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KCDem
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« on: November 08, 2014, 07:20:34 PM »

Noticed there isn't a specific topic on this and would love to discuss. Thoughts, opinions, examples? I would love to discuss some of the wonders happening here in KCMO.
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angus
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« Reply #1 on: November 08, 2014, 08:09:11 PM »


In 2001 Bill Clinton, America's First Black President, moves into an apartment on 125th Street in Manhattan and establishes a foundation.  Within months, the Apollo Theater is refurbished and re-opened, storefronts are upgraded, a bunch of white people start moving in, grits-and-collards restaurants are replaced with "Authentic Soul Food" restaurants, and suddenly what used to be the 'hood is crawling with YUPPIEs and paparazzo-stalkers.  The rent starts to increase, and fifth-generation residents are forced to find new digs, just so one Arkansas hillbilly-cum-intellectual who probably doesn't know who is real Daddy is can live in the Big City and set his paranoid, controlling, uptight lawyer wife up with a ladder to climb to the presidency so that the faux-feminists can claim that "you've come a long way, baby" when she becomes elected.
 
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Joe Republic
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« Reply #2 on: November 08, 2014, 08:48:11 PM »

When assessing the 'white flight or fight response', we've been used to seeing the former everywhere, but this is the definition of the latter.
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angus
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« Reply #3 on: November 08, 2014, 10:06:47 PM »
« Edited: November 08, 2014, 10:23:39 PM by angus »

Perhaps.  Here's another example:

When I was a grad student at BU, the Kenmore Square neighborhood, near Fenway Park, was a dump, but it was an interesting dump.  There was a bar called Der Rathskeller where ska bands and other local musicians would play.  Never a cover.  Always a good time.  A sixteen-ounce glass of Samuel Adams cost $1.75.  A vodka martini would cost about two dollars.  This was in the early 90s.  There was also an all-you-can-eat Indian buffet, with naan, aloo chat, tandoori chicken, saag paneer, green chutney, red chutney, gulab jaamn, and a whole bunch of other stuff (mango lassi costs extra, if you want one, although I usually drank water there).  There was also an all-you-can-eat Korean buffet with at least nine kinds of kim chee.  No exaggeration.  There was also a GAP clothing store.  Cheap stuff. Hoodies for ten dollars, boots for twelve.  Not particularly well made, but decent enough for young people.  Students.  There were, of course, bums in the stairwells leading to the Kenmore Square T stop, and one particularly interesting, very effeminate guy who would recite any English poem you want to hear.  Keats, Hemingway, Longfellow, Yeats, just name it.  I remember the first time he approached me, asking for "a dollah!" and I said, okay, how about Robert Frost Stopping by the woods on a snowy evening.  No sooner had I said that when he began a spirited telling of it.  "Whose woods these are I think I know, his house is in the village though ..."  

By the time I was hooded I noticed that they started fixing the place up.  The Rat was gone, and good beer under two dollars was a thing of the past.  I moved to California around the turn of the century and didn't visit the old neighborhood for a long time.  Eventually, around January of 2012, when I was getting tired of Iowa and applying for other jobs, I found myself visiting Simmons College for a grueling two-day job interview.  On the second evening they took me to a very posh seafood place in Kenmore Square--I could barely recognize the place; valet parking and men's room attendants; gone were the Indian and Korean buffets, and a high-end, "brick oven" pizzeria where the GAP used to be--and it was about a million miles from anywhere I'd know.  Oh, sure I enjoyed the wining and dining at the end of the interview.  I had more than a few glasses of French wine, and oysters from all over Maine and Massachusetts Bay.  The tall black guy in tuxedo who stooped over to present them looked like a caricature.  Like one of those old statues you'd see in people's lawns back in the 70s.  We also had a plate of cheeses.  Five tiny little slivers of cheese, each with a bit of special sauce poured upon it, all served on a wooden palette, for just twenty dollars.  (I happened to notice the price of a couple of the hors d'oeuvres on the menu as I was ordering and I remember the "cheese sampler" being twenty dollars.  I think I probably had a steak and a lobster with mashed potatoes and broccoli with hollandaise sauce for my main course.  I have no idea what the total bill was, but being as there were five of us, and we all consumed copious amounts of pre-food food, food, after-food food, and wine, I'm guessing that it was well into the three-figure range.)  

