Streetcar Update on Development

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Originally Posted by pizza delivery

OTR has a lot of crime and that crime's proximity to downtown really turns people off. It needs cleaning up, without a doubt. If you don't make an effort to do this, you'll never know what could be and it's reputation will persist. There has been a lot of interest in turning that neighborhood around for years because people would like to live there.

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So how does sending a streetcar through a bad neighborhood reduce crime?

For that matter, who wants to ride a streetcar through a bad neighborhood, particularly at night?

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Originally Posted by Snipe

I wonder what would be better for the poor, current policy or a policy that reduces the prices of homes by 35%?

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Avg price of home in Florida today = $99k - 3 yrs. ago $264K

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Originally Posted by pizza delivery

OTR has a lot of crime and that crime's proximity to downtown really turns people off. It needs cleaning up, without a doubt. If you don't make an effort to do this, you'll never know what could be and it's reputation will persist. There has been a lot of interest in turning that neighborhood around for years because people would like to live there.

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I get that crime keeps people away from downtown. What I don't necessarily get is how we determine that all these people want to live in OTR, if they could get it cleaned up. The pro OTR-gentrification crowd wants people to believe that there are thousands of people just waiting for OTR to get cleaned up so they can move in. I'm not necessarily saying that isn't true, but I would like to see the data that those assumptions are based on. My guess is survey questions. The problem with surveying people is that they lie when being surveyed.

I also don't buy the 'downtown isn't safe because OTR is close by' argument. There are lots of bars and restaurants South of 7th street. That is a very safe area. I work on 7th Street and come downtown frequently at night. Crime is not an issue in and around the central business district. I would say that anywhere south of about 8th street is pretty safe. During the day it is safe all the way up to Central Parkway.

I would be interested to know how you are going to get all the poverty and crime and OTR away from downtown, vs. just moving it to another area in or near downtown. That would be a real trick. Those people would most likely move west to areas like the West End, Queensgate, Price Hill, and Westwood, many of which are already going (or gone!) downhill. Many of those areas have a lot of old homes with great architecture as well. They also have strong community advocates trying to clean up those areas. Maybe the OTR-gentrification folks can have a rumble in the streets with the Price Hill gentrification crowd ala West Side Story.

At the end of the day I support downtown development. I spend a lot of time downtown. The revitilization of fountain square has been spectacular and has been a significant boon for the area. I don't necessarily think that the street car is a bad idea, either. What I don't really get the 'need' to gentrify OTR and I think it is going to be a very tough process. OTR is a very rough area surrounded by a bunch of other rough areas. I don't see how you can make them all nice, safe places to live.

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Originally Posted by madness31

Snipe you pointed out a very significant issue with Liberals though I would argue Democrats, not Liberals, that they primarily care about the theory of what is moral/right and not as much about execution. I have the same complaint about Republicans in that they care only about not having medicare, social security and other social programs rather than focusing on how to make them more effective and efficient.

If the Republicans would work with the Democrats to make these programs more effective rather than just fighting them on it the government could significantly reduce spending and eventually lower taxes. Find a way to stop the medicare fraud, offer incentives to supervisors within the various government departments to cut costs, remove ineffective agencies, etc. The Republicans are too busy playing politics demonizing the other side rather than working to make things better.

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The Paul Ryan Roadmap to medicare is a good idea in my opinion. It gives health care vouchers to senior citizens and lets market driven decisions help reform the waste, fraud and abuse. I don't think that Democrats like the plan. Here is Ezra Klein: Paul Ryan's plan would end Medicare as we know it Here is Arnold Kling and Tyler Cohen:

Tyler Cowen on the Paul Ryan Plan

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He writes,

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We all know that health care spending has to be restrained in some manner. There are (at least) two approaches:


1. Have the federal government take a more active role in shutting down or limiting some reimbursements, based on efficacy studies ("death panels").


2. Turn some or all of Medicare into a fixed voucher program and let individuals choose which set of restrictions they will accept from private suppliers ("grandma bangs on HMO door").


As I understand Ryan's approach, he is putting a great deal of emphasis on #2, whereas most Democrats favor #1.

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I wish I could say that "we all know" this. Some of the critics of Paul Ryan's plan seem prepared to argue that we can have the same health care services at lower cost by squeezing health insurance companies, drug companies, doctors, and hospitals. Most of the savings promised in Obamacare come from this squeezing. I think this is unlikely, but one man's flim-flam is another man's fervent belief.

