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California Declares War on Suburbia, Planners want to herd millions into densely packed corridors
WSJ ^ | April 9, 2012 | Wendell Cox

Posted on 04/13/2012 4:03:19 AM PDT by opentalk

It's no secret that California's regulatory and tax climate is driving business investment to other states. California's high cost of living also is driving people away. Since 2000 more than 1.6 million people have fled, and my own research as well as that of others points to high housing prices as the principal factor.

The exodus is likely to accelerate. California has declared war on the most popular housing choice, the single family, detached home—all in the name of saving the planet.

Metropolitan area governments are adopting plans that would require most new housing to be built at 20 or more to the acre, which is at least five times the traditional quarter acre per house. State and regional planners also seek to radically restructure urban areas, forcing much of the new hyperdensity development into narrowly confined corridors.

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; Government; News/Current Events; US: California
KEYWORDS: agenda21; ickei; nasa; un
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To: St_Thomas_Aquinas

Sorry, this is what I was looking for when I ran across the Green Economy giving jobs to illiterates, inciting a revolution and the end of capitalism.

Van Jones, Obama’s Ex Green Czar:

”If we want to survive as a species, we will have to live in massive mega-cities. Living at one with nature is just crap idealism from the past, and the suburbs are nothing more than archaic residue of racist white flight patterns.”
Snip
”Sprawl is a response to racial fear and anxiety on the part of white elites. The ‘burbs were designed as a vehicle to get away from people of color, investing more in the white infrastructure as they moved away from the city, and the neighborhoods where people of color live. Does that mean the only environmentally-sound, antiracist thing for whites to do is move back to the inner cities. Yes, it does.”


61 posted on 04/13/2012 8:49:05 AM PDT by Haddit
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To: Haddit

“make capitalism as green and humane as we possibly can.”

Funny, the complaints expressed prior about ‘dirty capitalism’ linked the offenders with government facilitation. Capitalism undistorted by government WILL turn green and humane - but objectively so, not as subjectively wished by ignorant greenies. Example: factory farming sounds awful, but in fact uses much less land and fewer resources than “organic”.


62 posted on 04/13/2012 9:04:09 AM PDT by ctdonath2 ($1 meals: http://abuckaplate.blogspot.com/)
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To: opentalk

This is happening all over Los Angeles, earthquake country, where the California State University of Northridge’s new concrete and steel parking structure collapsed. Where the concrete and steel freeway overpasses collapsed. Where the second story of my wife’s apartment came down on her. 10 stories, what a crock, this is the area where the freeway fell down and a contractor was paid a premium to get it fixed in record time.

Construction to Begin on Santa Monica housing-retail development
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/feb/16/business/la-fi-village-santa-monica-20120216

The city is building a subway line from downtown Los Angeles to the ocean. At the end of the line will be the $350 million Village at Santa Monica with a mix of 158 luxury condominiums and 160 affordable apartments with shops and restaurants on the ground floor of a 10 story high complex.

The city bought the 3 acres for $53 million in 2000.

The condos will start at $700,000 or $800,000. The apartments will be restricted to tenants that make below 60% of the local median income of $50,580. The rentals will go to tenants that win a lottery and will rent for between $600 and $1300.

A nearby Denny’s site has been sold and will also have a mixture of housing with retail on the ground floor.

So, I went to Zillow just to see how many $600 and $1300 apartments are for rent in Santa Monica. Remember, this is a beach community. Expensive.

I’ll start from the top and list everything that came up:
3 bed, 2 bath $4,395/mo
1 bed, 1 bath $6,700/mo
2 bed, 2 bath $11,700/mo
2 bed, 2.5 bath $2,550/mo
2 bed, 2 bath $2,600/mo
2 bed, 2 bath $2,600/mo
2 bed, 2 bath $5,495/mo
6 bed, 5 bath $8,000/mo
5 bed, 4 bath $45,000/mo (I’m not kidding, check it out yourself www.zillow.com)
5 bed, 4 bath $16,500/mo
2 bed, 3 bath $11,000/mo
2 bed, 2 bath $2,300/mo

But what does that tell us? It is a fricken lottery, you don’t even have to be an American to get a $600 view of the ocean, just keep your jobs offline and push out American babies.


63 posted on 04/13/2012 9:11:49 AM PDT by Haddit
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To: opentalk
Its about control, easier to control the masses.

And it makes people angry because they are so confined - which I bet is what they want: angry people rioting.