Man, in 1995 you couldn't find a three-figure meal within a thousand-meter radius of that place.  Well, except maybe just outside Fenway Park, where you could eat a hundred of those cheap little hot dogs for perhaps a hundred dollars, and each one would come with as many grilled onions and bell peppers as you want.  But most of the meals were about six dollars or less.  There was a Dunkin Donuts and a couple of little bottle shops where that posh oyster and cheese place is now.  

As you might imagine, I had mixed feelings about the gentrification of Kenmore Square.  Nice place to visit, but I'm not sure I could afford to live there.  At least not any more.

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bedstuy
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« Reply #4 on: November 08, 2014, 10:09:38 PM »

I don't understand why people get their knickers in a knot about gentrification by itself.  Gentrification is the market working, it's not possible to stop.  If people are willing to pay more money to buy a house or rent in a neighborhood, how or why stop them?  We're not going to have some utopia where everyone can afford to live wherever they want. 

The debate we should have is about housing codes, zoning, economic opportunity and the environment.  People should realize that the current geography of bad/good neighborhoods is largely the product of failed government policy.  For years government has actively subsidized the suburbs, leading to an inefficient use of urban space and undervalued neighborhoods like those in North, central and South Brooklyn.  The goal ought to be, every neighborhood is livable, with a mix of uses and space for different kinds of people, not the status quo for every particular neighborhood.
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publicunofficial
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« Reply #5 on: November 09, 2014, 01:00:54 AM »

San Francisco is a recent, non-racial, example.

Trendy hipsters and tech workers have been moving into the city for years because San Francisco had become known as a "cool" and "progressive" city. A few weeks ago, the last remaining lesbian bar in San Francisco closed down, as a result of San Francisco's LGBT populace and culture being displaced by 30-somethings trying to develop the newest hit app.
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angus
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« Reply #6 on: November 09, 2014, 08:28:41 AM »

San Francisco is a recent, non-racial, example.

Trendy hipsters and tech workers have been moving into the city for years because San Francisco had become known as a "cool" and "progressive" city. A few weeks ago, the last remaining lesbian bar in San Francisco closed down, as a result of San Francisco's LGBT populace and culture being displaced by 30-somethings trying to develop the newest hit app.

San Francisco has undergone many attempts at gentrification.  See, for example, my diatribe regarding the neighborhood at the corner of Haight and Ashbury Streets in Bono's Modal Libertarians thread.  Well, that was intended to be an example of Yuppification, but it also works as an example of gentrification.  In all examples of gentrification, the net effect was the increase in the price of living, displacing many long-time residents long-time local businesses. 

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traininthedistance
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« Reply #7 on: November 09, 2014, 11:47:27 AM »

God, this thread.  If I was feeling uncharitable I could deluge each and every post here.  Bedstuy's post is probably least awful but even it is really kind of simplistic and blinkered.  You can't disentangle active government policy from the housing market, no matter how hard you try, it's one of the least amenable segments of our economy to that approach.

Gentrification is a... terribly complex issue.  As far as it represents a retreat from, and attempt to repair the damage of, the racist and wasteful mid-century paradigm of white flight, suburban sprawl, and urban disinvestment, it is a Good Thing and these developments should be cheered by anybody and everybody everywhere.  But we shouldn't pretend that it's "just the market working" or that there isn't a real human cost that cries out for sympathy and mitigation, as well.

I will say that attempts to freeze neighborhoods in amber, and to pull up the drawbridges on anybody, is counterproductive and doomed to failure and really kind of an ugly impulse if you ask me.  The only acceptable solution is to make room for old-timers and newcomers alike, with a range of prices and housing styles and services for as many people as practicable. 
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bedstuy
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« Reply #8 on: November 09, 2014, 12:10:13 PM »

God, this thread.  If I was feeling uncharitable I could deluge each and every post here.  Bedstuy's post is probably least awful but even it is really kind of simplistic and blinkered.  You can't disentangle active government policy from the housing market, no matter how hard you try, it's one of the least amenable segments of our economy to that approach.

Gentrification is a... terribly complex issue.  As far as it represents a retreat from, and attempt to repair the damage of, the racist and wasteful mid-century paradigm of white flight, suburban sprawl, and urban disinvestment, it is a Good Thing and these developments should be cheered by anybody and everybody everywhere.  But we shouldn't pretend that it's "just the market working" or that there isn't a real human cost that cries out for sympathy and mitigation, as well.

