Comments on WHEN HOME IS NOT A SANCTUARY

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fw, I have one positive tree story
to tell. I think I'll write a post about it.

posted by Cynthia on July 1, 2005 at 4:30 AM | link to this | reply

Reminds me of a time a developer bulldozed a 100-year-old tree ...
to build a strip shopping center. Hindreds protested that he would be allowed to raze such a magnificant historical living organism, but he owned the land and got a court injunction. Three years later, he went bust and the center was abandoned. The tree was no more.

posted by fwmystic on June 29, 2005 at 9:00 PM | link to this | reply

Mary x - we have our own rather unique
mix of public/private interests here in Cambridge MA. Soon the whole town will be owned by either Harvard or MIT. These are "private universities" that are inextricably bound with government and public interests.

posted by Cynthia on June 26, 2005 at 9:45 AM | link to this | reply

Majroj, that's exactly what happened.
It took more than a decade before they actually built anything on that site. I thought of the 10+ years that some old lady could have had in her home, kids could have stayed in their school and graduated, and so on...

posted by Cynthia on June 26, 2005 at 9:42 AM | link to this | reply

Cynthia,
Eminent domain was never meant to finance private interests, it was supposedly for public projects like highways. This is a bad call.

posted by Blanche. on June 26, 2005 at 12:19 AM | link to this | reply

Your time frame co-incides with financial downturns afer Viet Nam.
I'll bet the money dried up, leaving them with an embarassing no man's land.

posted by majroj on June 26, 2005 at 12:07 AM | link to this | reply

Majroj, Back in the late 1960's-1970's
MIT and a consortium of science/technology based corps took over a huge swath of land in a densely populated poor to lower working class neighborhood in Cambridge Mass. The residents fought the eviction/buyout offers. Big money won, the neighborhood was flattened, and nothing was built for years after. It was a no-mans land of dirt and vacant lots.

posted by Cynthia on June 25, 2005 at 8:56 AM | link to this | reply

And don't forget, it's a private company getting the perqs.

Maybe they ought to relocate the people to the location of their choice?

 

The cry is "More jobs", but let's see them hold the private companies' feet to the fire and force them to pay wages, agree to benefits, and hire locally.

posted by majroj on June 24, 2005 at 8:34 AM | link to this | reply