The "Socialist Developer"

Greg O'Connell has been called that, for his community-developing strategies that helped transform Red Hook. His new target: the small town of Mount Morris in upstate New York.

1 minute read

March 22, 2011, 1:00 PM PDT

By Tim Halbur


O'Connell started investing in Red Hook in 1982, and is now the largest landowner in the borough.

In the New York Times, Dwight Garner calls him "a gentrifier of a sort, albeit one who loathes most of what we've come to think of as gentrification."

"He's a longtime admirer of Jane Jacobs - he used to carry her classic book, "The Death and Life of Great American Cities," around like a talisman - and he learned from her and other urban planners."

Friday, March 18, 2011 in The New York Times

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