[AsburyPark] Re: Jersey Shore Rescue Mission Redevelopment
Jack, It's funny that you mentioned us as an Empire in your closing lines! President Bush has regressed us BACK to being exactly THAT, similar to the way England was in the 1400's! We are now encroaching Imperialists who invaded Iraq for Nothing, NOW Bush wants to attack Iran, and use Nukes, because his feelings are hurt that he's Losing in Iraq! What's the Worst though, is that.. YES .. It IS happening on a National Level . Bush and his People, including a small percentage of Wealthy Democrats, are selling out the Entire US Population, aside from the Super wealthy! But if the Comment about Monkeys in your Story got you upset, then HOW do you feel about our own Councilman, John Loffredo, pointing to Three Afro-American KIDS and saying That's the SHIT we have to get rid of in Asbury Park? And I didn't witness it, my Millionaire Landlord DID, and it turned his Stomach! AND, it was in the Papers, also, that the same idiot said that all Afro-Americans can get a Job at McDonalds if they NEED to work! Fact is, McDonalds leaves We're Hiring Now signs up 12 Months a year, whether there are positions available or NOT! Not to mention that you can't even support ONE person on a Month's Salary there! As far as you're wondering how many People Reach out to help Afro-Americans with respect to the Redevelopment .. Probably about 2% or less of the People, excluding out of Towner's who work at the many Charities. But it doesn't even MATTER, because the Three People on the Council who are INTENTIONALLY Driving the Massive Gentrification Going On have already out powered the ENTIRE rest of the City! And they're Controlled by the Asbury Partners' Group and Backed by the GLBT Population 100%, so ALL of the Power is TOTALLY Against the Blacks EVER getting ANY Breaks at ALL! And the Afro-Americans who help their Own are severely Under funded Overworked! City Hall even diverts the Community Development Block Grant Monies, intended to help the Poor, into things like Code Enforcement ... Which persecutes the Poor who are forced into Substandard and Overcrowded Living Conditions Due to ---You guessed it NO Rent Control! The State's even working on a different way to disperse those funds, because they're aware of the Corruption Racism in places like Asbury Park! As far as People doing what they CAN with their Lives, the odds are SO stacked against the Poor here, that they're actually BEHIND where the Average Minorities were in 1975-80, during the beneficial stages of Post-Civil Rights Gains of the 1960's! That's pretty sad, but Very True! And Whites have slipped IMMENSELY in the past 20 Years themselves! Mostly due to Reaganomics, then Republican controlled Government for the next 15 of 17 Years (Clinton had a Republican Congress for 6 Years!) .. Reagan had his Reagan Democrats (Having Been a Democrat), so he didn't have the normal problems with the opposite party in Congress. Clinton had NO Republican supporters! As for your China comment, they ARE going to BE the next United States, power wise! My HD TV, Lap Top, Camera and other things I just GOT recently ALL were made in China! It's GREAT for our Retailers Corporations Stock Holders ... The RICH! But our PEOPLE get Screwed out of JOBS! And I just read an article in this month's Popular Science that South Korea's Cell Phone Technology is about 5-10 Years ahead of OURS! They're using Micro-Computers that operate wirelessly, run movies, control home devices, track groups of friends , etc. Point is, we not ONLY Exported the Jobs, we've LOST our Technological Edge Probably Permanently! And 100's of Billions of Dollars in Profits, as well as Jobs lost! Jack, Long Term Asbury is SCREWED! And long term the USA as a hole is TOO! That's because it's ALL now run by People who are 100% OUT for THEMSELVES! BUT, Karma WILL happen, or, in American What Comes Around, Goes Around. If our selfish City, State National Leaders don't get punished in THIS Life, then God will Definitely Get Them in the next ... That's OE thing I know! The Mayor's Scared of that, but he STILL Screws his OWN People EVERY Day! Have a great weekend, Steve --- In AsburyPark@yahoogroups.com, Hinge [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I don't know what the answer is to all this, but I can say this. Racism is disgusting to me. The other day, out of the blue when I was talking about AP with a contractor, he told a story about how his family owned a hotel in AP, and that they built a pool, and how he was disgusted one day to find the pool filled with monkees He wasn't talking about the kind of monkee one finds in a zoo either. What sickened me about this is that he thought it was ok to be racial in front of me, like he assumed i thought the same way he did. That attitude makes me sick, and it's sad that it's still happening to this day. I wish Asbury's multi-ethnic makeup could integrate more then it does. I wonder how many of the people trying to develop
[AsburyPark] What Do We Do After All of Our Low Income Work Force is Thrown Out of Asbury ?
