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Date Fairness.com Resource Read it at:
Mar 15, 2012 A Meter So Expensive, It Creates Parking Spots

QUOTE: ...San Francisco is trying to shorten the hunt with an ambitious experiment that aims to make sure that there is always at least one empty parking spot available on every block that has meters. The program, which uses new technology and the law of supply and demand, raises the price of parking on the city’s most crowded blocks and lowers it on its emptiest blocks....acknowledged that the program was “complicated on the social equity level.”

 New York Times
Apr 16, 2010 Put Vendors in Their Place

QUOTE: An army of book sellers set up tables along Fifth Avenue, blocking the sidewalks, collecting no sales tax and paying no property tax, and in some instances selling stolen goods. My concern for a poet’s right to sell his poems by hand (the regulations wouldn’t limit artists who roam with their works) was never meant to encompass commercial vendors appropriating the public right of way for private business use.

 New York Times
Nov 29, 2008 Preservationists See Bulldozers Charging Through a Loophole

QUOTE: The strategy has become wearyingly familiar to preservationists. A property owner — in this case Sylgar Properties, which was under contract to sell the site to Related — is notified by the landmarks commission that its building or the neighborhood is being considered for landmark status. The owner then rushes to obtain a demolition or stripping permit from the city’s Department of Buildings so that notable qualities can be removed, rendering the structure unworthy of protection.

 New York Times
Dec 28, 2007 Art Attack: Public installations have been raising hackles ever since that pesky Parthenon went up in Greece. Next up: a controversial sculpture is set to rise from the ashes in Phoenix.

QUOTE: public art...if you think people are arguing over how these artworks actually look or what they represent, think again. In most cases what puts people in a tizzy is location, funding, durability, safety, effect on property values, traffic patterns and other unsexy logistical issues, says Bob Lynch, president and CEO of Americans for the Arts...

 Newsweek
Jul 25, 2007 The numbered days of the solo commute: Proposed congestion taxes could make driving alone a luxury of the past.

QUOTE: New York's Mayor Michael Bloomberg proposed a congestion tax of $8 on cars and $21 on trucks going into Midtown Manhattan. Last month a Chicago alderman floated a similar idea..... the rich will be unaffected, while average drivers will be forced to find other ways to get to work.

 Christian Science Monitor
Mar 05, 2007 With 'affordable housing' buildings for sale, tenants worry: The US blocked the sale of Brooklyn's Starrett City complex until the buyers can prove it will stay affordable.

QUOTE: The record prices investors are now willing to pay are generating fears that new owners may raise rents in places like Starrett City to help pay for them. If that happens, many working and middle-class families who have made Starrett City home since it opened in the 1970s may not be able to afford it.

 Christian Science Monitor
Jul 19, 2006 Study Documents ‘Ghetto Tax’ Being Paid by the Urban Poor

QUOTE: poor urban residents frequently pay hundreds if not thousands of dollars a year in extra costs for everyday necessities...some of the disparities were due to real differences in the cost of doing business in poor areas, some to predatory financial practices and some to consumer ignorance.

 New York Times
Jan 09, 2006 Urban Colleges Learn to Be Good Neighbors: Universities Also Reap Benefits From Investing in Their Communities

QUOTE: Ten years ago, the University of Pennsylvania was under siege....The university and private developers have invested about a billion dollars over the past decade in security, retail, schools, the local housing market and what Penn refers to as "economic inclusion" -- making sure the community and minority companies get a piece of the success.

 Washington Post
Jan 08, 2006 Plan Would Open All New Orleans for Rebuilding

QUOTE: ...recommend that residents be allowed to return and rebuild anywhere they like, no matter how damaged or vulnerable the neighborhood....Many residents of low-lying neighborhoods like the Lower Ninth Ward and New Orleans East have said they are determined to rebuild their ravaged blocks, while some experts have argued that such areas are better returned to marshland for safety and economic reasons.

 New York Times
Dec 17, 2005 Medical Care: Dispute Over Historic Hospital for the Poor Pits Doctors Against the State

QUOTE: The state officials who manage Charity say Hurricane Katrina dealt this Huey Long-era landmark a deathblow and want it torn down....But doctors who work there sharply disagree with that plan. They say Louisiana officials are using the storm as an excuse to achieve the state's long-sought goal of demolishing Charity, getting millions in federal dollars to build a new hospital, and then moving away from a promise that has long been made to the city's poor.

 New York Times
Apr 20, 2005 Studies: Gentrification a boost for everyone

QUOTE: Everyone knows gentrification uproots the urban poor with higher rents, higher taxes and $4 lattes. But everyone may be wrong...

 USA TODAY
Apr 13, 2005 Battle Flag of the Pedestrians: Orange Banner Is the Latest Weapon in the Conflict Between Walker and Driver

QUOTE: The flags let pedestrians assert their rights. This is fine, as long as walkers remember that might is not on their side.

 Washington Post
Apr 13, 2005 Security Spending Initiates Disputes: Lawmakers to Debate How to Split Funds Among States, Cities

QUOTE: Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, legislators from rural and sparsely populated areas have succeeded in arguing that their states should be guaranteed some portion of the money. But elected officials from states such as New York, as well as the Bush administration, have long argued that funds should be apportioned according to the terrorism risk.

 Washington Post
Jan 28, 2005 The De Soto Delusion: Peruvian Economist Hernando de Soto's ideas for helping the poor have made him a global celebrity. Now, if only those ideas worked.

QUOTE: It turns out that titling is more useful to elite and middle-income groups who can afford to bother with financial leverage, risk, and real estate markets. For very poor squatters in the inner city—who care most about day-to-day survival, direct access to livelihood, and keeping costs down—titles make comparatively little sense.

 Slate
Jun 04, 2003 Still flawed: City delays power program after activists note it favors downtown without guaranteeing Hunters Point plant closure

QUOTE: ...neighborhood representatives...deemed the program 'another instance of illegal discrimination and environmental injustice...'

 San Francisco Bay Guardian (SFBG)
Jan 24, 2003 Suit Says Chicago Housing Renewal Plan Perpetuates Segregation

QUOTE: A lawsuit was filed against the Chicago Housing Authority today on behalf of thousands of public housing residents who say they were steered to mostly black, high-crime and impoverished neighborhoods...

 New York Times
Jan 21, 2003 Sony Probed For Booting Homeless

QUOTE: The Sony Center has willfully, repeatedly and adroitly circumvented the civil rights of the poor and homeless...illegally tossing homeless people out of the indoor public plaza at its Madison Avenue headquarters.

 New York Post
Oct 12, 2002 In New Orleans, a Quarter and Change: Benches' Removal Brings Battle Over The City's Identity

QUOTE: These benches weren't just benches: They were sleeping accommodation for the Quarter's large homeless population, among other things, and their removal has created an uproar in New Orleans.

 Washington Post
Aug 20, 2002 Once Vilified, Squatters Will Inherit 11 Buildings

QUOTE: The Bloomberg administration has quietly turned over 11 buildings in Manhattan to a nonprofit developer, which will give the buildings to people who have squatted in them for years, city officials said yesterday.

 New York Times
Aug 16, 2002 Cuts Anger Annapolis Community

QUOTE: The residents of the last bastion of public housing in downtown Annapolis were offered a waterfront neighborhood with quaint brick townhouses and tree-lined streets. Now it's been pulled away.

 Washington Post
Jul 12, 2002 Pricing the Fast Lane

QUOTE: The solution to gridlock is to give drivers a financial incentive not to drive during peak traffic hours.

 Washington Post