PHOTO // GLOWING FAVELA
Public Monies for Public Projects
I sorta like Christie standing up to the Feds and not allowing them to bully him around and declaring “I will do what is best for my state” but this makes the whole thing ridiculous.
I thought ARC was too expensive and too subsidized. Not a good choice. But I do think that if is a state is going to employ public funds for a development project it should be a public project - not a private enterprise vaguely promising to provide some indefinable and uncertain public good. Now you are using public money to benefit the private activities of those citizens that will use that private mall.
In this case, the ARC would have doubled transit capacity for the most densely populated corridor in the United States and opened up 44,000 new, permanent jobs. The long-term economic enrichment comes with a price tag that would havepotentially reached 11 digits. When you’re a leader, your role is to make decisions and deal with the consequences. In the case of New Jersey, a leader made a decision based on fiscal responsibility, and although I disagree with his reasoning I understand the conclusion he drew even after receiving favorable funding packages from the Federal government. It was the decision that came five months later that bookended a bad defunding decision with a bad funding decision, when Gov. Christie decided to use state funds to provide favorable loans to a development company – building a mega-mall.
The former Xanadu, newly redubbed American Dream @ Meadowlands in what could only be a vigorous nod to the Twitterized masses, has been a black eye for real estate development in New Jersey. The project was meant to be an even more grand vision than the Mall of America in Minnesota, complete with an indoor ski slope. A month ago, Gov. Christie gave a new developer this deal:
“The new developer, the Triple Five group, will invest more than $1 billion in the seven-year-old project. And Gov. Chris Christie has agreed to provide low-interest financing and to forgo most sales tax revenue for a period of time… The administration is offering a financing package of $180 million to $200 million, with the developer able to use most of the sales taxes they collect to repay the loan, rather than contributing the money to the state budget.”
I generally don’t like subsidies, even when used for supposedly public good projects like transits but I get why states, people and municipalities want to employ them. I do strongly believe, however, that if a project is going to use public subsidies, in any form, it must be a public project. Those that apply are transportation, parks, safety and security measures, education. Anything else deserves no public subsidy. Period. The picture is from the article. Here is the whole thing.
How close to a train track can you set up a vegetable market (by chloeandeddiepoms)
Nannies Move Into Brazil’s Middle Class — São Paulo Journal - NYTimes.com
The the matrons having to pay these high prices describe themselves as “hostages” subject to a nanny “mafia”.
My favorite line, “Among the top requests she receives, she says, is for a nanny who has never worked in São Paulo because they are “more humble.” That is soooooooo Latin America.
Plan of an ideal port city, 1590
A great post from a great blog: mammoth
This is incredible and shows just how big of an impact globalization has on urbanism, whether you agree with the thesis or not.
By 2025, six major emerging economies—Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, South Korea, and Russia—will account for more than half of all global growth, and the international monetary system will likely no longer be dominated by a single currency, a new World Bank report says.
Anonymous asked: In your experience, what are the cost and benefits associated with public park privatization?
The costs, in my opinion, are too high.
I think we need truly public spaces that everybody, even marginalized populations are able to use freely. Though I have no problem with private parks (a developer should be able to build one if they want) I think the presence of public parks encourages democracy, improves public health and benefits the environment and a municipality ought to have an aggressive plan to encourage public spaces throughout its city.
I also think they are a good redistribution tool. The property taxes from the buildings around Central Park do a lot to fund the social and cultural programs of people who cannot, or don’t want to live at those addresses. This way the rich get something they want, they pay for it, and the revenues from that process go to benefit the poor. An all around good system.
City of Bath