I will say that attempts to freeze neighborhoods in amber, and to pull up the drawbridges on anybody, is counterproductive and doomed to failure and really kind of an ugly impulse if you ask me.  The only acceptable solution is to make room for old-timers and newcomers alike, with a range of prices and housing styles and services for as many people as practicable. 

I think you missed my point.  As a matter of public policy, prices aren't the problem, they're the symptom of a variety of factors including government policy.  Complaining about the prices or attempting direct control of prices through things like rent control is thus pointless.  Price control is never going to work.  What should a house or apartment cost?  Who should be able to live where?  The government can never settle those questions better than a market.

Maybe the disconnect is just what we mean by gentrification.  Not enough supply in many urban areas?  Not enough middle class jobs in urban areas?  Racial disparities?  Urban planning/land use policy?  Those are some of the underlying issues that turn gentrification into an issue for people.  We ought to be talking about those issues.
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #9 on: November 09, 2014, 12:30:37 PM »

The trouble with that argument is that the housing market isn't like other markets; the modern city, after all, is the creation of the state* and not the other way round (and 'the city' in this context now extends to cover most of the countryside). Planning applications must, after all, be approved by a branch of the state.

Though I would agree that there needs to be more clarification as to what is meant by the term before it's possible to actually debate the issue.

*And, of course, some very famous examples of gentrification were/are literally cases of the will of the state imposing itself on (and above) the local housing market, so to speak.
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bedstuy
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« Reply #10 on: November 09, 2014, 12:45:08 PM »

The trouble with that argument is that the housing market isn't like other markets; the modern city, after all, is the creation of the state* and not the other way round (and 'the city' in this context now extends to cover most of the countryside). Planning applications must, after all, be approved by a branch of the state.

Though I would agree that there needs to be more clarification as to what is meant by the term before it's possible to actually debate the issue.

*And, of course, some very famous examples of gentrification were/are literally cases of the will of the state imposing itself on (and above) the local housing market, so to speak.

Right, what is the definition? 

Let's say there's a 2 bedroom house in a suburban neighborhood that is worth $100k in the year 2010.  But, last year Google opened a new office in that suburban town with 1000 high paying jobs.  Now, that house is more desirable if it were to be sold on the open market.  Would you object to someone paying $120k for that house or would you prevent someone who worked at that office from buying the house because they're an outsider?  Or would you oppose housing being a commodity at all?  Should the government own all housing and assign each person some sort of dwelling according to some formula?
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traininthedistance
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« Reply #11 on: November 09, 2014, 12:47:54 PM »
« Edited: November 09, 2014, 12:49:33 PM by traininthedistance »

God, this thread.  If I was feeling uncharitable I could deluge each and every post here.  Bedstuy's post is probably least awful but even it is really kind of simplistic and blinkered.  You can't disentangle active government policy from the housing market, no matter how hard you try, it's one of the least amenable segments of our economy to that approach.

Gentrification is a... terribly complex issue.  As far as it represents a retreat from, and attempt to repair the damage of, the racist and wasteful mid-century paradigm of white flight, suburban sprawl, and urban disinvestment, it is a Good Thing and these developments should be cheered by anybody and everybody everywhere.  But we shouldn't pretend that it's "just the market working" or that there isn't a real human cost that cries out for sympathy and mitigation, as well.

I will say that attempts to freeze neighborhoods in amber, and to pull up the drawbridges on anybody, is counterproductive and doomed to failure and really kind of an ugly impulse if you ask me.  The only acceptable solution is to make room for old-timers and newcomers alike, with a range of prices and housing styles and services for as many people as practicable.  

I think you missed my point.  As a matter of public policy, prices aren't the problem, they're the symptom of a variety of factors including government policy.  Complaining about the prices or attempting direct control of prices through things like rent control is thus pointless.  Price control is never going to work.  What should a house or apartment cost?  Who should be able to live where?  The government can never settle those questions better than a market.

Maybe the disconnect is just what we mean by gentrification.  Not enough supply in many urban areas?  Not enough middle class jobs in urban areas?  Racial disparities?  Urban planning/land use policy?  Those are some of the underlying issues that turn gentrification into an issue for people.  We ought to be talking about those issues.

