[lbo-talk] Renters Getting Screwed - or Why EminentDomainisaDistraction

Nathan Newman nathanne at nathannewman.org
Tue Feb 28 08:59:10 PST 2006


----- Original Message ----- From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com>
>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.

No, your working with a 1950s version of modernist planning which all here agree had nightmare aspects. But most modern planners specifically reject the models of that era and are trying to in fact reverse many of its worse aspects. They are trying to rebuild strong neighborhoods, decrease sprawl and "infill" development in inner suburbs to encourage better transit, better energy use and more humane living conditions.

The irony is that the Right is organizing to make suburbanization a one-way ticket-- having celebrated the suburbanization of society, they want to deny modern cities the tools to reverse the process.

Nathan Newman



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