North Coast Online

By Gosh, We'll Just Plan Our Way Out Of This Mess

Donn Esmonde starts out his column today with that most patronizing of liberal racial platitudes:  minorities should be spread evenly throughout the community.  I'll give him credit for admitting that what he calls "segregation" here isn't caused by racism; it's more the fault, he claims, of the suburbs' supposedly high cost of housing and the lack of public transport.

The problem is, you can’t live on a lot of streets unless you have the bucks. The suburbs have weak public transit and lack lower-income housing. For the most part, only folks who can afford a house and a car can afford to live there. The segregation is economic, but — because minorities are disproportionately poor — it means that it’s racial as well. It does not have to be that way.

Oh, he sighs, if we could only be like, get ready, "other cities regions".

Other regions made laws to bring have-mores and have-lesses closer together. Other regions saw that separate-but- unequal towns, villages and neighborhoods make the community weaker. Other regions saw that warehousing the poor in cities only deepened problems.

City schools filled with baggageheavy kids from bleak streets do not spawn many success stories, no matter how good their teachers are. Uneducated kids are more likely to turn to crime, to end up on welfare, to be a burden to a community — instead of a jobholding, tax-paying asset.

Other regions saw economic — and racial — segregation as a problem and did something about it.

This whole thing ends up a plea to support regionalism and regional planning.  He never does get around to naming all those other regions that have done so much to erase supposed racial economic injustice -- just one -- the Valhalla of meddlesome control-freaks everywhere, Portland.

Portland, Ore., decades ago drew a growth boundary, limiting new development beyond a perimeter. It turned growth back toward the city, so you do not have Buffalo-style streets of abandoned, worthless houses. It kept jobs reachable to all and avoided the cost of new roads, bridges and sewers that come with sprawl.

While Portland is, no doubt, an excellent example of nanny-government regional planning, it's a very odd choice to illustrate solving racial economic problems.  In 2005 the Census Bureau estimated that that the non-white (minority) population of Buffalo was 49.7% of the total.  Portland's minority residents constituted just 20.5% of its.  The comparison starts out shaky at best.

And as for all that turning "growth back toward the city"?  Well, after "decades" of trying to dictate where Portlanders may live; and for all the thousands of trees that have been killed to report on the great social experiment that is Portland; and despite all the praise lavished on it for its foresight -- the City of Portland's population dropped by about 16,000 from 2000 to 2005.

And with all that public transport and all those jobs being brought "closer to the people", the percentage of Portland's residents living below the poverty line increased from 13.1% of the population in 2000 to 17.8% in 2005 -- that's a 36% hike. Now, it's only fair to point out one of the good things that happened during this period -- the median housing value in the city increased from $176,000 (in 2005 dollars) to $225,900.

If regional planning could accomplish that in Buffalo, I doubt it would be a hard sell at all.  But I'm not terribly sure that those extra 36% of Portlanders living below the poverty line were much heartened by all the cheery real estate "Sold" signs, in fact it cause me to wonder if maybe rents increased, too.

The truth is that these huge government planning schemes don't ever do much to affect the overall economic conditions of something so big as a city much at all.  Billions are spent on the priorities of a relative few and while things look different, the underlying strengths or weaknesses of the city continue on as they would have anyway.  Houston, for example, which is famous for no planning and no zoning had much the same results in population and poverty as micro-managed Portland during the first five years of the century.   

Before we let the local government-planning zealots loose with their very own new bureaucracy, we must make them prove by specific example where their ideas have actually shown the results they claim.  During the 90's we were regaled by the wonderful goings-on in Baltimore, Pittsburgh and Cleveland.  We all know now that they're still just as bad off as we are.  More recently, Milwaukee is the city we're told to emulate but it's hemorrhaging people, too.

Well, if the next role model is to be Portland, I'm not convinced yet.  Prove it.  Regionalism in Buffalo started out a decade ago as an effort to reduce government overlap, but it's been hijacked by by a small bunch of people congenitally disposed to telling the rest of us how we should live.  We'd do well to ignore them.

Did I See Karl Rove Wearing A Monocle?

The editorial board has obviously been reading 'Kos' again.

Vegetables Are Cheap

Some editor at the Buffalo News evidently lost his nerve.

Few things cause the average American more hostility to public assistance programs than the anecdotal sight of a fat parent with one or two fat children in tow buying groceries with food stamps. [emphasis mine]

The "anecdotal sight"? 

It isn't the anecdotal sight (if there is such a thing) of fat Food Stamp recipients loading up a cart with steaks and junk food that galls Americans, it's actually watching them do it.  Fat food stamp recipients exist.  If they were only anecdotes then why would the board publish an editorial claiming that they're hungry and need help? 

Help from the government of course.  Help not only to pay for the food, but help now to choose it too.  Hillary's sponsored a bill to do just that, though as of this posting, they're still expected to anecdotally cook it themselves. 

What If?

If today's media had reported World War II.

May 31, 1941

The sinking of HMS Hood, and the loss of 1,400 British sailors, is only the latest in the series of disasters that have impacted Britain since Mr Winston Churchill became Prime Minister. Our army was forced to retreat at Dunkirk, resulting in a loss of many million pounds worth of heavy equipment. Our cities have been bombed, and something like 40,000 of our citizens have been killed. Even now, merchant shipping is being attacked by U-boats, and it is by no means certain that adequate supplies of military equipment–or even of food–can continue to reach our island nation.