I think you're trying to draw a distinction that doesn't actually exist here.  I mean, sure, price controls tend to be counterproductive and it's not like the government is directly setting rent levels for the most part.  But to set off "a market" as something distinct from government policy is pretty much just gibberish when it comes to housing– the whole system of deeds and titles, building codes, zoning, utilities and infrastructure, FHA loans, etc.– there simply wouldn't be a housing market in any recognizable way without government action and regulation.  Also, even if prices are a "symptom" that doesn't make them any less of a problem.  Obviously it would be preferable to deal with them through indirect measures such as increasing supply (and in some cases, perhaps subsidies), but where was I arguing otherwise?

Same with the issues you suggest as an alternative- they're the right issues to talk about, of course, and it's good to get specific with symptoms and remedies (as I said, things are terribly complex), but I'm not sure exactly what makes you think they're so qualitatively opposed to an approach that acknowledges the market-creating role that government necessarily has in real estate.  I mean, in particular what is land use policy if not that?
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patrick1
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« Reply #12 on: November 09, 2014, 12:56:38 PM »

I don't like it on many levels, but I really can't express this well because it hits me on an emotional level. For me it has just destroyed the character of many neighborhoods, from the people to the businesses. Being from somewhere used to mean something, there was identity.  Now I feel like I'm surrounded by a city of tourists who just happen to live here.  Large chunks of Manhattan were always like this. However, now neighborhood by neighborhood are being swallowed up by the white urban professional, who all just seem the same to me despite their earnest attempts to be different. Tight knit neighborhoods with people with shared experiences are going away.
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bedstuy
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« Reply #13 on: November 09, 2014, 01:00:29 PM »

God, this thread.  If I was feeling uncharitable I could deluge each and every post here.  Bedstuy's post is probably least awful but even it is really kind of simplistic and blinkered.  You can't disentangle active government policy from the housing market, no matter how hard you try, it's one of the least amenable segments of our economy to that approach.

Gentrification is a... terribly complex issue.  As far as it represents a retreat from, and attempt to repair the damage of, the racist and wasteful mid-century paradigm of white flight, suburban sprawl, and urban disinvestment, it is a Good Thing and these developments should be cheered by anybody and everybody everywhere.  But we shouldn't pretend that it's "just the market working" or that there isn't a real human cost that cries out for sympathy and mitigation, as well.

I will say that attempts to freeze neighborhoods in amber, and to pull up the drawbridges on anybody, is counterproductive and doomed to failure and really kind of an ugly impulse if you ask me.  The only acceptable solution is to make room for old-timers and newcomers alike, with a range of prices and housing styles and services for as many people as practicable.  

I think you missed my point.  As a matter of public policy, prices aren't the problem, they're the symptom of a variety of factors including government policy.  Complaining about the prices or attempting direct control of prices through things like rent control is thus pointless.  Price control is never going to work.  What should a house or apartment cost?  Who should be able to live where?  The government can never settle those questions better than a market.

Maybe the disconnect is just what we mean by gentrification.  Not enough supply in many urban areas?  Not enough middle class jobs in urban areas?  Racial disparities?  Urban planning/land use policy?  Those are some of the underlying issues that turn gentrification into an issue for people.  We ought to be talking about those issues.

I think you're trying to draw a distinction that doesn't actually exist here.  I mean, sure, price controls tend to be counterproductive and it's not like the government is directly setting rent levels for the most part.  But to set off "a market" as something distinct from government policy is pretty much just gibberish when it comes to housing– the whole system of deeds and titles, building codes, zoning, utilities and infrastructure, FHA loans, etc.– there simply wouldn't be a housing market in any recognizable way without government action and regulation.  Also, even if prices are a "symptom" that doesn't make them any less of a problem.  Obviously it would be preferable to deal with them through indirect measures such as increasing supply (and in some cases, perhaps subsidies), but where was I arguing otherwise?

Same with the issues you suggest as an alternative- they're the right issues to talk about, of course, and it's good to get specific with symptoms and remedies (as I said, things are terribly complex), but I'm not sure exactly what makes you think they're so qualitatively opposed to an approach that acknowledges the market-creating role that government necessarily has in real estate.  I mean, in particular what is land use policy if not that?

It's an issue of putting the cart before the horse to focus on the fact that prices are changing.  What should be the price of any particular dwelling?

I could deal with something like, "prices are too high."  That makes sense to me.  Prices for X neighborhood should stay the same that they were in 1985, that doesn't make sense.
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angus
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« Reply #14 on: November 09, 2014, 01:03:05 PM »

I will say that attempts to freeze neighborhoods in amber, and to pull up the drawbridges on anybody, is counterproductive and doomed to failure and really kind of an ugly impulse if you ask me. 

