If there was any doubt that technology and the internet have radically changed community organizing and activism, it has been permanently put to rest by onNYTurf (via Bird to the North). OnNYTurf makes its case against the new Yankee Stadium with this complex and detailed map, showing exactly how this deal will go down (critics maintain that parkland to be taken for the new stadium is inadequately replaced elsewhere). Activists no longer need to show up to public meetings just to be dismissed when they're ill-informed and short on details. Critics of the plan came to a City Council hearing on Tuesday and put some serious pressure on this deal not just because they showed up in numbers, but because they knew what they were talking about. This is impressive community activism, foshizzle. City Council will vote on the plan April 5.UPDATE: If the map is a little too complex for those of you not following this very closely, check out a commentary by WNYC's Brian Lehrer (hands down, the best host on the radio anywhere, and a New York treasure). He offers five reasons the Yankee Stadium deal should be voted down by City Council next week. Here's just one reason:
The current stadium has no apartment buildings right across the street from it. The new stadium would, both east and west. That's a big hit to the quality of life of the people who live in those buildings, which now face the park. Imagine the outcry if the city proposed doing THAT to the residents of Central Park West.
Leave it to Brian Lehrer to break this all the way down to its essence.
