... Here in Mesa, AZ we have a history of the use of this: Site 17 is just one (still an empty vacant eyesore) and Temple Court on Hibbert Street that had a happy outcome as the Mesa ArtSpace Lofts.
Note: the word BLIGHT and the explanation > that resonates today with Mesa's RDAs and the use of GPLETS
Published on Aug 23, 2019
Views: 74,800
Resources:
A. Pritchett, W. E. (2003). The public menace of blight: Urban renewal and the private uses of eminent domain. Yale Law Policy Review, 21(1), 1-52.
B. Dreier, Peter, "Bonston's West End: 35 years after the bulldozer" (1995). UEP Faculty & UEPI Staff Scholarship. https://scholar.oxy.edu/uep_faculty/682
C. Frieden, B. J., & Sagalyn, L. B. (1991). Downtown, inc: How America rebuilds cities. MIT press.
D. Marc Fried & Peggy Gleicher (1961) Some Sources of Residential Satisfaction in an Urban Slum, Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 27:4, 305-315, DOI: 10.1080/01944366108978363
Tuesday, September 03, 2019
The chart that predicts recessions
Published on Sep 3, 2019
Views: 419,000+
A chart called the "yield curve" has predicted every US recession over the last 50 years.
Now it might be saying another one is coming.
We visualized the yield curve over the past four decades, to show why it's so good at predicting recessions, and what it actually means when the curve changes.
Subscribe to our channel! http://goo.gl/0bsAjO
Economic experts are starting to warn that a US recession is becoming more likely because of something called the "yield curve."
So what's the yield curve?
What does it show?
And why is it bad if it "inverts?" We visualized the yield curve over the past four decades, to show why it's so good at predicting recessions, and what it actually means when the curve changes.
Read more about the yield curve:
* Vox's Matt Yglesias has an explainer: https://www.vox.com/2019/8/14/2080540...
* Here's how the man who discovered this trend, Campbell Harvey, describes the phenomenon: https://www.forbes.com/sites/carmineg...
* The New York Times explains it .... with a football analogy: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/15/up...
* We used data from the Federal Reserve to make these charts. Here's the yield curve data day-to-day: https://www.treasury.gov/resource-cen...
* And if you really want to dig into historical data, use this tool: https://www.federalreserve.gov/datado...
Vox.com is a news website that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines. Check out http://www.vox.com.
Watch our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/IZONyE
Follow Vox on Facebook: http://goo.gl/U2g06o
Or Twitter: http://goo.gl/XFrZ5H
Now it might be saying another one is coming.
We visualized the yield curve over the past four decades, to show why it's so good at predicting recessions, and what it actually means when the curve changes.
Subscribe to our channel! http://goo.gl/0bsAjO
Economic experts are starting to warn that a US recession is becoming more likely because of something called the "yield curve."
So what's the yield curve?
What does it show?
And why is it bad if it "inverts?" We visualized the yield curve over the past four decades, to show why it's so good at predicting recessions, and what it actually means when the curve changes.
Read more about the yield curve:
* Vox's Matt Yglesias has an explainer: https://www.vox.com/2019/8/14/2080540...
* Here's how the man who discovered this trend, Campbell Harvey, describes the phenomenon: https://www.forbes.com/sites/carmineg...
* The New York Times explains it .... with a football analogy: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/15/up...
* We used data from the Federal Reserve to make these charts. Here's the yield curve data day-to-day: https://www.treasury.gov/resource-cen...
* And if you really want to dig into historical data, use this tool: https://www.federalreserve.gov/datado...
Vox.com is a news website that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines. Check out http://www.vox.com.
Watch our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/IZONyE
Follow Vox on Facebook: http://goo.gl/U2g06o
Or Twitter: http://goo.gl/XFrZ5H
Monday, September 02, 2019
Happy Labor Day > Right-To-Work Laws vs Basic Demands For Human Freedom & Dignity
Unbreakable human solidarity is what we need, and mass strikes are the strategy to get it.
WHAT WORKS > Massive strikes, lots of them, in strategic industries—13 of the 16 strikes involving 1,000 or more workers so far in 2019 have been in education or health care, jobs that can’t be easily shipped to another country—and geopolitically strategic states. What clearly won’t work are more endless debates about legislative policy.
