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Poor Neighborhoods Make the Best Investments

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Re: Poor Neighborhoods Make the Best Investments

#11

Post by Spooky23 »

Anechoic wrote: post #6
epistasis wrote: post #2

That's quite an interesting take! The differences in older and newer city planning regarding street widths, densities, mixing of zoning, etc. are quite drastic. However, I believe it will be at least 20 years before my local municipality will be able to learn from any of these lessons. The planning meetings for any type of development are dominated by those with the time to go to them mid-day: retired people that set…

I really gotta move out of California... It's not a California thing. As part of my job, I spend a lot of time presenting at public meetings and in my spare time I do a fair amount of advocacy (for various causes) which also results in a lot of time in public meetings. I've been in public meetings in small rural villages and large cities across 30 states. And I've observed the same thing - the folks that attend those…

I think that's a cynical view that doesn't reflect reality.

In my experience, people will be engaged if you engage them. Typically what happens in these scenarios is somebody gets a grant and decides to do something, and they put a public posting in the janitors closet in the women's room in the city hall basement.

My city is doing a refining effort where they publicly over faux-communicate. There's lots of meetings with brainstorming, fancy pictures, etc. Than a preliminary document dump written in jargon. Then, days before the decisions get made, there's a Friday night drop with the "decisions".

Then people find out at the last second if they are lucky. At that point all decisions are made. Partial public financing is typically lined up. The only way to effectively get any voice is to rally around some bullshit regulatory point.

Re: Poor Neighborhoods Make the Best Investments

#13

Post by hguant »

aglavine wrote: post #9

Isn't the article describing the classic Gentrification move?

No, because the gentrification move would be to buy up those $50,000 dollar houses, renovate them/replace with a condo block and drive out the local residents. Gentrification comes from developers, whereas what he's describing comes from the city itself.

Key quotes:

"It's wealth that is shared throughout the neighborhood." -- about as anti-gentrification as you can get.

"American cities can make low risk, high returning investments while improving the quality of life for people, particularly those who have not benefited from the current approach." -- indicates to me that the investment he's speaking of is of cities into existing areas, not developers demolishing and recreating neighborhoods.

Re: Poor Neighborhoods Make the Best Investments

#14

Post by apalmer »

MichaelBurge wrote: post #8

[This comment has been removed since it was off-topic]

I think your point is 100% spot on. HOWEVER to be clear no one really should be investing in anything they don't truly deeply understand. There is no invest X amount of money, not understand the business, get X + Y money out... unless Y is negative.

Except maybe the stock market with a 30 year horizon.

Re: Poor Neighborhoods Make the Best Investments

#15

Post by shostack »

gogopuppygogo wrote: post #10

There are investment groups like http://www.ohiocashflow.com that go into the rust belt and buy up homes in the poor neighborhoods, return them to being inhatible and then sell them off as turn key rental properties. With the way automation is taking jobs I wouldn't be surprised if these kinds of low income housing investments turn out to be solid cashflow producing investments.

If the people renting these are increasingly likely to be automated out of a job why do you think this would be anything but a very risky investment?

Re: Poor Neighborhoods Make the Best Investments

#16

Post by lkb2k »

MichaelBurge wrote: post #8

[This comment has been removed since it was off-topic]

He's not referring investment in the sense of individuals coming in, buying houses, improving them and flipping them.

> We're talking about things like putting in street trees, painting crosswalks, patching sidewalks, and making changes to zoning regulations to provide more flexibility for neighborhood businesses, accessory apartments and parking.

His argument is that small civic investments in infrastructure in poor neighborhoods have a good chance of increasing the average property value of the whole neighborhood and thus increasing the tax base. Not all 'investments' will work, but they are relatively inexpensive so you can experiment and replicate the ones that do work across the whole city.

Re: Poor Neighborhoods Make the Best Investments

#17

Post by walterbell »

Anechoic wrote: post #6
epistasis wrote: post #2

That's quite an interesting take! The differences in older and newer city planning regarding street widths, densities, mixing of zoning, etc. are quite drastic. However, I believe it will be at least 20 years before my local municipality will be able to learn from any of these lessons. The planning meetings for any type of development are dominated by those with the time to go to them mid-day: retired people that set…

I really gotta move out of California... It's not a California thing. As part of my job, I spend a lot of time presenting at public meetings and in my spare time I do a fair amount of advocacy (for various causes) which also results in a lot of time in public meetings. I've been in public meetings in small rural villages and large cities across 30 states. And I've observed the same thing - the folks that attend those…

We need to follow the example of Ancient Greece, where citizens got paid time off work to attend the Ecclesia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecclesia_(ancient_Athens)

> It had the final say on legislation and the right to call magistrates to account after their year of office. In the 5th century BC its members numbered about 43,000 people. It would have been difficult, however, for non-wealthy people outside of the urban center of Athens to attend until payments for attendance were introduced in the late 5th century. It originally met once every month, but later it met three or four times per month.

Today, "ecclesiastical" is associated with a centrally managed church, but the term is rooted in a democratic assembly, with payment for attendance enabling representation of more segments of the citizenry.

Re: Poor Neighborhoods Make the Best Investments

#18

Post by nostromo »

This seems tautological.

Those areas are "profitable" because they are using fewer services.

If you invest more there, they would no longer be "profitable" -- and increased investment may not increase future "profits."

I think this essay falls down in part because it's nonsensical to use these private industry terms when discussing municipal governance. I want my city to concern itself with equity and quality of life - not which citizens are most profitable.

Re: Poor Neighborhoods Make the Best Investments

#20

Post by nine_k »

siscia wrote: post #7

I would love to these analysis made for Europe. Here in Italy the oldest part of the city are usually the most popular and most expensive. We don't have THAT much land over here and regulation are pretty strict on what you can build and where...

I bet most cities in Italy were not built with cars in mind, especially the city centers / downtowns.

If you look at US cities that share this trait, e.g. NYC or Boston or Chicago or even SF, the oldest parts of the city are very expensive and prestigious, and have been for several centuries.

Also, "white flight" never happened in Italy, while many US cities were affected last century.

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