CommentsCORRUPTION WATCH-At one time they were all the rage. They were going to transform America from a horrid land with suburbs and SUVs into the modern world of 100 story sky scrapers amidst flying cars and cubicle size apartments.
Developers drunk on delusions of vast profits from mega-high rises served only by subways and trolleys after the demise of evil automobile spent millions of dollars to buy up parcels of land for their grandiose projects while buying up hordes of sycophantic politicos.
Then something dastardly happened. Reality! As the most recent publication of the Center for Opportunity Urbanism published in its recent, “The Millennial Dilemma: A Generation Searches for Home…On their Terms,” by Anne Snyder and Alicia Kurimska,
documents, Millennials love SVUs and detached homes away from the urban core. As many demographers had been attempting to explain for years, once adolescents out-grow the dorm room phase of life, they have no need or desire to live in tiny crammed apartments.
Now British scientists have come forward to support the underlying physiology and psychology of Millennials. Adolescence does not end at 19, but rather at 24, which is at about the same time that Millennials abandon the dorm room lifestyle and their brains mature into adulthood.
Who Pays for the Folly of LA Developers?
The developers have been played for fools, perhaps none more than Target Corporation. Over a decade ago, Target wanted to open a Hollywood store and the zoning and specific plan for the location were both fine with Target; the people in Hollywood wanted their own Target. But then councilmember Garcetti wanted to bust the Specific Plan, known as SNAP, insisting that Target build an illegal store so that SNAP would be “busted,” making its height and density parameters worthless. Never mind that SNAP is the city’s newest Specific Plan. Both SNAP and Garcetti’s election were in March 2001. Garcetti declared it obsolete. It was holding back progress. Thanks to Garcetti. Target is now in its tenth year of litigation and Hollywood has no Target Store – all because Garcetti demanded an illegal store. By the time it is over, Target will probably have lost $1 billion by listening to him.
There are a host of other developers, however, who were also sold a bill of goods by Garcetti. Their problems do not involve citizens who believe in the rule of law, but rather, these developers are under siege by a more ruthless foe – the economics of reality.
Who Wins Between Fatally Flawed Data and the Economics of Reality?
As CityWatch leaders know, Garcetti was feeding everyone a steady diet of fatally flawed data and wishful thinking in order to turn Hollywood into Manhattan. None of the population data supported Garcetti. The transportation data did not support him, the financial data did not support him, and the demographics did not support him, so Garcetti lied.
Millennials, it turns out, don’t buy the foolishness that Garcetti fed the developers that caused them to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into Transit Oriented Districts (TODs). Family Millennials do not want these horrible apartments. As their brains mature, they realize that their future does not rest in a Black Lung Loft near the Hollywood Freeway.
According to Snyder and Kurimska, it takes 32 years of savings to afford to buy in Los Angeles, which is why LA has the lowest Millennial homeownership rate. Most of those who have purchased a home are white and had help from their parents. Thus, Los Angeles is especially bad for non-white Millennials to ever gain any equity. It takes a blind True Believer in Manhattanization not to realize that people will not rent exorbitantly expensive apartments and wait 32 years to buy their first home. Really! The developers are so deluded by their own BS that they think the average Millennial will wait until he or she is 57 before buying a home.
Into this Insanity Comes SB 827
State Senator Scott Weiner (D-San Francisco) believes that he can force Millennials to live in his multi-storied cramp apartments by destroying what is left of Los Angeles’ single-family neighborhoods. That is the basic thrust of his absurd SB 827 – any place within a ½ mile of a subway or major bus route must allow developers to construct massive mega-projects in the middle of single family neighborhoods.
Weiner, Weiner, Weiner…really? Would you solve a kosher brisket beef storage problem by opening a ‘Pork Is US’ meat market in the middle of a Haredim community? Millennials will not rent these ferkata apartments. They are already moving to Austin and other places east of LA.
LA is Sinking
Garcetti’s absurd lies have already dragged Los Angles down to #61 on the Milken List of (best) cities. When LA is at #61, the word “best” does not apply. Garcetti’s years of lies have given us the highest homeless population, the world’s worst traffic congestion, and unsustainable income to housing ratio (9.5), a decaying infrastructure, and the city is insolvent – again.
Where have all the Millennials gone, long time passing? Try Port St. Lucie, FL; Austin, Texas; Nashville, Oklahoma City, Cape Coral, FL; Corpus Christi, TX; Cedar Rapids, IA. When Angelenos move to the snow belt to find a better life, then you know things are really bad in LA.
All the political and developer hubris on the planet cannot stop LA’s brain drain as the Family Millennials move away at an ever-faster clip.
(Richard Lee Abrams is a Los Angeles attorney and a CityWatch contributor. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Abrams views are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.