To force corporations and the political elite to the negotiating table to reverse income inequality requires workers—and their families, friends, and communities—to create a crisis for capital serious enough to end in a labor win. This isn’t complicated—but it is hard and involves risk.
READ MORE > The Nation: Unbroken Human Solidarity
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RELATED CONTENT:
Here are the states that treat workers the best —
and the worst
Guess which states ban businesses from silencing employees who discuss their salaries.
"Workers in Arizona have the right to paid sick leave. Breastfeeding mothers in Oregon get time to pump milk at work.
(The index has three dimensions: Wage policies, worker protection policies, and right to organize policies. This map illustrates the combined scores.)_________________________________________________________________________
Arizona ranks #21 Arizona ranks #21 overall
#4 for wage policies
#19 for worker protection policieS
#41 for rights to organize.
In Arizona, the minimum wage is $11.00.
How does Arizona score in the policy areas?
Wage policies ranking: #4
- The minimum wage is $11.00
This is 42.7 percent of the living wage for a family of four ($25.79). - Localities in Arizona have the capacity to raise the local minimum wage if they choose.
Worker Protection policies ranking: #19
Arizona:
- Does not provide accommodations for pregnant workers.
- Does not offer protections for workplace breastfeeding.
- Does mandate equal pay across gender and race.
- Does not prohibit pay secrecy practices in the workplace.
- Does not restrict access to salary history to reduce gender and racial bias.
- Does not mandate job protected leave for non-FMLA workers.
- Does not mandate job protected leave longer than is required by FMLA.
- Does not provide some form of paid family leave.
- Does provide some form of paid sick leave.
- Does not provide flexible scheduling of worker shifts.
- Does not mandate pay reporting or ‘call-in’ pay by employers.
- Does not provide split shift pay regulation.
- Does not provide workers advanced notice of shift scheduling.
- Does provide some form of sexual harassment protection in state law.
Right to organize policies ranking: #41*
Arizona:
- Does have a so-called “Right-to-Work” law (which suppresses unions).
- Does not provide both collective bargaining and wage negotiations to teachers.
- Does provide both collective bargaining and wage negotiations to police officers.
- Does provide both collective bargaining and wage negotiations to firefighters.
- Does not fully legalize project labor agreements to ensure a fair wage to workers on contract.
* 21 states tie for #1.
How does Arizona compare to other states in the region?
Arizona is ranked first in the nation. It leads the nation with laws aimed to improve compensation and conditions in the workplace.
Arizona is ranked last in the nation in compensation, worker protections, and rights to organize.
Arizona is ranked first in the Southwest region. It leads the region with laws aimed to improve compensation and conditions in the workplace.
Arizona is ranked last in the Southwest region. It falls behind the region in compensation and conditions in the workplace.
Arizona and New Mexico rank closely in the labor index.
New Mexico leads the Southwest region through worker protections and livable wages. It has a minimum wage of $7.50 per hour, 29.7 percent of what it takes a family of four to live in the state. In Arizona, the minimum wage is $11.00, 42.7 percent of the livable wage for a working family.
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In New York, employers must give workers two weeks notice of their schedule.
While Congress may not be accomplishing much these days in regards to labor laws, dozens of state legislatures have been super-busy in the past few years giving workers more rights than ever before.
A new report from Oxfam America, an anti-poverty group, analyzed labor policies in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, ranking the best to worst places to work in 2019. Surprisingly, not all the best places to work are liberal states (though a lot of them are there). The states with the worst labor practices, however, are mostly in the South.
Oxfam researchers ranked states by evaluating policies on wages, worker protections, and union rights. . . .
It also notes whether or not state law allows cities and counties to pass their own minimum wage increases; takes into account policies that protect workers from abuse and exploitation, especially women and working parents; and looks at how easy it is for workers in a certain state to form labor unions. Unsurprisingly, Republican-controlled states that have passed right-to-work laws to weaken labor unions fell toward the bottom of the list.
Better work conditions is more than a labor issue, too. Oxfam researchers found a link between states with strong labor laws and states with higher life expectancy, median income, and labor force participation as well as lower poverty and infant mortality rates.
READ MORE > https://www.vox.com/2019/8/30
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Groups vow to push ‘right to work’ in other states
". . . National unions, . . consider the laws a direct attack on their finances and political clout at a time when labor influence is already greatly diminished.
In addition, few Republican governors who could enact such legislation seem eager to bring the fight to their states.