Someone who favors (1) could say that consumers will make horrible mistakes if they are given health care vouchers, choosing unnecessary procedures and foregoing necessary ones. Someone who favors (2) could say that government will make horrible mistakes if medical practice is dictated by a central bureaucracy, because local information is important. Robin Hanson could say that medical services are as likely to do harm as to do good. So you cannot make horrible mistakes by cutting back on medical services. Cut them back any way you like. Even randomly cutting back services would be fine.

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Here is Paul Ryan himself talking about the plan.

Social Security under the Ryan plan follows the same path, with headlines like: Paul Ryan's Killing of Social Security by Stephen Herrington of the Huffington Post.

Ryan's plan doesn't end Medicare, and it doesn't kill Social Security. It reforms them.

You seem to agree with Ezra Klein and the Huff Post when you say: [B]"Republicans...care only about not having medicare, social security and other social programs"

It seems that you have taken a side, and that you want Republicans to work with your agenda to get it done. I don't think they like the other side. They want market driven reforms in health care driven by consumers, not top down bureaucratic reforms.

These two sides believe in different things. It isn't just partisanship. Given the size and scope of our Big Federal Government, the pro-Big Government forces have been on the march for a long time. At what point should small-government free-market conservatives stand athwart history, yelling Stop? Where was the compromise in the Obamacare bill? Where was the compromise in the Stimulus bill? Republican Congressmen were locked out of negotiation. They didn't even get to read the bill before it came up for a vote. The Democrats had a fillibuster proof majority and they didn't even consider Republican. Nancy Pelosi's famous quote "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it".

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The Republicans are too busy playing politics demonizing the other side rather than working to make things better.

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Are you kidding me? Republicans were excluded day 1 from the Obama Administration. Now you complain that they won't work with Democrats and only want to demonize the other side. Do you remember what it was like when George Bush was in office? No demonizing the other side there.

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Originally Posted by pizza delivery

I'm sorry about that, I was thinking of the Rand Paul thread where you were examining Civil Rights, the First Amendment, etc. I'm a dummy.

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Could you then clarify what I said that you found to be odius, hateful or repugnant in that post?

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Originally Posted by Snipe

Aren't we talking about private ownership of housing? We aren't talking about the mortgage market for government owned housing. That doesn't exist.

HUD statistics say that 5,000,000 people live in assisted housing, 77% of which are female headed households. In a country of 307,000,000 people, that is 1.63%. That leaves the following 98.37% as residents of privately owned housing. It is more than that though, because HUD uses Section 8 vouchers to place people in privately owned housing. I would guess that less than 1% of people actually live in housing that is not privately owned.

None of which has much to do with Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac or the government subsidizing the private mortgage/housing industry. I just wanted to show you that private ownership of housing is already the rule across the land and always has been. That doesn’t' mean the people that live in the housing own the housing, just that the government doesn't own the housing. We do leave the ownership of housing to the private sector already, as has been the case.

If you want to debate whether the federal government should be "assisting" the housing of 5 million people we can have that debate, it just wasn't the debate that we were having. I personally would like to see housing decisions done on a local level, with State, County and Local government involvement instead of Federal mandates and waste. I would get rid of the Dept of Housing and Urban Development, and I would take care of local matters like housing on a local level. That doesn't mean that we would do away with assisted housing, it just means the Federal Government wouldn't be involved.

Again though that wasn't what we are talking about. The government's role in Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae didn't keep millions upon millions of people from being homeless. That is absurd. The government subsidizes homeownership. This actually drives up the cost of homes by putting more eligible buyers on the market. Without government subsidies home prices would fall. That is a good thing if you are looking for a home, and a bad thing if you are looking to sell one. Many people buy bigger homes because of the subsidy. That can lead to a bad allocation of resources in the economy. Less is spent on capital assets that produce, and more is spent on bigger homes. It also has environmental consequences. Without the government subsidy less people would be eligible to buy home. Those people would have to rent. They would not be homeless.

The argument that we need to subsidize the mortgage industry to prevent homelessness is grandiose, ignorant and has no sound basis.



