DEVELOPMENT PROJECT SPARKS PROTEST FROM SOUTH LA RESIDENTS OVER GENTRIFICATION

By Mayde Gomez

Wednesday, August 10, 2016

SOUTH LOS ANGELES (KABC) --

A planned mixed-use development project in South Los Angeles prompted a protest Tuesday from some residents concerned over gentrification and housing affordability, while the area's councilman insisted the development will be a boon to the neighborhood.

The proposed Reef project has been a source of controversy for the past two years, alarming community activists such as Union del Barrio's Ron Gochez.

"A single-unit apartment is going to go for more than $2,000 in an area where the average family makes about $24,000 a year," Gochez said. "So this is obviously not something for our community. The rent of everyone who lives within a 2-mile radius is going to go up dramatically."

City Councilman Curren Price, who represents the 9th District located south of downtown L.A., said residents who have struggled to find affordable housing will be among the beneficiaries of the Reef development.

"We're going to be requiring the developer, for example, to provide $12 million for affordable housing projects in the district," Price said. "We're going to be allocating another $3 million for community-based organizations to provide a variety of services: health, economic development, job training, etc."

Outside the councilman's district office, protesters held signs that said "Community OVER Profit" and "Curren's Price for South L.A.: $15 million."

The project is envisioned to cover 9.7 acres on Washington Boulevard between Hill and Main streets. Its proposed design includes 528 apartments, 895 condominiums, multiple hotels, a grocery store and 28,000 square feet of restaurants.

"We want development, we want housing, but not at the expense of the community itself," Gochez said.

Price maintained that low-income residents of the neighborhood would not be forced out by the project.

"The suggestion is that if we build on two vacant parking lots that somehow that's going to displace individuals. That's not totally supported by the facts," he said.

He added that he was calling on the Reef's developers to reach out to the community and better explain the project.

The development's first hearing before the Area Planning Commission is scheduled for Thursday.

Venezuela Food Crisis

UN Official: We Should Make Every Effort To Depopulate The Planet

Christiana Figueres, the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, recently stated in an interview that the Earth is already over burdened with people and that we should look at depopulating the planet.

“There is pressure in the system to go toward that; we can definitely change those, right? We can definitely change those numbers,” Figueres stated.

“Really, we should make every effort to change those numbers because we are already, today, already exceeding the planet’s planetary carrying capacity.” she claimed.

“So yes we should do everything possible. But we cannot fall into the very simplistic opinion of saying just by curtailing population then we’ve solved the problem. It is not either/or, it is an and/also.” Figueres continued.

Figueres also blatantly stated earlier this year that the true purpose of the entire global warming scareis to kill off capitalism. Now, even after this admission, she’s claiming we need to get rid of a large percentage of the world’s population due to climate change. Of course, most of the sheeple in the world will ignore her admission as well as the undeniable evidence that climate change is the greatest science scandal of all time – as illustrated by the fact the someone has been ‘fudging the numbers’that give credit to this scam.

The other great lie is that we have a problem with the Earth’s population. Actually fertility rates are falling. More below the video.

Economic understanding

With Ride-Sharing Technology, Cities Will Build On-Demand Bus Lines Around You

With Ride-Sharing Technology, Cities Will Build On-Demand Bus Lines Around You

Ask not for whom the bell tolls, mass transit agencies of America.

Eric Boehm|Aug. 16, 2016 3:55 pm






Screenshot by Eric BoehmUber has become a ubiquitous part of urban America, but the capitalists who disrupted the taxi cartels aren't done changing the way we get around. The next step in the Uber-ization of transportation will see ride-sharing services taking on mass transit agencies—and if you thought the taxi industry was long overdue for a major shake-up, get ready for an even more stunning transformation.

Transit options that can serve individuals better than buses and move mass numbers of people with greater efficiency in ever-more-crowded cities are better for consumers, of course, but it's also a good deal for city governments.

Bloomberg reported this week on how Pinellas Park, a suburb of Tampa, Florida, is already partnering with Uber and Lyft to run two bus lines for about $40,000, or about a quarter of what it was spending to run those two bus lines previously.


Interestingly enough, the experiment with ride-sharing-as-mass-transit in Pinellas Park would never have happened if city officials had their way. In 2014, voters rejected a plan to increase taxes to pay for upgrades to the bus system and to build an expensive new light rail line.