All of these disasters and failures were a foreseeable consequence of the policy of military adventurism pursued by Mr Churchill..a policy very different from the diplomatically-based policy that had been recommended by Lord Halifax. It cannot be stressed enough that this is a unilateral policy–other nations do not seem to share Mr Churchill’s obsessions. The United States, although happy to sell us military supplies, has been most unwilling to commit forces. Even the Communists in Russia have had the sober judgment to come to a diplomatic modus vivendi with Germany, rather than pursuing a military solution.

Read the whole thing.

Washington On 50 Carbon Credits A Day

I don't read the Buffalo News Travel Section (too exhausted from the editorials I suppose,) and so missed the gem that this letter-writer mentions.

I read the article on the April 29 travel page titled, “Enjoy a family vacation in Washington, D.C.” I was interested in “what to do” because some family members will be traveling there in the near future. While some of the ideas seemed good, when I got down to the fifth paragraph, I was shocked at the statement of the author, Eileen Ogintz.

She said: “Show the kids the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and tell them how many Americans protested that war.” I, and others I spoke to, thought that this was a very insensitive remark. Ogintz should realize that if it weren’t for the servicemen and women who gave up their lives for our freedom, she would not be able to have such inconsiderate statements published. It would have been better if she had said: “Let’s honor all those whose names are on the Vietnam Wall.” [emphasis mine]

Truly appalling.  It would be like taking the kids to the Martin Luther King Memorial and telling them how many Americans were killed in the race riots that followed his death.  Rather misses the point of the monument, don't you think?
 

The Chris Matthews Show Goes To The Reagan Library

Last night's Republican debate was fascinating -- no, not so much the candidates or their answers -- but because its presentation by MSNBC was a really a caricature of a Republican debate.  From liberal host Chris Matthews (oh, yes he is) to the panel and the questions asked, it was clear that this was a show designed by Democrats for Democrats.

The left may be fascinated by questions such as "tell me what you hate most about America," but it would never occur to anyone on the right to even ask it.  It was designed specifically to trip the candidates up, not to bring to light their opinions on the issues that matter to the Republican primary voter.  It was just as dishonest as that sophomoric interview question, "name one of your weaknesses,"  and it was asked in the manner of, "do you still beat your wife?" 

The best answer I thought of was "smug, liberal talk-show hosts who think they're capable of moderating a presidential debate."  But that would have been rude and no Republican would behave that way in front of a camera.  Truly shameful question.

The other telling area was the focus on the war in Iraq and on President Bush.  There again, those are not particularly hot topics on the right.  There's virtual unanimity that we must win the war and while there's disappointment over Bush's high spending (aided by Democrats, of course,) there's little appetite to bash him.  The bias extended even to the coverage this  morning by NPR.

On the morning news show, the announcer highlighted the debate by mentioning that Rudy Giuliani was the only candidate who favored legal abortion and Mitt Romney was the only one in favor of federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.  That was it -- two left-wing issues from a right-wing debate.  But NPR cuts it right down the middle, don't they?

I mean that's what they tell us.  Yeah, right (no pun intended.)

One more.  The candidates were asked if they believe in evolution.  Fair question, you say -- if you're a Democrat.  But the Democratic candidates weren't asked, for example, if they believe in God.  Or how about this one, "do you deny that cutting taxes spurs the American economy?"  I didn't hear Hillary have to respond to that.

In the end I'll give the Republican candidates credit for not running away from what they surely knew would be a hostile evening.  But such is media life for Republicans, they know they'll have to deal with it.  The Democrats ran scared from a debate to be televised on Fox News, but that only highlighted their inability and lack of desire to argue their beliefs in a setting that isn't stage-managed specifically for them by their like-minded journalist-friends.

As has been pointed out [Coulter maybe?], if they're too scared to confront Brit Hume, can we really trust them to face down Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?

Principle

Hugo Chavez has made another pronouncement.  Venezuela Threatens to Nationalize Banks.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Thursday threatened to nationalize the country's banks and largest steel producer, accusing them of unscrupulous practices.

"Private banks have to give priority to financing the industrial sectors of Venezuela at low cost," Chavez said. "If banks don't agree with this, it's better that they go, that they turn over the banks to me, that we nationalize them and get all the banks to work for the development of the country and not to speculate and produce huge profits."

Chavez also warned the government could take over steel producer Sidor, which is majority controlled by Luxembourg-based Ternium SA.

After having already effectively nationalized private property and the oil industry, it would only make sense that Chavez would now go after the banks and manufacturing.  In the U.S., the left will be strangely silent.  It dare not openly express approval, but there's certainly no great disappointment either that  Chavez is gradually doing away with his countrymen's right to keep what they've worked for.

Despite the socialist failures of Russia, China, Belarus, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Rumania, Albania, Lithuania, Poland, Cuba, Mongolia,  Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, North Korea, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, the Ukraine and Uzbekistan, there's always the chance that the next workers' paradise might just work.  After all, if you live in the capitalist United States, why would you worry much over the fate of the poor schmucks in Venezuela or the rest?

 

 

By Definition

Opinionjournal.com highlights the recent mayoral race in evidently uberliberal New Paltz.   I just loved this quote from one of the town's electors.

"I was really gung-ho for West when he first ran," Judy Swallow of New Paltz     said. "The sadness with Jason is the fame, perhaps, got in the way of some     of the issues."

She voted for Dungan for a few reasons, namely his interests in ecology     and sustainability. She said it might have been difficult for West to honor     such issues in the face of a proposed 15 percent property tax cut.

I didn't like the tax cut," she said. "I felt it was pandering to the voters." . . .

That about says it all, doesn't it, fellow conservatives?

Guess Which One's Winning

Maybe John Edwards is right and there really are two Americas:  a rational one and a loony one. 

In A Moment Of Weakness

I hate myself.  I gave Rosie's blog a hit tonight.  Drudge made me do it.