Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, it’s door #2)

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

Alternative history is always a weak argument. Always.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Welcome to day five of every-bit-as-bad-as-you-thought-it-would-be.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

I really should read my own blog.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Books are my comfort food!

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Open Thread: Thank You, Ms. Parks

Open Thread: Thank You, Ms. Parks

by | 138 Comments

This post is in: , ,

Prof. Robert Cook, at The Conversation:

… Rosa Parks was just 42 years old when she took that famous ride on a City Lines bus in Montgomery – a town known for being the first capital of the pro-slavery Confederacy during the American Civil War. Parks – a seamstress at a downtown department store – had a history as a civil rights campaigner, having served as a youth organiser for the local branch of America’s oldest and most effective civil rights organisation, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). She had also attended the controversial Highlander Folk School in Tennessee, where a number of African Americans were trained in protest methods by labour radicals…

In Australia, students from the University of Sydney undertook their own “freedom ride” in 1965 to expose racism against the country’s indigenous inhabitants. Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom, it was an inspiration for the Bristol bus boycott of 1963 and the Northern Ireland civil rights demonstrations later in the decade.

Rosa Parks died in 2005. She earned her place in history, alongside hundreds of other brave men and women who helped end racial segregation by statute. Even today, the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States – sparked by the unlawful police killing of African Americans – demonstrates that the activist spirit unleashed in Montgomery in 1955 lives on.

.
.

***********
Apart from honoring the ancestors (and, as a ‘Federalist,’ Sean Davis is suitably honoring his ancestors by niggling about how everybody not in his club is Doing It Wrong) what’s on the agenda for the evening?

Reader Interactions

138Comments

  1. 1.

    Calouste

    I didn’t like Hillary Clinton logo very much, but I like the interpretation with Rosa Parks in it. I think it would be good to do more of them in that style.

  8. 8.

    J R in WV

    I also think that photo of President Obama sitting in that bus is one for the ages. The things running past his mind, his accomplishments in part because of the powerful bravery of the NAACP activists of the 1950s and 1960s. The deaths of so many innocents back then, the 4 little girls in the bombed church, Martin himself shot down…

    And of course, the thoughts about how can we stop people today shooting other people down with impunity because of their uniform, and the victim’s race! Will the horror never stop? We can only hope.

  11. 11.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    The more I read about Alexander Hamilton, the more annoyed I get at conservatives for stealing the “Federalist” name. He was the only Founding Father who outright said that African slaves were the intellectual equals of whites and cofounded New York’s manumission society.

    As the play points out, it was pretty ballsy of the Virginia slaveholders to set themselves up as the defenders of the “common man,” but they managed it. Motherfucking Democratic-Republicans, indeed.

  12. 12.

    Anne Laurie

    Editing note: Must now use strong-inside-carats, not b-inside-carats, to get proper black bold font.

  13. 13.

    Gravenstone

    Had to take a friend to task over a Facebook post today. He had successful surgery to remove a brain tumor early yesterday. And because he’s awake, alert and somewhat ambulatory he’s decided to ascribe it ALL to the miraculous touch of Jesus Cristos (and basically everyone in his timeline is mindlessly echoing his sentiment). I had the unpleasant temerity to suggest he was selling the skills of his doctors and surgical staff short. I expect to get dogpiled for my insufficient fealty to divinity.

  14. 14.

    Calouste

    @Baud: Of course, just like Clinton’s candidacy, her logo is miles better than all the other train wrecks in the race, although not on the level of Obama. But a series of these logos with different people on them, either real, historical, or archetypes would be cool.

  15. 15.

    Calouste

    @Gravenstone: If Jesus has to be thanked for a successful brain surgery, why did he just let people die of brain tumors for the first 1900-odd years of Christianity and only start caring about them in the last 50 years or so?

  18. 18.

    J R in WV

    @Gravenstone:

    But why was he in a hospital at all?

    If he was going to depend on your Jeebus, shouldn’t he have gone straight to a church instead?

    Reasonable inquiring minds want to know! Why didn’t he go straight to the church instead of that nasty scientific hospital with edumacated Doctors and all, when Jeebus was waiting for him at church?

    I have a cousin, about 7 or 8, with a brain stem tumor that is completely inoperable. They’re working on it with radiation, and cautiously optimistic, but still. Jeebus!! Little kids being struck low by Jeebus? How else do people get picked for that? grrrrr!

  20. 20.

