I'm moving this discussion here where it better belongs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OrdoSeclorum
Markets work great for a lot of things. I love markets. But this oversimplification is absurd. Free markets don't mean I can throw my garbage in the street. And markets aren't efficient if they are only profitable because the owner is freeloading, extorting or taking advantage of unpriced externalities. If a community invests in public spaces and institutions over decades, the *most profitable* use of some land in that historic neighborhood may still be a drive through vape shop. It's profitable because it's an unearned increment made possible because value exists due to generations of public investments and the long-term enterprise of a community and institutions. Sure, simply extracting profit from previous investments may indeed be profitable, but that certainly doesn't mean it's good for a community.
If economics is the justification, it should implicitly address this extremely basic stuff first. But even more simply, if a person’s justification for doing something ugly is just that he has the “right” to do it, you shouldn't be his friend.
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This is all over the place. The lowly vape shop isn't good enough, not enough of an investment for a historic neighborhood. Owners shouldn't be able to just coast along, buoyed by public investment around them.
But here at 800 Fulton Market we have the opposite. Instead of rehabbing an old run down warehouse, which can't support a large office use, instead of coasting along, the owner is tearing it down to build a large new building that is a good investment in the community. And the outcry from some is that the government should have stepped in to block the investment. Which may have had the effect of blocking any investment at all. Is the community better off with an abandoned historic building, or a new office tower and all the economic growth that comes with that?
Turning the city into a museum that can't grow would turn Chicago into SF, Portland, Seattle. A severe housing crisis, sky high cost of living, families pushed out, investment fleeing. That's not good for the community's long term health.