Straight from Dirty Coast

More on the import of yesterday's public housing follies (with pictures!) and on the negatively charged extremist posters over at We Could Be Famous. I, for one, am quite grateful for the Saints' win last night, as a picture from that game trumped a picture of one of the condo-for-projects posters on the front page this morning. Geaux Saints! For a hoot of a reaction to those pesky posters, check Clay's post, too (thanks, Jeffrey). Hee!

I went to the meetings yesterday largely because of a book I've discussed once before. We are in the middle of a strange case of corruption and long-time resistance to what the rest of the nation is doing coming back on us, with a largely displaced and dispersed disaster diaspora paving the way for the "everybody's been doin' it" approach to tearing down public housing. It is fueled by a nifty government agency and its labyrinthine machinations that affect us each and every year, to the point where we must rely on software or accountants to make that April 15th deadline for filing our taxes and doing so in a way that doesn't have auditors knocking down our doors:

Contractors might not have had the United States tax code lying around on their nightstands, but beginning in the 1950s, they could have told you something was afoot just by looking at the shoddy buildings they were bulldozing. It all circled around how the Internal Revenue Service handled depreciation, or tax deductions taken to account for an aging structure....prior to World War II, most buildings were granted a forty-year useful life. An owner could depreciate them on a tax return at 2.5 percent each year, allowed as a "set-aside charge in anticipation of ultimate replacement." But pushed by aggressive building industry lobbyists, in the 1950s, the IRS let owners of new commercial buildings ramp up depreciation and grab hefty tax deductions early in a project's life. If a new project was financed 90 percent by loans, for example, an investor in the 70 percent tax bracket who plunked down $100,000 could make back $77,000 - before a backhoe even touched the ground. "Buildings that are intended to be written off quickly need not be durable," the authors dryly noted. "They need only function efficiently for the short run before capital gains are taken, and the cycle of tax incentives repeated elsewhere. Tax laws and related accounting procedures have not engendered permanency in the American landscape." Yes, folks, it's creative destruction at its finest, and a boon to those who ride the wrecking ball.

Sometimes, of course, the cycle gets a little too amped up for even wreckers to keep under control. What with so many flimsy facades to crunch up, one starts blurring into another, and soon enough the Associated Press gets ahold of a juicy story like this: "A couple was at their dinner table when a bulldozer rumbled into their home and tore their ceiling down. The bulldozer operator had the wrong address, officials said."*

Huh. It would be nice if it were that easy. Let's just give the demolition contractors the address of the projects at 1300 Perdido Street and see how far they get, just for kicks. However, I'd hate to see our current city leadership profiting off the tax deductions if the bulldozers did a significant amount of damage to City Hall - even if, architecturally, it has the aesthetic of a massive cereal box on its side.

At any rate, man-made disaster is bringing on this city a fate that has been fifty-plus years in the making. The projects didn't work because they were designed and run as holding tanks for the poor. It is indeed folly to turn back time and have them continue as they were. However, there is still little or no effort being made to obligate the developers to work hand in hand with the people who live here, or who lived here over two years ago and just want to come home.

As Mominem said in a comment on Sheckrastos' two cents on the whole housing debacle:

"My solution is save families not buildings.... If people need help with housing we should help them."

Yep.

*from Jeff Byles' Rubble: Unearthing The History Of Demolition

___________________

Oh, and today's my birthday.

Shameless plug: Yesterday, this little item about David Naccari's Rouxminations album was in da paper. It's great. Plus, I sing on it. If you're looking for a good hollerday gift, high-tail it over to the Louisiana Music Factory when it comes in and get it. It'll give Dave back some much-needed vacation money that was spent on recording sessions in a homemade studio in Gretna.

Not that any of the stuff I just mentioned about myself should influence your consumer choices in any way...