flynn050

Judging from the scorn heaped on Richard Florida for his new book " The New Urban Crisis " one could believe that this man single-handedly created this new crisis of "winner takes all" and of the two very disparate cities by writing his first book "The Creative Class".  Urban demonstration His "creative class" and his observations about the world being spiky , are a more elegant expression of the German proverb which states that "the devil always shits on the same pile". Progress has always been lopsided. Now decrying it looks like a late awakening for which the author is rightly derided . Far from congratulating the man for having gained new insights during the last 15 years, the New Republic ridicules him for simply being "nimble". While cynicism can be fun, a critique from the left should be a bit more analytical, more historical, and less ad hominem. We will use a bit of Marx to put the critique back on its feet. When Flo...

"The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit.  We are answerable for them to our God.  The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as [they] are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god." Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia,  in  Jefferson, Writings, 285-286 (The Library of America, 1984). Land use, usually a topic eliciting yawns, becomes a gripping topic when it finds itself at the intersection of freedom of speech, smart growth and environmental protection. That happens when the proposed use is religious and opinions have been strong ever since Jefferson. Pristine landscapes of northern Baltimore County. Challenged by mega-churches? (Photo: Valley Planning Council) In the US, where religious rights free speech rights and property rights are especially strong, places of worship got an additional layer of protection with what is known as the  Religio...

In the age of "the deal" in which a real estate tycoon is President, renewed interest in the role of quasi-public development corporations that are supposed to act more like private business is in order.  Were they created to close the deal where government couldn't? Were they created to be a substitute for boss or machine system  in a time when municipal corruption was rampant? Were they created to empower people or to provide loopholes for corporations to get a better deal? Power in the city: Former Baltimore Development Corporation CEO Jay Brodie (Photo: Fern Shen) All of the above could be true, depending on what period of time is investigated, what type of quasi-governmental organization and which city one looks at. Generally, these days suspicion about those type agencies seems to prevail. Many who suspect that especially urban development corporations (UDCs, the subset of the quasi public agencies on which this article will focus) which defy classification as a cit...

The last article asked if public works projects really have to take this long. This article asks if  P3s are the right answer to the funding crisis.  When the State of Maryland felt that two major "New Starts" transit projects began to break the State's bank (combined cost $5.5 billion), the solution was P3, a public-private-partnership. US-DOT defines P3 as a “contractual agreements formed between a public agency and a private sector entity that allow for greater private sector participation in the delivery and financing of transportation projects.” The Washington suburb Purple light rail line is a 100% P3 project In other words: Build now, pay later, but pay more, lots more. A P3 project doesn't mean the private sector contributes or funds a project, it means the private sector finances a project! The cost to the public is simply deferred to a future point. Cost plus interest plus profit. In the case of the Purple Line a $2 billion project balloons to $5.6 billion f...