If the government got out of subsidizing the mortgage business it wouldn't make it a "libertarian utopia". I wouldn't even consider it deregulation. I also don't think the Great Depression was caused by the lack of government subsidy to the mortgage market. Fill me in on that one. I also don't see your point about "greedy rich people". I bet greedy rich people have made a pretty penny from the government subsidies to the mortgage market.



I think you quite clearly stated my main problem with liberals. You are happy that things are kept in check "in concept if nothing else". The actual results don't matter if the concept is right. It is the thought that counts. Who cares about tradeoffs, pros and cons, benefits and consequences? You know you are right and have the moral high ground, because you are taking a stand for the homeless against the greedy rich people. It doesn't matter whether your policies hurt or help the poor, what matters to you is that your heart is in the right place. That is the view of most of the condescending liberals that I know. So every argument, even one about subsidizing mortgages for overpriced condos in Florida or expensive homes in Las Vegas becomes an argument about the cruel rich person against the homeless guy. That is quite a worldview.



Did they teach you about the government subsidizing the mortgage industry in High School Civics? Me neither. We just had a meltdown in the mortgage markets. Is looking at the way the government subsidizes mortgages radical?

Here is a radical, Paul Krugman of the New York Times:



"You can make a good case that America already has too many homeowners" = Liberal Economist Paul Krugman and the New York Times want millions of poor people to be homeless!

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Snipe, I knew I didn't spend enough time on what I was trying to say, but you've made it clear the weaknesses. I was responding to your statement:

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If Fannie and Freddie go away, people will continue to live in homes. Mud huts are not in our future.

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I sort of misspoke when I said "if there was only private housing..." because I thought it was clear (it wasn't) that we were debating the terms of life without Fanny and Freddy, while present day it accounts for so much of the mortgage industry's "strength".

My overall implied point, which madness31 really made clear, was that without the aid of the government throughout recent history, there would be less people in houses of their own. A lot less. That would likely result in very few people controlling a whole bunch of other people's housing. The prices for rent could spiral upwards at that point, pricing out the poorest. Also, if for any reason another Great Depression sized event came along you'd find many more people out of doors unless, of course, the government decided at that point to help sustain the landlords so they didn't kick out renters. But that doesn't seem to be in your picture ever - the government helping people out - so I don't imagine in your world there would be a shortage of homeless people. I wasn't trying to tie the GD with the housing market, I was taking an overall look at the risks of deregulation, and the risks of no safety net.

As far as my point about greedy rich people, don't you think anti-trust laws came about for a reason? This overall idea that private citizens and businesses will be judicious and fair with their wealth is so totally against the facts.

When it comes to regulation "in concept if nothing else", that was a concession I didn't need to make, but did. The point is that the system of government is in place to enact fairness. Despite your indignity, my indignity, anyone's about it, the government has enacted more fairness in society than any unregulated wild west could ever have. The rules of private industry trample fairness wherever possible, which when regulated is passable. I don't think I have the moral high ground, I just don't think the idea of crumbling the foundations of what we have will lead to more freedom and well being. You make a habit of trying to do that.

As for Krugman, all it seems he wants to do is subsidize renters, which I'm not sure supports your world view:

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All I’m suggesting is that we drop the obsession with ownership, and try to level the playing field that, at the moment, is hugely tilted against renting.

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Originally Posted by XU 87

So how does sending a streetcar through a bad neighborhood reduce crime?

For that matter, who wants to ride a streetcar through a bad neighborhood, particularly at night?

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Since I and others have gone on forever about this, how about you tell me how a bad neighborhood gets better? You 87, make it better.

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Originally Posted by pizza delivery

Since I and others have gone on forever about this, how about you tell me how a bad neighborhood gets better? You 87, make it better.

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Neither question has been specifically addressed, particularly my second one.

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Originally Posted by Snipe

Could you then clarify what I said that you found to be odius, hateful or repugnant in that post?

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I found the argument's implications odious. Considering repealing the Civil Rights Act to the benefit of whom? Really a wretched idea, one which solves no problems, just walks away from them. You were measured and genuine in that thread, however, and I apologize for the attack.

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Originally Posted by XU 87

So how does sending a streetcar through a bad neighborhood reduce crime?

For that matter, who wants to ride a streetcar through a bad neighborhood, particularly at night?

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Investment. Private investment even!

Did you read the article in the beginning of the thread?

I can't recall if you ever offered any solutions for OTR though.