Best blues slide guitar solos from great bottleneck players

MTC Plan Bay Area meetings are PLANNED to stifle dissent.

Citing civil disruptions during public meetings to discuss Plan Bay Area,  MTC representative Richard Hedges from San Mateo approves of the way tabletop meetings are conducted. 

He said that last Plan Bay Area meetings were disrupted by certain people (referring to the East Bay Tea Party and other groups that questioned the 40 year plan) and by eliminating stadium seating, they can quiet dissent. 

It is remarkable that in Contra Costa County with a population of 1.1 million people had only 80 people attending this Plan Bay Area meeting.    

According to the MTC,  "success" is when no one listens and objects.   At least half of the attendees were supporters of the plan from the building trades and housing activist communities.

 It looks much less than eighty people to me. Maybe they were counting the staff too.

Walkable Urban Premiums & Gentrification: Good News or Bad?

Fascinating how these "Smart Growthers" justify their right to destroy neighborhoods through government planning.  To me there is a world of difference between private, organic growth and using the power of government to confer special privileges upon crony developers.  They will do anything to get their way including bastardizing the democratic process and attacking people who get in their way.  No wonder there are large grassroots movements against to stop the juggarnaut of corruption.

Gentrification and what can be done to stop it | Loretta Lees | TEDxBrixton What we don’t understand about gentrification | Stacey Sutton | TEDxNewYork

Gentrification through the natural market and democratic means is healthy evolution.   When government policies break up neighborhoods in favor of outsider developers, it is cultural imperialism.   The backlash against government planners and politicians continue to grow as people wake up to the planning schemes.  Government should represent the people and stay away from social engineering that inevitably leads to the dissolution of community.

Displacement from Public Housing and Private Profits with Bridge Housing

At the Marin City Meeting on May 18, 2015 to discuss the future of the redevelopment  of the Marin City Priority Development Area, a resident is concerned with displacement and the gentrification of their community.  The elimination of public housing in lieu of Private-Public Housing and the gentrification of Marin City is EXACTLY what will be occurring as the response from the "facilitator" indicates.

She tells the resident that since HUD has declining budgets, public housing is trending towards "public-private partnership" schemes. Non profit developers like Bridge Housing sells tax credits to Wall Street Banks and the wealthy 1% and collects huge management fees from the management of the apartments.  I am told these fees often top 60% of rent for each unit for 55 years!    The Non Profit "public private" partnership is a lucrative money making deal for insiders.

It is clear from the residents is all they want is their apartments to be maintained and be left alone.  They do not want gentrification which will raise ALL the rents and push the poorest away from their homes.

While there are many fine people on both sides of the housing debate, we need to pay particular close attention to the COMMUNITY first.  How do we "improve" a community by displacing its residents?  What right does ANY government entity have in a free society to force redevelopment "for our own good"?  Isn't this government imperialism?

An Activist from San Francisco Mission District:

Regionalism: Spreading the Fiscal Irresponsibility



Will a regional tax base help Marinwood Lucas Valley?

Regionalism: Spreading the Fiscal Irresponsibility

by Wendell Cox 08/24/2012

Stanley Kurtz's new book, Spreading the Wealth: How Obama is Robbing the Suburbs to Pay for the Cities describes political forces closely tied to President Obama who have pursued an agenda to "destroy" the suburbs for many years. He expresses concern that a second Obama term will be marked by an intensification of efforts to destroy the suburbs through eviscerating their independence thought the imposition of "regionalism". The threat, however, long predates the Obama administration and has, at least in some cases, been supported by Republicans as well as by Democrats.

America is a suburban nation. Nearly three-quarters of the residents of major metropolitan areas (over 1,000,000 population) live in suburbs, most in smaller local government jurisdictions. Further, outside the largest metropolitan areas most people live in suburbs, smaller towns or smaller local government jurisdictions.


Smart Growth

The anti-suburban agenda has more than one dimension. The best known is smart growth, known by a variety of labels, such as compact development, growth management, urban consolidation, etc. Smart growth, from our research, also is associated with higher housing prices, a lower standard of living, greater traffic congestion and health threats from more intense local air pollution.


Regionalism

Another, less well-known anti-suburban strategy is regionalism, to which Kurtz grants considerable attention. Regionalism includes two principal strains, local government amalgamation and metropolitan tax sharing. Both of these strategies are aimed at transferring tax funding from suburban local governments to larger core area governments.

