The St Louis Contrarian
Providing Independent and Intelligent Insight on St. Louis Public Policy Issues
Body mid rise housing
apple.news/AU4oZ4BuHQ7aJRgr0OqCRqQ
I’ve ordered about this. These units are ugly
Garbage Research
I continue to be appalled by some of the garbage research that gets published in the name of social science and urban development. A recent one was published by The Brookings Institution titled The Devaluation of Assets in the Black Community. This is certainly a provocative title.
The research presumed to show that single family homes in the black communities are worth less than comparable houses in white communities. This is something that is hardly a surprise. These differences can be explained by lots of reasons, most prominently crime and schools. The authors made elaborate adjustments to properties and concluded there must be other reasons than the usual real estate ones for the difference in price. That difference of course was race.
If they could have shown comparable neighborhoods where everything was the same except race they could have made a point. Of course, they didn’t do any such thing.
My real problem is the concept of devaluation which assumes there is a proper value for any piece of real estate, or anything else. I could argue my house in St. Louis is devalued compared to San Francisco. These comparisons are meaningless. In St. Louis, black families moved out of historically black neighborhoods in huge numbers for reasons I stated, safety and good schools. Hardly surprising. Written by Paul Dribin
Another Ranking for St. Louis
In a recent poll, St. Louis finished 53 out of 61 cities in terms of racial and ethnic diversity. Not s surprise. Written by Paul Dribin
St. Louis Chosen for ‘Healthy Housing’ Initiative | Catholic Charities
St. Louis Chosen for ‘Healthy Housing’ Initiative | Catholic Charities
— Read on www.ccstl.org/st-louis-chosen-for-healthy-housing-initiative/
This is great news. I helped st Patricks get started with hospital-homelessness initiative
Housing Idea 4-Be Careful of Academics
I have a personal tendency to like academics and their approach to the world. Still as a practitioner of housing, I have found them to be of little benefit.
It is difficult to think of any academic idea that has substantially furthered the cause of affordable housing. Inclusionary zoning is an example of a popular academic idea. It is the policy that every housing complex that is developed needs to set aside a certain percentage of units for affordable housing. After years of talk, very few communities have initiated such policies because there is not the political will to do so. (Academics usually do not pay attention to politics). Similarly, I hear talk from the Brown School of Social Work at Washington University about “organic” urban development. What does that mean? We will all long be dead and gone before we see any organic growth on the north side of St. Louis.
Hopefully you get the picture. Pay attention to people who have actually built housing, not academics. Written by Paul Dribin
Major Error Over TIF in University City
this is a major screwup. Consultant should be tarred and feathered
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