LincolnKennedy

Listen to what Rando is saying: A building is not set aside for Section 8 use. The landlord decides whether or not he wants to be a part of the Section 8 program. The landlord probably has to be vetted by the agency, but he's getting paid by the government through the tenant. It's a pretty good deal for the landlord. Also, it is easier for a landlord to evict a Section 8 tenant than a regular tenant.

^Do they have any units available?

I don't think 'distorted' is the right word. I see transportation as being one of the main supports, like government police powers or standard weights and measures, that are necessary for the market. When we conceptualize economic actors, we typically view them as individual human beings. There's no market in the typical sense for transportation systems- for example, both P&G and Colgate make toothpaste, and you choose one to use to brush your teeth. You can't really choose different pay-to-travel roads that would compete to take you from the same place to the same place. If all roads were privately owned I would still have only at max, four choices to travel to Fountain Square. I think we need to keep making the point that the streetcar system, like almost every passenger transportation system, is built not to turn a profit but to increase economic activity that will in turn bring a profit to society. So tell those conservatives that the streetcar is supposed to do the same thing as the Bush tax cuts.

What does this amount to?

Michael, I enjoy your posts and your contribution to the forum, but man, it's like you shotgun eight cups of coffee before you write. Well, my argument is that no, that's not true. You want to parse definitions? Government "intervention" can include government expenditures. How can the government provide essential services without participating in the market? Also, what is the best way to define market freedom? I would suggest that the proper way is to say that, the lower the costs of entering any market, the greater the freedom of said market. So, getting into the home owners market- low, therefore nearly free, getting into the hedge fund market- high, therefore very unfree. And certain markets become freer over time and via technology. A perfect example is the stock market. Forty years ago the stock market was an extremely clubby group of insiders that one could only access through high fees and personally knowing a stock broker. Now, one can buy individual stocks without a broker and with minimal brokerage fees. These costs that you described are those that exist for the purpose of paying for the government which regulates the market and makes it a neutral, non-violent place where the participants can trust the information they receive to make their economic decisions. We have building codes and courts to avoid a pure caveat emptor environment. Also, as we all know, the behavior of ones neighbors can dramatically effect the value of our properties, and therefore there must be a way to redress grievances between property owners that both parties will find to be fair. Hence government.

So are these two competing motions? Or is Bortz' a more in depth version of motion 1?

The idea that any government action necessarily reduces the "freedom" of the market is absurd. The market in question is rental properties. The government gives a voucher to those people who qualify for the voucher, and the landlord chooses whether or not to accept said voucher and the money that comes with it. Who exactly is being coerced in this scenario? As a property owner and a college graduate, I've benefited from government subsidies of student loans and as well as government policies designed to encourage property ownership. I'm pretty sure the money spent on home mortgages aren't taxed. No one seems to be complaining about how this lessens the "freedom" of the market. This sort of behavior is common not just to landlords who rent to people in the Section 8 program. In college it took my landlord 8 months to fix our washer/dryer. He finally did it when I told him we would be withholding rent. He also had a party in our apartment when we were on Winter break, and he didn't even clean up afterward. From what I've heard, it is quite difficult to actually get someone evicted, and if they damage your property in excess of the rent deposit, the owner is generally screwed out of the difference (of course, there are also owners who make it a principle not to return rent deposits). When it comes down to it, the people who screw things up are typically the lazy and the criminal, and most of government is devoted to cleaning up after these types who come from all income groups.

^These thoughts of mine come forth related only vaguely to each other.

Is there any action underway to get Columbus and Cincinnati together on common purchasing for rolling stock, etc. as mentioned by jmecklenborg in a previous post (might have been on a different thread on the forum)? It seems that could contribute to some major cost savings that would help sell the plan to both cities.

I'm curious- where are the Cincinnati and Columbus streetcar proposals at relative to each other?

I don't think that was what Mallory was saying. Here's the quote: He's merely stating an observation of what happened after they got rid of these housing projects. I wonder if this isn't the way to go. Although I don't believe for a second that this will happen, it seems like it would be a much more equitable way to distribute the population. The could do a combination of vouchers and CMHA owned units. I also think that, given the fact that this project is financed in part by the County, there's no reason why this they couldn't set aside upwards to ten units from the entire completed project for this purpose. That strikes me as being reasonable.

^Pretty devastating critique. Loss of independent TWA certainly hurt St. Louis.

^Technically BP, as a company in which you can purchase common stock, is a public corporation. But I get your point.