Some Miami suburbs and a town near Denver, Colorado, are considering similar arrangements, Bloomberg reports.

The coming mass transit disruption will take on different forms in different places. The Bloomberg article focuses on how some cities are partnering with Uber and Lyft to replace smaller bus lines and to provide a better feeder system for existing mass transit, but there are already indications that ride-sharing services could beat mass transit agenciesat their own game.

Uber is already doing this—more or less—in places where it has rolled out the Uber Pool option. Uber Pool uses algorithms to link up users' pick-up and drop-off locations, allowing a single driver to give multiple rides simultaneously along the most efficient route. Essentially, Uber builds brand-new bus lines in real time, responding immediately to supply and demand.

One of Uber's long term goals is to lower its price point until grabbing a ride with your smart phone is cheaper and easier than driving or taking a bus, as I detailed earlier this month. That means fewer ugly parking garages and more useful space in downtowns, more good news for America's cities.

Other ride-sharing services are following that model to develop a middle ground between Uber and civic mass transit services. Bridj, a startup private bus service, uses no fixed lines and responds to demand by rerouting buses in real time.

Government-run transit agencies can't even begin to compete with that sort of thing. Even if they had the ability to re-route buses on demand, other forms of mass transit (like those billions of dollars' worth of light rail lines Americancities have foolishly built over the past decade) have routes that are written in stone.

At least some cities seem to realize that much. Rather than trying to compete with increasingly more transit-like ride-sharing options, Kansas City bought 10 buses from Bridj earlier this year. At least 10 other cities are curious about trying similar arrangements, Bridj's CEO told Bloomberg. The bus service is also operating in Washington, D.C., and Boston.

Cities would be wise to follow the lead of Kansas City and Panella Park by finding better way to integrate ride-sharing and mass transit, rather than throwing up barriers to innovations. Just like the taxi companies that fought against the first stage of ride-sharing's evolution, the unions that represent bus drivers and mass transit workers will surely throw fits over the disruptions caused by these newer development.

Even the best civic planner can't predict the need for mass transit at such an individual level. We're so used to living in cities where we have to build our plans around the existing transit options—but Uber, Bridj and whatever comes next will make it possible to have mass transit built around us.




Eric Boehm is a reporter at Reason.com.

Anti-Development Initiative Gains Backing of Leonardo DiCaprio, Other Hollywood Celebs

THURSDAY, AUGUST 18, 2016 AT 8:02 A.M.

BY HILLEL ARON

EXPAND

Left, a rendering of the Hollywood Palladium Towers; right, a rendering of Leonardo DiCaprio clutching an Oscar Rendering courtesy of Palladium Residences (left); photo by Ted Soqui for L.A. Weekly (right)

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Backers of an initiative that aims to curb development in Los Angeles have assembled an impressive coalition of supporters, including a cavalcade of neighborhood activists from South L.A. to Van Nuys to Silver Lake.

The coalition now also claims half a dozen stars of screens big and small. Kirsten Dunst, Joaquin Phoenix, Chris Pine, Chloë Sevigny, Garrett Hedlund and the King of the World himself, Leonardo DiCaprio, have all signed on to support the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative, according to a press release put out by the authors of the measure.

DiCaprio, an L.A. native, is a longtime environmental activist who, in his 2016 Academy Award acceptance speech, warned the television audience about the perils of climate change. He is not known for his involvement in city politics. 

The Neighborhood Integrity Initiative aims to limit development by curbing the practice of "spot zoning," exemptions to zoning laws that City Council gives developers on more or less an ad hoc basis.

Yesterday, about 20 supporters of the initiative, including its campaign manager Jill Stewart (former L.A. Weekly managing editor, by the by) and feared anti-development attorney Robert Silverstein (who helped write the measure), met with Mayor Eric Garcetti. The group had a number of demands for the mayor, including that he make spot-zoning the "rare exception to the rule, rather than routine," and that he ban communications between developers and city officials,something that's been proposed for the California Coastal Commission. 

"We want the mayor to lead on this," Stewart said before the meeting. "We're saying he has one week to take care of these key issues or we go forward."

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The group emerged from the meeting about an hour later.

