Today our hero throws poor people under the bus. The background: There's a large swath of land in DC that's open for development. It's adjacent to existing old homes. Our hero is mad because the people who already live there have a minor say in the development planning process:
Of course this is just one largish patch of land in one American city. But just about every single infill planning process in America suffers from the exact same bias. The views and interests of people who currently live nearby are represented, but the views and interests of the future-people impacted by the process aren’t. Consequently, each planning process is systematically biased toward permitting too-little development.
Was our hero really a philosophy major? You know, with thinking and stuff? On the one hand, the current residents are people who stand to have their lives substantially changed in ways they cannot control. They will have to endure construction noise, eyesore buildings, and thousands of inflowing Matt Yglesiases turning their neighborhood into a vomitous hipster shithole. Their lives will dramatically change, and there's little they can do to stop it. Somebody pass the PBR.
On the other hand, the "future-people" are a vaguely defined class who have a host of awesome, upscale available housing choices. Allowing neighborhood input in development means this group will have one of their thousands of housing choices slightly altered. Oh, the humanity.
(And lest we feel too sorry for the poor, disenfranchised upper-middle-class urban elites, it might do to remember that their interests are no doubt being at least slightly protected by the EXTREMELY WEALTHY DEVELOPERS who intend to sell them condos and lattes.)
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I want to congratulate you on your ability to tease out any meaning from his posts.
ReplyDeleteHis urban planning posts are very much annoying. It is clear from these posts that he prefers diversity in theory rather than practice.
p.s.-- did you ever catch the link that he posted to his condo building? Why yes--of course there was a rooftop pool, a fitness center, and open floor plans for all!
Not related, but interesting nonetheless: he's sending out a tweet about the title of his memoir. Now, I realize that he is probably not actually writing his memoirs but I am sure that he does see this as a valid future project. What exactly would he write about?
ReplyDeleteYglesias: A Life in Shitty Blog Posts Whose Arguments a Third Grader Could Defeat.
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