Emergent City

The informative and compelling footage the filmmakers have compiled is the main driving force here, but I must make note of the expert editing and structural organization of the whole with just the right amount of contextual exposition.

While there’s no doubt the directors have a sympathetic slant towards the community, this is a film that is interested in exploring all the angles.

Documents not just a local issue, but a reflection of the broader urban struggle between development and displacement, economic growth, and cultural retention.

The documentary does a terrific job showing the many ingredients that go into a working democracy … No group is a monolith, and the vibrancy of disagreement and occasional harmony has its fingerprints all over the narrative.

It’s not a new tale, but one that contains resonance for New Yorkers, for any member of a small community, and for those who lose control over the land they call home.

It leaves enough wiggle room for the audience to make up its own mind, a kind of nonfiction Rorschach test to help us illuminate how we really think about everything from housing costs to climate change.

The full picture that emerges is invigorating when whether or not Industry City makes good on their own blueprints, you can see the architecture of how modern cities are designed and who they are made for.