"The mayor was very sweet and nice," Stewart said. "He was charming and conciliatory. But that doesn't mean he's gonna back our measure."

Koreatown activist Grace Yoo, who was also in the meeting, was less charitable: "He was his usual charming self — full of nothing." Another activist who was present called the meeting "more useless than tits on a bull."

Garcetti spokeswoman Connie Llanos said the mayor was "reviewing the request."

"Mayor Garcetti is already leading one of the city's most ambitious efforts to reform the development process in L.A.," said Llanos in a written statement. "Almost six months ago, the city announced its most aggressive schedule to update community plans and the General Plan, and new efforts to increase transparency with the [Environmental Impact Review] process. We will continue to advance this reform agenda and look forward to working with all stakeholders."

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The mayor has not taken a position on the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative.

Stewart says her coalition plans to submit well over 62,000 signatures by Aug. 24, in order to qualify the ballot measure for the March 2017 citywide election, where Angelenos also will be deciding whether or not to give the mayor another 5½-year term. 

The Neighborhood Integrity Initiative is funded almost entirely by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (or AHF), which has contributed more than a million dollars to the campaign's war chest (small donors have given the campaign another $35,000 or so). Its headquarters in Hollywood is across the street from the Palladium, which developers plan to turn into two 28-story apartment buildings. AHF head Michael Weinstein has said that mega-developments such as the Palladium project drive gentrification and displacement, which affect poor people, which puts the initiative squarely in his organization's purview. 

The developer behind the Palladium project is the main financial backer of the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative opposition campaign, having given more than $400,000 to defeat the measure. Other developers also have given money, including Westfield and Eli Broad. 

Opponents say the initiative will further exacerbate the housing crisis, and raise rents by making it even harder to build new apartment complexes. They also argue that it will restrict the city's ability to build permanent supportive housing for the homeless, since those facilities often need General Plan amendments. 

"I think it would be better for the city overall if their vendetta against the Palladium wasn’t filed," said No campaign manager Mike Shimpock. He said theinitiative, if passed, would be like "Doomsday for housing in the city of Los Angeles. It will restrict supply when prices are sky-high."

The No campaign also boasts a broad coalition and includes the Chamber of Commerce, unions, affordable-housing activists and a smattering of environmentalists, transit boosters and urban planners — but no celebs. 

"I don’t know why they’re supporting it," said Shimpock, when asked about his opponents' new star power. "They either don’t understand or don’t care that it will negatively impact some of the neediest people in Los Angeles."

The Marin County of Popular Imagination and the Real Marin

The Marin County of popular imagination

and the Real Marin

Watch John Kerry Make Stunning Admission About Climate Change

Shocked by Segregation

Shocked by Segregation

But it is not in the South.

By Kevin D. Williamson — August 24, 2016

The headline was familiar, and predictable: “U.S.’s most economically segregated schools aren’t where you might expect.” Maybe not where you expect if you’re a Cambridge-dwelling headline writer for the Christian Science Monitor, but more or less exactly where you’d expect if you spent much time in the actual United States of America.

