NYC Planning Commissioner Leah Goodridge (Illustration by The Real Deal with Getty, Leah Goodridge via Twitter)
In the wee hours of Christmas morning, New York City Planning Commissioner Leah Goodridge was distributing not presents but bad tidings on Twitter.
At 12 a.m. on Dec. 25, the attorney and public official clapped back at a user who had knocked her housing policy ideas.
“Engaging in defamation might seem cute on Twitter,” Goodridge wrote. “It’s not cute in the courtroom though.”
Engaging in defamation might seem cute on Twitter.
It’s not cute in the courtroom though. pic.twitter.com/gP5gLwlts8
— Leah Goodridge (@leahfrombklyn) December 25, 2022
Her threat to sue sparked an outcry from attorneys and housing policy wonks alike. They labeled it frivolous, questioned Goodridge’s understanding of defamation and deemed her response an abuse of power.
The trail of tweets preceding the threat reflects the deeply polarized debate about development and gentrification in cities.
Goodridge, a tenants’ rights attorney and appointee of Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, had spent the days before the holiday debating the impact of YIMBYism, notably whether housing development advocated by the “Yes in my backyard” movement displaces urban communities of color.
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A Dec. 21 Tweet by a self-described Marxist and policy analyst sparked those musings.
An account named Spirangelos Ferrer had knocked the movement as bad for the masses, drawing a rebuttal from a Bostonian YIMBY with the username Sam.
Sam argued that YIMBYism was a response to oppressive zoning that has restricted construction, concentrating demand on a limited supply of housing and driving up rents and homelessness.
“It’s really not that complicated,” he concluded.
Soon after, another Marxist with the handle Matrixgoth blamed pro-development politics for displacing communities of color.
the key to understanding YIMBYism is that it’s a reductive fascist politics pushed by capital and the state to perpetuate the settler colonial and neoliberal project. it perpetuates displacement, dispossession, ethnic cleansing, cultural genocide, & economic insecurity https://t.co/IG9qUg6Sn1
— s 🙁 (@matrixgoth) December 22, 2022
“Run far away from YIMBYism it’s toxic,” the user wrote.
That’s where Goodridge stepped in, using Matrixgoth’s tweet as a launchpad for a discussion of gentrification.
Referencing the decades-long migration of wealthier, white Americans from the suburbs back to cities, Goodridge asked who was behind the “reclaiming of cities” and “from whom” they were taking that land.
She wrote that YIMBYs ignore that new development is geared for “white residents returning from the suburbs,” which she characterized as “white supremacy at its finest.”
And when conversations around what equitable planning should look like come up, there’s always the predictable robotic response:
“Build more housing.”
It’s another way of saying: “I don’t care about these concerns.”
— Leah Goodridge (@leahfrombklyn) December 23, 2022
On Christmas Eve, a city planner from Boston with the username Sandy Johnston called attention to “a supposedly leftist planning commissioner” asking “what it would be like if we could establish a hukou system.”
A supposedly leftist planning commissioner “just asking questions” about what it would be like if we could establish a hukou system is really grounds for rebooting the entire system.
— @sandypsj@mastodon.social (Sandy Johnston 🚰) (@sandypsj) December 25, 2022
Hukou is a Chinese class system widely criticized as segregationist. In it, citizens are permanently classified as urban or rural. City dwellers can access social benefits including housing that are off limits to country residents, who are restricted from moving to more affluent city centers.
Johnston’s point seemed to be that Goodridge, to protect poorer urban communities, would limit suburbanites’ right to move to cities.
Rather than address Johnston’s claim — such as by noting that Hukou disadvantages poor and include ethnic minorities in rural China, whereas America’s suburbanites tend to be white and well off — Goodridge dug herself into a hole, threatening the defamation suit.
The replies were not supportive.
Some, including other attorneys, ridiculed Goodridge’s defamation claim and questioned whether she was fit to practice law.
As a fellow attorney it should be really obvious that this is not defamation. Hope you’re more careful with making baseless legal claims in the future. It demeans our entire profession.
— Andy Esposito (@AndyEsposito9) December 25, 2022
Because Goodridge is a public official, she would have to show that Johnston intended actual malice and presented information he knew to be false. Johnston did not respond to a request for comment.
Others questioned her integrity as a public official.
You know what’s not cute? Throwing your weight around as a government official to try to stifle free speech and use litigation as a cudgel! This is literally what the First Amendment was written to protect against and members of both parties need to knock this shit off. https://t.co/NRsNe2UYJt
— Liz Mair (@LizMair) December 26, 2022
Some even demanded her removal from the planning commission.
@NYCPlanning remove this person from your commission. https://t.co/khH9rJWe49
— GabeForFive.com (@gabrielpiemonte) December 25, 2022
One commenter noted the optics of a city official spending Christmas arguing with constituents on Twitter.
Quite literally posted at the stroke of midnight on Christmas Eve. Sensational https://t.co/O3AZVtAiwo
— Armand Domalewski (@ArmandDoma) December 25, 2022