Fascinating read on "urban revitalization" (and how it always fails)

[acroyear]

Using the example of SouthWest DC, turned over to the government by a supreme court decision in the 1950s, much like New London won theirs...

Comments

[javasaurus.livejournal.com]

But Silver Spring almost failed. The building of the mall several years ago was (if I recall correctly) an economic nightmare, simply because it's a lousy mall and nobody ever went there. Certainly the re-revitalization has been an improvement.

But the question isn't (in my opinion) really whether such urban development schemes work -- some do, some don't -- but whether people should be kicked out of homes and businesses that are in reasonably good condition, just to improve tax revenue.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

yeah -- currently the next "wave" of the silver spring project is the block that specifically houses the Foggy Bottom Morris Men's favorite after-practice pub, and the developers are trying to take advantage of the fact that sales have dropped massively in recent years as proof that the place needs to go...

...only the reason sales dropped is Montgomery County's fault: sales in bars across the whole county dropped as a result of the smoking ban. The county would like to say otherwise, but they include the bars in regular restaurants as "bars" when they publish their own statistics, even though there's a big difference.