Friends, From a purely BUSINESS perspective, what happens when SO many Moderate to Low Income People are Chased OUT of our Area, that there's a Severe Shortage of People to RUN Businesses which REQIRE them? IF you think I'm exaggerating, then call our State Representatives, the Anti-Poverty Network, the Rutgers Business Law People or many other experts who can tell you that running a Business in NJ will be MUCH harder 5-10 Years from now if current trends DO continue! Just in the past 3 Years, the Poverty Rate in Monmouth County has DROPPED about 2%, NOT because People got better JOBS, but because those People LEFT Monmouth County or the State, entirely! Maybe you might have noticed that lines get longer and longer at Stores, especially at Christmas Time AND this time of Year? Maybe, if you have Elderly or Handicapped Relatives, you've found it harder and harder to even GET Home Health Care at ALL for their needs? That's ONE of the BIGGEST Industries being hit by their Workers LEAVING NJ entirely! Yet, in Asbury Park, Our City Council, Asbury Partners and Groups like AP Action are doing Everything they possibly CAN to force OUT the Same People who DO those types of Jobs! Does this make Sense at ALL? Once again: 1. NO Rent Control 2. NO Low Income Affordable Housing (Being Built) 3. NO Living Wage Jobs being Created Do all the new Business Owners REALLY want to work 150 Hours per Week? Be Racist, Be Heartless, Be Crude, Be Stupid! But SCREWING Yourselves? What is your Real I.Q.? The Weakest Link in ANY Society Determines the Health of the Whole Society! Peace, Steve Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Yahoo! Groups gets a make over. See the new email design. http://us.click.yahoo.com/XISQkA/lOaOAA/yQLSAA/Y2tolB/TM ~- Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AsburyPark/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[AsburyPark] Greetings from Asbury Park on NJN
Did anybody watch Greetings from Asbury Park on NJN last night? If so, i'm wondering what people thought about it. Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AsburyPark/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[AsburyPark] ** Update on Redevelopment Affects on the Minorities Poor in Asbury Park! **
Asbury Update: Due to health reasons, I have been unable to attend and participate in the Springwood Avenue Advisory Committee Meetings since in February. Unfortunately, there's no going back after that long! But, while I was going, it seemed very obvious that it appears to be Highly Controlled by the City, which I didn't think would happen going into it! The People who will make the Final Decisions are the SAME People who are running, or controlling, the Waterfront Redevelopment, so I'm very skeptical if ANY Real Good will happen out of it. But don't get me wrong, some VERY good People are ON the Committee! It's just that THEY have NO final Vote to really GET what they think, or know, is right for particularly the Poor in the City! The City Manager, Two Council People (The best ones, fortunately), People from Community Development Social Services, the entire City Redevelopment Team (About 5 People) and others all regularly attend the meetings. This not only takes up so much time that many people can't even get input in, but it totally controls even what CAN, or Might, come out of the process in the end! The Bottom line is that I fear that it'll be virtually close to Impossible to get any REAL Low Income Affordable Housing in the end, or, possibly, any real "Living Wage" Jobs out of the process for the Current residents of Asbury Park. Asbury Works, the current City Arm of Hiring and Workforce Operations, mostly gets people $8-10 per hour jobs, and doesn't have any significant link to create any noticeable other Employment, such as STEPS has done for decades in Lakewood, under the Leadership of Mike McNeil. By the way, Father Bill McLoughlin of Holy Spirit was one of the People who worked on getting $25,000 Affordable Housing Units for Trenton in the Past, which is STILL being done there, and in other Cities! WHY hasn't he been Invited to the Process? Back to the Housing. I suggested numerous times while I was participating that in order to get REAL Affordable Housing, that the Committee would need to: 1. Get the City to Donate Land to defray the Costs of the Housing 2. Have Organizations like Habitat for Humanity provide Free Labor These types of things have produced REAL "Affordable Housing" in Trenton in the past, to the tune of $25,000 Units! I thought that was no longer possible, but within the last Month I heard on the News that Housing has again been opened to the Poor in another City in that same Price range. I just don't think that our Council, or our City Manager, either WANTS Housing that "Effective" in helping the Poor, nor do they even WANT the Poor to continue living here any more! Definitive PROOF that the City People WANT the Poor to LEAVE (Be Gentrified) the City