The big news in downtown Sarasota this week is the announcement that Sarasota News & Books (SN&B) will be closing at the end of the month. A few days ago Club Soda gave a tongue in cheek description of the hipster dufus, and as you can imagine the local hipster dufus community is outraged about the bookstore closing. I love bookstores; the Main Street bookstore closed a year ago and I’m still sad about it. Unfortunately these are the casualties of a difficult market, stiff competition, and community organization gone horribly wrong.
The saddest thing about these closings is that it could be avoided in most cases. What’s happening in Sarasota is a microcosm of America. In Sarasota many well intentioned “concerned citizens” worried about too much growth. In their infinite wisdom they decided to make growth more difficult. What happens when you have an increasing population in an area with growth restrictions? Property values skyrocket. Take Houston and San Francisco for example: both city’s populations have grown at a similar rate over the last thirty years, but San Francisco’s property values have skyrocketed compared to Houston. What’s the difference between these two cities? San Francisco has implemented “smart growth” laws the over past thirty years and Houston has not.
What I find most annoying about this situation is that no one is educating the public about what’s happening. The United States isn’t running out of available real estate. Around 90% of the available land in the United States is undeveloped. Local governments are creating this problems with their dumb policies. What does an outraged hipster dufus think about the local bookstore closing? Let’s take a look at a comment left by hastalavictor… at the Sarasota Herald Tribune.
It’s also time for the public to go after the greedy landlord in a grassroots sort of way. The unreasonably wealthy landlord paid $6M cash for the property. Surely he can reach a compromise with Sarasota News and Books, especially in this market. No tenant that he can find will make a significant difference for this fat cat.
Mr. or Ms. Community Organizer, I know you’re out there.
When the bookstore closes it’s the greedy landlord’s fault. This type of thinking is difficult to combat because it’s just so shallow. It’s easier to be upset with the landlord than the well intentioned “community organizers” who set this in motion two decades ago. What we don’t need is more “grassroots” idiots dictating policy. That’s what created the problem.
If cities across the United States do not start to figure out the root of the problem there will be two types of cities. There will be cities like Detroit where no one wants to live and cities like Sarasota and San Francisco which are quickly becoming rich people theme parks. The only people who can afford to live here will be super wealthy people. Maybe that’s what they’re trying to accomplish.
“Aside from Hitler’s megalomania, the Nazi Party shares more in common with America’s left wing than it does the right, namely its emphasis on a centralized and all-powerful government that demands allegiance and ultimate dependence.”
You’re kidding right? So I guess all the acts of rightwing jingoism, up to and including sec. 201-215 of the P.Act, Blackwater, Waterboarding, illegal surveillance, anti-gay diatribe, and the labeling of anyone against the Iraq War as “liberal socialist traitors” was all just a figment of my imagination over the course of the past eight years?
Please, bro. BOTH parties have their faults, but let’s not ignore the obvious.
Whoops. Right comment, wrong post. ha!
AH
I think you missed the crux of the argument. The government’s use of interment camps for the Japanese during WWII are much worse than anything you listed during the Bush years.
Fascism is about state control. There’s no doubt that statism is alive and well on the left.