Elsewhere (180)
Thomas Sowell on affordable housing and its opponents:
Nowhere has there been so much hand-wringing over a lack of “affordable housing” as among politicians and others in coastal California. And nobody has done more to make housing unaffordable than those same politicians and their supporters… One of the first things taught in an introductory economics course is supply and demand. When a growing population creates a growing demand for housing, and the government blocks housing from being built, the price of existing housing goes up. This is not a breakthrough on the frontiers of knowledge… When more than half the land in San Mateo County is legally off-limits to building, how surprised should we be that housing prices in the city of San Mateo are now so high that politically appointed task forces have to be formed to solve the “complex” question of how things got to be the way they are and what to do about it?
Old Holborn steers ladies to the radical lover of their dreams. Seriously, brace those loins for impact.
And Mick Hartley quotes David Brown on the Shoreditch “anti-gentrification” protesters and their class war credentials:
Adam Barr, 23, the editor of Freedom News, a left-wing online newspaper, dismissed criticism of the protest as “reactionary bourgeois drivel” on a blog post on his website yesterday. “The Cereal Killer café is a legitimate target for protest as a symbol of the invading hordes that have taken over Shoreditch,” he added. Mr Barr, the son of a company director from East Yorkshire, could not be reached for comment.
In short, it seems the protesters are the usual clumping of middle-class academics and charmless misfits. The nearest thing to an actual member of the downtrodden proletariat seems to be the self-described “class warrior” and “rebel ethnographer” Dr Lisa McKenzie, currently blunting minds at the London School of Economics. Readers may recall Dr McKenzie from this video here, in which she explains that her academic role entails “not trying to find out something.” Instead, her purpose is to “challenge” the “negative stereotypes” of rough council housing neighbourhoods. Curiously, Dr McKenzie attempts this by proudly showing us graffiti – sorry, “muriels” – that actually confirm those stereotypes – of gangs, vandalism, car theft and, as she puts it, “young people who have died on the estate.” And Dr McKenzie does all this, quite earnestly, while a police helicopter rumbles overhead.
Feel free to share your own links and snippets in the comments. It’s what these posts are for.
Seriously, brace those loins for impact.
Wow. I admire his ambition. 🙂
Adam Barr… dismissed criticism of the protest as “reactionary bourgeois drivel”
All working class people talk like that, don’t they?
“son of a company director from East Yorkshire”
Opressed proletariat indeed.
Pink hair, a classic warning sign provided by benevolent nature. It says “Careful! Lunacy Ahead” to those who approach. The lady (I’m feeling generous) has absolutely no idea what she’s blathering on about. Quick, offer her tenure!
I’m sure the Shoreditch rioters gentrified the place themselves, driving out a previous generation of residents. I wonder if anybody in that previous generation is still alive, and how they felt about being gentrified out of their neighborhood.
Muriels? You don’t say?!
You took the words right out of my mouth!
“…the invading hordes that have taken over Shoreditch…”
Whew! Thank goodness he didn’t say ‘swarm’. That could have been awkward.
In California all the handwringing is so much Kabuki Theater.
The socialists that run this state have no intention of letting free market determine housing. Where’s the graft and opportunity for social posturing?
When Gov Jerry Moonbeam Brown was Attorney General he sued counties for the audacity of approving developments for single family homes.
What? The hoi polloi would like a YARD?? And a garage for their OWN CAR?? Not acceptable!
The Neo-feudalists want the great unwashed masses to live cheek by jowl in dense complexes, take public transportation and limit any travel — for Mother Gaia’s sake, of course.
The hatred and contempt held by the Best People in Frisco, El-Lay & Sacramento towards the suburbs and rural inland areas knows no bounds.
she explains that her academic role entails “not trying to find out something.” Instead, her purpose is to “challenge” the “negative stereotypes” of rough council housing neighbourhoods.
Is she also challenging the negative stereotypes of leftwing sociologists?
Is she also challenging the negative stereotypes of leftwing sociologists?
Clearly.
But then she is, in her own mind, a “rebel ethnographer.” One who compares her friends’ menacing of local residents and the trashing of a small café with the overthrow of apartheid.
The fact that Dr McKenzie isn’t terribly articulate, and perhaps not terribly bright, helps reveal some of the conceits common to her type. Although paid as an academic, an educator, she seems to think of herself chiefly as an activist, a “class war” agitator, someone whose function (and destiny) is to enlighten us politically. She sees herself as qualified to “challenge” the assumptions of others, even while inadvertently confirming them. And if you poke through her tweets, you’ll see she gets quite indignant and condescending when anyone questions her assumptions, pretensions and failures of logic.
she explains that her academic role entails “not trying to find out something.”
Are we doing affirmative action for idiots now?
Ah, Les…
“What’s the difference between a poofter and a microwave? The microwave doesn’t brown you meat.”
Stick that in your PC pipe and smoke it.
Are we doing affirmative action for idiots now?
Apparently. But no, we mustn’t mention the Clown Quarter’s lowering of academic standards. Such that this incompetent, bewildered woman is now a research fellow at the LSE. And bear in mind the University of Nottingham thought that the video linked above, in which Dr McKenzie rambles aimlessly and struggles with the word mural, was suitable for advertising its sociology department and “centre for advanced studies.” Evidently, those are the lofty standards they expect of employees.
Speaking of standards…
“A school which told pupils not to worry about exams has been given the lowest possible Ofsted rating after pupils told inspectors ‘No one minds if we don’t do our best work’.”
http://thylacosmilus.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/you-mean-trendy-bullshit-doesnt-produce.html
Yes, muriels. Hilda Ogden had one.