is that the City Council and the Entire City Administration, particularly the City Manager, have consistently been 100% against even Considering enacting a Rent Control Ordinance since 2001, when the last Council got in! And three of those People are on the Council still now, and those same persons Vote 100% AGAINST the Poor 99.9% of the time! So, to sum it up, 4 Years after the Waterfront Redevelopment has been signed, NOTHING has yet been done to help the Low Income Working Class People here! The Redevelopers have even lied, over and over, and haven't even hired 20% of the Workers for the Construction from the Asbury Park Workforce! And the former Council, including our current Mayor, Kevin Sanders, DID include IN the Redevelopment Agreement that Asbury Partners has to use both Asbury Park Workers and Contractors! But they NEVER enforced it, and are still NOT doing so! So, to Sum it up, we still have NO Serious Plans for: Low Income Affordable HousingRent Control to protect the Poor (And Middle Class)A Serious Program to Create Living Wage Jobs And although I have repeatedly brought up, Over Over again, all of the above points to the City Council, the City Manager and numerous City Leaders, they consistently REFUSE to do anything Humane and Effective to help the Poor by including their Needs in the Redevelopment Process! Ed Johnson is a good Man, and means well, but unfortunately he has failed in his first year to stand up Against his Co-Electees on his Ticket when it comes to Issues of severe importance to the Low Income Minorities here in Asbury Park! He spoke of a "One Asbury Park", yet has only firmed up that there are THREE Asbury Parks! One for the Incoming Rich, One for the Middle Class hanging on by their teeth and One for the Masses of the Poor Population who have absolutely NO Chance of being here 5-10 Years from now! Asbury Park's Story has become a Reality echoed by the Message being handed down by Asbury Partners and their Puppets in City Hall and on the City Council that "Only the VERY Strong shall Survive and even BE here in Years to come, and we're Glad it's that way!" Even many, many current Homeowners and Businesses are very fearful of what will
[AsburyPark] Re: AsburySteve vs. Stand Up for Asbury
So, Mario, Since your reply only attacked, yet had absolutely NO substance to it, does that mean you are in FAVOR of Attacking the Homeless by trying to prevent the ONLY real Shelter ever in Monmouth County from Opening, or Staying Open? This Shelter is geared towards single Men, most of whom are not allowed in the other "Shelters" in the County, what few there are! Let me ask some questions, OK? You are a "Leftie", yet you support a Group that wants People to live, and eventually DIE on the Streets? HOW is that a "Left" or Democratic Stance? Do you LIVE in Asbury Park? For how Long? How affluent are You? Do you stand to Profit from the current course of the Redevelopment? Are you for Rent Control, if so, WHAT have you done to GET it (Councilman Keady has been pushing for it, with Virtually NO Public Support). If you are against Rent Control, then you have NO right even Claiming to be "Left"! Are you aware that since 2001, approximately 2,500 People (Minimum) have been either forced OUT of Asbury Park, or forced into Overcrowded Housing, due to a Combination of the Redevelopment, no Rent Control and NO Jobs being Created for them, as well as NO Affordable Housing being built for them? Go to PolicyLink.org and read everything on Rent Control, then you may realize that it actually significantly firms UP the Economies of the Cities which have it over a 20-30 year Periodic, including guaranteeing a Stable and Regular Low Income Work Force FOR the Business Community. Do you know that? It's embedded in our 35 Year US History already! Now, let's get it straight, OK? You're FOR Stand Up For Asbury's stance to take away the LAST Alternative to living on the Street for at LEAST 75 (Homeless) Residents of Asbury Park? And you're a "Leftie"? I beg to differ, but you at least SEEM to be a Plant for the Redevelopers! And you said "As a "card-carrying member" of the ACLU, the Democratic Party, MoveOn.org, etc., I want to take issue with remarks made by "AsburySteve" in recent posts". I beg your Pardon, Mario, but ANYONE can carry Cards in their Wallet to make believe they're something, but what have you DONE to help ANY Liberal Democratic Cause in the past 10-20 Years? By the way, MoveOn.org, NPR Radio and Air America are just as "Radical" Left, or MORE than I am, and have made just as Liberal/Radical analogies as I ever have on here, yet DO You attack them? If SO, you don't even RESEMBLE any "Liberal" Thinking at ALL! Finally, since I question your capability after your attack, just answer me one question: What is your Official PUBLIC Stance on: Rent ControlLow Income Affordable HousingCreating Living Wage Jobs and Increasing the Minimum Wage Implementing the above three Issues/ Programs/ Laws in Asbury Park would eliminate 97% of our Problems here, INCUDING the High Crime Rate, Homelessness and Poor Education (Over @ a ten year period)! If you are against those Items, you're as "Right" as they come! One last thing Try to DO something "Left", rather than to just TALK! I'll be glad to tell you what I've done over the past 10-25 Years! Have a great day, Steve __._,_.___ SPONSORED LINKS Asbury park home Asbury park nj Asbury park hotel Asbury park foreclosure Asbury park real estate Asbury park YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS Visit your group "AsburyPark" on the web. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. __,_._,___
