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Originally Posted by no-la-usa
Can I ask you what your city is building for the poor. I mean sure they got hard hit here, but so did everyone else on the social hierarchy. Sometimes it sounds like all people are ever concerned with are the poor folks. Trust me everyone down here in New Orleans could use some help. Furthermore, New Orleans didn't invent poor folks. They are in every city in this country. What we need ot do is create enoguh economic oppurtunity here so that those that are poorer can move up the economic ladder. We dont need to build wholesale housing projects in a city already starved for revenue.
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In San Francisco, a substantial portion of every development is reserved for "affordable" housing. People who qualify for such housing aren't poor enough to qualify for actual public housing. In general, they are the working poor--the service workers priced out of the sort of fancy condo projects we talk a lot about. I'm not sure what the current percentage is but there are proposals that it be as high as 20% of future projects. The law also allows the developer, in lieu of putting the "affordable" units on -site, to use the money to build a separate project at another site. Frequently, they team up with non-profit developers to build entirely "affordable" (and often quite attractive) units elsewhere.
All this said, I am impressed and happy about the development in NO. If all this gets done it will constitute an impressive recovery from Katrina.
It is also my impression that there are substantial changes in the works for a lot of the Gulf Coast. I saw the casino project posted above but it doesn't say who is the owner. I know that Harrah's Entertainment has traded their properties in Lake Charles and Gulfport to other casino owners in order to concentrate their Gulf assets in Biloxi. Now that they can build on land, I believe their intention is to build a mega-resort and that, combined with what other companies do, may well turn Biloxi into a 3rd major center of US casino gambling after Las Vegas and Atlantic City. My guess is this could be very successful. Most of my family lives in Florida and I know that people from their area of the Florida East Coast used to drive to Biloxi even when the casinos there were just the boats. When there are large hotels, shopping, shows and the things the other two gambling meccas have, I think plenty of folks would drive from all over Florida, Atlanta and other places throughout the middle and deep south.