Disorienting discourses and the making of gentrifiers in redeveloping Brooklyn

We study how large and small discursive neoliberal moves create contemporary urban space. We explore neoliberalism’s coordinates, how it gets vocalized, and its variously scaled economic realities. The setting is Brooklyn's changing status in 2003 from “outer borough” and marginal to Manhattan to a new economic and cultural center of its own. Focusing on private developer, Forest City Ratner's (FCRC) 2003 Atlantic Yards redevelopment with its large-scale movement of capital and corporate land seizure, we situate our family’s 2003 move to Brooklyn’s Flatbush neighborhood to examine the circulating discourses of gentrification and redevelopment. [ii] The area proposed to be developed as Atlantic Yards has been renamed Pacific Park.