Re: [AsburyPark] Greetings from Asbury Park on NJN
"Did anybody watch Greetings from Asbury Park on NJN last night?If so, i'm wondering what people thought about it"i saw it. i thought it was all right. although, i think somewhere in the middle, it dragged on about the musical aspects. it started off going in one directing, then seemed to "stay too long" in one area. but overwall, it was good. again, it was only 30min, so you cant possiably fit everything in. charlie (i havnt posted on this board in a long time, but im on my way back.) Do you Yahoo!? Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail Beta. __._,_.___ YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS Visit your group "AsburyPark" on the web. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. __,_._,___
[AsburyPark] Re: AsburySteve vs. Stand Up for Asbury
I am so pleased that the creation of what we all knowas the human being, regardless of race, creed, etc have the very same make up. One hand is to the left - one hand is to the right - one foot to the left - one foot to the right. The infinitely wise master builder of the human race was so above it all - and proved it by putting the mind, the heart and the spiritin the center of it all... Don't be fooled by imitations... Kevin Brown __._,_.___ SPONSORED LINKS Asbury park home Asbury park nj Asbury park hotel Asbury park foreclosure Asbury park real estate Asbury park YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS Visit your group "AsburyPark" on the web. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. __,_._,___
[AsburyPark] Re: validity of the city's claim regarding a riparian grant
--- In AsburyPark@yahoogroups.com, wernerapnj [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Dan, The real Marine Grill site, the one East of Ocean avenue at the foot of Deal Lake, was not even part of the original redevelopment plan. Recall that the eastern boundry of the Redevelopment Area is Ocean Avenue. Everything east of Ocean Ave was Public Property and was designated a rehabilitation area. Condos east of O.A. was never part of the vision. Recall also that the redevelopment area boundries were incorrectly transcribed early on and that is why the triangle came to be refered to as the Marine Grill site. With regard to the Triangle I beleive that it too was not slated for development. Reason being that it is also Public Property.. I will check my documents. Werner Check the 1984 plan I sent you. It's around page 62 or so. The map shows high density residential on both the Marine Grill (probably the portion that goes west of OA) and the Triangle. Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AsburyPark/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[AsburyPark] Re: validity of the city's claim regarding a riparian grant
--- In AsburyPark@yahoogroups.com, dfsavgny [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Check the 1984 plan I sent you. It's around page 62 or so. The map shows high density residential on both the Marine Grill (probably the portion that goes west of OA) and the Triangle. Dan, It appears that you are making the same error that was was made by the Council and others when the Carabetta bankruptcy was settled. That is, using the wrong plan. The 1984 Plan is irrelevent as it was superceded by the 1987 Plan which was then superceded by the 1991 Plan. The 1991 Plan is the only document what carries any legal significance when comparing what we have now 'After Fishman' (AF) versus 'Before Fishman' (BF). The City/Fishman/etc were obligated under land use and redevlopment law to implement the 1991 Plan. That document was the one legally in force at the time of the redevlelopment rights transfer. To determine what the intent of redevelopment was you need to compare the 1991 development controls to what we have today. I'm looking for it in my stack of paper. Do you have an electronic version of that ? Werner Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Great things are happening at Yahoo! Groups. See the new email design. http://us.click.yahoo.com/TISQkA/hOaOAA/yQLSAA/Y2tolB/TM ~- Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AsburyPark/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[AsburyPark] Re: Stand Up For Asbury, Meeting!
