Tag: Urban Development

NIMBY!

This weekend will be quiet…my granddaughter has gone to DC to play for the Memorial Day celebrations…her and her high school band…..I will miss her as always when she is not around….but it is for a good cause.

I read a piece that talks about how hypocritical wealthy “liberals” are these days…..

California is suffering from an “emergency that feels like a dystopian showcase of American inequality.” That’s the take of Farhad Manjoo in the New York Times, who writes that the Golden State is weighed down by a “livability” problem, plagued with a lack of affordable housing, unbearable traffic, steep education and child care costs, homelessness issues, even streets strewn with garbage and feces. And he’s pointing the finger at one specific group for exacerbating things in not just his home state, but in “America’s increasingly unlivable cities”: the progressive left, including Democrats in power. Citing “NIMBY urban mismanagement” across the nation, Manjoo complains that “where progressives argue for openness and inclusion as a cudgel against President Trump, they abandon it on Nob Hill and in Beverly Hills.”

A key sticking point for Manjoo is how Democrats don’t walk the walk on affordable housing, often pushing back on legislation (he uses California’s SB 50 initiative as an example) that would provide for more apartment buildings and duplexes in neighborhoods that traditionally contain single-family homes. He even muses over an “unsettling thought” on this type of housing resistance—that “what Republicans want to do with ICE and border walls, wealthy progressive Democrats are doing with zoning and NIMBYism,” which is “keep people out.” How Manjoo ultimately frames it: as a “refusal on the part of wealthy progressives to live by the values they profess to support at the national level.” Read the full column here.

Having money does not make one a ‘liberal’….and besides…I would like mental midgets stop calling liberals progressive…they are NOT progressive……they are traitors to a progressive agenda of bringing society in line with the people’s needs and wants.

I have seen first hand what a mess these people have made of Harlem……the area has lost its original character in favor trendy shops and eateries.

MoMo and I have a big day in the yard……garden needs some attention and I need a beer, some cheese and a smile…..a she needs a new approach on getting even with that damn squirrel.

Here Comes The Neighborhood!

We see/hear/read stories about the urban turn around……how a developer goes into an area and develop the crap out of it and makes it a success…..with Starbuck, trendy eateries, upscale shops with candles and retro clothing….something you can find anywhere they have developed the uniqueness out of the neighborhood.

I have a friend that was born and lived in Harlem most of his life….today he hates the neighborhood….he says it is soulless and cold.  He says that the whole feeling of a neighborhood is gone and the people were left with a cold hollow shell that they can only remember for they cannot afford it as it has become.

I witnessed this phenom in Santa Fe, New Mexico….originally it was a colony of writers and artists…..living was simple then the “developers” found it…. they turned it into a haven for the rich and disgusting.

These are the same tools that transformed “The Village” and Soho in NYC

Can you build a neighborhood out of money? It’s a defining question in America’s fastest-growing cities. When a major residential project rises, who suffers? When a tax incentive is granted, who benefits? When occupied land is redeveloped, how do city dwellers reconcile the pressure for economic growth with the need to safeguard vulnerable communities?

As a regular reader of Eater or Curbed, you may be wondering who gets to decide the target audience for these real estate megaplexes: Which retail and restaurant tenants get in? How much do they pay? What kind of economic incentives do they benefit from? And what’s the special sauce that actually makes a viable, dynamic, livable neighborhood?

https://www.curbed.com/2018/9/19/17841682/city-development-urban-planning-neighborhood-restaurant-economy

That illustrates exactly what is happening to our neighborhoods.  It is always about turning a buck….never about preserving the culture of that area.

Detroit is next in the sights of “developers” ……….this time it will be a whole city to lose its uniqueness…..not just a part of a whole like Harlem was…..yes it may become an “In” spot but at what cost?

Today is my better half’s birthday….so we will spend the day doing what she would like to do….

Thanx everyone for the visits hopefully we will see each other next week.

In closing I offer a musical interlude…..

“HUD”

Nope…not a misspell of the movie starring Paul Newman…..this one stands for “Housing and Urban Development”……

It appears that PEOTUS Trump has made his pick for this agency…..a person that earlier said that he was not qualified for a cabinet post and has said that he is not sure why he ran for president…..that person is Ben Carson……

Ben Carson is Donald Trump’s pick to run the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The president-elect made the announcement Monday morning, praising the retired neurosurgeon’s “brilliant mind,” reports Politico. “We have talked at length about my urban renewal agenda and our message of economic revival, very much including our inner cities,” said Trump. Carson, 65, has never held public office, but he has said his own experience growing up in poverty in Detroit would give him insight into this role. In his previous public comments on federal housing, he has criticized the Obama administration’s efforts as “social engineering,” notes the New York Times. In particular, he wrote an op-ed last year criticizing an anti-segregration rule and comparing it unfavorably to federal busing.

“I am honored to accept the opportunity to serve our country in the Trump administration,” said Carson, who became one of Trump’s most prominent backers after dropping out of the GOP primary race. In the role at HUD, Carson “will be enlisted to serve as Trump’s unofficial envoy to African-Americans,” says the Washington Post, even though, as with the 2015 op-ed, he appears to hold positions at odds with groups such as the NAACP. While some critics wonder why someone with a background in health would be a fit for public housing, an analysis at the Atlantic takes note of a growing consensus that housing is, in fact, a public health issue, especially in terms of children.

Someone is smoking some stiff stuff!

I still do not understand why he, Trump, keeps picking people that obviously do not have an ounce of experience in the fields he is putting them in……since Carson was a doctor I would understand him as surgeon-general or the head of HHS…..but HUD?

Yet another conspiracist in the cabinet…..looks like it is gonna be a long 4 years.