Brooklyn: A Developing Story

The dramatic slow-down in housing construction at the Brooklyn site is fodder for opponents of the project. But supporters believe the development will still make good on its commitments.

Opponents of Atlantic Yards feel vindicated by the challenges facing the development. Business owners in the area express a mix of concern and optimism.

The Nets are coming to Brooklyn with a 15-man roster and a tip-off in fall 2012. Traffic, jobs, housing and economic activity are coming, too, but no one is sure precisely how much or exactly when.

In a matter of months the Nets will be playing ball at the corner of Flatbush and Atlantic, as envisioned more than eight years ago by developer Bruce Ratner. But the rest of Atlantic Yards' promise has yet to be fulfilled. Given the deep disagreement the project prompted, what does that mean for Brooklyn?

In the looming debate over full-scale casino gambling in New York, it will likely be harder for foes to document the proposal's potential costs than for pro-casino advocates to predict benefits.

A new report paints the most detailed statistical picture ever of Brooklyn and its 18 community districts, and suggests residents today are less poor, better educated, paying more for housing and more likely to ride mass transit than in 2000.

The end of the Advantage subsidy program leaves advocates battling to salvage a policy they criticized, the city bracing for more demand for scarce shelter beds and low-income families wondering what comes next.

Transportation advocates in the nation's largest city believe the 2012 election will decide the future of mass transit in the United States.

Community opposition hasn't stopped plans for a large shelter in the waterfront neighborhood, where five homeless people have been found dead in the past 15 months.

In 2009 a controversy over wages scuttled a plan to build a mall in the long-empty Kingsbridge Armory. Now there's a plan to host bike races there. Is a renovation project finally getting in gear?

Advocates say a Bloomberg administration reduction of brokers' fees paid under an HIV/AIDS housing program has made life harder for HIV-positive clients.

The city is in the midst of an historic plan to build affordable housing. But people who want to live in those low-income units face enormous difficulty finding and applying for government-subsidized apartments.

In the past year, the housing authority has let contracts worth $10 million to a consultant to oversee a major restructuring. The content of that advice is under wraps.

From schools to public housing to hospitals that serve the poor, private firms are being brought in to rescue remnants of an earlier, more ambitious era of government.

Community leaders know they can't stop every new bar. But they can try to impose rules—on everything from hours of operation to soundproofing—for watering holes to live by.

Illegal apartments have figured in several tragic fires, prompting stricter enforcement. But they also play a role in meeting housing demand, leading some experts to wonder if a path to legalization is needed.

A study that says a proposed city living wage law would kill 13,000 jobs based its analysis on a state subsidy program that wouldn't actually be covered by the city measure.

Residents looking for help with housing disputes must line up as early as 3 a.m to get assistance from cash-strapped community organizations in particularly vulnerable northern Manhattan neighborhoods.

The mayor's ambitious affordable housing initiative is three-quarters to completion. But reshaped by fiscal woes, complicated by other city policies and often outgunned by the private market, what will the plan's long-term impact be?

The crisis in the national housing market has slipped from the front pages. But in New York's neighborhoods of color, the twin crises of foreclosures and joblessness are still big stories.