I've been critical of the structural reality in NRP that
institutionalizes already advantaged local-level players; i.e.,
ownership means greater clout in the long run in NRP venues even if
insurgent non-ownership interests can occasionally rise to the occasion
and push successfully for social welfare agendas. That comment, however,
does not give sufficient recognition to the capacity for our propertied
classes to act in a socially enlightened manner, as evidenced by
Kingfield President David Brauer's rueful remarks about that
neighborhood's work in progress on affordable housing, now interrupted
by the schoolyard bully tactics of the House Republicans.
I especially appreciate David's shrewd grasp of the significance of
Center for Neighborhood's Sean Gosiewski's lonely role as an
all-too-accurate Cassandra - I don't believe for a New York minute that
Mayor Sayles Belton or Council President Cherryhomes or third-term
Council Member Campbell spent any sleepless nights worrying about the
fate of NRP. Taking away the straw from all those bumptious local
brickmakers, don't you know, can't have seemed like such a bad idea to
the political elite.
But now the damage is there for eveyone to see, especially the David
Brauers of this city who have done right by their quasi-public
responsibilities in attempting to steer grassroots development in a way
that creates broad-based civic benefits. What an appropriate time to
contemplate the asset-based model for bottom-up planning! I have no
problem putting checkmarks in the "needs work" column for the
aforementioned elected Minneapolis leadership, whether through
allegations of benign neglect or of closet antipathy to local control.
Hopefully this legislative 2x4 will spark greater interest in
streamlining our alphabet soup of development entities in a way that
invigorates and celebrates regional compacts within the city driven by
bottom-up understandings. Functionally, that's good development news
from this past decade. What's wanted now are elected people who will
revisit metropolitan area understandings and seek capacities to crack
open the adversarial posturing of our suburban Republican brethren.
Pragmatic collaborations will accomplish this, because less
ideologically-driven and less corporate welfare-driven leadership
understands that the region's long-term health is at stake. We ought not
be crippling the region's - and the state's - economic engine for the
sake of somebody's personal comfort level in the high-income suburban
census tracts. Feel free to share this message with outstate Republicans
who will also have to deal with affordable housing and living wage job
issues after the party's over and the band's gone home.
Fred Markus, Horn Terrace, Ward Ten
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