“There is not much of a movement to do it,” Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett told a Philadelphia radio station this week, according to the Associated Press. His lack of enthusiasm was shared by two other governors who have battled with unions, Wisconsin’s Scott Walker and Ohio’s John Kasich.
Right-to-work measures like the one Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) signed Tuesday allow workers to opt out of paying union dues. Advocates say the laws, now in force in 24 states, offer employees greater freedom and make states more competitive in attracting jobs.
Did You Know Rents Are Sky-Rocketing Here In Mesa?
This is a story sideline from an article about Chicago ...
How did Mesa get a mention and why?
In Chiucago rent increases are getting blamed on increases in primary property taxes.
Mesa has no primary property tax - so what's the story here?
That particular story has been covered here on this blog in many posts - use the search box on this page to see them all.
Huge apartment rent increases forecast for Chicago but have not yet hit
Like death and taxes, there is one other inevitability in life – apartment rent increases.
1-Sep-19 – With the battering ram of real estate tax increases hammering away at Chicago apartment owners this year, experts are wondering how much longer “Ma and Pa” landlords can compete with downtown luxury rental developments and stay in business.
Skyrocketing tax assessments on homes, condominiums, and small apartment buildings in 2018 led to dramatic increases in real estate tax bills payable in 2019 for hundreds of thousands of property owners on Chicago’s North Side and Northwest Side.
Outgoing Cook County Assessor Joseph Berrios raised the estimated fair market value of some properties from 30 percent to more than 140 percent in North and Northwest Side neighborhoods. This comes as a parting shot from Berrios after he lost his re-election campaign to challenger Fritz Kaegi, the newly elected assessor.
In 2018, the entire city of Chicago was reassessed. The sharply higher assessed valuations sparked mind-bending real estate tax hikes when bills arrived this month
Currently, median rents in Chicago stand at $1,095 a month for a one-bedroom unit and $1,288 for a two-bedroom layout. Experts say renters should brace themselves for hefty rent hikes on new leases offered by landlords in spring of 2020.
Meanwhile, rents are skyrocketing more than 4.5 percent in Henderson, Nevada, and Mesa, Arizona, and more than three percent in Austin, Texas; Phoenix, Arizona; and Raleigh, North CarolinaSource: https://www.loopnorth.com/news/rent0901.htm
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Will Mesa Multifamily Activity Trigger New Development?
The strong investment activity in Mesa last quarter will likely be the catalyst for new development.
Mesa Police Department Makes Headlines Again
Mesa PD suspends reserve officer program, former member claims retaliation a factor
MESA, AZ (3TV/CBS 5) -- The Mesa Police Department says it has suspended its reserve officer program as it looks to make improvements to serve the agency and the community better. One former reserve officer believes the move was made, in part, to retaliate against him.
Retired Mesa Police Sgt. Rob Scantlebury served his last assignment as a reserve officer on Thursday. He says he was one of 14 reserve officers who were told the program would now be on hold.
"Literally the jobs just pour in because there's (sic) not people available to work," Scantlebury said.
[WATCH: Scantlebury explains his position]
Reserve officers are volunteers. In exchange for free work, the Mesa Police Department helps them maintain their peace officer certifications through training and other requirements.
There are also paid gigs. Scantlebury filled in many times as a school resource officer.
"Kids talking about blood or bombs when they shouldn't -- stuff that would have been no big deal 10 years ago," Scantlebury said. "Now, every one of those we need to bring in and investigate."
The Mesa Police Departments strongly disputes Scantlebury's claims of low staffing, saying there are about 650 active officers eligible for off-duty work, including filling in as a school resource officer.
The department says there will be no reduction in service to the community while the program is suspended. It also says former reserve officers will be given the opportunity to reapply when the updated program is implemented.
Scantlebury suggests suspending the reserve officer program may have been politically motivated.
Scantlebury sees the reserve officer transition as an attempt by the administration to "clean house."
The Mesa Police Department says it has not received any formal complaint about retaliation from Scantlebury.
The department says reshaping the reserve officer program has long been a goal and that suspending it seemed to be the best way to launch that process.
A working group has been formed to review and suggest changes that may include a focus on helping patrol operations.
Trees For The Dead Campaign: To Shelter-and-Shade Those Who Come To Pay Respect
Apparently it looks like "Shade-and-Shelter" in a city-owned cemetery for the dead means more than "Shade-and-Shelter" for the people who are living here in Mesa now.
