A Werthan Mills resident
assumes there is a devaluing "minority stigma" associated with the name change of 8th Av. to Rosa Parks Blvd. His argument looks like a variation on the "black people lower property values" meme. I've lived in a mostly African American neighborhood adjacent to Werthan Mills for going on 5 years now and my property values have consistently gone up, and if they go down lately I believe it has more to do with the
policies of George W. Bush than the
name of Ms. Rosa Parks.
Full disclosure: I have not been uncritical of the renaming of 8th Av., which I believe was
mishandled and not thoughtfully implemented, but I can find no hard evidence to suggest that naming streets has any affect on changes in property values.
The Charrette's posse of right wing cranks has been active lately. The example you cite was the most outrageous, but the continuous digs at Obama and the almost literal Know-Nothingism of one particularly obnoxious regular in favoring the English Only proposition (paraphrase: I'm voting for it but I will not give any reasons why") have shown some of those guys to be heading towards the realm of the unhinged.
ReplyDeleteThe conservative economics of greedy developers I can at least see a reason for. But some of those guys who are not developers have an unbelievable disconnect. Their desire to see a built urban environment doesn't seem to consider at all what kind of urban enviroment would be pleasant to live in, and how to reach that point.
I've said it before: I get the feeling they live in the suburbs and would like to be able to see tall buildings from their driveway.