This is a “live blog” of sorts meaning that I re-watched the 3/30 taping of Business Matters and I sort of stream of consciousness blogged as I did so writing whatever came up.
Watch the show here: Business Matters – FedEx Jobs vs. NIMBY Syndrome – What wins?
Don Cunningham LVEDC – 2:30 minute mark – NIMBY. “A project is going to happen there”. I’ll throw Cunningham a bone here since I’m mostly critical of the narratives he utilizes. Made this point in a post couple weeks ago. Using the NIMBY term here has some merit. Why? Because the land has been zoned a certain way consistent with regional planning for years. It’s adjacent to an airport and close to the spine infrastructure. Very different from the LMT Jaindl issue where we had a rezoning fight. For 23 in LMT an area was zoned agriculture protected in accordance with regional plans representing smart growth boundaries laid out in the 80’s. People bought homes assuming it would remain agriculture. Also the LMT warehouses are significantly further from the infrastructure spine. Quarry threat plus local officials rolling over were the reasons zoning changed. In our case, arguments weren’t NIMBY but rather about the rights of a community to protect itself.
8:30 minute mark – Here Cunningham refers to a community needing to adjust infrastructure. He refers to Bethlehem Steel infrastructure on former Moravian farmland. Unfair comparison. Warehouses are different then a mega manufacturing hub located in a growing city core. When Bethlehem Steel was built new infrastructure served the city not just a single project. It was inevitable that Bethlehem would expand. New infrastructure serviced entire neighborhoods surrounding the plant. It was efficient use of community resources. Excellent ROI. The locations where warehouses are often built is often the very definition of sprawl. They are frequently directly (or indirectly) subsidized by taxpayers at a premium since the infrastructure serves only one purpose. I get where Cunningham was trying to go here. But using Bethlehem Steel was a major stretch. The political economy of sprawl.
Bethlehem Steel at its height employed over 31,000 people. It maximized the city’s infrastructure investment in a way we just don’t often see today. Allentown’s city center project would be today’s example of this kind of transformative project. The comparison of Bethlehem Steel to warehouses is totally ridiculous.