--- In AsburyPark@yahoogroups.com, Steve [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You guys are even using the wrong name The name of their Morristown Operation ... Which by the way, has been very successful and mostly accepted by the Community! Actually, I spoke with local law enforcement off the record and was informed that in their personal the Mission is a problem for Morris town. While they admit that a shelter is necessary, the Market Street Mission is a problem because of its location of being in the heart of their business district. They said that if that shelter was eight or so blocks away from the downtown area, the clients would not roam around in packs distrupting local business. The other shelters in the area are further away from the business center. They also said that since there are no background checks performed at the Market Street Mission, the prisons have taken up the practice to refer the freshly released inmates with records that would not pass the County and Salvation Army background checks to the Market Street Mission. Logic dictates the same would follow in Asbury Park. Please do not throw names like Hitler around so loosely. STALIN was for a equal playing field of the Russian people and look what he did to his people. Also, look at the leaders of North Korea and China. If those leaders are your preference, forgive me for not drinking the Kool Aid. Tom Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Check out the new improvements in Yahoo! Groups email. http://us.click.yahoo.com/6pRQfA/fOaOAA/yQLSAA/Y2tolB/TM ~- Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AsburyPark/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[AsburyPark] Re: Family Values!
Steve, Please Gandhi and MLK Speechs to learn true peace and love and acquire a calm disposition. Tom --- In AsburyPark@yahoogroups.com, Steve [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: WHO's Hateful? Masterminding a Massive Gentrification to FORCE as MANY Afro-Americans OUT of the City as Possible? You are a Massive HYPOCRIT! If you wish to USE Jesus Christ's Name in a Conversation, then FIRST Read Matthew 25:31-46 in the Bible, then EXPLAIN to ME how YOU and your Racist Friends are DOING what those verses DEMAND that ALL Christians DO! I don't Hate ANYONE, but I despise the Racially and Monetarily Motivated Actions to Clean Up the City that three current Groups of People in the City are involved in! And it has nothing to DO with their Race, Religion or Sexual Preference, but solely to do with their utter and COMPLETE Lack of Both Morals and Humane VALUES! I don't respect Hypocrites who attack others while THEY perpetrate Crimes Against Humanity! Peace, Steve --- In AsburyPark@yahoogroups.com, carlchesna kvel@ wrote: RE: I do not believe Jesus Christ (never read a hateful word out of his mouth in the New Testament), Gandhi and Martin Luther King (both of whom have relatives speaking out today for gay rights), Thomas Jefferson (the big pusher of Separation between Church and State), and American Indians (referred to gays as Two-Spirited and often they were the tribe's medicine men) would endorse your hateful views. Unlike you, I wish you a happy and healthy life and hope you are forgiven in the end. Tom RIGHT ON TOM! Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AsburyPark/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[AsburyPark] Liquor License For Sale
Interesting use of the internet, Asbury Park for sale ! Check out ebay item number 280008381021 Werner Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Check out the new improvements in Yahoo! Groups email. http://us.click.yahoo.com/6pRQfA/fOaOAA/yQLSAA/Y2tolB/TM ~- Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AsburyPark/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[AsburyPark] Re: More dumping in/on Asbury Park...