    Botsplainer

    @Germy:

    They’re idiots. A young man (call him Second Amendment Hero) was a good guy with a gun until he wasn’t. He gut-shot his girlfriend, claimed that he was strapping his dick extension onto his leg and that their baby came and was fiddling around, pulled the trigger. She claims to remember nothing, CPS and cops do ballistics and determine baby had nothing to do with it.

    He makes bond. Girlfriend can’t stay away from him because he’s her man and is now dating somebody else, so she has to get him back. CPS naturally comes and takes baby. Granny wants to be a relative placement, but her husband (father of the gut-shot victim, grandfather of blamed baby) once put a gun in her face in front of one of their kids about 15 years ago, resulting in the removal of kids. It is problematic, as he still drinks.

    I fucking hate people.

  22. 22.

    scav

    @Gravenstone: Tell him I’m a notorious long-term outright atheist and my brain tumor also was sucessfully excised, so either we both could afford good sugeons (huzzah Dr. Yamada & team!) or that the diety has remarkably low / random thresholds for who doesn’t die on the table.

  23. 23.

    piratedan7

    @Baud: well to be fair, it was either neurosurgery or Middle Eastern studies…. and the lord obviously intervened…

    sorry, that snark is just wrong… kudos to Dr. Carson for making a difference in so many lives through your skill as a surgeon… but I’m sorry Mr. Carson, you don’t have a good understanding of monetary policy, foreign policy and as such, I don’t believe that you’re the right person to be President of the United States of America.

  24. 24.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Mnemosyne (iPhone): Gawd, Mnemo; you’re becoming like that guy in the “Got Milk” commercial.

    ETA: Since Democrats generally trace their founding to Jefferson through Jackson, Cleek’s Law comes into play.

  25. 25.

    JasonF

    Since … well, ever, the only thing Sean Davis has posted to Twitter about Rosa Parks is to complain that the White House is doing it wrong. Clearly, her legacy is ever so important to him.

  26. 26.

    Chris

    @Mnemosyne (iPhone):

    I will never understand why the hell some conservatives use the word “Federalist” to describe themselves. The Federalists were the East Coast big government party of their era. There’s nothing there for the right wing to identify with, not geography or culture or ideology.

  27. 27.

    Gravenstone

    @J R in WV: Even better, he’s in a well known teaching and research hospital.

    This is very much a hot button issue for me, since my younger sister didn’t survive the surgery to remove her brain tumor 16 years ago. I doubt he’d take it kindly at all if I asked why the Jesus Juice spared him but not her?

  29. 29.

    Chris

    @BillinGlendaleCA:
    ETA: Since Democrats generally trace their founding to Jefferson through Jackson, Cleek’s Law comes into play.

    That must be it, cause it’s literally the only explanation that makes any sense.

  32. 32.

    Anoniminous

    Can I honor my ancestors by Marching Through Georgia and South Carolina causing devastation more or less relentless according to the measure of encountered hostility while foraging liberally upon the country?

  33. 33.

    Starfish

    I just saw a clickbait headline that said “Hillary Clinton’s logo accidentally puts Rosa Parks in the back of the bus.” I hate everyone.

  34. 34.

    slag

    @JasonF: Apparently, Sean Davis considers Obama remiss in fulfilling his constitutionally designated role as Google Image Fetcher in Chief.

  37. 37.

    Roger Moore

    @Chris:

    I will never understand why the hell some conservatives use the word “Federalist” to describe themselves.

    It doesn’t have anything to do with the Federalist Party. Instead, it reflects their understanding of (small “f”) federalism: that the federal government is restricted to a relatively narrow set of enumerated powers and everything else is left to the states. More generally, the idea is that everything should be handled by the lowest level of government that possibly can handle it, with only things that absolutely must be handled at a higher level handled there. I don’t think they really support that, either, since they’re more than happy to use federal power to overrule the states when they’re in control, but it’s a nice excuse for kneecapping federal attempts to rein in the worst abuses they commit in the states they control.

  40. 40.

    Roger Moore

    @Anoniminous:

    Can I honor my ancestors by Marching Through Georgia and South Carolina causing devastation more or less relentless according to the measure of encountered hostility while foraging liberally upon the country?

    You and what army?

  44. 44.

    Another Holocene Human

    Beginning in early 1996, the Dothan Police Department received complaints from black victims that drugs and weapons were being planted. Specifically young black men who had clean records were targeted. Police Chief, John White, allegedly instructed senior officers to ignore the complaints and they willingly complied.

    Just absolutely sick stuff. Think about that when Cruz says shit like most felons (felon = n-word) are Democrats.

