Over the last few weeks the “slippery eel”:http://www.cityofno.com/ has been hard at work demolishing properties that for some reason have escaped HCDRC review.

Here is the demo of the day in MidCity.

While the residents of the City have encouraged active reinvestment in the City, the City itself has encouraged, promoted and provided the means to create active dis-investment.

That house on your block that could have been easily repaired?

Viola!

A soon to be garbage filled lot. Drive by, check it out. Filled with crap.

That adorable double that could have provided housing?

*BOOM*

The house is in the landfill and the vacant lot, a new illegal landfill site.

Just a short drive a way..we have a cute little corner building ready to be renovated and serve the public. Add some value to the Neighborhood.

Oh no..it is gone

Thanks for the photo “Editor B”:http://b.rox.com/
In the meantime these properties owned by HANO are left standing.

Brace yourself

While they continue to try and “demolish these.”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuQv4eAsvGE Cause you know what kind of “people lived there”:http://g-bitch.com/?p=385, don’t you? “It’s true!”:http://wecouldbefamous.blogspot.com/2007/12/entirely-unrelated-housing-news.html

What we have here is a “fetish”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_Fetish

High density and concentrated poverty is the problem. If we just reduce the number of units by redeveloping them, spreading them out, and building mixed income or mixed use buildings we can revitalize these communities.

This statement illustrates what social scientists call a spatial fetish. A spatial fetish is a theory or belief that claims poverty, crime, delinquency, or other social ills are caused by poor urban planning, residential density and crowding, or general urban environment. It is a fetish because it draws attention away from the real causes of poverty. It is appealing because it proposes simple solutions that involve mostly the redevelopment of urban space without the need to address issues of racism or social justice.

Thanks “Dedra”:http://dedraj.blogspot.com/

Maybe stick some “FEMA trailers”:http://current.com/items/88036491_2_yrs_in_a_fema_trailer on those lots.

So here we are letting “market forces”:http://blog.nola.com/chrisrose/2007/09/mayor_incomplete_if_ray_nagins.html do the job, and right now the market force is demolition. Let’s face it, it is easy..not “cheap”:http://www.durrhc.com/, so a fair number of folks are making a “nice profit”:http://www.geeceecorp.com/projects.php off it. And it sounds like “progress”:http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/index.ssf?/base/news-0/119320435487180.xml&coll=1 to our Mayor. But it sounds like, looks like and feels like despair to those of us who do not live on “Park”:http://www.bestofneworleans.com/dispatch/2001-07-31/blake.html “Island”:http://www.nola.com/speced/dubiousvalue/index.ssf?/speced/dubiousvalue/politicians040404.html