Social welfare and differing income levels are not an issue at this level of government. Local governments, cities, towns, villages, boroughs and townships, finance local services principally with their own local taxes. The programs aimed at social welfare or providing income support are generally administered and financed at the federal, state or regional (county) level. Any suggestion that local suburban jurisdictions are subsidized by core local governments simply reveals a basic unfamiliarity with US municipal finance.


Local Government Amalgamation

Opponents of the suburbs have long favored amalgamating local governments (such as cities, towns, villages, boroughs and townships). There are two principal justifications. One suggests "economies of scale" --- the idea that larger local government jurisdictions are more efficient than smaller governments, and that, as a result, taxpayers will save. The second justification infers that a larger tax base, including former suburbs, will make additional money available to former core cities, which are routinely characterized as having insufficient revenues to pay for their services. Both rationales are without foundation.

Proponents of amalgamation incessantly refer to the large number of local governments in some states, implying that this is less efficient. The late Elinor Ostrum put that illusion to rest in her acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in economics in 2009:

Scholars criticized the number of government agencies rather than trying to understand why created and how they performed. Maps showing many governments in a metropolitan area were used as evidence for the need to consolidate.

The reality is that there is a single measure of efficiency: spending per capita. Here there is a strong relationship between smaller local government units and lower taxes and spending. Our review of local government finances in four states (Pennsylvania, New York, Indiana and Illinois) indicates that larger local governments tend to be less efficient, not more. Moreover, the same smaller is more efficient dynamic is evident in both metropolitan areas as well as outside. "Smaller is better" is also evident at the national level (Figure 1).

Full Article: Regionalism: Spreading the Fiscal Irresponsibility

'The Last Black Man in San Francisco' Searches for Home in a Fast-Changing City

Now fundraising on Kickstarter, a film by two S.F. natives will grapple with race, class, displacement, and the importance of friendship.

• LAURA BLISS
 
• @mslaurabliss
 
• May 18, 2015
 
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Among the more worrying trends out of San Francisco in recent years—and the greatest tarnish to the city’s reputation for diversity—is the displacement of longtime residents of color. It’s not only Latinos being pushed out of the Mission District: Census numbers reveal a staggering 35.7 percent decrease inSan Francisco's black population between 1990 and 2010.

Third-generation San Franciscan Jimmie Fails has witnessed that flight first-hand. As a black kid growing up in the Fillmore District, he watched his beloved family home go into foreclosure, and his aunts, uncles, and cousins disperse from the Bay Area. Soon after, he moved to the Army St. Housing Projects near the Mission, where he met fledgling film director and fifth-generation S.F. native Joe Talbot.

“Everyone always kicked it at Precita Park,” he says. “We started hanging out, shooting videos.”

It’s an understatement: One of those shorts won an honorable mention at the 2013 San Francisco Independent Film Festival.

Now 20 and 24 respectively, Fails and Talbot are gearing up to create their first feature-length film, “The Last Black Man in San Francisco,” inspired by some of Jimmie’s real-life stories. They’re well on their way to raising $50,000 to fund the project on Kickstarter. The frankly heartbreaking teaser-trailer is above.

“Friendships like Jimmie and mine don’t exist in the future of San Francisco.”

Written and directed by Talbot, the film follows Fails—also a co-writer—and his best friend, played by Prentice Sanders. Neither quite at ease in their far-flung neighborhood, Hunters Point, or in the newly tech-ified San Francisco core, Jimmie and Prentice are outcasts at heart, searching for home in their native city as it changes before their eyes.

Though the film is heavily fictionalized, a central arc is Jimmie’s character’s attempt to buy back the house he lost as a child.

“There is this major question of whether he can stay in the city,” says Talbot. “Do you fight to protect the city you love, or do you accept these big changes?”

Issues of race, class, and displacement loom over the film, but both Jimmie and Joe say it’s really about friendship. “What ties you to the city are your friends who are from here,” says Fails. “You gravitate towards each other. When I look at someone, I can tell if they were born and raised here. There aren’t many of us left.”

Their own connection feels increasingly like an exception, as the city’s black community shrinks and shrinks. “One thing we always say is that friendships like Jimmie and mine don’t exist in the future of San Francisco,” Talbot says. “When we were kids, Precita Park used to be the meeting point for everyone from the area: White kids from Bernal Heights, black kids from the projects, Latino kids from the Mission. Now that park is very different. There isn’t that crossover.”

Now both living at Talbot’s family home in the Mission, Jimmie and Joe say they’re working toward ways to stay in the city, and that there’s plenty to keep them both there for now, even as they worry about what’s to come.

