Govt picks winners and losers; what arts and design district?

The Chief Planner

A reader raised an interesting point: why should a committee pick winners and losers in the allocation of housing and employment. 

Government, at least locally, does pick winners and losers.

If you’re part of the in crowd or know the right people or have a tight knit connection or promote and pitch an idea that is near and dear to the right people, then you get money and other perks.

“This is my first time hearing about the Urban Land Institute so I don't want to jump to conclusions, but what do you suppose the following line means from their stated goals?” the reader said.

“Goal 3: "Envision how projected housing and employment growth should be allocated in the region. So some committee is going to pick the winners and the losers? No thanks.”

Winners: economic gardening, Hatch Norfolk, economic development incentive grants, performance grants – grants (read free money), free space, utilities and parking; waivers of personal property taxes, fees and permits, and so forth.

Losers: the other 99 percent that have borrowed, begged for investors, paid rent, utilities and parking, pay fees, real estate taxes and so forth. 

The Chief Ideologist

The idea that planners and city officials will allocate housing and jobs, as well as pick winners and losers in the great game of capitalism – or is it capitalism?—is tinged with the vagaries of socialism.

Humans like to control, and we like to control each other. It’s one of the faults of human nature and tends to end in war and revolution.

Americans are individualistic, or we tended to be at some point in our brief and chaotic history.

But as the years have turned into decades, I have seen Americans conform more and more to tribal mores, to half-truths and propaganda.

Of course, we bought into these ideals, since we like anything that conforms to our world view and hate anything that clashed with those views.

The individual American is an advertising and marketing gimmick. We are conformists. We conform to conservative principles.

We confirm to liberal principles.

Or we conform to another “ism.”

We have gated communities, communities for old people, communities for young people, we have neighborhoods that are predominantly black or predominantly white, and if you don’t conform, you are cast aside, considered an extremist or, forgive me for saying so, a Tea Party extremist or an Occupy revolutionary.

But never let facts get in the way of truth. 

Editor’s footnote: What arts and design district? 

It isn’t clear to me if the local press is promoting the “arts and design district,” supposedly north of Brambleton Avennue, which also includes property owned by the local press conglomerate, or that people like Evan Harrell, owner of the Hubcap Grill food truck, believe that the “arts and design district” actually exists.

In the article, Norfolk allows food trucks in metered spaces, Harrell said that he would like to see the city one day add more spaces downtown and adopt a "wide-open" approach on the periphery of downtown, especially in the arts and design district on Granby Street, north of Brambleton.