Comment 48052

By Fred Street (anonymous) | Posted September 22, 2010 at 06:29:55

I'm sympathetic to big dreams and believe that Landsdale should be treated as more than just a dumping ground for social services (or, conversely, fertile ground for free range gentrification), but as soon you introduce magical thinking as a pillar of your business plan, you're at a disadvantage. Due diligence would have exposed the zoning/licensing fustercluck and perhaps salted the appeal of the property.

I'm not saying that the city is blameless in this, but I do think that the "nobody gets the curative powers of the creative class – so hands off, you ignorant bastards" line is a gross over-simplification on the level of the justifications invoked by teenage pot smokers.

As has been pointed out previously, this is not just Morelli. This is departmental culture, this is city staffers, this is the legal constraints of by-laws. That's a complicated problem to fix. Even if Morelli was making the case for change as vehemently as he could without undergoing hug therapy as a result of some rage volcano episode. Especially when your ward electorate is as economically marginalized and politically apathetic as Ward 3. Bring up Binbrook as a sardonic counterpoint if you will, but those Hamiltonians probably turn out to the polls twice as much.

An uncomfortable truth, 32 days from the swearing-in of the Xerox Administration? The fundamental problems with downtown won't get fixed until downtown business owners and residents become politically invested in the battle. Any guesses as to how much voter turnout will increase for this election – and in what wards?

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