In a July 3rd response to a NewsLanc article welcoming proposed downtown residential condominiums, Gil Smart blogs:
“Not to put too fine a point on it, but – isn’t the ‘influential voice’ of this ‘powerful constituency,’ the wealthy, exactly what has angered so many people? Don’t they say this ‘powerful constituency’ already has too influential a voice?
Beyond that, do we really suppose that people living in high-end condos would have opposed, say, the convention center? Or would they be more likely to support it, on the theory that it might help boost their own property values?
I agree it would be nice to see an influx of wealth into the city, though as I’ve said many times—depending on how successful it is, that could trigger gentrification. And that may be the biggest fight of all.”
WATCHDOG: The young and the poor have little influence over neighborhood planning, and that has been true for at least a hundred years in Lancaster. When only inhabited by the poor and those without influence, neighborhoods tend to deteriorate. The Seventh Ward and now Cabbage Hill are sorry examples of this.
When more affluent suburbanites are attracted, the downtown neighborhood gains an influential voice. In ways, they set a constructive example. And often they subsidize neighborhood improvements.
Unless there are physical or (in Lancaster’s case) artificial barriers to the spread of gentrification, property values increase in nearby, yet-to-be-improved neighborhoods. This both encourages and helps fund improvement of the housing.
Tragically, Lancaster Square impedes the spread of gentrification to the north and now the Convention Center Project becomes a void between downtown and the south.
Smart may be confusing big “E” Establishment—defined herein as The Lancaster Newspapers, S. Dale High, Franklin and Marshall College, and General Hospital which assiduously pursue their special interests (albeit the hospital with more social conscience) with the small “e” establishment, that body of more affluent and/or more influential citizenry who could and should have a big say in protecting and improving neighborhoods.
