So I'm getting really fucking sick of condo developments...

I especially worry about the old produce market area of Oakland's Jack London Square. Here you have this really old, long-standing cool market that has NOTHING to do with a person's status or class, only if you want kohlrabi or endives. But now the area is being surrounded by an increasing number of lame developments, and a City Hall that cares nothing about preserving the character or economic profile of neighborhoods.

Now there's doing the same to West Oakland, which can certainly use SOME kind of cleaning up... but where will the poor people live when the rich folks move in?

http://www.dennytriangle.org/development.htm

The one good thing is that there will be a Whole Foods only a few blocks from my apartment, which I'm greatly looking foward to. It's going into the "Seattle wants their own Columbus Circle" posh hotel/condos/Whole-Foods-in-the-basement Pan Pacific Hotel building complex.

ihttp://www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com/bigmap/brooklyn/fortgreene/williamsburgh/williamsburghnorth.jpg

.. has been bought by developers (which include Magic Johnson), to be turned into condos. The incredible "altar to money" bank space downstairs, with 100-ft. mosaic of "Breukelen" harbor, flying butresses, etc. is rumored to become a restaurant.

And I was thinking -- isn't a restaurant better than a bank? And in some ways it is, I guess. But then I thought about what it would look like if you had a bird's eye blueprint of that place, with socioeconomic information about the people who frequented it mapped onto it in different colors. It would be a whole spectrum of colors getting wiped away.

(st louis has this weird thing where the city is its own thing, it's not part of a county and so when the population fell from everybody going out to the surrounding area, there was just no tax base left)

Anyone on either coast frustrated at what little $750K will buy is directed to Cle, StL, Pittsburgh -- you'll be like a kid in a candy store.

Thermo OTM upthread re: Toronto -- was there this summer for the first time since '01 and was shocked at the proliferation of lakefront high-rises.

San Francisco is much the same. Hunter's Point was never paradise, but now it's a bit scary. In 1996, the Mission and the Tenderloin were rough, and the Tenderloin still is, but Tenderknob is descending, SOMA is spreading west, and Mission and Haight are encroaching east. And now they're talking about modeling the Market part of Tenderloin after Guiliani's Times Square... big HD billboards and lots of shopping.

Usually in New York's history, one neighborhood comes into vogue and another comes out. But neighborhoods aren't going out of vogue anymore. That means that the poor are being pushed out to San Lorenzo and Daly City/SSF, which are like the new New Jersey and the Bronx, really. It's pretty pathetic. If nothing else, it means that commutes are getting longer for the people who can least afford it.

NEIGHBORHOOD MEETING FOR PROPOSED DEVELOPMENT - Hillhurst Square

PURPOSE: To present to the Los Feliz neighbors the proposed mixed use development at 4500 Los Feliz Blvd. and gather community feedback on the project. The development site is currently occupied by Louise's Trattoria and The Derby nightclub and is located at the southwest corner of Hillhurst Ave. and Los Feliz Blvd.

The proposed project consists of eighty condominium units over ground floor retail space. The retail use has potential to be utilized by a speciality market such as Whole Foods or Bristol Farms and a combination of small shops and restaurants along Hillhurst Ave.

two blocks away from me. fucking repulsive.

About two years ago a structure was a victim of arson because a few kids decided it would be a deterrment to building. All that resulted was two more developments going up in the general vicinity due to a drop in taxes.

hey, there are parts of north jersey that are really yuppified and expensive! hoboken rents are as high as anything in manhattan.