  54. 54.

    Calouste

    As if there was any more evidence needed that police are just gunhumpers with a badge:
    Largest police union renews call for NFL to end concealed-carry ban

    One of the Paris attacks saw three suicide bombers attempt to enter the soccer stadium where the French national team, watched by their president, François Hollande, was playing a match. They were foiled as they tried to gain access, and blew themselves up.

    Union president Chuck Canterbury sent a letter to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell on 20 November, urging him “to rescind this policy, which weakens the safety and security of NFL players, personnel and fans”.

    A) Of course, as France doesn’t allow concealed carry, the Paris attacks were most definitely NOT foiled by an concealed carry hero, but by a security guard checking for concealed weapons.
    B) Guns don’t fucking do much against someone carrying a suicide bomb vest.
    C) What’s to stop terrorists from faking a police ID and concealed carrying into a stadium?

    But let’s not get that in the way of some good gunhumping shall we?

  58. 58.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    @lamh36:

    African-Americans have been conservative guinea pigs for at least 50 years now (and probably longer) because they tested out all the best ways to keep non-rich people on black folks first, and are now rolling the program out to the rest of the non-rich population.

    Some people never learned their lesson from the I didn’t speak out about the treatment of Communists because I wasn’t a Communist speech and now they’re knee-deep in shit.

  61. 61.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Mnemosyne (iPhone):

    Does it really count as a parody if the only change is that the guy playing the unlucky peanut butter lover is the guy currently playing Burr on Broadway?

    OK, that’s funny. ?

  62. 62.

    randy khan

    About the bus: It’s at the Henry Ford museum in Dearborn, just outside Detroit. The museum (and Greenfield Village, which is part of the complex) is a glorious mess of a place – it includes a Lincoln exhibit, many cars, a Holiday Inn room, a Dymaxion house, among many other things, and amazingly, the actual Rosa Parks bus. (The story about how it was found is very interesting, too, if unsurprising in context.)

    And, yes, you can go on the bus and sit in it, and they tell you which seat Parks was in. And while the whole museum is kind of goofy, sitting in the bus is not. I got tingles down my spine. Like Linnaeus said above, very cool. Honestly, if you’re ever in Detroit and have some free time, it’s worth going to the Henry Ford museum just for that.

  64. 64.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Baud: We’re going to try an increased dose. Starts tonight. Had a shitty day, but not a totally wasted one.

  69. 69.

    RSA

    @Gravenstone:

    I had the unpleasant temerity to suggest he was selling the skills of his doctors and surgical staff short. I expect to get dogpiled for my insufficient fealty to divinity.

    Good timing.

  71. 71.

    Keith G

    We desperately need more Rosa Parks, but instead of being pictured on a bus, the next Mr. or Ms. Parks will be photographed looking out the window of secure, affordable, long term housing. I do not see how we can have healthy societies/communities if we do not find ways to humanely manage the housing market.

    Lower income folks have lived for decades in urban (often a bit shabby, but very affordable) neighborhoods. Often, but not exclusively, they are people of color, and/or older than average, and/or without personal transportation who are being pushed out of middle density neighborhoods convenient to jobs and bus lines and forced to relocate in high density housing further out from the city center.

  73. 73.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Baud: Eh, don’t worry about it: as I told my doctor, at least I’m not curled up in a ball, unable to leave the house. The seasons changing probably isn’t helping matters; I seem to be prone to that. And shit sucks right now for real.

  74. 74.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    True fact: two of Hamilton and Burr’s descendants go kayaking together in NYC.

    Meanwhile, Jefferson’s “official” descendants were such dicks about allowing the Hemings descendants to join them at the annual reunion that some of them left the “official” Jefferson organization and now have their own reunions that include the Hemings (and other slave descendants).

  76. 76.

    Kathleen

    @lamh36: I love those old pictures. I’ll have to remember the handle so I can visit. Dorm Room 1968 brought back many memories for moi. And Biden’s sons look just like him at that age.

  78. 78.

    sigaba

    @Roger Moore:

    More generally, the idea is that everything should be handled by the lowest level of government that possibly can handle it, with only things that absolutely must be handled at a higher level handled there.

    That’s actually not federalism, that’s “subsidiarity,” which is the constitutional order of the Catholic Church and the EU.

    Subsidiarity can actually be pretty progressive. With subsidiarity you say, “here is the problem, what’s the most local entity that can solve it.” With Federalism you say, “if your problem isn’t on the list of Official Federal Problems, it must be a state problem, and if the state doesn’t want to solve it, government isn’t allowed to fix your problem. So stop asking government to solve the problem, you socialist.”