64 posted on 04/13/2012 9:26:27 AM PDT by ncpatriot
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To: Haddit

Its not the end yet, people are waking up
City Council Awakens to Evil and Defeats It (Agenda 21)
http://noisyroom.net/ ^ | 4.12.12 | AJ
http://noisyroom.net/blog/2012/04/12/city-council-awakens-to-evil-and-defeats-it/

The City of Colfax, CA reportedly defeated UN Agenda 21 by a 4-0 vote and passed Resolution No. 12-2012.
Ken Delfino, one of the City Councilmen, reportedly wrote a letter describing what he learned about UN Agenda 21 and urges others to educate themselves about it too.
You can help by sending these three items of information to your City Council Members. If they’re uninterested, be sure to campaign against them, so that they are defeated when they run for re-election.
1. Here is the reported letter in its entirety (a link to the letter is not yet available).
Dear friends, constituents and colleagues:
This evening the attached resolution was introduced and discussed…and was passed by a 4-0 vote.
This particular topic has been discussed in previous council meetings as more and more people are becoming aware of this United Nations program that has been hidden under a myriad of titles starting with the “New World Order” in 1992 and the addition of many of these restrictive and business-killing environmental initiatives that have been introduced and passed in the past 2-3 years.
On-line searches of anti-American U.N. bias and statements will show you just how much this organization despises the success of our country. We are railed against by the likes of Hugo Chavez, the Castro brothers, Daniel Ortega, Moammar Khadaffy and other anti-American leaders not just from their capitols, but worse, from the United Nations building in New York City!
The ultimate goal of United Nations’ Agenda 21 is global governance with the U.N as the head agency.
Many of my council colleagues from other jurisdictions have gotten together to find ways to fight this cancer that has crept into our government. We all took an Oath to support our state and United States constitutions and protect our citizens and community against all enemies…foreign and domestic…and this is the statement our city made tonight to this effect.
We believe other cities and counties have made such stands and we hope others will join us.
I ask that if you have not done so, to at least [sic] research this program and come to your own conclusion.
In closing, I want to stress that this is not a Republican v. Democrat v. Libertarian, left v. right, religious [sic] v. atheist issue…this is purely an anti-American issue aimed at eliminating our national sovereignty!
In continued service to my country and community,
Ken Delfino
Councilman
City of Colfax, CA
2. Nancy Pelosi Pushes Agenda 21 On House Floor
What you are about to see in this video is Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) spearheading HC Res 353 on the House floor to pursue United Nations (UN) Agenda 21. She calls out “Agenda 21” twice and clearly states that it is the “United Nations Sustainable Development” program…
3. RESOLUTION No. 12-2012: City of Colfax, California (see page 21 at this link: http://www.ci.colfax.ca.us/3-Docs/PDF/Agenda/4-11-12%20Agenda.pdf)
R E S O L U T I O N No. 12-2012
A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF COLFAX, CALIFORNIA EXPOSING THE UNITED NATIONS’ AGENDA 21 PROGRAMME…
WHEREAS, the United Nations Agenda 21 is a comprehensive plan of extreme environmentalism, social engineering and global political control that was initiated at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992 and…
WHEREAS the United Nations Agenda 21 has been and continues to be covertly pushed into local communities throughout the United States of America through what was the International Council of Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) through local “sustainable development” policies such as ‘Smart Growth’, ‘Wildlands Projects’, ‘Resilient Cities’, ‘Regional Visioning Projects’ and similar names and…
WHEREAS this United Nations Agenda 21 plan of radical so-called “sustainable development” views the American way of life of private property ownership, single family homes, private car ownership and individual travel choices and privately owned farms all as destructive to the environment and…
WHEREAS according to the United Nations Agenda 21 policy, social justice is described as the right and opportunity of all people to benefit equally from the resources afforded us by society and the environment which would be accomplished by redistribution of wealth and…
WHEREAS according to the United Nations Agenda 21 policy, National Sovereignty is deemed a social injustice.
BE IT THEREFORE RESOLVED that in order to help protect property rights of our citizens, the Council of the City of Colfax, California recognizes the destructive and insidious nature of United Nations Agenda 21 and hereby exposes to the public and public policy makers the dangerous intent of the plan and be it further
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that neither the United States government nor state or local government is legally bound by the United Nations Agenda 21 treaty in that the treaty has never been endorsed by the United States Senate and therefore be it further
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the implementation of the United Nations Agenda 21 destructive strategies for “sustainable development” at the federal, state and local governments across the country will have harmful repercussions and we hereby reject all of its radical policies that are not in the best interests of our citizens and the City of Colfax and our Sphere of Influence.
PASSED AND ADOPTED, this 11th day of April, 2012, by the City Council of the City of Colfax, by the following roll call vote:
AYES:
NOES:
ABSTAIN:
ABSENT:
Steve Harvey Karen Pierce
Mayor City Clerk
It is time to recognize evil, inform others about it and defeat it.


