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PostFeb 16, 2007#501

Doug wrote:Regarding zoning, segregation, and working against the market:



Look at why Black Jack incorporated in 1970 and you will find answers to your queries.


When government outlawed (market) covenants on segregation, people turned to zoning regulation as a way for de facto segregration. Most whites in the city basically said "I no longer have the right to choose my neighbor? Fine, I'll move out to the county where lot size regulations make housing costs unattainable for those people".



When people complain about white flight as the reason for the cities' decline, it kind of reminds me of the Communists complaining that Communism wasn't working because all the rich people were fleeing the country. Try to force people to live a certain way and they'll just move somewhere else where they can live their own way. It's pretty much a universal law.
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PostFeb 16, 2007#502

Bastiat wrote:
Doug wrote:Regarding zoning, segregation, and working against the market:



Look at why Black Jack incorporated in 1970 and you will find answers to your queries.


When government outlawed (market) covenants on segregation, people turned to zoning regulation as a way for de facto segregration. Most whites in the city basically said "I no longer have the right to choose my neighbor? Fine, I'll move out to the county where lot size regulations make housing costs unattainable for those people".



When people complain about white flight as the reason for the cities' decline, it kind of reminds me of the Communists complaining that Communism wasn't working because all the rich people were fleeing the country. Try to force people to live a certain way and they'll just move somewhere else where they can live their own way. It's pretty much a universal law.


Well not exactly true. Zoning, from its beginning in Manhattan (1916), was used for that end. Along with denial of loans, blockbusting, slum clearance and public housing, segregation was a reality, and academics argue it still is today through other means.



Zoning is de jure segregation.



Again, you are arguing for public choice in terms of services. People will simply go somewhere else and vote with their feet. Well this only furthers segregation, duplication of services, and is one of the reasons we have sprawl. Through regional governance this can and should be addressed. The public shouldn't have total choice over where they live if it impacts society and the environment negatively.



In the case of suburbia, the public didn't choose. The market was created by developers and stimulated through policy. The developers played on anti-urban sentiment and fear of racial integration. This was anything but rational public choice or market forces.



With the homeless we have the same problem. Suburban v. Urban mentality. Us v. Them. Slay and our County friends, with the 10 Year Plan, have cooperation on the books, but clearly it is not being implimented.
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PostFeb 17, 2007#503

Doug, you seem to imply that zoning laws spur racial segregation. Unfortunately there is no academic basis for this claim as zoning can only only segregate through financial and not racial means. People choose where they want to live. No one forces them! Once again, people contribute to racism by calling something racist when it's not. And that is sad.



Here's some research: http://aler.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/cont ... ct/3/2/251



Land Use Regulation and Residential Segregation: Does Zoning Matter?

Christopher Berry



University of Chicago



Abstract



Critics of zoning have attributed to it much of the responsibility for the persistent and severe patterns of racial and economic segregation that characterize urban America. Yet, little empirical evidence has been produced to demonstrate the degree to which observed patterns of residential segregation are attributable to zoning. This article explores that question by comparing patterns of residential segregation in Houston, the nation's only unzoned large city, and Dallas, a similar zoned city. Houston's unique system of "nonzoning" is described. The index of dissimilarity is used to measure segregation by race, tenure, and housing type, and a variation of the index is developed to measure segregation by income. No significant differences in residential segregation are evident between the two cities. These results suggest that, absent zoning, private voluntary institutions produce nearly identical patterns of residential segregation.
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PostFeb 17, 2007#504

The public shouldn't have total choice over where they live if it impacts society and the environment negatively.


The public shouldn't have total choice over where they live... Is this America? Don't get me wrong, I am a HUGE oppenent of suburburban sprawl. I believe St. Louis is one of the least dense metro areas in the country, and that's NOT a good thing. What the city should do, is figure out how it can compete with the suburban counties. You would think that people would prefer to live in nice historic areas over a sea of vinyl and strip malls. Here are the two solutions:

1.) schools. dispand our joke school district and implement school choice- competing charter schools. we could be the first major city to implement such change. Nothing could be worse than the status quo.

2.) crime. who are these joke judges that barley slap the wrist of these vagrants that have put us on the top of crime charts? two strikes and you're out.

3.) Become the MOST business friendly city in the country. Charlotte and Phoenix: weak union towns. St. Louis: strong union town.. Hmm I wonder if there's a correlation. No new office building since 1989. What can we do to make people WANT to do business in the city. Have people heard of the free market system?
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PostFeb 17, 2007#505

^Yeah, I read that too and thought it must be a typo...



I thought it was kind of ironic since he's a strong proponent of businesses getting to choose whether or not they allow smoking.



So the public shouldn't have total choice over where they live if it impacts society and the environment negatively but a business establishment should have total choice over allowing smoking or not in the establishment even if it affect the environment negatively.
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PostFeb 17, 2007#506

Doug wrote:The public shouldn't have total choice over where they live if it impacts society and the environment negatively.
This is a fascist, abhorrent statement.
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PostFeb 17, 2007#507

innov8ion wrote:
Doug wrote:The public shouldn't have total choice over where they live if it impacts society and the environment negatively.
This is a fascist, abhorrent statement.


