Mega-Development Just Isn't Affordable

by Leigh Graham · 2009-04-23 12:00:00 UTC
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I tried to make this point weeks ago during the Final Four.  If it's not already clear from the speculative bust in our housing market, as vacancies fill new exurban developments with oversized houses, our contemporary trend of large lots, mega-projects and upscale amenities for the newly affluent just isn't sustainable.  And we're all complicit.

I wonder, who asked for a new Yankee Stadium?  Was it the fans?  Was it necessary to spruce up America's pasttime?  (Arguably, that's actually football these days.)  Or did Steinbrenner & Co. just sense (too late) $$ to be made?

Well, joke's on them.  The priciest tickets are going un-sold, costing the team at least $1M per day.  Ha ha, you may think (esp. you Sox fans out there.  Rest easy, we're on top now.)  But not so fast. The average ticket price is up 76%.   Taking me out to the ballgame is no longer an option for many of us.  And not just during this recession.

This kind of luxury upgrading is prevalent all over the place: in housing, at universities, in sports.  Though it's only part of the increased cost of education, the cost of this kind of development aimed at affluent households (and corporations) is passed on to all of us - while we may not all benefit by qualifying or being able to pay the direct cost of getting into these lux dorms or stadiums. (Stadia?)

There's marginal resistance from commenters yesterday to my post about how government development destroyed NOLA.  But the resistance is confused, willing to acknowledge faulty and excessive development projects while at the same time saying we shouldn't blame the government and that somehow the entire city should be deemed unlivable.  That's wrong.  Most of the city, as I mentioned in the OP, is on natural high ground (and the population on the dry "sliver by the river" has grown as a result).  Universities do not need luxury high-rises to provide a good education.  Few of us need 5,000 square feet to live comfortably.  (And few of us will need that cutting edge medical treatment.)  Yet we're all subsidizing these "options", which are really only within reach of the well-to-do and well-connected in our midst.

It's our public and private development decisions that render our housing, neighborhoods and livelihoods unaffordable and unsustainable.  It is our regulatory environment, our zeal for market-based "solutions," and our unshakeable faith that progress = growth that leaves us in these unequal and dire straits.

I can't make this point enough, so I'm sure you'll be hearing from me again on this.

(Photo of the new Yankee Stadium by yogma)

Leigh Graham
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