Somebody on this list recommended the book, 'American Dreamscape', by Tom Martinson. Whoever it was I thank you. It is relevant in light of the goings on at the State Legislature vis a vis the predominately DFl city of Minneapolis and the primarily Republican suburbs. None of this is new. This is a evolving situation over the past twenty years and anybody who hasn't seen it coming needs glasses. What concerns me most about the tax "reform" that came out of the Capitol is not any supposed spitefulness toward Minneapolis, as what I see as total lack of compassion. Items like lowering property tax rates on cabins while poor people got so little relief from the tax bill really 'toast my grits' as Wizard might say. When you look at the charts, uppper income people did best in property tax rate cuts, middle-income did next best, outstate did better than non urban metro and metro did worst of all. Apartment building owners received a 25% tax decrease and there are some incentives for new construction but none specifically for low cost housing. Most apartment housing developers prefer building higher end and luxury rental units for two primary reasons: 1) greater profit margins and 2)less hassle. Low cost housing is seen as a lot of hassle for less return and is therefore less likely to be the first to be built. With the Federal govevernment not likely to step in with any new housing funds, we will continue to see a terrible housing crisis in the city. Im sorry to have so little sympathy for the middle class homeowners of the city but the fact is that the city lost over 12,500 rental housing units over the past ten to twelve years, and we did very little with the large sums of money available to us through NRP to alleviate that situation. There were exceptions. The new Mayor, or the old one, will need to deal with this continuing crisis. You want to see improved test scores in city schools, start cracking on building low cost rental housing so that children can have stable homes. You want to end welfare, start cracking on building more decent low cost rental housing. You want to continue with lower crime rates, start cracking on building more decent housing. You want less graffitti. You want a younger generation engaged fully in society, starting cracking on housing. The neighborhood one lives in doesn't really matter when one calls a shelter home, or a friend's couch is one's place of residence. Tim Connolly, Candidate for Mayor Lucky to be living at the Continental Hotel Downtown Minneapolis __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - Minnesota E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