Except for Pioneer Park and new landscaping at the site of the LDS Temple renovation on Main Street, open green spaces accessible and open to everyone are scarce. Rendezvous Park has been obliterated and bulldozed. Way too many Asphalt-covered heat islands!
Any Quality-of-Life initiative to establish more "Shade-and-Shelter" in green public spaces are sadly missing from the public discourse. What is that 1% 'Quality of Life" for anyway??
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| Can you see all the Shade-and-Shelter from the 'iconic' Italian Cypress trees????? |
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Tree planting fundraising program for Mesa Cemetery
August 28, 2019 at 3:48 pm
With several trees lost to recent storm damage, a fundraising campaign is underway to purchase, plant and care for new trees at the Mesa Cemetery.
The campaign received a big boost today with a $2000 donation from Maricopa County District 2 Supervisor Steve Chucri, who was raised in Mesa.
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A FEW DAYS AFTER THIS POST WAS PUBLISHED - 15 hours ago -THERE WAS ANOTHER SIGNING OF A BIG CHECK BLOWN-UP ON POSTER BOARD TO STAGE THE SIGNING BY STEVE CHUCRI ["To pay Respect . . ."]
"I care deeply about this City and its public spaces," Supervisor Chucri said. "I was saddened to learn of the recent damage to the Mesa Cemetery, but heartened to be part of a larger effort to help restore its grounds with new trees to shelter and shade those who come to pay their respects."
The Mesa Cemetery lost more than 25 mature Italian Cypress and Olive trees during a monsoon storm July 30. The uprooting of the trees resulted in damage to the perimeter fencing, turf and landscape along the Center Street entrance and throughout the Cemetery. More than 70 trees were also lost in a storm in July 2018.
"The Italian Cyprus trees at the Mesa Cemetery are iconic," Mayor John Giles said. "I'd like to thank Supervisor Chucri for his generous donation and encourage others to donate to the campaign through the Foundation for Mesa Parks and Recreation."
There are two ways to donate to the campaign.
With several trees lost to recent storm damage, a fundraising campaign is underway to purchase, plant and care for new trees at the Mesa Cemetery.
The campaign received a big boost today with a $2000 donation from Maricopa County District 2 Supervisor Steve Chucri, who was raised in Mesa.
_________________________________________________________________________________
A FEW DAYS AFTER THIS POST WAS PUBLISHED - 15 hours ago -THERE WAS ANOTHER SIGNING OF A BIG CHECK BLOWN-UP ON POSTER BOARD TO STAGE THE SIGNING BY STEVE CHUCRI ["To pay Respect . . ."]
"I care deeply about this City and its public spaces," Supervisor Chucri said. "I was saddened to learn of the recent damage to the Mesa Cemetery, but heartened to be part of a larger effort to help restore its grounds with new trees to shelter and shade those who come to pay their respects."
The Mesa Cemetery lost more than 25 mature Italian Cypress and Olive trees during a monsoon storm July 30. The uprooting of the trees resulted in damage to the perimeter fencing, turf and landscape along the Center Street entrance and throughout the Cemetery. More than 70 trees were also lost in a storm in July 2018.
"The Italian Cyprus trees at the Mesa Cemetery are iconic," Mayor John Giles said. "I'd like to thank Supervisor Chucri for his generous donation and encourage others to donate to the campaign through the Foundation for Mesa Parks and Recreation."
There are two ways to donate to the campaign.
1 You can donate online at www.foundationformesaparks.org, click on the "Donate" tab and select the "Tree Planting Program."
2 You can also send a check to:
Foundation for Mesa Parks and Recreation,
P.O. Box 4121, Mesa, AZ 85210.
"The Mesa Cemetery has been a staple of this community since 1895 and we want to make sure it continues to be for the next 100 years," Vice Mayor Mark Freeman said. "I can't thank Supervisor Chucri enough for this generous donation and for his dedication to helping replace the trees. This will go a long way to ensuring the cemetery is well-equipped for the next century."
For questions related to the Tree Donation Program, contact Aimee Manis at (480) 644-5327 or aimee.manis@mesaaz.gov.
