Here in Van Nuys

Here in Van Nuys

6 comments on Disney Fights Affordable Housing.

Disney Fights Affordable Housing.


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Walter Elias Disney, originally uploaded by dbking.

The first time I visited Disneyland I enjoyed it immensely. I was 12 years old and I was inside the Magic Kingdom.

Then I went back, 20 years later, and wondered if there was anything to like. Is it sacrilege to say that you don’t like Disneyland? I hated the lines, the enormous hot asphalt parking lots outside, the artifice of the park, the bad fried food. I was shocked at the rip-off admission price and the long, smoggy drive to stand around all day in the sun waiting to get onto rides that lasted about 6o seconds.

Disney is currently fighting an Anaheim city proposal to build affordable housing outside of the park. Why would Disney do this? The current appearance of Anaheim is appalling: cheap, tacky, and embarrassing to both the city and the amusement park.

For many years, Disney has been in the forefront of good architecture and patronage of architects. They built “Celebration” (Florida) a community of sidewalks, front porches and walkable streets. Why wouldn’t it use its immense wealth to better the lives of the modestly paid workers who toil in its Anaheim showplace?

It seems that every time there is a wealthy organization or corporation who has a chance to change and build something better in Southern California, they ignore the surrounding community. I see it in the Getty Center, with its destruction of the natural landscape of the Sepulveda Pass and those egotistical towering laboratories overlooking LA. Why couldn’t Getty have taken $1 or $2 billion and transformed South Central with an “Arts Center” and gardens? How many times a year does the average Angeleno even go to the Getty? I wonder….

Disney is another example of a corporation who only cares what happens within its own walls. It may make big, public donations but when it has a bricks and mortar opportunity to give back to the community, it chooses the side of cheapness and legal argument to short change Anaheim’s poorest residents.

The mouse smells like a rat.

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6 responses to “Disney Fights Affordable Housing.”

  1. Ocktoberfest Guy Avatar
    Ocktoberfest Guy

    Ocktoberfest is always free and it’s never ruined the landscape of munich since 1810. LA is way to crowed for me.

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  2. Rob Dawg Avatar
    Rob Dawg

    Andrew,
    The HMID is not a subsidy, it is a tax deduction that benefits the low and middle class and reaps enumerable benefits at every level of government. Removing the HMID would send the rich into avoidance schemes and leave the lower classes to pay the difference. See my Jan comments:

    http://exurbannation.blogspot.com/2007/01/recent-readers-are-not-familiar-with.html

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  3. Andrew Avatar
    Andrew

    I don’t mean to “slander” the Getty. I mean to point out the waste of an opportunity to take enormous wealth and carve out a sanctuary in a poor section of town. Brentwood and BelAir were already mighty fine places to live when the Getty razed the hillside and built their museum.

    I’ve also enjoyed many days at the Getty, but find that it is difficult to get to for many people who do not own cars and live near the often jammed Sepulveda Pass.

    I would have preferred a one billion dollar arts facility next to a subway line. That is how they would have done it in Canada, Japan, Australia Europe or South America.

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  4. Craig Avatar
    Craig

    I don’t think it’s fair to slander the Getty to make your point about Disney.

    While I would not have chosen the design they did for the Santa Monica mountains campus, the Getty is an absolutely fabulous resource for the people of Los Angeles. Ride a bike, take the bus, or walk up and it’s absolutely free. What other museum is open 6 days a week for free? Pile 4 people in your car and it’s about a buck fifty per person.

    The Getty provides enormous public value. I don’t quite understand why so many people hate it so. Ok,
    I understand that many people
    don’t like the image of the
    compound spoiling the ridgeline
    as they sit in their cars at a dead
    stop on the freeway. But isn’t
    that attitude a little shallow if
    it’s going to ignore the rest of
    the Getty’s assets to Los Angeles?

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  5. Andrew Avatar
    Andrew

    To quote the LAT:

    “Others in the community have argued that Disney and the city have no role in “subsidizing” housing for low-wage workers. But this “let the market prevail” argument ignores more than 70 years of federal, state and local involvement in the housing market. Generations of families have achieved homeownership through federally subsidized and guaranteed loans. One form of “subsidy” is the more than $70 billion (twice the operating budget of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development) devoted to mortgage interest deductions — a program that helps mostly middle- and high-income homeowners. “

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  6. Rob Dawg Avatar
    Rob Dawg

    Biting the hand that feeds you is not a sustainable practice.
    Housing does not become more affordable by spending more money. It certainly doesn’t become more accessible via govermnment intervention.
    Disney isn’t against affordable housing. It is against the city violating a zoning compact that took decades to hammer out. The city is only using the canard of affordable housing to bias public opinion.

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