All We Need to Do: Call BS

Ben Brown calls BS on a number of city planning and gentrification points.

1 minute read

May 25, 2017, 12:00 PM PDT

By Hazel Borys


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HipKat / Shutterstock

"Chuck Marohn was in my town last week with his better-than-ever demonstration of the lies we tell ourselves about infrastructure finance."

"Chuck’s message and that of Joe Minicozzi prod us to get our arms around the math. And that’s a crucial message. But, jeez, our problem is way bigger. Thanks to the never-ending hangover from the 2016 campaign, we’re picking our way through fake news and alternative facts, hoping to salvage a morsel of hope that not everybody everywhere is bullshitting us about just about everything just about all the time."

Ben Brown points out classes on BS are being taught from university to kindergarten, and then calls BS on topics related to transportation and land use planning:

"If our roads are congested, all we have to do is add more lanes. If housing prices and rents soar beyond wage growth, all we have to do is bring the hammer down on developers to build what most folks can afford or build nothing at all. If well-heeled investors are gentrifying old neighborhoods, all we have to do is make it harder for them to disrupt places that should be preserved exactly as they are."

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