Doing Gentrification Right
January 22, 2016 11:48 PM   Subscribe

 
I'm pretty sure this is Manhattan, California.
posted by ojemine at 12:14 AM on January 23, 2016


Manhattan Beach, CA.

(Slightly south of LA.)
posted by raihan_ at 12:28 AM on January 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


2.55 Mil (address was in the article, so this is pretty public information).
posted by el io at 1:24 AM on January 23, 2016


The banner and headline are a
Little vague...(runs) but eye-catchy and highly readable. It's a wonderful
if not for only for the the portaits installation thing going on there.

Why I Love Her,” he drove around the country for two years, taking photos of quirky, local attractions.

“I’ve been using nostalgia in my art forever,” he said. “People can relate to that family vacation stuff — driving around in a station wagon in the fifties and sixties.”

Unquote.

My question is this, having only been to California once, is it really full of magic, stories, and fun!
posted by clavdivs at 3:48 AM on January 23, 2016


is it really full of magic, stories, and fun!

Well, it never rains there. But it pours.
posted by Bringer Tom at 5:48 AM on January 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


Great read to start my Saturday, thanks for posting!
posted by JoeXIII007 at 7:54 AM on January 23, 2016


In 1945, Gary’s mother Anita bought the house on 35th Street for $5,400 [$72,000] while Mike was in Guam with the Navy.

“’We just didn’t know how we were going to afford it,’” Gary recalled his mother telling him. His father made $75 [$1,000] a month as a policeman.


The beauty of inflation [like that of the late 1940s, late 1960s through early 1980s] was that it raised the wages while lowering the fixed cost of consumer debt like mortgages.

The Greatest Generation got an immense gift on the whole from the 1970s inflation, which in California they locked away from the taxman via Prop 13, and decided to let their children (Prop 58) and grandchildren (Prop 193) in on the deal.

Back in 2003 I first found out about Henry George's Progress & Poverty, and after skimming its basic message the world became a lot more understandable to me.

Real Estate is a really funky sector of our economy. "Progress and Poverty" indeed.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 9:28 AM on January 23, 2016 [9 favorites]


If you ever find yourself with time to kill in Denver International Airport, Gary Sweeney's America, Why I Love Her is a charming piece of art. Another of DIA's artworks is this mural, explored in great detail by some of our favorite conspiracy theorists.

DIA, now twenty years old, has a lot of cool art because 1% of all of Denver City/County construction project monies have to go to public art.
posted by kozad at 11:14 AM on January 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


That's a cool find. And it's of particular interest to me as it's LA(ish!). Thanks for posting!

But, yeah, MB is pretty posh at this point. At some point all the people who would have lived in places like MB and Venice 40 years ago will be priced out of anything west of West Covina.
posted by persona au gratin at 1:51 PM on January 23, 2016


Prop13 was spawned in hell. I didn't realize they had extended those protections to heirs. Assholes. It's a transfer of wealth from the established and wealthy to those trying to establish their household or business.
posted by persona au gratin at 1:55 PM on January 23, 2016 [3 favorites]


Proposition 13 wasn't spawned in hell, it was made possible by politicians who simply ignored the plight of people whose incomes weren't COLA adjusted facing huge tax increases as inflation moved up the market value of their homes. If those politicians had acted with dispatch, than they would not have exposed themselves to the alliance that passed Prop 13: people of all political stripes, and none, in real fear of losing their homes to out of control property taxes, and conservatives who saw and seized a once-in-a-lifetime tax-control opportunity.

And, it must be said, that 38 years later, the residential property benefits of Prop 13 are enjoyed overwhelmingly by middle class families. Rich people in California trade up in homes like it was going out style, forfeiting their Prop 13 grandfathered tax rates without hesitation. (The COMMERCIAL tax benefits of Prop 13 are another thing altogether.)
posted by MattD at 5:34 PM on January 23, 2016


There was indeed a real problem to be addressed. But the effect of Prop13 was to gut school and university funding, make it impossible to pass a budget, and make it impossible to raise taxes, even when necessary. CA had an amazing public sector until 1978.
posted by persona au gratin at 3:40 AM on January 24, 2016


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