Forest City propose to demap parts of both Pacific Street and Fifth Avenue to build Atlantic Yards. Street demappings are an urban planning choice that would create “superblocks”.

Developments elsewhere in New York City have proven that superblocks tend to discourage streetlife because they limit pedestrian and vehicular circulation. The result is private-feeling enclaves that divide, rather than integrate with, surrounding neighborhoods.

By contrast, large-scale developments like Rockefeller Center and Tudor City in Manhattan actually added streets to the grid to improve circulation, while the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site will restore streets that were originally demapped to create the original complex.

The sponsors of BrooklynSpeaks therefore believe that the project should:

- Keep Fifth Avenue and Pacific Street between Carlton and Vanderbilt Avenues open
- Add new streets going across the railyards to better connect the surrounding neighborhoods and create more human-scaled blocks

In red, the parts of Pacific street and Fifth Avenue that Forest City proposes to demap

Instead of demapping streets, new streets going across the railyards should be created