  79. 79.

    srv

    Trump will win NY:

    United States Attorney Preet Bharara feels emboldened, sources say, following the conviction of former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver — on all of seven corruption charges. Despite lacking a “smoking gun” to constitute an explicit quid pro quo, the jury handed Bharara a sweeping win. Such is the public’s appetite for corrupt politicians, observers say.

    Three sources are confirming that Bharara intends to indict Governor Andrew Cuomo on January 2nd — along with a half dozen associates and former staffers — on public corruption, racketeering, conspiracy, and honest services fraud.

  82. 82.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @sigaba:

    With Federalism you say, “if your problem isn’t on the list of Official Federal Problems, it must be a state problem, and if the state doesn’t want to solve it, government isn’t allowed to fix your problem. So stop asking government to solve the problem, you socialist.”

    Where do you get that interpretation?

  86. 86.

    srv

    @sigaba: She’ll be under indictment by then also.

    Winning:

    More Americans had their backgrounds checked purchasing guns on Black Friday than any day in the on record, according to data released by the FBI this week.

    The National Instant Criminal Background Check System processed 185,345 requests on November 27, one of the largest retail sales days in the country.

  88. 88.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    @sigaba:

    From what I’ve read, the original beef by the Federalist Party was that they thought that the Feds could do things they were not specifically authorized to do by the Constitution. Basically, it was a dispute over how narrowly “necessary and proper” should be interpreted. The Federalists believed in implied powers while the Democratic-Republicans thought the executive branch should be limited to what was laid out in the constitution.

    Note: this is all gleaned from fairly recent reading, so I’m sure someone who’s actually studied this more closely will come along and tell me where I’m wrong.

  90. 90.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @sigaba: Well, you are entirely ignoring the levels of government at the sub-state level. Also, you seem to be casting federalism in a purely negative light. There are jobs that are either too big for a state to do and/or jobs where having each state do them would result in wildly inconsistent results. As a result, only the federal government is appropriate actor.

  91. 91.

    Mandalay

    Finally something good has emerged from the cover up over the execution by a Chicago cop: people are calling for the always self-serving Rahm Emanuel to resign, and any hopes that vile shit stain had for higher office took a severe and well deserved kick in the nuts.

    Go away Emanuel. Just fuck off.

  95. 95.

    sigaba

    @Mnemosyne (iPhone): Yeah, I wasn’t using Federalist in the historical sense, I was using it in the conservative twit sense. Also confusing things is the Federalist Party didn’t necessarily have the same positions as the Federalists (“foederalists”) in the Federalist Papers.

    Though there is a certain, um, process distinction between Federalism and Subsidiarity. Subsidiarity presupposes the mission of the organization, the whole is the plenary authority, and the whole decides what the problems are, and the localities decide the solutions. In “Federalism” states are the plenary authority, and all Federal power derives from state sovereignty and state consent, theoretically.

    (Though I thought we had a whole war that settled this whole issue in the negative, some people insist on the supremacy of states, because they happen to like the legislators in their state.)

  96. 96.

    sigaba

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    you seem to be casting federalism in a purely negative light.

    Only if you think socialism is bad. I’m being glib but “Federalism” today usually means states hold plenary power, they’re the supreme governors and lawmakers, and all power derives from the states. This is a dopey idea but people insist on it.

  97. 97.

    Roger Moore

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Where do you get that interpretation?

    I think that’s a fair rendition of the Republican version of US federalism. They think the federal government has only a narrow list of enumerated powers, with everything else left up to the states. If the states don’t want to- or can’t- handle to problems that aren’t in the list of enumerated powers, tough luck.

  98. 98.

    Baud

    @Roger Moore:

    No one believes the federal government can exceed its enumerated powers (at least in domestic affairs). Disputes center on how strictly or broadly to interpret those powers.

  99. 99.

    Scapegoat

    @Keith G:

    I do not see how we can have healthy societies/communities if we do not find ways to humanely manage the housing market.

    Agreed. All new upscale urban housing development projects should be required by zoning to contain a reasonable percentage of mixed income units.

  100. 100.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Baud:

    No one believes the federal government can exceed its enumerated powers

    I don’t know about “No one”, have you read the Balloon Juice blog?

  101. 101.

    sigaba

    @Roger Moore:

    If the states don’t want to- or can’t- handle to problems that aren’t in the list of enumerated powers, tough luck.