^Well, yes. I agree with all of this. That's why I don't believe that anything CMHA tries to do will "ruin" the Banks project because they don't have the political clout. I agree that Witte is extremely, if not entirely, parochial in his viewpoint. But that doesn't mean he's wrong about this. If this is a county-wide program, than it should be implemented in a county-wide manner. I think it is a little silly and pretty immature to assume that low-income people ruin neighborhoods by their presence. Over-the-Rhine was "ruined" by poor people but instead by the system that encouraged investment elsewhere. It strikes me as being not unreasonable to think that the people who use CMHA for housing, if spread evenly geographically throughout the county, would ever need to amount to more than 10% of any neighborhoods residents (I'm guessing at all this). Does anyone here know anyone who is housed in whole or in part by the CMHA? Witte's argument, while verbally directed at the Banks project, is much more applicable to these suburban areas that probably aren't pulling their weight. I remember Cranley saying something about this way back during his first council term. I doubt much has changed in the interim.

Let me first say that I have a newfound respect for Pete Witte and the Price Hill Civic Club, Westwood Concern, etc. They found a way to effect the bureaucracy that they thought (not necessarily incorrectly) was screwing them, and they exploited it. Brilliant really. Probably the most impressive political move by a local Republican since Bedinghaus used the county sales tax to build the stadiums. I don't think this is going to effect the Banks from evolving as we all assume it will. The most likely way this project will get screwed up is if the developer changes it after getting the financing. Before we jump down Witte's throat, or begin some moralistic, pull it up by your own bootstraps preaching about how to fix up Price Hill, let's remember what he said- This guy is fighting for his City, via his neighborhood. I think we all can respect that. The County needs to pull it's own weight via low-income housing. Mallory will be able to deal with Witte on this.

I thought this was the most interesting part of the internal memo. Notice how it doesn't plug 'increased service' as a reason for the merger. You'd think that increasing the number of paying customers is the way to make money in business. But apparently it is more important to secure "its leadership position in an increasingly competitive global airline environment". What this has to do for anyone but the people who are running Delta and Northwestern, I have no idea.

I'm actually wishing a moderator would end this bumper sticker back-and-forth. Has anyone heard anything about the next council meeting and vote?

Well Giuliani is a douchebag and Deters is a douchebag. Both want to claim credit for things they had nothing to do with and blame their problems on others (per Deters- for some reason the county wide tax to fund the jail and other criminal justice programs is the fault of Cincinnati City Council and the streetcar). I'm sure I just annoyed a bunch of people for talking shit about Giuliani, but one thing is for certain- Giuliani was the highest ranking government official for the largest city in the U.S., one of the largest cities on earth, a city spread over five counties, and a city that experienced enormous growth in its key local industries in the 1990s up until the present day. Deters is Prosecuting Attorney of a single county, in Ohio, and he can't even get a 1/2 cent sales tax passed?

I'm not a cop, nor am I a lawyer, but this seems like something 1) someone in the police department has already considered or done; and 2) completely illegal. Instead of this sort of action, which strikes me as a bit over the top, why not just try and get police to walk the beat again?

Ohio is a great state for business. We just don't have the easy access to illegal labor, the deep water port furthest west on the Gulf of Mexico (and therefore the closest transit routes from Europe to the West Coast of the United States); one of the largest deposits of oil and natural gas in the country; nor a history of willful disregard for the welfare of our citizens. Also, there have been seven U.S. presidents from Ohio (I am going by the born-and-raised method of counting): Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, McKinley, Taft, Harding. All of these men were elected during the period from 1872-1920. Texas has had three presidents, Lyndon Johnson, George Bush, and George Walker Bush, all elected during the period from 1964-2008. Taking election to the presidency as an analogy to political importance and leadership, it's clear that Texas is "succeeding" in a similar manner that Ohio did during its fifty year run. But there's nothing to guarantee that Texas will continue to grow in the same manner it has in the fifty years since the end of legal segregation, nor can we say that the type of grow they've recently experienced is sustainable or desirable. I find the idea that unions are destroying the economy of Ohio to be absurd. I'd be curious to find a reference to an actual company that considered moving to Ohio, then discovered to their horror that we have these absurd unions who'd rather have no membership than jobs (and if they have no membership, how can they have any power to negatively influence the state government?). I also find it funny that this idea persists as being a major factor stopping development, when the fastest growing city in the United States is Las Vegas, which is also one of the most unionized cities in the country. Also, here's a blurb about the American Legislative Exchange Council, which is one of the sources listed in the above "Growth and Pain" chart (from their website): Those are some real winners listed above^ (http://www.alec.org/index.php?id=300) and there are more listed if you read the whole background section on their website. It's like a Murderer's Row of politicians who helped destroy, or at least presided over, the decline and fall of the Midwestern manufacturing economy. Also, anyone ever notice where the lawmakers who pushed deregulation (Carter, Reagan, Clinton, Bush Jr.) came from? Southern state, California, Southern state, Southern state. But no, it's probably the Youngstown Local of the United Steelworkers Union that really controls federal economic policy. Spend some time in the business world and you'll find how little 'competitiveness' as it is described in one's college economic textbook is actually a factor in making real world decisions.

