‘Emergent City’ Documentary Highlights Rare Anti-Gentrification Victory

A new documentary, Emergent City, highlights zoning as it recounts the saga of a 35-acre Brooklyn industrial complex that served as a hotspot of anti-gentrification and environmental justice activism.

As Oscar Perry Abello explains in Next City, the consortium of developers that bought the complex in 2013 requested zoning changes that would make their proposed redevelopment more profitable. Local residents opposed the changes, saying that “Local landlords were already increasing rents beyond what existing residents and small businesses could afford in order to capitalize on the hype that Industry City was bringing to Sunset Park as a destination for high-end retail, leisure and office space. They argued a rezoning would only throw gasoline on that fire.”

Some community members proposed an alternate plan that would keep the site industrial and prepare it for solar and other alternative energy uses. The local city council member sided with the community, and the developers withdrew their rezoning application. “Although the community organizers won this particular zoning battle, the film also shows how the war for the future rages on.”