Please be careful here comrade...... :wink:



The goverment should play a part in defining what a society is (rules and regulations and what is acceptable to the common masses). They should have some governance over what people can do that harms environment and how to punish them.

The goverment has NO PLACE in telling people where they can and cannot live. They CANNOT be the judge of what my choice within defined legal boundaries is, pertaining to living. This includes Suburban sprawl and the ill effects it causes inner cities. We may not agree with it, but we cannot lose that choice to anyone.
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PostFeb 19, 2007#508

Again, you are arguing for public choice in terms of services. People will simply go somewhere else and vote with their feet. Well this only furthers segregation, duplication of services, and is one of the reasons we have sprawl. Through regional governance this can and should be addressed. The public shouldn't have total choice over where they live if it impacts society and the environment negatively.


We have sprawl because some people decided to climb up on their high horse and forced people to live with people that they did not want to live with. Unable to live in an urban area where they could choose their neighbors through voluntary covenant (and yes, I realize that some of these were influenced by gov't policy, something that I disagree with), they just moved out to where they could.



Go to the Missouri History Museum and look at the exhibit on segregation in St. Louis. The maps show that much of North St. Louis was majority white and middle class. They all moved out. There is no rainbow handholding neighborhood in North St. Louis as a result of this forced integration (there are stable diverse neighborhoods, but these formed voluntarily and not because the gov't forced them to). There is defacto segregation, but instead of whites living a few blocks away from blacks, they live miles instead and the city is in ruins. They not only tend to live on different blocks, but now different cities.



In the exhibit there is a piece about the Supreme Court case where a black family won the right to live in a white neighborhood. Well, I'm pretty sure that house and the neighborhood aren't standing anymore because all of the neighbors eventually left and the area went downhill.



On the other hand, the Italians on the Hill somehow managed to retain control of who moved in their neighborhood and it is in as good of shape it's ever been. The Hill or vacant lots and burned out buildings. What do you want your city to look like?
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PostFeb 19, 2007#509

fine. but in america, people can live wherever they choose to live based upon income levels, not skin color.
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PostFeb 20, 2007#510

America is also in a much different place than it was in the 50s. Neighborhoods aren't as defined by race/ethnicity as they were, instead they are defined more by class.



But a government should never tell anyone where they can or can't live. If the land is for sale, you can build on it. You don't want it built on, pay more money for it, and don't build anything.
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PostFeb 20, 2007#511

Government does tell you where you can live by influencing the market through zoning. This is why zoning was created. Affordable housing is kept out of affluent areas through zoning. This is its purpose and the reason that suburban communities have it.



Again, Black Jack incorporated in 1970 to specifically keep out blacks and their proposed low income housing.
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PostFeb 20, 2007#512

trent wrote:


But a government should never tell anyone where they can or can't live. If the land is for sale, you can build on it.


And then after you build on it, the government can take it away from you, knock down your house and let a developer build a walgreens...
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PostFeb 20, 2007#513

Doug wrote:Government does tell you where you can live by influencing the market through zoning.


And then there's Houston. Need I say more?
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PostFeb 20, 2007#514

ThreeOneFour wrote:
Doug wrote:Government does tell you where you can live by influencing the market through zoning.


And then there's Houston. Need I say more?


I am not advocating the removal of zoning. What I am saying is that it is and has been abused to enforce homogeneous communities and keep out undesirables. This is because municipalities are able to basically zone however they want. When there is no regional planning authority they are free to act at will. If their residents want to be exclusionary, then they can.
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PostFeb 20, 2007#515

Is this tread about the homeless and panhandlers in St. Louis - becuase it seems to have veared off into a zoning debate for 2 + pages.?. It had something to do with homeless people and the effects of zoning on them, but now its just a: zoning: racists classist elietest?... ?new thread about zoning?



As for homeless - I know we have a problem but I am GLAD we aren't here (especially since we are the most dengerous city in the country)



Teen 'sport killings' of homeless on the rise

POSTED: 11:10 a.m. EST, February 20, 2007

By Ashley Fantz

CNN



Story Highlights

• Number of attacks on homeless at highest level in almost a decade

• 122 attacks, 20 murders in 2006, according to National Coalition for the Homeless

• For some teens, "this passes as amusement," expert says



http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/02/19/homele ... index.html
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PostFeb 20, 2007#516

^Interesting article, tbspqr.



Weird related anecdote. My ex-girlfriend an I would sometimes hang out with her sister and her boyfriend. This boyfriend told me that when he was in high school in KC, he and his friends would drive around and do "drive-bys" on homeless guys with a paint gun. After that, I realized what a total DB that guy was.