Here, here!!! This would be great since with the invention of cellpones and NexTels, lookout can quickly chirp their partners-in- crime to stop before a cop even gets in eyesight. --- In AsburyPark@yahoogroups.com, oakdorf [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You can watch the dealers every day pull up on bikes and sell the crack heads their fix for the day. Or if your lucky, they go around Amazing how many people can see it happening. It's nice when you're driving down main street and your kids notice a deal going down. Lets go back to the camera idea - but let the police do it. Monitor the cameras and make the arrests. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- See what's inside the new Yahoo! Groups email. http://us.click.yahoo.com/2pRQfA/bOaOAA/yQLSAA/Y2tolB/TM ~- Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AsburyPark/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[AsburyPark] A Liberal's Liberal On Rent Control
On Rent Control: from "the most important liberalpolitical columnist in America." (See below.) Reckonings: A Rent Affair By PAUL KRUGMAN (NYT) 747 wordsPublished: June 7, 2000Economists who have ventured into the alleged real world often quote Princeton's Alan Blinder, who has formulated what he calls ''Murphy's Law of economic policy'': ''Economists have the least influence on policy where they know the most and are most agreed; they have the most influence on policy where they know the least and disagree most vehemently.'' It's flip and cynical, but it's true. Consider, on one side, really tough issues -- where there are plausible arguments on both sides, where nobody really knows how to measure the tradeoffs. Should Microsoft be broken up and, if so, how? Should Britain adopt the euro? Let's ask the economists! And those economists who are prepared to express strong opinions on such inherently ambiguous questions command rapt attention. On the other side, consider an article that appeared in yesterday's New York Times, ''In San Francisco, Renters Are Supplicants.'' It was an interesting piece, with its tales of would-be renters spending months pounding the pavements, of dozens of desperate applicants arriving at a newly offered apartment, trying to impress the landlord with their credentials. And yet there was something crucial missing -- specifically, two words I knew had to be part of the story. Not that I have any special knowledge about San Francisco's housing market -- in fact, as of yesterday morning I didn't know a thing about it. But it was immediately obvious from the story what was going on. To an economist, or for that matter a freshman who has taken Economics 101, everything about that story fairly screamed those two words -- which are, of course, ''rent control.'' After all, the sort of landlord behavior described in the article -- demanding that prospective tenants supply resumes and credit reports, that they dress nicely and act enthusiastic -- doesn't happen in uncontrolled housing markets. Landlords don't want groveling -- they would rather have money. In uncontrolled markets the question of who gets an apartment is settled quickly by the question of who is able and willing to pay the most. And so I had no doubts about what I would find after a bit of checking -- namely, that San Francisco is a city where a technology-fueled housing boom has collided with a draconian rent-control law. The analysis of rent control is among the best-understood issues in all of economics, and -- among economists, anyway -- one of the least controversial. In 1992 a poll of the American Economic Association found 93 percent of its members agreeing that ''a ceiling on rents reduces the quality and quantity of housing.'' Almost every freshman-level textbook contains a case study on rent control, using its known adverse side effects to illustrate the principles of supply and demand. Sky-high rents on uncontrolled apartments, because desperate renters have nowhere to go -- and the absence of new apartment construction, despite those high rents, because landlords fear that controls will be extended? Predictable. Bitter relations between tenants and landlords, with an arms race between ever-more ingenious strategies to force tenants out -- what yesterday's article oddly described as ''free-market horror stories'' -- and constantly proliferating regulations designed to block those strategies? Predictable. And as for the way rent control sets people against one another -- the executive director of San Francisco's Rent Stabilization and Arbitration Board has remarked that ''there doesn't seem to be anyone in this town who can trust anyone else in this town, including their own grandparents'' -- that's predictable, too. None of this says that ending rent control is an easy decision. Still, surely it is worth knowing that the pathologies of San Francisco's housing market are right out of the textbook, that they are exactly what supply-and-demand analysis predicts. But people literally don't want to know. A few months ago, when a San Francisco official proposed a study of the city's housing crisis, there was a firestorm of opposition from tenant-advocacy groups. They argued that even to study the situation was a step on the road to ending rent control -- and they may well have been right, because studying the issue might lead to a recognition of the obvious. So now you know why economists are useless: when they actually do understand something, people don't want to hear about it. === MIT'sInternational Professor of Economics. In 1991 the American Economic Association awarded him its John Bates Clark medal, a prize given every two years to "that economist under forty who is adjudged to have made a significant contribution to economic knowledge." Columnist Biography: Paul Krugman
