Will Doig believes that the choice of Tampa for the Republican National Convention is no coincidence: sprawling and practically devoid of public spaces or pedestrian facilities, it is a monument to not investing in the future.
Writing for Salon, Will Doig considers how Tampa's rejection of public investment in things like light rail and densification is emblematic of the GOP's world view.
"Tampa [suffers from] a toxic combination of hostility toward government, revenue and collectively used amenities. What's the matter with Tampa? The Republican conventioneers will get to see for themselves when they arrive. Except that some of them will be staying up to 90 miles away from the convention venue. "Tampa's reeeally spread out," the host of the Politico discussion observed to Mayor Buckhorn. That it is. And because of this, the city has chartered over 400 buses to move the convention visitors around while they're there. It's an inconvenient, makeshift, make-do solution - the kind that's necessary when you don't plan and don't invest - and a cautionary tale for America at large should a Romney-Ryan ticket reach the White House."
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