Paving Hobo Paradise
http://www.dailycal.org/article/107999/paving_hobo_paradise
By Roman Zhuk
January 28, 2010
I consider myself a student of history. By that, I mean I spend far
too much time on Wikipedia. The font of useless information that I
am, I often shock friends and acquaintances who offhandedly remark
how scary, disgusting or annoying People's Park is by telling them
that, in 1969, there were people who actually liked it.
In fact, these people liked the park so much that when the UC
administration planned to build something on the land for student
use, they rose up in violent opposition. The National Guard was sent
in and martial law had to be declared. All because of a dispute over
People's Park.
Eventually, the state and the university backed down. Forty years
ago, the park was a haven for unwashed faux-intellectual druggies who
toted Little Red Books as millions were being killed by Maoist
terror. Today, it is merely a haven for unwashed druggies.
Now, I'm well aware People's Park has its charms. Just the name makes
me feel like I'm back in communist Russia. But what is truly
priceless are the memories it provides. There's nothing quite like
seeing a freshman walk up to you at a party, full of excitement, to
let you know that, just hours before, he dropped acid at the park
with a hobo. Way to keep the spirit of '69 alive, kid.
But these ... quaint ... details aside, People's Park is not merely a
memorial of a past gone by. It is a public nuisance. Violent
assaults, robberies and even sexual crimes are reported to occur
there with increasing regularity, according to this esteemed paper.
Many Berkeley students do not feel safe walking through a space three
blocks away from campus and adjacent to their dorms and apartment buildings.
But even were we to accept, for the sake of argument, that crime is a
risk inherent to an urban campus, the very existence of People's Park
poses a larger concern. As anybody who is planning on moving
off-campus quickly finds out, affordable housing in the Bay Area is
immensely difficult to find. This becomes significantly more
difficult when looking for housing near campus.
And yet, three-fourths of a city block so proximate to campus is used
for nothing but the sole pleasure of vagrants. The obvious solution
would be to clear out the homeless, bring in developers to bid for a
lease and have them put up seven-story apartment buildings to cover the block.
We, Cal students, are an intensely self-congratulatory bunch-few
others have taken the Dear Leader's nonsense about how "we are the
ones we have been waiting for" so closely to heart. Of course, that
is the mistaken hubris of youth. But we can say with reasonable
certainty that we are the ones who could probably use the tract of
land better than the current occupants. I'm pretty sure they can toke
up just as well at that park by Berkeley High.
Crime problem near campus alleviated. Check. Source of revenue for
the university in a time of budgetary stricture. Check. Increasing
the stock of housing near campus for students. Check.
It's a win for everybody except the hobos. So why hasn't this been
implemented? As usual, the culprit is a lack of will on the part of
the administration, and it's preventing lower rents, greater
convenience and a safer environment for the students.
The UC Board of Regents owns the land on which People's Park stands.
I don't imagine, even in our overly-litigious society, that it should
be too difficult for the university to pursue the path outlined.
But undoubtedly, somebody will protest this. They'll make inane
arguments about how making People's Park useful is another sign of
corporate greed stomping on the (not actually working) working
classes. They'll point to Berkeley's history of protecting People's
Park from the serious people. They'll claim it is important to have
an oasis from civilization.
These arguments aren't worthy of a response. For four decades, the
park has proven to be of use to one group-not by accident, the one
group that has done the least to have its concerns be taken into
account by society. Promises made in 1969 by far-left activists of a
glorious urban park are laughably unfulfilled. But the administration
is keen on avoiding any step that might provoke an outcry from some
vocal minority. And so nothing is done.
The fundamental tragedy here is that the people who will be hurt most
by this inaction, by 40 more years of urban blight instead of
glistening new apartments, are the very same people whose interest
the left claims to defend. Unfortunately, the reality is that the
concerns of real, hard-working people are their last priority.
.
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