10 minutes ago, a co-worker of mine told me that a man jumped from the parking garage across from the Texaco - Chevron Heritage building here in downtown Houston. I went to the fourth floor and looked out the north window of my building and beheld the scene from a birds eye view. The police have about half the block taped off with yellow tape. Several officers were standing around the body, with some onlookers gathering. I don't have my digital camera with me.
Some contractors who work on our elevators witnessed the guy jump. One wonders what made the man give up all hope on living and go over the edge.
Sigh...
Wizard
One of the arguments that people who believe that Houston must have a zoning ordinance is that zoning will allow them to retain the character and flavor of their neighborhoods. Zoning will allow citizens to keep out McMansions and other inappropriate development, zoning will allow residents to control their own destiny, and zoning will enable the urban planners to use their supposed expertise to guide the destiny of a city.
Well, well, well, if gentle readers fervently believe all of this, then I have a story for you, courtesy of the Chicago Tribune. Better yet, this story is only one of a series of stories that the Tribune has written on the subject of zoning and land use in Chicago. I have yet to make my way through all of the stories, but based on my early readings, they will make for days of entertainment.
Some gentle readers will try to point that the real issue in these stories is that there was a housing bust that resulted from altering the zoning codes, but that is a red herring. The real story is that zoning does not do what zoning advocates say it does. Not only that, but since land use is far more greatly politicized via the enactment of a zoning ordinance, it creates an environment where politicians can extract economic rents, personal favors, and possibly personally get rich via changing ordinances for developers command large campaign contributions for getting elected and releected.
From the story above:
NEIGHBORHOODS FOR SALE: PART 8
House of cards emerges in zoning-change game
TRIBUNE ANALYSIS: Market collapse is aggravated by system where aldermen benefit from campaign donations from developers
Mayor Richard Daley has maintained the tradition of letting aldermen have the final say over what gets built in their wards. Almost half of the zoning changes approved by the council members are done despite opposition from City Hall's own planning staff.
In case after case, aldermen ignored neighbors' complaints as well as planners' warnings that proposed projects would be too dense or would not be consistent with the character of the neighborhoods.
On Harlem Avenue in the 36th Ward, a developer who has given the alderman $3,000 used a zoning change to put up a five-story condo complex despite objections from neighbors. Now the builder is trying to entice potential buyers by offering a year without condo association assessments.
A federal probe that dates to at least 2007 has expanded to include interest in a 2004 letter to Daley from U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Chicago). Gutierrez lobbied the mayor on behalf of a zoning change for a developer who lent him $200,000 for a separate real estate deal. The congressman said he did nothing improper.
So the Congressman didn't do anything improper? Really?
Continued...
The real zoning code in Chicago is unwritten, but developers know it well: Changes in zoning go hand in hand with contributions to aldermanic campaigns.
The investigation found that Chicago is a city where a building boom greased by millions of dollars in political donations to aldermen has remade the face of neighborhoods, changing the feel of the streets where people live and work.
It's a city where aldermen have become dependent on the political contributions they rake in from developers, while routinely ignoring city planners who oppose out-of-scale development.
It's a city where the council rubber stamps aldermen's wishes -- rejecting just 15 requested zoning changes in a decade -- and where almost half the zoning changes were concentrated in 10 of the city's 50 wards that are exploding with growth.
And it's a city where advisory groups that review zoning proposals are sometimes stacked with developers and real estate agents who will profit from the projects.
This practice of "aldermanic prerogative" creates a political spoils system where cash and clout trump the public planning process employed in many other major American cities. The result is a patchwork approach to development, where the fate of any zoning change is decided long before it is ever discussed publicly by the council's Zoning Committee.
The decisions made in ward offices and rubber stamped in City Hall are driving the transformation of Chicago, making neighborhoods unrecognizable to people who have tended their homes and yards there for decades.
Although she's no city planner, Alice Sopala poses the same question planners ask. "Why bother zoning an area if you will totally disregard it whenever the alderman says it's OK?" she said.
...
"Zoning in Chicago is driven by real estate developers," said Ryan, a former New York city planner. "There really isn't any plan in Chicago. You have very few neighborhoods that are safe from overdevelopment."
Of course, one may ask what is meant by the term overdevelopment. Read the rest and weep. One of the benefits of the non-zoned real estate market in Houston is that residents and developers do not have to face the threat of having rents extracted from them from City Council members. One secret that politicians know that the public does not is that there are economies of scale to be reaped from indulging in corruption. Just ask Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich.
Lastly, as noted in my previous blog posting, my parent's neighborhood in Spring Branch has been undergoing redevelopment over the past 4 years. Nobody there has been complaining about the neighborhood going upscale or complaining that the neighborhood is loosing its character. Meanwhile, the fact that the neighborhood is going upscale means that the City and County are raking in more in property taxes. That is a true marketplace in action.
And by the way, I really am a nice guy, ergo have a Happy New Year!
Wizard