I had to revisit this post from last year. It's still relevant...
From: [email protected] To: [email protected]; [email protected] Subject: Urban Development 101 [Was [UC] citypaper weighs in on Campus Inn vs. "doing nothing"] Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 02:51:14 -0500 " But what began with strong democratic credo has evolved in so many cases into a rigid NIMBY "No!" As a result, according to Tom Lussenhop, who teaches urban development at Princeton and who hopes to build a Hilton Homewood Suites hotel near the busy trolley portal on 40th Street..... Wait a minute....Tom Lussenhop TEACHES???!!! I can see it now: "OK Class, Welcome to Urban Development 101. I'm Tom Lussenhop, and I will be your instructor. Please open your books: Step One: Get in cahoots with a Deep-Pockets Entity (DPE) that has (or at least thinks it has) a lot of political power so that they can throw a lot of lucrative work your way, and can ram your projects down everyone else's throat. Universities usually fit this bill really well. Step Two: The DPE is not going to make you rich without expecting something in return. Be willing to be a shill for DPE and build projects that they don't want to be directly associated with, so that if anything hits the fan (if you know what I mean) they will not have to sully whatever is left of their reputation (see the handout entitled "Black Bottom"). Step Three: Identify the self-important "leaders" (SIL) of the community surrounding DPE's place of business. Ideally, these will be people who rely on DPE for referrals of their professional services, or for business leads, or for tenants for their apartments, or whatever, and will do anything to ensure that their gravy train does not get derailed. They will be needed to rubberstamp your project, and to run interference for you with the municipal govenment, pesky neighbors and the like. Step Four: Create a project that is totally out of character, scale and proportion to everything in the area where it will be placed. Step Five: Arrange for the SILs to hold unnanounced "public" meetings. Be sure that the meeting is scheduled for a Thursday at 3:30 AM at a location at the opposite end of the municipality. Give plenty of advance notice for the meeting using a medium that can be reasonably expected to reach the widest possible audience. Broadcasting notice of the meeting on the local public access cable channel one hour before the meeting is held is sufficient notice. (Note: Showing up unannounced to previously scheduled meetings is a good technique, also. Please be sure that you are NOT placed on the agenda.) Step Six: Hold the meeting, to be conducted by the SILs. Have them rubberstamp your project. Step Seven: When the inevitable oppostion arises from the long-term residents, have the SILs sell your project to their neighbors. Have the SILs stress how your sewage treatment plant (or airplane runway, slaughterhouse, or whatever it is you were told to build) will improve the craphole they're now living in. Step Eight: If there are persistent pains-in-the-asses who are going around trying to stir up trouble by writing opinion letters to the local newspapers or listservs, try to isolate them. They're probably just too stupid to realize what wonderful benefits (and JOBS--don't forget jobs!) your sewage treatment plant will bring. Inviting them for coffee one-on-one is a good technique. That way you can destroy their credibility. Step Nine: When the neighbors complain that they weren't consulted, have the SILs tell everyone that if they were too lazy to watch the public access cable channel at 2:30 in the morning and get their asses across town to the meeting, then that's just too bad. If the neighbors still won't shut the fuck up, have the SIL's call them nasty names, like "cheap", "greedy", and the ever-popular "NIMBY". Step Ten: Go to the municipal authorities and tell them how everyone at the public meeting supported your project 100 percent. Get your pemits, then build!" ----- Original Message ----- From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2008 10:34 PM Subject: [UC] citypaper weighs in on Campus Inn vs. "doing nothing" .....Opponents of the hotel also probably missed last week's citypaper Guest Commentary on "doing nothing" in Philadelphia: http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2008/02/28/strait-talk Strait Talk What can we learn from Sicily and Tunisia? by Nathaniel Popkin Published: Feb 27, 2008 Doing nothing is de facto community planning in Philadelphia. It didn't start that way. In the 1960s neighborhood groups were empowered to promote their own ideas. But what began with strong democratic credo has evolved in so many cases into a rigid NIMBY "No!" As a result, according to Tom Lussenhop, who teaches urban development at Princeton and who hopes to build a Hilton Homewood Suites hotel near the busy trolley portal on 40th Street, "Nothing good has been built in some neighborhoods since the Great Depression."
