On Thu, Aug 28, 2003 at 06:14:19PM -0400, Brian Siano wrote: > I think you're missing the point, Jeff.
Maybe. I'm hearing people say, "We are inconvenienced because it is hard to park. But we don't see much economic benefit to this." I would like to put this in context. The inconvenience from filming hack means that several days a month parking is tight. Parking being tight means some people (about 135, it seems) will spend a bit of extra time parking and have to walk a few extra blocks. This is inconvenient, but not much worse than that. Where are the benefits? They don't eat at White Dog, maybe not at Rx, Marigolds, or Fiesta, either. But they are spending money, a lot of it by University City mercantile standards. That money is going somewhere. The caterers come from somewhere, and they buy food and pay staff. These people stay somewhere, probably in hotels. The hotels generate revenue (that is then taxed) and pay people. They are using power (electricity, gasoline), which they purchase. They are paying some people for use of private property, although the details are likely intentionally obscured. These are very real ways in which money is flowing into our city and our region. Exactly how much flows into UC? I don't know, but is that our primary criterion? Is the inconvenience not worth it if it only improves the lot of some people in Northern Liberties and Point Breeze? Or in Center City? Meanwhile, the reason the film office exists is because some people believe that a city appearing in film benefits from that exposure from increased publicity to the city and the region. It encourages people to want to live here, for example. I have not researched this, but I suspect these claims are well founded. We could make an argument that the particular goods and services being purchased have a low residual impact on the local economy. (For every dollar spent, how much stays local? It's a much higher fraction for restaurant food, for example, than for gasoline.) But no one has made that argument, and it is a hard argument to make. It requires extensive research in general. > Judging from the responses I've seen so far, it appears that there > was no effort to notify the neighborhood that we'd _become_ this > popular. Thus, there was no community input on how to handle the > logistics of the filming-- to develop some manageable scheme for > handling parked cars, for example, so we can have the production and > minimize its impact on our lives. Did the producers meet with > community representatives? Were these issues discussed? I am with you all the way when it concerns government action or the actions of large entities who are proposing to alter the built environment of our neighborhood. But I disagree that every time someone wants to do business or conduct some affair that they should be required to hold community meetings. What would be the threshold of concern? Over a certain dollar amount invested? But invested in what? How would you measure it? Should you need to hold a public meeting to have a block party? You inconvenience neighboring blocks. Imagine you decide to get married in a UC church and invite a few hundred guests (who will park their cars for the day). You cater a nice long lunch for everyone. (You're into five figures here, but this happens often enough for such events.) You exceed the monetary threshold. You now have to hold public meetings about your upcoming wedding. I know, a wedding is different, but my point is that I don't think we are thinking through very well this proposed obligation to consult the community. We don't have a right to be consulted on everything. -- Jeff Jeff Abrahamson <http://www.purple.com/jeff/> GPG fingerprint: 1A1A BA95 D082 A558 A276 63C6 16BF 8C4C 0D1D AE4B ---- You are receiving this because you are subscribed to the list named "UnivCity." To unsubscribe or for archive information, see <http://www.purple.com/list.html>.
