Robin Cape Wants You To Learn About the History of Downtown Asheville !And she also wants you to join in the Soviet-Style "Master Plan for Downtown" in Asheville...where budding Apparachik can exercise their skills in applying "progressive philosophy" to making everyone reliant on the government. And to give homeless people parks to crap in, too.
Asheville---Anyway You Like It, As Long As We Planned It.
From her newsletter...Hear from local experts on the history of downtown. You'll hear why downtown developed the way it did, fell into disrepair and was ultimately revitalized. We'll also talk about segregation and urban redevelopment projects and the effects on downtown and local residents.
Thursday, May 15
7:00 pm
Asheville Public Works Building
161 S. Charlotte St.
Leslie Anderson - former Director of the Downtown Development office and expert on downtown revitalization
Jim Samsel - local architect and member of the Pack Square Conservancy
Harry Weiss - Public Interest Projects and former director of the Preservation Society
We hope to have an additional speaker to talk about the East End and downtown.
This evening promises to be full of interesting stories. Even if you know the general history of downtown, you will learn something new!
Source: Robin Cape NewsletterThe Master Plan for Asheville
The announcement and agenda:
Community Educational Session:
Current Issues in Downtown Development
Friday, May 30
6:00 - 8:00 pm
Asheville Community Theater
35 E. Walnut Street
This session will be an important opportunity to explore specific urban issues such as height & design, affordability and local business retention.
To put this effort into perspective, say that long ago, in a budding city far away...there was such a monstrously evil "Master Plan" for Manhattan. With the desire to impose height restrictions, design restrictions. Imposing a "mandate" to provide affordable housing, and here is the kicker...the very same people express a desire for local business retention when their plans drive away commerce!
Manhattan would not be as we know it today. There would be no skyscrapers in Manhattan. There would, in all likelihood, be skyscrapers around Manhattan, outside the reach of the Killers of the Free Market. And the same thing will happen to Asheville. It will drive out commerce of the sort that generates real wealth, inspire building of unique buildings in places other than Asheville (hopefully in the newly forming incorporating cities around Asheville).
This desire for "central planning" is straight out of the failed "command economies of the Socialist Soviet Union. It has been demonstrated to not work every time. The socialists on the Asheville City Council need to realize that the Free Market is far superior than their "Managed Utopia in Asheville, NC".
The normal people of Asheville, if there are any left, should get together and sabotage this Master Plan, and scuttle it to the dustbin of history. That is, if you want Asheville to be something other than the laughingstock of the region.
I have found an interesting post over at Bacon's Rebellion that sheds light on the results of the anti-growth movement in western North Carolina in general, and Asheville and Buncombe County in particular, because the denied urban growth just spills out into the surrounding countryside:
.........
Back in 1976, Harvey Molotch, a University of California-Santa Barbara professor, wrote an essay, "The City as a Growth Machine: Toward a Political Economy of Place." Molotch argued that coalitions of business elites dominated metropolitan-level politics across the United States. They harnessed the power of government to promote regional growth and development, mold land use outcomes, and increase the value of their real estate interests. Noting the similarities between Molotch's thesis and my observations in "Who Rules Virginia?", blogger Richard Layman ("Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space") brought the essay to my attention.
"The City as a Growth Machine" helped clarify how I look at the political economy of growth in Virginia. Three decades later, many of Molotch's observations still ring true. I would modify his thesis, as I will note below, but I think it's worth reviewing the highlights.
Writes Molotch: "The political and economic essence of virtually any given locality, in the present American context, is growth." The desire for growth creates consensus among members of the politically mobilized local elites, however split they might be on other issues, and gives rise to a spirit of civic boosterism.
"The clearest indication of success at growth is a constantly rising urban-area population," followed by the expansion of basic industries, a growing labor force, a rising scale of retail and wholesale commerce, more far-flung and increasingly intensive land development, and increased levels of financial activity. Members of the growth coalition augment their wealth by increasing the value of their real estate and enjoying the benefits of an expanding market for their products and services. In addition to the obvious suspects -- developers, bankers, construction companies, utilities and the like -- Molotch notes that local newspapers and universities often are part of the growth machine.
Molotch doesn't seem to regard growth as inherently bad, but he observes -- rightly, I believe -- that there are both costs and benefits associated with it. As a rule, the growth machine manipulates the political process and levers of government to capture as many of the financial benefits of growth as it can while passing on as many of the costs as possible to the taxpayers and general public. That's why in Virginia, developers, home builders and contractors dominate the donations to political candidates.
As growth accelerates, however, liabilities become visible in the form of traffic congestion, increased air and water pollution, the overtaxing of amenities, and, I would add, fiscal stress in the form of overcrowded schools and escalating taxes. Those liabilities, in turn, give rise to anti-growth movements.
In my observation, anti-growth movements in Virginia have consisted of a splintered and uneasy alliance of taxpayers, NIMBYs and environmentalists bemoaning taxes, congestion and loss of open space. Responding to oft-inarticulate cries of frustration, elected officials have enacted zoning "protections" that have given rise to the scattered, disconnected, low-density pattern of development. "Sprawl" has then created entirely new sets of problems such as unaffordable housing, even more dysfunctional transportation networks and even more pervasive damage to the environment.
Source: Bacon's Rebellion
