KAREN ALLEN wrote:
As far as this is concerned:
"the praxis-delivered principles for 40th street run counter to the proposed hotel. principles like: " values of the community " commerce and culture reflecting the surrounding neighborhoodThat's where our neighbors who feed at the Penn trough come into play on behalf of Penn. It would seem that few people think (or, at least, will say out loud) that it seems odd that the most strident and outspoken supporters of Penn Real Estate's hotel proposal just happen to be mostly real estate agents and large property owners who rent to Penn students. Nor does it seem to be odd that those self-same real estate agents, property owners, and the hotel developer were the same people who all somehow ended up being named to the steering committee which tried to get Penn's UCD BID proposal passed into law. Now it's been revealed that a local community association has had board members quit in disgust over its zoning committee seemingly ignoring their members' loud and clear objections t
o the hotel.
All of this is to say that "the community" can be hijacked by those with self interests who are willing to throw the actual community under the Penn bus. "Pay no attention to my blatant conflicts of interest, and to near-unanimous opposition from everyone else. I am the Community, and I am here to rubberstamp anything Penn wants!"
yes. our neighborhood associations can hijack the community
and be hijacked by penn interests; meanwhile penn can invent
'surrogate' neighborhood associations for us.
these are the pseudo 'community engagement' groups (like
'friends of 40th street'), spawned by the likes of penn
praxis -- groups (or forums or workshops etc) which not only
frame the terms of the engagement and its outcomes, but also
give the appearance that public debate and deliberation have
taken place and that communication and dialog are continuing.
unfortunately, as we've seen so close at hand with 'friends
of 40th street', there are no accompanying mechanisms to
ensure accountability or transparency or continued
communication -- no matter which side one is on in any given
issue!
rather than serve or empower or engage citizens, these
groups, like the neighborhood associations, ultimately serve
only to give the appearance of community engagement.
meanwhile the power entities do what they want; in the case
of 40th street penn builds and develops whatever penn wants
to build and develop, shca's zoning committee decides zoning
questions however shca's zoning committee wants. and at the
end of the day, no one is accountable, yet everyone is
'engaged'.
and I was asking joe if this model is what we can expect
with the upcoming penn-led workshops for the city budget.
and much earlier I was asking if, with obama's inauguration,
we had entered upon a new chapter of understanding about our
roles as citizens.
..................
UNIVERSITY*CITOYEN
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