David, your friend Zoe Williams tries to do economics.
http://order-order.com/2015/09/29/zoe-williams-magic-money-tree/
And Dr McKenzie does all this, quite earnestly, while a police helicopter rumbles overhead.
Priceless.
Priceless.
Well, she is quite hard to parody. I mean, what would you change to make it funnier or more damning? Here we have a supposed intellectual, one who blathers incoherently about “neo-liberal structures” and “paradigms of social justice,” who struggles with the word mural and even basic spelling, who obliviously undermines her own claims, who happily describes her job as “not trying to find out something,” and who sees her role as that of an activist “challenging” values of which she admits to being totally ignorant.
And who is nonetheless employed by supposedly statusful academic institutions.
Yes, David
Makes my daughter’s Master’s degree from the said august institution look dodgier than I thought.
This thing about the left imagining ‘the workers’ want something else amuses me. When snooker’s world championship finals came to the Crucible in Sheffield in the 70s, it actually wasn’t a huge hit straight off: one could call in at the theatre at lunchtime as I used to and find a seat to watch a couple of frames. But, it did take off and now there’s never a seat to be had any time thanks to the interests of the ‘working man’ who quickly learned how to book ahead.
But what was funny was some correct leftbot from the University earnestly writing in some lefty rag that the ‘working man of Sheffield wants to see plays about social issues’ rather than watch ‘billiards’ (in his words). Well, the working man doesn’t go much to see any social issue diatribes at the Crucible, though they might turn out for a good musical or a comedy.
Oh, hang on, aren’t ‘plays about social issues’ just comedies?
The Neo-feudalists want the great unwashed masses to live cheek by jowl in dense complexes, take public transportation and limit any travel — for Mother Gaia’s sake, of course.
My career necessitates a certain familiarity with land use regulations and I’ve represented developers in various contexts and before various public entities. The worthies who continually spout words like “sustainability” do not appreciate one pointing out their environmental sanctimony has the incidental effect of increasing the value of their own homes and creating enclaves of the well-to-do by keeping the uppity middle class in their proper place.
Seriously, brace those loins for impact.
The loins say no.
Zoe Williams: “Of course there is a money tree, it’s called the Bank of England. That’s how countries make money.”
What’s most sad is that she doesn’t understand how right she is.
Kristian Niemietz on the Shoreditch protests and why they happen:
They are an earlier wave of newcomers; more precisely, they are people who moved to the area before it became popular.
Of course each and every neighborhood has its own unique history, but these anti-gentrification protests, be they violent or simply political, react as if the neighborhood was always run down. In many, if not most, cases the neighborhood was once new and/or prosperous until it got run down by the very kind of people now doing the protesting. Consider Times Square in NYC. It was a popular entertainment and such district before it became overrun with porn theaters, drug addicts, prostitutes and such in the 60’s/70’s/80’s. When Mayor Giuliani and others focused attention on what had become of the place, started policing at the level policing had been done before the decline, cleaned up the place, and brought in new businesses more in line with the traditional Times Square, the leftist douches cried as if it somehow “belonged” to them even though they didn’t own squat.
Such working class support that there is for anti-gentrification is generally focused on the inevitable rise in rents. Who complains otherwise that the area they are living in is getting nicer?
Nowhere has there been so much hand-wringing over a lack of “affordable housing” as among politicians and others in coastal California. And nobody has done more to make housing unaffordable than those same politicians and their supporters…
and
In California all the handwringing is so much Kabuki Theater.
Weeeelllll . . . both claims are nice and convenient bits of Kabuki theatre . . .
It’s been awhile since I read through the article, but the situation being a mess is indeed what some actual politicians actually are trying to solve . . . which politicians certainly can be a bit of discussion, but kabuki style posturing of right wing liberals and left wing liberals certainly fail as they always do . . . .
It’s been awhile since I read through the article,
Oh!
In fact, now that I am having a reread, what do I find . . . .
Etc.
Lessee, once a neighborhood becomes squalid, it must remain so – except the middle class suburban taxpayer must pay for the clean up of the “social activists” squats.
Is that how it’s supposed to work?
Poor Lisa. You can tell she’s the way she is because of her looks.
‘Class war’ protest backfires. 🙂
http://www.samizdata.net/2015/10/class-war-pillocks-do-wonders-for-a-hipster-business-they-hate/
“The Cereal Killer café is a legitimate target for protest as a symbol of the invading hordes that have taken over Shoreditch”
Wow, that’s presumptious. My husband was actually born in Shoreditch and brought up spitting distance away, and he certainly doesn’t see gentrification as a takeover by “invading hordes”. This summer he was quite unreasonably pleased to see that the old wood factory at the back yard of his childhood home in Hackney is now leased by an upmarket furniture designer with the same surname as him. It may be a distant cousin from the same background, whose family moved away and invested in education, but who has now come home.
She’s back!
“Dr Lisa Mckenzie, a research fellow at the London School of Economics, branded the museum sexist in its portrayal of women killed by the Ripper. She said the owners could expect to be surrounded by up to 200 protesters while she will be in the ranks of the so-called Women’s Death Brigade, whose slogan is “f*** capitalism f*** patriarchy”. The demonstration at the museum in Cable Street on Sunday is being masterminded by Class War, which targeted the Cereal Killer Cafe in Shoreditch last weekend in an anti-gentrification protest.”
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/womens-death-brigade-to-march-on-controversial-jack-the-ripper-museum-a3071111.html
The demonstration at the museum in Cable Street on Sunday is being masterminded by Class War, which targeted the Cereal Killer Cafe in Shoreditch last weekend
Someone should open the Museum of Hilarious Leftwing Stupidity. A new exhibition every Tuesday.