65 posted on 04/13/2012 9:35:42 AM PDT by Haddit
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To: cpa4you

Ahh, yes. One of the many reasons I left the State and headed to Florida. Not much I miss that I can’t have shipped down :)


66 posted on 04/13/2012 10:02:03 AM PDT by i_robot73
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To: sphinx

“We need to break up the big toxic concentrations of government subsidized poverty.”

Do that by ending the government power to subsidize.

We have, for all practical purposes, made functional poverty illegal. Cost of legal living is too high for functional poverty, and subsidization (welfare) removes any standing to challenge that prohibition. Between property taxes and zoning laws and housing requirements and other imposed “live in luxury or get out” rules, nobody can just acquire some land and live off it.

Remove the prohibitions, remove the subsidies, and let natural economic forces take hold. Affordable housing will arise where housing is affordable - and allowed.

As for roads: improve them where there is room to with minimal human impact. Don’t wipe out miles of homes for a new freeway, build more access to where housing etc is affordable but lacks only a speedy means to get there. More people means more strain on what’s there. Relieving commuting pressure by expanding or adding roads in the same region only gives reason for more people to flow in. The influx will continue until those there just can’t stand it anymore; stop encouraging more influx, LET the pressure build until it hits a LOWER point of discomfort and thereby encourage people to find solutions elsewhere earlier.

Stop cramming more into cities. Facilitate & encourage getting them out.


67 posted on 04/13/2012 10:30:08 AM PDT by ctdonath2 ($1 meals: http://abuckaplate.blogspot.com/)
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To: sphinx

If driving 2 hours a day means RIGHT NOW getting a near-acre of forest, good local school options, pleasant amenities, low crime, modest taxes & costs, and all the other desirable factors, then so be it.

You can try to manipulate & fight for long term results in undesirable areas; be my guest. I have a life to live and family to raise RIGHT NOW. And if you use police power of the state to herd us into your cattle cars and pens, you won’t like the pushback. You may think those cattle pens are very nice, but we don’t and will not consent.

My family’s fair share of this planet’s land surface is ~20 acres. I intend to acquire it.


68 posted on 04/13/2012 10:44:45 AM PDT by ctdonath2 ($1 meals: http://abuckaplate.blogspot.com/)
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To: clee1

I am only here for job security, my pension and to care for my aging mother.

Absent those, I will flee this communist s _ _ thole state as fast as the wind will carry me away.


69 posted on 04/13/2012 11:14:30 AM PDT by Freedom_Is_Not_Free (REPEAL OBAMACARE. Nothing else matters.)
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To: opentalk

70 posted on 04/13/2012 11:15:49 AM PDT by Gritty (On a long jog in the hour before dawn, San Francisco reminded me of Calcutta - Ralph Peters)
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Comment #71 Removed by Moderator

To: squarebarb

The leftist concept of families doesn’t include children, unless they are adopted. The school population in Seattle has been in decline for years.


72 posted on 04/13/2012 12:03:38 PM PDT by Eva
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To: sphinx

On the other hand, some people just don’t want to be bothered dealing with close neighbors.

We have had the worst possible luck with neighbors that anyone could imagine.

In our first home, we had a huge limousine pull up with four men in over coats, who sat there all day long for three days, watching my next door neighbor’s house. She said that her ex-husband was the head of NASA and that he had hired the men. I didn’t believe her.

In California, we had a child molester on one side a woman who went after every man on the street on the other, and waged a war against their wives.

When we first moved to WA, we had a drugged out fisherman, who actually was a pharmacist, but lost his license for sampling his own wares, we a socio-pathic kid, who was terrorizing the neighborhood and was caught several times in women’s bedrooms, while the slept, before he was finally put away for a few years. The day he got out of jail, he tracked us down to our new house and started calling us.

In the next house, we chose a gated community, where we had a man who was under house arrest for international fraud (he had somehow swindled the pilots of Air Canada out of their pensions). Next door to him, we had another woman, who could only be described as a nymphomaniac. She not only came on to my husband, but she came onto my 15 year old son, and a whole lot of other men in the neighborhood. Then the last straw was this rich guy who moved in next door to us, who told us that he was so old that he could kill anyone he wanted and nothing would happen to him because he would die before they ever sent him to jail.


73 posted on 04/13/2012 12:23:06 PM PDT by Eva
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To: opentalk
Best line from the article:Pitiful truth.
74 posted on 04/13/2012 1:02:26 PM PDT by upchuck (Need is not an acceptable lifestyle choice; dependent is not a career. ~ Dr. Tim Nerenz)
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To: opentalk

I can find no mention of Agenda 21 in the article. Interesting. Wonder why?


75 posted on 04/13/2012 1:06:19 PM PDT by upchuck (Need is not an acceptable lifestyle choice; dependent is not a career. ~ Dr. Tim Nerenz)
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To: opentalk

Coming to a state near you. Seeing more of this all over.


