "is happening, whether you like it or not."

Why is Bloomberg so locked into this use of the West Side Yards? Basically because he wants New York to host the 2012 Olympics, and because consultants have told him that without a world-class sports arena in Manhattan, the city wouldn't beat out London, Madrid, and the short list of a half-dozen other cities vying for the opportunity. So he wants to scuttle a deal which would bring permanent benefit to the residents of this city, which would be funded 100% with private funds, in favor of a deal in which taxpayers stand to lose big and whose benefits, when finally realized in 2012, will be temporary at best. Now the NFL has sweetened the deal with an offer to let the Jets host the 2010 Super Bowl if the stadium is built.

Meanwhile, Ikea, a manufacturer of prefab furniture which falls apart within six months--even when properly assembled--wants to build a superstore in historic Red Hook, Brooklyn. Right now, anyone who wants to buy this throwaway stuff can get a free bus out of Manhattan to Elizabeth, New Jersey. But apparently Brooklyn needs its own direct line to particle-board computer tables and bean-bag chairs. According to New York Press reporter Chris Ketcham, a Baltimore developer had offered to develop part of the site along a more sustainable model, but elected officials quickly scuttled the plan in favor of the big money and minimal risk offered by the furniture chain. So the relatively stable, well-paying jobs currently enjoyed by about 300 union workers at the dry dock are going to be replaced by about twice that number of part-time, minimum-wage workers.

Is there a pattern at work here? Are we quickly turning New York into a carbon copy of every other colorless suburb in America? First it was Disney getting their hands on Times Square, then it was an Olive Garden opening in the Theater District, now it's superstores and superstadiums which will not only downgrade the quality of life here, but will be another step towards erasing the character of this city.

I'd consider living in a New York which was utterly changed to look more like Parsippany.

But only if the Rent Guidelines board rolls back rents to what they are in Parsippany.