Historically, as Long Island’s suburban community expanded, the village of Hempstead became broken and dilapidated-suffering an economic pitfall it never fully recovered from.

The last attempt to revitalize its abandoned storefronts and crumbling facades was turned down by the Hempstead Town Council in late September. Mayor Hall wanted to utilize minority-owned Manhattan-based Urban America, a developing firm that aims to jump-start economically depressed areas by fixing rundown public transportation hubs, improving downtown conditions and providing space for big box stores.

The Urban America project previously worked wonders in Jamaica, Queens, giving the community an economic boost with the renovation of its Long Island Railroad station, bringing new people in, and providing easy access to subways and buses. New stores made the streets walkable and thriving again-however, with a price.

You name it, it’s there: Old Navy, Gap, McDonald’s, Duane Reade Pharmacy, and so on. Yes, Urban America brought the chain stores to Jamaica Avenue, (and who knows when New York City will begin looking like the great mall of America)-but lucky for Queens, Jamaica was able to maintain its West-Indian roots, even with change. The project worked.

Nevertheless, Hempstead is not Queens. It’s a village, not a city. Most zoning is horizontal, not vertical (the University’s Axinn Library remains one of the tallest buildings in the area, by far.) Once the mayor unveiled his $2 billion plan for Hempstead during the summer, the community wondered what to do with 2,500 condominiums, 600,000 square feet of retail space and a performing arts center on North Franklin Street. This project for Hempstead was big-perhaps, too lofty for the village to handle.

Notably, the Long Island Branch of ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) screamed gentrification about Mayor Hall’s plan. In a sense, ACORN is right-rapid gentrification only provides a temporary solution for urban areas. It often polarizes the rich and poor, the good side of the tracks and the bad. However, the village of Hempstead should not go untouched. Its problems are both structural and internal, and need to be addressed gradually. No magic plan will turn years worth of urban problems into a thriving economic hub.