Word has just reached us about a symposium on redevelopment that will be put on by USC Law School on March 8, 2012. There will be lots of speakers on lots of topics. But what we find of particular interest is the squib describing the session on Redevelopment Redux: Brave New World. Maybe we better quote from that one.
“The issue is always money, and how to get your project financed. Until recently, redevelopment agencies could be counted on to make those difficult projects feasible by providing subsidies and tools for site acquisition.”
“Site acquisition.” It has a ring to to it, doesn’t it. Those folks wouldn’t happen to mean “eminent domain,” would they, whereby you get to take the property you want and undercompensate its owners? Sounds that way to us.
So here you have it, folks. From the horse’s mouth. Never mind all that civic-minded stuff about city revitalization. “The issue is always about money.” And so it is, or more accurately in California, and so it was until the legislature abolished redevelopment.