>Wojtek:
>
>
>Like any capitalist project, the urban development
>that the latter days Luddites criticize creates both,
>private profits and public benefits: jobs, tax base,
>better and safer environment, neighborhood effects -
>to name a few. It creates better material conditions
>than the slums and the junkyards it destroys. It also
>comes at a cost, which is upsetting the people who
>live in those slums and have stakes in those
>junkyards, and who naturally oppose the development
>for that reason.
>
>===================
>
>
>A strong statement. But it leads to an obvious
>question.
>
>
>Can you cite examples of urban development projects
>which, in defiance of knowledgeble critics' objections
>and predictions, have proven over time to be generally
>beneficial?
In many places, urban renewal destroyed stable neighborhoods, created slums (in part because new highways isolated neighborhoods from the rest of town - e.g. in The Bronx and New Haven), and fostered the suburbanization that Woj usually hates. He's working with a fantasy version of urban renewal, not its actual history.
Doug