“I hope we can bring the diversity back,” says Fails, “and that there can be more of a black community. I also hope the weirdness stays. The whole reason white people came was it was a city where people who felt like outcasts could come and feel accepted.”

Marin City Fights Back! Marin city meeting about the PDA redevelopment

Here is the unedited version of the Marin City residents meetings to discuss the redevelopment of Golden Gate villages. Emotions were heated as residents fought for fairness.

I am reminded of the Vietnam era military expression, "You've got to destroy a village to save it".  

Marin city is perhaps the most deep rooted community of all in Marin.  It's residents go back generations to the WWII shipbuilding industry and the Deep South where many of the original workers came from.

The meeting begins with the consultant from EMG describing the millions of dollars of deferred maintenance and expected future capital costs.  His eighty page report is meant to lay the groundwork for the NEED of replacement housing.  (As an aside, the consultant had no idea what EMG stood for.  I think it means "Evil Money Grubbers".  He also referred to Marin City as "Marina City". Perhaps this is the new name planners have for the area just as "Hunters Point" in SF has been rechristened as "Hunters View" to attract new residents.)

Residents have pointed out that deferred maintenance has going on for decades.  Repair the buildings and leave us alone.  Please do not destroy this vibrant community that we love.

Lewis Jordan, Marin Housing Authority director fended off sharp criticism.  I was impressed with his ability to stay cool.  He came from Cabrini Green in Chicago that was dismantled in favor of smaller "smart growth" developments. Residents have reason to be concerned about the future of their community.

The future of public housing according to the facilitator is with "public-private partnerships" with companies like Bridge Housing that is the suitor for the Marinwood Plaza housing project.  They make money for their non profit by selling tax advantaged investments to Wall Street and huge management fees to run the facilities often taking 60% or more of the rents in "fees".  They also receive millions in public funds and donations to their non profit.  Nice work if you can get it.

The "Marina City PDA" is going to be a gold mine for consultants, developers, builders and politicians. Residents have every reason to be concerned.  

Planners and Politicians need to stop talking about "housing" and start talking about "community".  We shouldn't be destroying villages to save them.

An Urban Paradise in " Marinwood City"?

Is this the face of a future Marinwood City?

[Editor's Note.  The following is a lecture by urban planner Randal O'toole given in Witchata, KS criticizing the Smart Growth policies that are targeted for the Marinwood Priority Development Area. Will we learn from the mistakes of Portland, Oregon or will we destroy our community for a planning Fad?]

Randal O’Toole said he spent 15 years studying urban planning, and he said he’s learned this:

“Urban planners promise us paradise on earth, but first we have to give them the power to create it.”

Imagine an urban planner in 1950 writing a 50-year plan for Wichita. O’Toole showed illustrations of some things we take for granted today but were unknown at that time, such as direct dialing a long-distance telephone call, using a personal computer, and flying on a commercial jet aircraft. But, he said, nearly everyone had rode on trains.

We know that predictions made in the past often turn out to be nowhere near accurate. But urban planners still make these type of long-range plans. The problem, O’Toole said, is that when plans are made, someone is going to benefit from that plan. Those people will lobby to keep the plan in effect so that they continue to benefit. This will be true even if the plan turns out to be totally wrong and a disaster for everyone else.

Cities are too complicated to plan, O’Toole said. There are too many people, and there are too many parcels of land with too many possible uses. Despite this complexity, planners think they should be allowed to dictate the use for each parcel of land.

Since planning is so complicated, planners follow fads. As an example, O’Toole showed an example of a city that created a pedestrian mall downtown, as did some 200 cities across the country. Almost all have since been reopened to traffic.

Another fad was slum clearance, where high-rise housing projects were built to replace slums. These buildings proved to be unlivable, and many have been torn down.

One of the latest fads is “smart growth,” which seeks to increase the density of urban development. O’Toole’s hometown of Portland has embraced this fad. There, an urban growth boundary limits the expansion of developed areas. Instead of growing out, planners want the city to grow up. Minimum density zoning means that high-density housing that replaces single family housing.

Row houses in Portland. These replaced a single-family home.

O’Toole showed a photograph of a nice house that he said sells for $160,000 in Houston. In Portland, at the peak of the bubble, a similar house would sell for $380,000. He said that Portland planners are proud of the fact that developers will buy a house on a quarter-acre lot, tear it down, and replace it with four skinny row houses.