You read far too much in between the lines.  I don't see any posts in this thread advocating frozen or amber-coated neighborhoods.  We're just discussing our observations.  Gentrification obviously has advantages and disadvantages, and the disadvantages are worth pointing out.  (Pointing out the advantages not being necessary, of course, because you can count on the building contractors to do that.)
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #15 on: November 09, 2014, 01:06:16 PM »

Let's say there's a 2 bedroom house in a suburban neighborhood that is worth $100k in the year 2010.  But, last year Google opened a new office in that suburban town with 1000 high paying jobs.  Now, that house is more desirable if it were to be sold on the open market.  Would you object to someone paying $120k for that house or would you prevent someone who worked at that office from buying the house because they're an outsider?



(that's a 'no')

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No, but there is a strong case for having a certain percentage of rented housing outside of the open market. This isn't just socially right but also has the effect of putting a partial block on the worst aspects of gentrification (c.f. there are still in a lot of working class people in Islington despite it being part of the first wave - i.e. 1970s - of gentrification in London). One of the great tragedies of the contemporary American city is that the relevant authorities made such a hash of public housing.
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bgwah
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« Reply #16 on: November 09, 2014, 01:53:01 PM »

No, but there is a strong case for having a certain percentage of rented housing outside of the open market.

Yes! The question is, how do we pay for this? The most frequent proposal is always additional fees and restrictions on new market rate housing. All this does is penalize & reduce development at the expense of the middle class so a lucky few can get what subsidized housing is built as a result. As usual, the rich get to live wherever they want and are largely unaffected. It is ludicrous and it needs to stop.

In Seattle, there are requirements that certain percentage of housing in new structures be "affordable," or that the developer must pay hefty fees for additional height. There is also a property tax levy that funds affordable housing. I vastly prefer the latter solution. The entire community (not just newcomers) pays in a way that does not reduce the amount of new market rate housing that is built.
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« Reply #17 on: November 09, 2014, 02:06:10 PM »

No, but there is a strong case for having a certain percentage of rented housing outside of the open market.

Yes! The question is, how do we pay for this? The most frequent proposal is always additional fees and restrictions on new market rate housing. All this does is penalize & reduce development at the expense of the middle class so a lucky few can get what subsidized housing is built as a result. As usual, the rich get to live wherever they want and are largely unaffected. It is ludicrous and it needs to stop.

In Seattle, there are requirements that certain percentage of housing in new structures be "affordable," or that the developer must pay hefty fees for additional height. There is also a property tax levy that funds affordable housing. I vastly prefer the latter solution. The entire community (not just newcomers) pays in a way that does not reduce the amount of new market rate housing that is built.

This is so true. The tenancy to extort any amount of 'affordable' housing from developers is, in the micro sense good for affordable housing, but in the macro sense, by increasing the cost of expanding the housing supply, very bad for affordable housing. Getting the macro-micro understanding right is difficult, as people see this micro level price increases on their block when someone redevelops new housing, they see the price of single family lots going inexorably up, but they can't see the increase in supply taking pressure off of older housing stock, or the value of attached units
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KCDem
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« Reply #18 on: November 09, 2014, 04:42:11 PM »
« Edited: November 09, 2014, 06:48:27 PM by KCDem »

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http://fox4kc.com/2014/10/17/group-files-fair-housing-complaint-in-kansas-city/

Hopefully this fails and the hoodlums are removed with all deliberate speed. They've outlasted their welcome. We're turning this city around and they're not going to get in our way Cheesy


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traininthedistance
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« Reply #19 on: November 09, 2014, 05:56:40 PM »
« Edited: November 09, 2014, 06:31:48 PM by traininthedistance »

I will say that attempts to freeze neighborhoods in amber, and to pull up the drawbridges on anybody, is counterproductive and doomed to failure and really kind of an ugly impulse if you ask me.  

You read far too much in between the lines.  I don't see any posts in this thread advocating frozen or amber-coated neighborhoods.  We're just discussing our observations.  Gentrification obviously has advantages and disadvantages, and the disadvantages are worth pointing out.  (Pointing out the advantages not being necessary, of course, because you can count on the building contractors to do that.)


Seems to me that's basically what Patrick's post two above yours is wishing for.  And it's a quite common- and quite ugly when you think about it long enough– sentiment out in the wild.