Underline: “Only one Southern state made the top 10 list,” gasp and exclamation point implicit.
Economic segregation, like racial segregation, is a condition that certainly exists in the South but that is much more pronounced in our large, Democrat-dominated northeastern metros and in West Coast cities such as San Francisco, where the spotlessly progressive municipal authorities have for a generation used restrictive zoning laws to drive out the sort of people who aren’t on a first-name basis with any venture capitalists. From the pitiless Romans we received the term “to decimate,” meaning to eliminate every tenth man in a military unit, usually as a punishment for mutiny or desertion. Since 1990, San Francisco has outdone Crassus and eliminated every third African-American resident, though to be fair San Francisco’s policies are not intentionally designed to drive out black people but to drive out poor people. Black billionaires are welcome in San Francisco, as they are in most places.
Racial segregation and economic segregation are different phenomena, but they are related, which probably is inevitable given the very different economic situations of different American demographic groups: Indian Americans have household incomes on average in excess of $100,000 a year, whereas African Americans have a median household income of around $35,000 a year. “African American” was never a particularly useful term — Africa is a big, diverse place — and it is becoming less useful by the year, inasmuch as some African-American subgroups, notably Americans of Nigerian background, have incomes that exceed the national average by a large margin, a fact that is no doubt related to the fact that Nigerian Americans pursue advanced degrees at four to six times the average U.S. rate. Jay Nordlinger relates a story about a high-achieving Lumbee Indian whose pursuit of academic and professional advancement had his sister accusing him of “acting white,” to which he replied that “acting white” wasn’t enough, that he intended to act Jewish or Chinese. He could have added “act Nigerian.”
Cities such as San Francisco are in part victims of their own success — a great many people want to live there, so there’s a great deal of demand for real estate. That’s one side of the equation. Policy comes in on the supply side, with political barriers to building keeping the stock of housing artificially limited, which is great for homeowners (who have lots of political clout) but stinks for younger, lower-income people looking to buy or rent (who don’t have very much political clout).
Part of that is a general American phenomenon: We simply will not endure ordinary urban population density — never mind comparing it with Lagos or Taipei, New York City’s density is well under half that of such ordinary cities as Barcelona, Buenos Aires, or Warsaw. New York is remarkable among U.S. cities for its tall buildings – and remarkable among world cities for its lack of them. Only a tiny number of New York City residences — less than 2 percent — are located in tall buildings, meaning those 20 stories or taller, far less than in comparable cities around the world. The number is even lower for cities such as Los Angeles (which actually has a higher population density than New York) and San Francisco. Building taller buildings makes urban residential real estate less expensive per square foot — you can have higher buildings or higher prices. New York, where the nice progressives want to put caps on tall buildings, has chosen higher prices — and, therefore, economic segregation, pushing the poor farther into the Bronx or New Jersey. (One Manhattan doorman of my acquaintance commuted from Pennsylvania.)
And in terms of building restrictions, New York is the Wild West compared with San Francisco.
Local reform is needed in places such as New York and San Francisco, but we can be reasonably confident that Wall Street and Silicon Valley will, in the end, take care of themselves.
We have examples to guide us. In Harris County (the greater Houston area) the median monthly household income is three times the median monthly homeownership cost for a family with a mortgage. In San Francisco County, where incomes are higher but housing prices are also much higher, the median monthly income is only twice the median monthly cost of housing. That’s before taxes. For the median-income family in San Francisco County, earning just shy of $80,000 a year, that $3,200 a month in housing expenses does not leave a lot of wiggle room in the rest of the household budget, especially considering the higher taxes and other expenses they’ll pay. The median Houston family earns only 70 percent of its San Francisco counterpart, but its housing expenses are less than half as much. The math here is pretty ugly: Using the old 2.5-times-your-income guideline, the median San Francisco family cannot begin to afford the median home there, which costs more than $765,000, or nine times the median family income.
That’s the median family. How much less room for error do the families in the below-the-median half enjoy? Mr. and Mrs. Average have a pretty tough time — but things are a lot worse for Mr. and Mrs. Below Average.
The racial aspect is easier to track, thanks to the Census: In 1970, there were nearly 100,000 African Americans in San Francisco. In 1990, there were about 78,000 black residents. Today, there are about 51,000 black residents. African Americans once were the majority population in San Francisco’s Bayview; today, at less than 6 percent of San Francisco’s population, they make up a majority of the population only in its jails.
There is a great deal more to what ails the poor, and long-suffering African-American communities, than housing policy. And most of those economically segregated and shockingly non-Southern cities that worry the gentle people at the Christian Science Monitor are not victims of their own success. They are Detroit, St. Louis, Cleveland, etc., which also are among our most racially segregated cities (those being New York, Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland). Housing is pretty cheap there. The problem is in the demand side of the market: Nobody wants to move to Detroit, and few people are leaving Texas or California for a great new job in Cleveland. We know how to fix bad housing policy; in truth, we know how to fix a great many bad policies (education, public safety) afflicting Detroit and Cleveland, too. But the problems in those cities are not entirely unlike the housing problems that beset San Francisco and New York. The bad public policies that keep those cities down benefit somebody – somebody keeps those cities’ failed institutions in place, somebody resists reform, somebody evades accountability and helps others do the same.
Who? Would it be too much to suggest we take a real hard look at who’s running those cities?
— Kevin D. Williamson in National Review’s roving correspondent.

Happy Monday!

More Liberty or More State?

A look at Plan Bay Area