Marvin Gandall wrote:
>In particular, is there disagreement with respect to the Supreme Court
>ruling in Kelo which upheld the right of expropriation and which sparked
>this discussion?
-I have to confess that whenever I hear the words "Supreme Court" I -want to take a nap. But my position on the politics of this is that -the right is polemicizing and organizing over a real problem. And -that by siding unequivocally with the SC <yawn>, the liberal left is -(once again) ceding the ground of real grievances to the right, and -allowing itself to be cast as out-of-touch elitists. And by tying it -to "urban planning," the liberal left is making things worse.
This is where discussions on courts have gotten totally fucked up. The rightwing campaigns against the Supreme Court being "activist" and then in Kelo, the Court says "judges aren't competent to second guess elected leaders" and they say courts should butt out. This is not "siding with the Court" but siding with democracy against unelected judges making decisions on how to define "public use." Did you really want five rightwing Justices defining what constitutes public interested use of property?
And guess what, public planning and smart growth are very popular. Tim Kaine just won the governor's office in Red State Virginia partly based on such issues. http://www.mlui.org/reportarticle.asp?fileid=16991
-This reminds me of the rezoning/redevelopment of the Williamsburg and -Greenpoint sections of Brooklyn. People in the neighborhoods have put -together a popular plan for modernizing the area. But the city -planning authorities will have none of it: they want waterfront -highrises and gentrification. And if anyone stands in their way, well -there's always eminent domain. That's how urban planning is really -practiced in the US.
Doug, you're talking about New York City Council which has a female gay, pro-labor chair and quite progressive members who elected her. Sure, the whole planning process in NYC could be made more accountable but everything you say has this theme of railing against corrupt "thems" as if there is no politics and no one of working class bent supporting such planning, when of course a whole range of working class groups from unions to community groups are supporting current planning approaches. Of course, we know all the unions are corrupt so conveniently, it's only upper middle class intellectuals who get to represent true working class values in all these debates.
Most of the "popular" plans I've seen produce less housing and fewer jobs than the big bad planners are advocating. A lot of the local folks -- although not all -- are NIMBYs looking to keep small-scale expensive housing that won't be affordable for anyone real soon. Some have good ideas I'd like to see incorporated, but my biggest beef with NYC planning is that too many areas are zoned against high density growth for the advantages of locals who have either rent-controlled apartments or already own their homes, and so don't have to worry about the scarcity of any housing in the city.
What's ridiculous is saying planners want gentrification; gentrification is already here and making Greenpoint and Williamsburg unaffordable for new residents. Build into rules for building those "highrises" are incentives that allow them to be taller if they include more affordable units. Such "inclusionary zoning" rules are very progressive but many locals object to them because they want smaller buildings, but the fewer floors, the less economic it is to include those affordable units.
The lovely story is of Greenwich Village radicals defeating development in defense of the little guy, and it's probably a good thing that Robert Moses was brought to heel. But the fact is that because Greenwich Village is now zoned against almost any growth, it is now unafforable for anyone to live there who isn't incredibly wealthy or grandfathered in by previous residence.
Nathan Newman