Yes, there are disadvantages.  I've been pretty careful to acknowledge as such.  However, the cranky-old-man hypocrisy that would bemoan the idea of a new and different generation* moving into "your" enclave is, I would submit, not a legitimate disadvantage.  (Obviously I know that this isn't the core of your concern in particular; I think it was a little silly to pin the desirability of Harlem on Bubba getting an office there but I can grok most else you've said here.)

*Oh no! Young people! Who look and act differently than I do!  They all look the same!

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http://fox4kc.com/2014/10/17/group-files-fair-housing-complaint-in-kansas-city/

Hopefully this fails and the hoodlums are removed with all possible. They've outlasted their welcome. We're turning this city around and they're not going to get in our way Cheesy

I see you're living "up" to the "standards" of the D-MO avatar quite well.  Such humanity!  Much morality!
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angus
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« Reply #20 on: November 09, 2014, 07:47:44 PM »
« Edited: November 09, 2014, 07:51:17 PM by angus »

I can't speak for Patrick, but it didn't strike me that way.  At least he doesn't seem to favor a bill aimed at preventing a guy from selling a condo for 20% more than what he bought it for.  I can speak for myself, and for myself I'd say that his post expressed a sentiment which was not ugly  at all.  It was poignant.  He is a man with an identity, and that identity was informed from the nurturing of his youth.  That nurturing environment is being destroyed by economic flux.  In the grand scheme of things I don't try to control the flux--and my guess is that Patrick isn't trying to control it either--but the flux that makes Meg Ryan's bookstore get sold to Tom Hanks' megastore (what a horribly shallow Gen X movie, by the way) is the sort of flux I'd expect a soft Red shield like yourself to try to protect against from the sort of market sympathizers like me.  Even a Republican-sympathizing neofascist like myself can understand the poignancy of a homeland lost.  

Strange days indeed.  No wonder you guys are losing control.  Wink

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patrick1
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« Reply #21 on: November 09, 2014, 08:53:38 PM »

I prefaced my comments by saying my feelings are informed by emotion and yeah some sentimentality. Taking a more dispassionate view, there are many benefits to the influx of a highly educated group of young people from around the country. However, if I must, I will give voice and give a defense of some parochialism. Neighborhoods should be more than reasonable rents, trendy restaurants and good access to mass transit. Many people are tied to the areas where they grew up, went to school, went to church, had their first kiss, raised families etc.  So many have been priced out now and the dominoes of the wholesale neighborhood change have been falling one by one.  That is it for now, Im off to the new Tibetan-Polynesian fusion joint and Im a bit tuckered out from  long day of brunching.. Wink
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traininthedistance
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« Reply #22 on: November 10, 2014, 03:40:49 AM »
« Edited: November 10, 2014, 03:43:01 AM by traininthedistance »

I prefaced my comments by saying my feelings are informed by emotion and yeah some sentimentality. Taking a more dispassionate view, there are many benefits to the influx of a highly educated group of young people from around the country. However, if I must, I will give voice and give a defense of some parochialism. Neighborhoods should be more than reasonable rents, trendy restaurants and good access to mass transit. Many people are tied to the areas where they grew up, went to school, went to church, had their first kiss, raised families etc.  So many have been priced out now and the dominoes of the wholesale neighborhood change have been falling one by one.  That is it for now, Im off to the new Tibetan-Polynesian fusion joint and Im a bit tuckered out from  long day of brunching.. Wink

I think a lot of what it is is that I have a special sympathy with the nomads, the immigrants, the newcomers of all sorts, who haven't yet been able to put down roots, or who for whatever reason feel they need to escape their hometown instead, find opportunity elsewhere, etc.  I understand and– yes, really– can feel the pull of neighborhood, but I think the young and unrooted (of all creeds, colors, and classes) get a raw deal from all sides and I want to in particular stick up for them.  Don't think there isn't some sentimentality on this end, too.

I could go deeper than that– perhaps after sleeping on it I will– but it was crappy of me to call you out specifically and with that in mind maybe it would be best to save that rant for a different occasion.  I've been on edge a bit lately and I think it's seeping into my posts here.  Sorry. Sad

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Brittain33
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« Reply #23 on: November 10, 2014, 09:34:56 AM »

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If you're thinking about the Bertucci's in Kenmore, it's a reasonably priced chain in the Boston area, not a high-end restaurant.
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memphis
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« Reply #24 on: November 10, 2014, 10:56:35 AM »


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