It's been awhile to comment on this statement from Deters, but hasn't crime in Cincy decreased in recent years? At least since the police slowdown ended? It's interesting the military style language that Deters uses- "Job One is securing your City"; "nothing short of zero tolerance... and outrage". Deters in the Prosecutor for Hamilton County. He acts as plaintiff on behalf of the people of the County. I find it hard to believe that violent crime takes up a majority of the casework of the county court system.

The biggest difference between Chicago and every other Midwestern town is that Chicago is the the only one that is essentially, geographically unassailable. It is the essential east/west node in the U.S. because it lies at the point where the Great Lakes/St. Lawrence System and the Mississippi/Missouri System come closest together. Chicago, New York and Los Angeles/San Diego (yes, I realize this is a very large area) are, given the political boundaries of the United States, the three most important geographical trade and 'choke' points. One could make a decent case to include New Orleans as well, but Houston has well cannibalized New Orleans trade ever since the Galveston hurricane at the turn of the 20th century. New Orleans will always be a big port for grains and raw materials though, since Houston can't steal the Mississippi. I don't see how the 'L' obscures great architecture. The places that I recall the 'L' obscuring architecture by running on top of public streets is almost entirely within the Loop, and typically those buildings are so tall that they aren't really obscured. As I said: What other major city's transit system allows you to view the city for almost the entirety of the ride? I don't have the computer skills to include this picture in the text of this post, but here's a perfect example of how the 'L' gives you a view of architecture that you simply can't get on the NYC Subway, the Underground, or the average Metro: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:CTA_waiting_on_the_platform.jpg

From the Wikipedia entry on the History of the 'L'(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_El) : So it seems like a big reason the 'L' exists as it it does is because it was built in an hoc manner and by private individuals. Still seems to have a better layout than a lot of new systems that are funded by the feds.

This is pretty typical for downtown business districts. The first time I was ever in lower Manhattan, the original downtown, was at 9:00am on a Saturday, and it was deserted. I walked from the WTC (this was spring of 2000) to the battery, back up to City Hall and across the Brooklyn Bridge, around Brooklyn Heights, and I didn't really start seeing people again until I was back on the main road (Fulton Street) that took me by Prospect Park and back to the Bridge. But, once again, it was an early Saturday morning. It is sort of a mystery to me as to why Chicago, probably the flattest city big city in the world, has a major transit system that is almost entirely above ground. I do know that elevated lines were a lot more popular when the El was built, and that a lot of lines in NYC that had been elevated are now either dismantled or have been put underground. The last time I was on it was in February 2006, and I was also shocked to find that it wasn't heated. But aesthetically speaking I have to say that the El has real charm, a lot of which comes from the fact that it is so ugly. Also, what other major city's transit system gives you a view of their city for the majority of your ride? While the isn't as pretty as the Washington Metro, I have to take issue with the idea that the El is more 'poorly conceived'. The El at least takes you between places you want to go. The Metro takes you from someplace you have to go to in order to get on the Metro to another place you have to go from in order to get on the Metro. It's a happy coincidence if your Metro stop is actually close to where you want to go.

Right, but I guess my point was that to really have Over-the-Rhine at its full potential, you'd need it to serve as a high density neighborhood both for people who work Downtown and those that work in the Clifton/Pill Hill area. Right. But that's not going to happen. Cranley and Qualls don't have the votes to make it so all the funding for both the Basin and the Clifton phases are in place before we build, and Mallory and company want to get this thing started. Also any 'guarantee' would essentially be unenforceable. If a legislative body has the power to create a law they also have the power to dismantle it. All I was saying was that if, while passing the funding for the initial phase, if they resolve to proceed with the Clifton/Corryville connection immediately after (as a sop to Qualls) this could be beneficial in encouraging later councils with different members from the one which passed the resolution to follow through on it, despite the fact that it would probably be more difficult and expensive than a West End or Walnut Hills extention. One of the reason plans like this or the Banks don't get implemented or aren't implemented fully is because they take longer to finish than eight years (four council or two strong mayor terms) and the new pols don't feel as connected to or responsible for the actions of their predecessors.