Chicanx-Latinx Law Review

Legal scholars and sociologists have explored the dynamics of gentrification in New York City. Yet, comparatively fewer scholars, among them Professor Tarry Hum, Chair of the Queens College Department of Urban Studies, have written about the matrix of class, immigration, and displacement in Sunset Park. No legal scholarship currently looks into the fight for Industry City. This Article seeks to document the processes of gentrification and rezoning as they have manifested in Sunset Park, vis-à-vis the fight to rezone Industry City. Parts I and II provide a primer on gentrification and rezoning before narrowing in on Industry City and arguments against rezoning that are particular to this area. Though I focus on the uniqueness of Sunset Park, I argue that the fight over Industry City is not a one-off example of corporate entrepreneurship lured by the promise of a working waterfront. Rather, this rezoning proposal is the natural progeny to decades of government failures and corporate lobbying efforts and is a successor in interest to the fraught rezoning proposals that have reshaped the City since the start of the new millennium. Part III offers potential solutions and strategies to combat displacement and gentrification in Industry City and throughout the New York area.