Anyway, I guess I never realized the extent of the sport of attacking homeless people. Sad, really.
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PostFeb 20, 2007#517

buckethead wrote:
trent wrote:


But a government should never tell anyone where they can or can't live. If the land is for sale, you can build on it.


And then after you build on it, the government can take it away from you, knock down your house and let a developer build a walgreens...


Only after compensating you.
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PostFeb 20, 2007#518

tbspqr wrote:Is this tread about the homeless and panhandlers in St. Louis - becuase it seems to have veared off into a zoning debate for 2 + pages.?. It had something to do with homeless people and the effects of zoning on them, but now its just a: zoning: racists classist elietest?... ?new thread about zoning?



As for homeless - I know we have a problem but I am GLAD we aren't here (especially since we are the most dengerous city in the country)



Teen 'sport killings' of homeless on the rise

POSTED: 11:10 a.m. EST, February 20, 2007

By Ashley Fantz

CNN



Story Highlights

• Number of attacks on homeless at highest level in almost a decade

• 122 attacks, 20 murders in 2006, according to National Coalition for the Homeless

• For some teens, "this passes as amusement," expert says



http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/02/19/homele ... index.html


That article was pretty disturbing. I don't see how video games are to blame though - those kids probably didn't have too much going on upstairs to begin with.
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PostFeb 20, 2007#519

The Central Scrutinizer wrote:
buckethead wrote:
trent wrote:


But a government should never tell anyone where they can or can't live. If the land is for sale, you can build on it.


And then after you build on it, the government can take it away from you, knock down your house and let a developer build a walgreens...


Only after compensating you.


Yeah, but what if you would rather stay in the home you bought than have to move? Why does the gov't get to decide the developer deserves your property more than you and how much you will be compensated? I'm not talking slum lords, but people that have put a lot of time and money into a home or maybe a home that has been in the family for generations. But that's a discussion for another thread...
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PostFeb 20, 2007#520

buckethead wrote:
The Central Scrutinizer wrote:
buckethead wrote:

And then after you build on it, the government can take it away from you, knock down your house and let a developer build a walgreens...


Only after compensating you.


Yeah, but what if you would rather stay in the home you bought than have to move? Why does the gov't get to decide the developer deserves your property more than you and how much you will be compensated? I'm not talking slum lords, but people that have put a lot of time and money into a home or maybe a home that has been in the family for generations. But that's a discussion for another thread...


You would have to roll the clock back 230 years and ask the founding fathers.



But, like you said, that is another thread....
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PostFeb 21, 2007#521

Frankly, My head is spinning from all the zoning discussion.



As for the homeless DT STL, does anyone know if some of them have signed up with the St. Patrick's center for the free education, etc.?
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PostFeb 21, 2007#522

DeBaliviere wrote:
tbspqr wrote:Is this tread about the homeless and panhandlers in St. Louis - because it seems to have veered off into a zoning debate for 2 + pages.?. It had something to do with homeless people and the effects of zoning on them, but now its just a: zoning: racists classist elitist?... ?new thread about zoning?



As for homeless - I know we have a problem but I am GLAD we aren't here (especially since we are the most dangerous city in the country)



Teen 'sport killings' of homeless on the rise

POSTED: 11:10 a.m. EST, February 20, 2007

By Ashley Fantz

CNN



Story Highlights

• Number of attacks on homeless at highest level in almost a decade

• 122 attacks, 20 murders in 2006, according to National Coalition for the Homeless

• For some teens, "this passes as amusement," expert says



http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/02/19/homele ... index.html


That article was pretty disturbing. I don't see how video games are to blame though - those kids probably didn't have too much going on upstairs to begin with.


a story written this way does only harm ... pulp-nonfiction ... graphic to the point of instruction ... written simple-mindedly.. gloom and death while making no comment on societal pressures that cause class warfare, with no real explanation given (other than video games) and no solutions thought up ... as though the writer has no hope for change, but is merely documenting hell.
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PostFeb 24, 2007#523

Homeless count for city dips by 26 percent over 2 years

By Clay Barbour

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

02/24/2007



ST. LOUIS — Despite complaints that St. Louis has become a dumping ground for the region's forgotten citizens, numbers released Friday indicate the city has experienced a dramatic decrease in its homeless population.



St. Louis was one of 170 cities and counties nationwide to take part in a one-night homeless count late last month. Started in 2004, the count takes place every two years and is tied to federal money for the homeless.



According to Bill Siedhoff, director of the city Department of Human Services, officials counted 1,386 homeless people in one night — a 26 percent decrease from the 1,870 counted last time.


link
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PostFeb 24, 2007#524

i will jive with that, i haven't been solicited for spare change in a long time. in 2005 perhaps, when it was maybe weekly, the drop off was very sudden too.
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PostFeb 24, 2007#525

Despite complaints that St. Louis has become a dumping ground for the region's forgotten citizens


The word "despite" makes no sense there. The City's homeless population can be down -- AND downtown can be the place the region abandons its homeless.
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