Brooklyn Community Board 6

The East River wasn’t a choice. Building the Brooklyn Bridge to cross it was.

Ralph Nader once said if you’re not turned on by politics, politics will turn on you. I heard that before I was old enough to vote. I didn’t know then I’d go on to study and teach political science at CUNY, or end up as the District Manager of Community Board 6 in Brooklyn.

Too many people hear the word “politics” and think it means something distant, something negative, something that happens to other people. That’s a mistake. Politics is not separate from your life. It is your life. Every road, every rezoning, every dollar in a city budget, every vote on something that changed your neighborhood — those were choices. Made by people. Through a process.

Politics is who gets what, when, and how. It doesn’t mean corruption or cable news. It means the system by which decisions get made about shared resources and shared space. Your block is part of that system whether you’re paying attention or not.

Community Board 6 alone spans 75 election districts, parts of two City Council districts, two State Assembly districts, two State Senate districts, and one Congressional district. That’s one board out of 59 citywide. Small units build larger structures. This app tries to make those structures visible.

If it works, you’ll come away understanding the system a little better. If it doesn’t, tell me why I’m wrong.

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