> Thank you for the links. I have done some reading over the past few months and > days and I'm only slightly less confused. If anyone has personal experience > that they would be kind enought to share, I'd be forever grateful. I'm > especially curious about the anti-blight program. Now that it's been approved, > I am curious how to get involved with whatever acquisition programs become > available. Phila.gov is only marginally helpful and I'm loathe to even enter > the labyrinth of the city hall phone system. > > I did find an interesting but depressing site about just this subject at: > www.thesimpleway.org.
Call the Democratic City Committee and tell them how much you will contribute if you get a parcel.... The blight program is simple political grandstanding intended to line the pockets of friends of the politicians. (Why else would City Council have blocked the Mayor's stated intentions for so long -- they want their cut.) So don't expect anything out of the blight program unless you are a heavy donor to the political campaigns of Mayor Street and/or your favorite City Council person. (Who you contribute to determines how much you get -- If you happen to be a Republican, well, this is Philadelphia after all and the anti-blight program is a product of the "Good Goverment by America's Mayor who wants to be Governor" party.) Also, the blight program's primary purpose is to tear down properties, not make them available for purchase. The idea is to clear vast tracts of land which then are (or were previously) acquired by the city essentially under "eminent domain" situations. Once the "parcels" have been assembled by using your tax dollars they are given to the "highest bidder" (read campaign contributor) who claims that, like at 8th and Market, Penn's Landing or the Whitman Candy plant... they intend to do something with it. Of course what they intend to do is to "flip" the property to some other Real Estate "investor" who will "flip" it to someone else who might someday build a parking lot on the lot... all paid for with tax dollars. The only good thing about the blight program is that it will tear down otherwise decrepit housing stock. (Don't expect any commercial properties to be touched by the program -- they have lawyers.) Cynical... who me? -- T.T.F.N. William H. Magill Senior Systems Administrator Information Services and Computing (ISC) Networking & Telecommunications University of Pennsylvania [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.isc-net.upenn.edu/~magill/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---- You are receiving this because you are subscribed to the list named "UnivCity." To unsubscribe or for archive information, see <http://www.purple.com/list.html>.
