Wait, first the blog changes and then there's a compliment on city spending? Forget Building 7. This is becoming much clearer now.

Wait, first the blog changes and then there's a compliment on city spending? Forget Building 7. This is becoming much clearer now.

I WANT MY JACK BOG BACK!

Building 7?

The city can and does sometimes make good decisions. What I guestion is whether this is really a new era, "the post Neil era". It seems to me that the forces that produced him are still in control and still run things.

I found it interesting that the blog crashed right after Jon made a comment to the effect that the elite in th is town-to which I had referred to as criminal-is not right wing Republican. By any means. In fact some of the movers and shakers hold themselves out as the ultimate in hip and cool. And while they might show their true colors to some of us "nobodies", especially those of us who get too "uppity", they would surely be shrewd enough never to reveal them to a lauded tax law scholar whom everyone likes and respects.

I know a CoP city planner who prides himself as a liberal Democrat. He told me most of his coworkers think he's a conservative.

THAT'S how far left Portland is.

Yeah, if you don't "drink the kool-aid",people judge you as a "bad ole conservative reactionary". I have never lived anywhere, including Bakersfield, CA, that was so anti-intellectual and pro Omerta.

Jack: ..."It will be like Barcelona!" Uh huh.

Jack: ...Vera talked about making changes along the streets to make them more Euro.

JK: Why do our idiot planners keep trying to make Portland more like low income countries? (Almost every European country has lower income than we do)

Are they trying to lower our income? Come to think of it, maybe that is the intent - after all, poverty is the only proven way to get people to live in high density and take mass transit.

Thanks
JK

I read an article some years ago where one
of the local snooteratti admitted that many of them came from the anti-war camp of the Vietnam era and this person admitted that they couldn't stop the war, but wanted to create a city more to their liking so a bunch of them moved to Portland.
I guess their motto is "Peace thru coercion".
So much for us anti-war types who just want to let people be.
#####

I think I know of whom you speak, Michael.
A few years back, one of my cousins turned me on to Isaiah Berlin's stuff on utopias. They inevitably lead toward intolerance of dissent. I think some of these cool j*rks(good term: snooterati) realize-at least in theory- that you gotta tolerate dissent to be cool, so they suppress it through weird machinations, presuming no one in this town is capable of climbing off the turnip truck.

I'm wouldn't go so far as to say that the park/plaza opposite Fox Tower is a scam. At least not the end result: an ugly parking lot placed below ground giving way to a beautiful pedestrian-oriented open space downtown. If there's any scam at all, it's that the contractor needs three years to complete the project.

The odor of scam is, you get permission to build many stories of parking ($$$$) in the heart of downtown in exchange for letting the city build a "park" on the roof. And you're a guy who throws money around (allegedly under others' names) in local political campaigns. Maybe not a scam, but definite eau de scam.

One difference, though, between the Moyer project and the ones run by the Usual Gang is that on the Moyer project, the developer is giving the city money and property. By contrast, the projects of the Usual Gang seem to end up with the City giving the developers money and property.

poverty is the only proven way to get people to live in high density and take mass transit.

C'mon, Jim...NYC? Paris? London? I hardly think its "poverty" driving these cities toward ever increasing density.

As for Mr. Moyer's generosity...well, that's fine, I s'posse, but downtown parking lots are cash cows, and that downtown park has sure jumped to the head of the line, while some of us neighborhood folks are still waiting. (Or to quote the Kinks: "So tired, tired of waiting...")

Frank Dufay poverty is the only proven way to get people to live in high density and take mass transit.

C'mon, Jim...NYC? Paris? London? I hardly think its "poverty" driving these cities toward ever increasing density.

JK Naw. I’m talking real density with a little tongue in cheek:
Kowloon old city
New Deli
(This is from memory, I’ll check Wendal’s list and get bak to you)

Oh, are you sure those cities are increasing in density? I think that NYC has dramatically DECREASED in density over the last 100 years.

Thanks
JK

Jim, based on my past readings I believe you are right.

If you consider all of the metro area that contributes to the continuance of NYC beyond the five buroughs, density has decreased.

If you guys REALLY think the density of NYC has decreased...I've got a Brooklyn Bridge to sell you!

There was, sometime back, a silly demogogic piece somewhere about how lower Manhattan, the Wall Street district, was "less dense" than, I don't know, Sinkhole, Nebraska...based on the number of people LIVING on Wall Street. Dumb stuff, guys.

Jersey City's new condos are packing 'em in, as is much of the "Metro area" which serves as the overflow for the five boroughs of NYC...ALL of which keep adding apartments, condos, and which remain in short supply.

Let's keep it real.