Quote:
Originally Posted by the urban politician
Was reading an article about Daniel La Spata today and his ideas to make Logan Square more affordable.
It consists of.....allowing more housing....but wait, not too much housing.....and you have to make the housing big and affordable.....but wait, we can't have too much. And you need "inclusionary" development too, and single family homes, but not too expensive.....and access to transit, but that access should be for "everybody"......and....but the buildings are too tall even though I like them and....  
While we're at it lets just follow the yellow brick road and meet the wizard and clap our heels together and hope to be back in Kansas!
That's what happens when you get populists voting in some 37 year old "community event planner" dude who's never had to run the numbers with a lender and justify an acquisition loan, and who's never had to put together a balance sheet for a business in his entire life, and probably never will. A bunch of gobbledy goo, and I'm 100% certain that his haphazard incompetence will do absolutely nothing to stop the rising cost of living throughout his ward. |
Yes, La Spata has gotten the privilege of being able to complain constantly during his years at LSNA. But now he actually has to govern, which is a whole different thing. Moreno was a corrupt prick, but he understood how to work with developers and he got more affordable housing built in his ward than any other alderman in the city.
Rosa already went through the same rude awakening... and has basically zero new affordable units to show for his first term, while he is powerless to stop the displacement that results from deconversion - now running rampant in Logan Square.
I wouldn't get too disappointed by LaSpata's development plan, though - even experienced politicians will carefully word their statements so that there's something for everybody. It's probably a good sign even that his public statements aren't 100% socialist Che Guevara, it gives me hope that he might be more pragmatic and eventually evolve into a more traditional alderman.
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