Parks, Recreation and Community Facilities
Contact: Kevin Christopher
Tel. 480-644-4699kevin.christopher@mesaaz.gov
"The Mesa Cemetery has been a staple of this community since 1895 and we want to make sure it continues to be for the next 100 years," Vice Mayor Mark Freeman said. "I can't thank Supervisor Chucri enough for this generous donation and for his dedication to helping replace the trees. This will go a long way to ensuring the cemetery is well-equipped for the next century."
For questions related to the Tree Donation Program, contact Aimee Manis at (480) 644-5327 or aimee.manis@mesaaz.gov.
Parks, Recreation and Community Facilities
Contact: Kevin Christopher
Tel. 480-644-4699kevin.christopher@mesaaz.gov
Sunday, September 01, 2019
OZones: Once-In-A-Generation Bonanza For Elite Investors
Like we now realized back in February 2018 here in Mesa, Arizona many of the projects that will enjoy special tax status were underway long before the opportunity-zone provision was enacted.
//// Resource for this post: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/31
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BLOGGER NOTE: There are been many posts on this blog site about Opportunity Zones here in Mesa, mostly about rampant real estate speculation here in Downtown Mesa and how plans for taxpayer-debt financing for a satellite ASU campus were the keystone
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Case-in-Point 2: Tony Scaramucci's investment company, SkyBridge Capital, is using the so-called opportunity zone initiative for a new e-commerce center at Mesa-Phoenix Gateway Airport
(“Capital is going to flow to the lowest-risk, highest-return environment,” said Aaron T. Seybert, the social investment officer at the Kresge Foundation, a community-development group in Troy, Mich., that supported the opportunity-zone effort.
“Perhaps 95 percent of this is doing no good for people we care about.”)
Nearly a third of the 31 million people who live in the zones are considered poor — almost double the national poverty rate. Yet there are plenty of affluent areas inside those poor census tracts. And, as investors would soon realize, some of the zones were not low income at all - nearly 200 of the 8,800 federally designated opportunity zones are adjacent to poor areas but are not themselves considered low income.
In some cases, developers have lobbied state officials to include specific plots of land inside opportunity zones. . . and in one local case, it was ex-U.S. Congressman Matt Salmon, hired on as a lobbyist by ASU before his resignation, who appeared with Bob Worsley at a Mesa City Council meeting back in February 2018...
BLOGGER NOTE: Mesa has two of those areas - one on NE Mesa around Falcon Field and one in SE Mesa around Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Area
The law does not require public disclosure of who are taking advantage of the initiative or how they are deploying their funds.
“Opportunity zones, hottest thing going, providing massive new incentives for investment and job creation in distressed communities,” Mr. Trump declared at a recent rally in Cincinnati.________________________________________________________________________________
The initiative allows people to sell stocks or other investments and delay capital gains taxes for years — as long as they plow the proceeds into projects in federally certified opportunity zones.
Any profits from those projects can avoid federal taxes altogether.
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FACTOIDS:
> The opportunity-zone tax break was targeted at the trillions of dollars of capital gains held by rich Americans and their companies: profits from investments in the stock market, real estate and other businesses, even short-term trades by hedge funds. When investors sell those assets, they can incur tax bills of up to 41 percent.
> Confined to six pages in the 185-page tax bill, the provision can significantly increase the profits investors reap on real estate and other transactions.
It allows investors to defer for up to seven years any capital gains taxes on the money they invest in opportunity zones. (That deferral is valuable because it allows people to invest a larger sum upfront, potentially generating more profits over time.) After 10 years, the investor can cash out — by selling the opportunity-zone real estate, for example — and not owe any taxes on the profits.
> Over a decade, those dual incentives could increase an investor’s returns by 70 percent, according to an analysis by Novogradac, an accounting firm.
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Cadre, an investment company co-founded by Mr. Kushner and his brother, Joshua, is raising hundreds of millions of dollars that it hopes to use on opportunity-zone projects. The company is eyeing neighborhoods in Savannah, Ga., Dallas, Los Angeles and Nashville that are expected to grow larger and wealthier in coming years. Jared Kushner has a stake in Cadre worth up to $50 million, according to his most recent financial disclosure.
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CBRE, one of the country’s largest real estate companies, is seeking opportunity-zone funding for an apartment building in Alexandria, Va., which CBRE is pitching to prospective investors as “one of the region’s most affluent locations.”
JPMorgan Chase is raising money to build housing targeting students in College Park, Md., near the University of Maryland. (Because many students do not have jobs, census data often wrongly suggests that college towns are poor neighborhoods.)
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