76 posted on 04/13/2012 1:08:20 PM PDT by redgolum ("God is dead" -- Nietzsche. "Nietzsche is dead" -- God.)
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To: Tzar

Poor people have to live somewhere. They shouldn’t all be warehoused in D.C., or PG County either, for that matter. They need to be scattered around so that a critical mass of problem cases doesn’t become self-sustaining ... so that their kids don’t overwhelm the local schools ... and so that they can live in reasonable proximity to entry level jobs.

Big low income housing projects have proven to be a disaster. So start with the planning objective of closing those down and moving the assisted living folks into scattered site housing.

That’s easy to say. It’s harder to do. Immediately the barriers go up; even small scale projects get zoned out; the neighborhood rallies against any encroaching sec. 8; the occupancy regulations prohibit doubling and tripling up (although a lot of that happens illegally, as it’s often the path of least resistance). So where are the poor supposed to go? Refrigerator boxes in the woods?

Then add to that a critical shortage of moderate priced housing in many of the more affluent jurisdictions. I get frosted when the teachers, police officers, and young professionals — not to mention the retail clerks and secretaries — can’t afford to live anywhere in the communities they serve. I’m not suggesting that we need to have low income housing on every cul-de-sac, but moderate income folks ought to be able to find decent affordable housing within five miles, give or take.

There are no easy solutions. The gentrification of DC means that the old default option — dump the poor in projects in Anacostia — is no longer viable. So where would YOU put them?

In the second paragraph above I used the “p word,” which will be a red flag to many here. Planning. There, I said it again.

Someone will pop up and say “get the planners out of it; just let the market decide.” Fine with me. Let’s get rid of zoning and let developers throw up high rises in the middle of leafy cul-de-sac land. Let’s get rid of occupancy regulations so six Mexican or Vietnamese families can move into the three bedroom house next door. And let’s scrap the rental regulations so people can rent out basements and spare bedrooms at will, and set up boarding houses on your block. These rules and regulations are “planning,” every bit as much as affordable housing projects and section 8. So let’s get rid of them.

This is how free markets have historically solved housing shortages. These approaches work. They will work again if we let them. What I object to are suburban patriots who rule these things out of bounds in order to preserve the quiet and safety of the burbs, and then turn around and denounce “big government planners” for trying to find other options. What such objectors really want is the status quo of quarantining the poor in someone else’s backyard.


77 posted on 04/13/2012 1:38:44 PM PDT by sphinx
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To: Eva

That’s a pretty impressive run of bad luck. If I were you, I might be looking for an uninhabited island.


78 posted on 04/13/2012 1:42:00 PM PDT by sphinx
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To: sphinx

This Section 8 housing is BS. All the sustainable walkable new multi-use complexes where I live include a third to one half Section 8 housing.

Every city has a general plan and its own unique layout. Here, where I live in the San Fernando Valley, people are used to their own shade tree yards, gardens and flower beds. We weren’t asked if we wanted high-rise apartment buildings. Apartment buildings, up until recently were restricted to two stories. Most of the new apartment buildings are 4 stories now and they are planning 10 story apartment buildings.

Judge Mariana Pfaelser overturned our proposition 187 that denied welfare to illegals, and now most of the Section 8 housing goes to illegal mothers getting paid to have American kids.

Listen to this insane segment from our local talk radio station.

Lancaster mayor complains Section 8 housing gives priority to ex-cons
Section 8 housing is big business and the rich real estate holding companies fund the re-election of the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors.

Link: http://www.kfiam640.com/cc-common/podcast/single_page.html?more_page=1&podcast=JohnandKen&selected_podcast=JK0410124P_1334111499_25071.mp3

Mayor Rex Parris says there are only 3 Section 8 fraud investigators in the entire county. Section 8 housing subsidizes 80% of the rent and many of the homes are 4 bedroom new homes with swimming pools.

There are 191,000 people on the wait list and only 22,000 homes available.

People wait 10 years to get a Section 8 home, meaning they have to plan on being poor 10 years from applying, but now the Supervisors are giving priority to the ex-cons.


79 posted on 04/13/2012 3:29:34 PM PDT by Haddit
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To: opentalk
41 posted on Fri Apr 13 2012 08:36:53 GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time) by opentalk: “Its about control, easier to control the masses. Every one gets the same. (Your fair share) Reminds me of the vacant cities seen in China from satellite.”

Link, please?

I wasn't aware that China had a problem with vacant cities — more like the opposite issue, unless you're talking about rural depopulation. But it definitely wouldn't be the first time I've learned something new about China.

80 posted on 04/13/2012 4:38:15 PM PDT by darrellmaurina
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