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Thursday, November 20, 2008

NOLA self-hatred on display again

One reason we can't build anything in this town is because we spend so much time hating ourselves and one another. Today's NOLA.com features an article about the HANO sell-off titled HANO approves sale or demolition of most scattered units And yet the first comment reads,

They need to be torn down and never rebuilt the way they were. Mass grouping of low income people together is only a breeding ground for crime.Rebuild,but do it wisely.


This "mass grouping of low income people" canard popped up frequently during the debate over demolishing the "Big Four" housing projects. Demolition proponents took to this line because it allowed them to seem to make the (dubious) case that low income families benefit from living at some unspecified distance from one another. It provided just enough PC cover to help demolition proponents avoid saying what they really wanted was to have low income families live at some unspecified distance from... the demolition proponents.

This is why seeing the "mass grouping" canard pop up here (now in an incoherent reference to scattered housing) is unsurprising. It further underscores the fact that what we really hate in New Orleans isn't low income people "grouped together". We just hate low income people.

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