    I would even go further and say Republican “federalists” think that if a problem can’t be handled by the states, it’s a good thing they can’t fix it, that the Founders wanted it that way, and you’re a terrible person for thinking it’a a problem in the first place.

  102. 102.

    Baud

    I’ve clearly old cuz I’ve never heard of Quora

    Hillary Clinton on Tuesday ventured where no 2016 presidential candidate has dared when she went on Q&A service Quora to promote her bid for the White House.

    The Democratic candidate for president joined the popular online forum to answer questions on a variety of hot-button topics, including her stance on the Affordable Care Act, defunding Planned Parenthood and how to make prescription drugs less expensive. The former first lady also discussed how being a grandmother will “make her a better president.”

    Good for all Dems who circumvent the crappy traditional media.

  103. 103.

    sigaba

    @Baud: You mean “can” in the de jure or de facto sense?

    Also I do recognize the enumerated powers of the Constitution, but I’m totally within my rights to think the Constitution is wrong in the enumeration of powers and the US should be reconstituted as a unitary state with proportional representation.

  105. 105.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @sigaba:

    but I’m totally within my rights to think the Constitution is wrong in the enumeration of powers and the US should be reconstituted as a unitary state with proportional representation.

    Good luck with that.

  107. 107.

    Luthe

    @Scapegoat: Ah, but what percentage of those units need to affordable? What is the affordability criteria? Will there be “median income” affordable and “low income” affordable? How long does the affordability restriction last? And what kind of bonus is the developer getting in exchange (there’s a legit takings argument to be made if the developer isn’t getting something in exchange for the rent-restriction)?

    Unfortunately, affordable housing rules are tougher than one would think.

  109. 109.

    debit

    I adopted another dog. Ellie, 9 year old lab mix found as a stray. I don’t know who lets their senior dog wander loose, and then doesn’t bother to look for it. She’s super sweet and well behaved. The cats are pretty sure the world has ended, and Chloe is not wild about the situation, but I’m sure we’ll all cope somehow.

  112. 112.

    Roger Moore

    @Baud:

    No one believes the federal government can exceed its enumerated powers (at least in domestic affairs). Disputes center on how strictly or broadly to interpret those powers.

    Our world is so different from the framers’ that many things they assumed were purely local now have substantial national implications, and other things they never thought about (or didn’t exist as concepts) at all are vitally important. But the constitution is very difficult to amend in practice, so we’ve gotten into the habit of creating new government powers anyway and justifying them with strained readings of some of the enumerated powers. It’s a reasonable, pragmatic solution to a difficult problem, but it leads to the real danger that five nihilists in black robes will blow the whole thing sky high.

  119. 119.

    Roger Moore

    @Luthe:
    What we need more than anything is more housing where people want to live the most. We talk about a housing affordability crisis, but leave big swathes of land close to our city centers zoned for single-family houses with land-use rules that mean much of the lot area will be taken up by yards. If we rezoned to let people build apartments, even low-rise apartments, there, it would do a lot to alleviate the housing shortage.

  120. 120.

    Anne Laurie

    @debit: Mazel tov! Ellie looks like a sweetie, and Chloe… will cope. Give her an extra skritch from me, though (I was an eldest child).

  121. 121.

    seaboogie

    @Baud:

    I need a cool logo for my campaign

    Here ya go:
    1
    Baud! 2016

    Granted, it kind of plays to your base…and of course the “1” should be blue…

  122. 122.

    Patricia Kayden

    Thoroughly enjoyed the link to the Bristol bus boycott. Had never heard of it before. My parents lived in the UK during the 60s (I was born there). Need to ask them about this. Just another reminder that the Civil Rights struggle in the US was so influential.

  123. 123.

    Luthe

    @Roger Moore: Problem with that is rezonings happen on a town-by-town basis. And the bitching and roadblocks involved in getting land rezoned for apartments, much less apartments containing affordable units, is insane. The thinly veiled racism and bleating about the (fictional) influx of children into the schools is pervasive. As a planner, I joke those are the P&Z meeting you want to bring popcorn to, because the crazies will be out in full force.

  124. 124.

    SFAW

    @liberal:

    IIRC moral monster Henry Hyde’s excuse

    You read my “mind.” Interestingly enough, I think Hyde was 42 when he pulled that shit .. uh, I mean “youthful indiscretion.”

  125. 125.

    Scapegoat

    @Luthe:

    Unfortunately, affordable housing rules are tougher than one would think.

    Zoning is tougher than one thinks, too. That does not mean that positive efforts can not be pursued.