Could this happen in Kansas, he asked? O’Toole said that President Obama’s Secretary of Transportation has decided to require all metropolitan areas to write plans to include compact development.

Light rail is another favorite tool of urban planners that hasn’t worked. O’Toole told how Portland built light rail rather than highways. Federal dollars encouraged this. But light rail was so expensive that Portland had to cut back on its thriving bus service. Bus fares were raised and service was cut, so bus ridership plummeted.

A light rail train in front of an apartment building in Moscow …
… and the same in Portland.

Portland built still more light rail, however, urged on by campaign contributions from rail contractors. Land near the light rail stations was zoned for high-density development. But no one wanted to develop there, because there was a surplus of high-density development and no parking around these light rail stations — except for train riders, and few people rode the trains. So Portland subsidized high-density development along light rail lines.
Portland also created tax increment financing (or TIF districts) along the light rail lines. O’Toole referred to the money allocated to TIF districts as stolen from police and fire services, and from public schools. But still more TIF districts were created along even more light rail train lines.

Cars parked illegally at a high-density, transit-friendly development in Portland. Management knows that if parking regulations are enforced, tenants will leave.

The claim by government officials is that light rail promotes economic development. But it’s a zero-sum game, O’Toole said. Development is promoted in one place at the expense of development elsewhere. The added tax burden of TIF makes it a negative-sum game, as the cost of TIF financing slows the economic growth of cities that use TIF compared to those that don’t.

O’Toole showed a photograph of a mixed-use development in Portland with three floors of apartments upstairs, with shops on the bottom floor. But all the stores are empty, because there is no parking for shoppers. [Editor's note::This is exactly what will happen with Marinwood Plaza if current plans are adapted. This site should be 100% commercial and housing should be located elsewhere]

All the spending on light rail in Portland has led to a decrease in the share of commuting trips taken using transit, O’Toole said.

So what is the result of following urban planning fads in Portland? O’Toole said: “If your goal is to make housing unaffordable, make your streets more congested, increase taxes or reduce the quality of urban services, then by all means follow the kind of fads that Portland is doing.”
O’Toole said that cities should follow the type of planning efforts that Anaheim, California has followed in the Platinum Triangle. Instead of using TIF financing to sell bonds and take land by eminent domain, cities should not rely on eminent domain and subsidy. Government should get out of the way, he said.

Clean up or Cover Up at Marinwood Plaza?

On May 13, 2015,  several residents for Marinwood appeared before the Regional Water Quality Control Board in Oakland, CA to testify for the immediate clean up of the Toxic Waste at the Prosperity Cleaners site at Marinwood Plaza, 132 Marinwood Avenue, San Rafael, CA.

In February 2014, the same board issued a clean up order to the plaza's owners Marinwood Plaza, LLC .  They objected on grounds that clean up is very expensive it would it difficult for the new owners to obtain financing in a timely fashion.  The spill had spread UNDERNEATH the freeway and was approaching the well on an adjacent dairy  farm that produces food for thousands.  

Supervisor Susan Adams and Assemblyman Marc Levine personally intervened on behalf of the DISCHARGER in 2014 (not the public in immediate health risk) to DELAY THE CLEAN UP.

One year later and two buyers have dropped interest in the property and NO CLEAN UP or plan for CLEAN UP has begun.

Residents are frustrated.  Hundreds of lives may be affected.   The board simply wants to test more wells instead of ordering the immediate clean up

We must Save Marin Again.

ABAG Meeting in Novato. Plan Bay Area update 2017

Suburban Sprawl Myths

Suburban Garden in unregulated Houston,TX "sprawl"

 

Urban Growth Means Lower Taxes -- and Other Myths

by Donella H. Meadows

We need to bring in business to bring down taxes. This development will give us jobs. Environmental protection will hurt the economy. Growth is good for us.

If we've heard those arguments once, we've heard them a thousand times, stated with utmost certainty and without the slightest evidence. That's because there is no evidence. Or rather, there is plenty of evidence, most of which disproves these deeply held pro-growth beliefs.

Here is a short summary of some of the evidence. For more, see Eben Fodor's new book "Better, Not Bigger," which lists and debunks the following "Twelve Big Myths of Growth."

Myth 1: Growth provides needed tax revenues. Check out the tax rates of cities larger than yours. There are a few exceptions but the general rule is: the larger the city, the higher the taxes. That's because development requires water, sewage treatment, road maintenance, police and fire protection, garbage pickup -- a host of public services. Almost never do the new taxes cover the new costs. Fodor says, "the bottom line on urban growth is that it rarely pays its own way."