    Pruitt-Igoe’s lessons about the dangers of (well-meaning, but) concentrated poverty remain poignant. However, all too few urban renewal/gentrification/development projects have integrated mixed income residential units since then; thus low income families are being pushed out and their support network (read: community) is being dissolved from beneath them.

    Your argument about “taking” is a salient one. In the absence of special approvals/waivers/incentives (which most of these projects have), some type of reimbursement might not be unreasonable.

    In sum, the market alone is not well-suited to preserving economic plurality — an ingredient that many European development efforts have pursued with great success.

  130. 130.

    Luthe

    @Scapegoat: Well, it’s not perfect, but New Jersey has the right idea with its “fair share” laws. Other states have versions of those, too, but not nearly as stringent as NJ.

    Density is vital, but you can’t go from 1 unit/2 acres to 10 units/acre immediately. For one thing, you need a reliable sewer and water infrastructure to support that kind of density. It’s how a lot of suburbs and exurbs keep density low: sewer avoidance. The best way to go is to start out with townhouses and two- or three-family houses (triple deckers and the like) on smaller lots, then push toward apartments.

    There’s also reframing the issue. Right now “affordable housing” = “the welfare queens and drug dealers are coming!” in a lot of people’s minds. The current preferred term is “workforce housing” (with its connotations of hard workers not those lazy bums on welfare /eyeroll).

    The Low Income Housing Tax Credit program works fairly well, but the investments in it tend to be made in urban areas. If more developers would take the credits to the suburbs, progress could be made. Of course, then there is getting past the development hurdles, which make it harder to plan what year to get the tax credits for.

    Honestly, the best thing would be regional housing authorities that could build and maintain their own developments. “Regional” being the key word, since city housing authorities just wind up concentrating affordable housing in one city. Public-private partnerships between developers and housing authorities might be a good idea, especially for scattered-site housing, which costs authorities more to maintain.

    It’s unsustainable to depend on developers to provide affordable housing, even with density bonuses and state laws allowing them to fast-track developments. To keep up with the demand, the government needs to get back in the housing market in a big way.

  131. 131.

    Admiral_Komack

    The custom H is bullshit.
    Rosa Parks sitting in the back.
    Thanks, Hillary…for nothing!
    Idiots!

  132. 132.

    cmorenc

    @Chris:

    I will never understand why the hell some conservatives use the word “Federalist” to describe themselves.

    “Federal” => refers most directly to the Federalist Papers written by Madison, Hamilton, and Jay, which conservatives regard as laying out an architectural vision of government (and the federal government in particular) that is strongly consistent with their vision of the proper role of government (especially the federal government).

  133. 133.

    Mnemosyne (tablet)

    @cmorenc:

    Given that Hamilton was both the majority writer of the Federalist Papers and the guy who came up with concept of implied powers for the executive branch, I have a feeling that conservative “federalists” are about as accurate in their interpretation as the Christians who read the Bible and don’t think they need to help the poor.

  135. 135.

    Fair Economist

    @Roger Moore:
    The Constitution has extremely broad language. Pretty much any action by the federal government can be allowed or disallowed. In Section 8:

    The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States;

    So, anything that contributes to the general welfare is fair game.

    But, in Amendment 10:

    The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

    So anything can be prohibited as well.

    So basically Congress can do anything for the good of the country that doesn’t infringe on people’s rights, with neither the good of the country nor people’s rights being definitely listed. Pretty dang broad.

    Oh, and that idiot Scalia should read Amendment 10 the next time he whines about the Supreme Court recognizing rights not enumerated in the Constitution. Guess it was too hard for him to read that far. Or maybe he can’t remember that much anymore.

  137. 137.

    Scapegoat

    @Luthe:

    Thanks for the response and ideas. I’m an architect and have long been interested in this area (mostly from afar, but worked on some community housing projects years ago).

    Am not aware of NJ’s “fair share” laws and will look into this.

    To keep up with the demand, the government needs to get back in the housing market in a big way.

    Probably true. But highly unlikely unless taxes are raised substantially (which is also highly unlikely). Public/private incentive programs, with blended income requirements, seem much more likely (and quite possibly more effective) for urban areas — especially where gentrification and displacement is a big issue (such as Dumbo).

  138. 138.

    Keith G

    @Luthe: @Scapegoat: Thanks to you both for the conversation that I have been able to scan now that work is done.

    I feel this very important issue often gets overlooked because there is so much to it lurking beneath its surface.

Comments are closed.