Myth 2: We have to grow to provide jobs. But there's no guarantee that new jobs will go to local folks. In fact they rarely do. If you compare the 25 fastest growing cities in the U.S. to the 25 slowest growing, you find no significant difference in unemployment rates. Says Fodor: "Creating more local jobs ends up attracting more people, who require more jobs."

Myth 3: We must stimulate and subsidize business growth to have good jobs. A "good business climate" is one with little regulation, low business taxes, and various public subsidies to business. A study of areas with good and bad business climates (as ranked by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the business press) showed that states with the best business ratings actually have lower growth in per capita incomes than those with the worst. Fodor: "This surprising outcome may be due to the emphasis placed by good-business-climate states on investing resources in businesses rather  rather than directly in people."  [ Editor's note: I disagree with this statement. Obviously, creating more opportunity will create greater income for the local economy]

Myth 4: If we try to limit growth, housing prices will shoot up. Sounds logical, but it isn't so. A 1992 study of 14 California cities, half with strong growth controls, half with none, showed no difference in average housing prices. Some of the cities with strong growth controls had the most affordable housing, because they had active low-cost housing programs. Fodor says the important factor in housing affordability is not so much house cost as income level, so development that provides mainly low-paying retail jobs makes housing unaffordable.

Myth 5: Environmental protection hurts the economy. According to a Bank of America study the economies of states with high environmental standards grew consistently faster than those with weak regulations. The Institute of Southern Studies ranked all states according to 20 indicators of economic prosperity (gold) and environmental health (green) and found that they rise and fall together. Vermont ranked 3rd on the gold scale and first on the green, while Louisiana ranked 50th on both.

Myth 6: Growth is inevitable. There are constitutional limits to the ability of any community to put walls around itself. But dozens of municipalities have capped their population size or rate of growth by legal regulations based on real environmental limits and the real costs of growth to the community.

Myth 7: If you don't like growth, you're a NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) or an ANTI (against everything) or a gangplank-puller (right after you get aboard). These accusations are meant more to shut people up than to examine their real motives. Says Fodor, "A NIMBY is more likely to be someone who cares enough about the future of his or her community to get out and protect it."

Myth 8: Most people don't support environmental protection. Polls and surveys have disproved this belief for decades; Fodor cites examples from Oregon, Los Angeles, Colorado, and the U.S. as a whole. The fraction of respondents who say environmental quality is more important than further economic growth almost always tops 70 percent.

Myth 9: We have to grow or die. This statement is tossed around lightly and often, but if you hold it still and look at it, you wonder what it means. Fodor points out, quoting several economic studies, that many kinds of growth cost more than the benefits they bring. So the more growth, the poorer we get. That kind of growth will kill us.

Myth 10: Vacant land is just going to waste. Studies from all over show that open land pays far more -- often twice as much -- in property taxes than it costs in services. Cows don't put their kids in school; trees don't put potholes in the roads. Open land absorbs floods, recharges aquifers, cleans the air, harbors wildlife, and measurably increases the value of property nearby. We should pay it for to be there.

Myth 11: Beauty is no basis for policy. One of the saddest things about municipal meetings is their tendency to trivialize people who complain that a proposed development will be ugly. Dollars are not necessarily more real or important than beauty. In fact beauty can translate directly into dollars. For starters, undeveloped surroundings can add $100,000 to the price of a home.

Myth 12: Environmentalists are just another special interest. A developer who will directly profit from a project is a special interest. A citizen with no financial stake is fighting for the public interest, the long term, the good of the whole community.

Maybe one reason these myths are proclaimed so often and loudly is that they are so obviously doubtful. The only reason to keep repeating something over and over is to keep others from thinking about it. You don't have to keep telling people that the sun rises in the east.

There are reasons why some of us want others of us to believe the myths of urban growth.

Donella H. Meadows is director of the Sustainability Institute and an adjunct professor of environmental studies at Dartmouth College.

[Editor's Note:  I'll add another myth:  Suburbs are wasteful and unsustainable.  Many suburban homes, especially in Marin, maintain organic gardens, harvest rainwater, have low-water plantings and come with their very own greenscape  buffer to recapture carbon for the atmosphere.  The illusion that Smart Growth developers, planners and politicians want you to believe is that stacking people together is better for the environment.  This is actually opposite of the truth.  High density housing creates high density urban problems, and pollution.]