Mayor Carl Brewer (in photo) and other members of the Wichita City Council made a strong impression Tuesday with their passionate arguments and unanimous vote for proceeding with a $500,000 downtown revitalization plan. “I think this plan is more or less our last option. We need to do it. We’ve made too many mistakes,” said council member Paul Gray, calling it a “must-do situation.” Responding to speakers calling for the free market to drive core development, council member Janet Miller said: “We have given free market a chance in downtown. . . . Without incentives, the free market just doesn’t work.” Brewer concluded: “We have one opportunity to do it right, and now is that opportunity.” The strong endorsement also raises expectations about what Boston-based Goody Clancy can deliver over the next year. Now, as Brewer and others pointed out, citizens will need to engage in the planning process, to ensure that Goody Clancy’s recommendations are in fact the community’s.
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14 Comments
“Without incentives, the free market just doesn’t work.”
And that’s the, uhm, free market?
“The free market just doesn’t work.”
Think about that, CONs.
It’s a nice idea?
It’s pretty much a special unicorn-and-teddy-bears-and-rainbow fantasy to rapture about.
But here in the real world –
“The free market just doesn’t work.”
The Free Market Just Doesn’t Work.”
CONs have no answer.
Responding to speakers calling for the free market to drive core development, council member Janet Miller said: “We have given free market a chance in downtown. . . . Without incentives, the free market just doesn’t work.”
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I’d agree in these limited circumstances. If you want to direct development to areas that are not economically feasible, or too risky for free market solutions, then you have to have the government incentives. But if it doesn’t take off and become economically feasible for the free market, then you have wasted the money. Like the Water Walk.
The free market does work with incentives.
You wouldn’t be in the care you drive, wearing the clothes you wear or living in the house you live without the incentives of the free market.
All of the Kommie socialists on this blog wouldn’t have two nickles to rub together without the free market.
“Regular” blithers –
“The free market does work with incentives.”
Uhm.
That means it’s not a “free” market.
The free market has worked. Nobody is interested in downtown. Money (in the way of consumer businesses) follows people. WHich is why you see so much development……wait for it….. on the edges of Wichita, where the growth is. That is free market choices. If you want something to not follow the free market, then you have to “government incentive” it.
Someone needs to inform our city council that this is Wichita, KS. Not NYC, not San Antonio, not Boston, and not LA.
This is Wichita, stop trying to make it into something it’s not, you are wasting our money.
And with Anti-type of thinking, it will remain so. We need more David Burks and Rich Vilets, etc., who saw a rundown downtown and turned it into a vibrant, viable, MONEY-MAKING venture.
Anti types were happy with bums and wine bottles littering the area.
Dennis
Monkeyhawk
Posted October 14, 2009 at 9:46 am | Permalink
“Regular” blithers –
“The free market does work with incentives.”
Uhm.
That means it’s not a “free” market.
——————-
Sure it does, it’s called being rewarded with money from your profits. That’s incentive.
YellowdogLiberal,
How did the $41 million water walk project pan out?
What has been the return on that 41 million?
ANTI
Posted October 14, 2009 at 10:50 am | Permalink
YellowdogLiberal,
How did the $41 million water walk project pan out?
What has been the return on that 41 million?
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There is an annual ‘pick up the trash around the river’ outting to celebrate the death of said project.
Patience, Anti. Things, because of something called a world-wide recession, don’t always work at first. And who knows, it might turn into a total bust. That happens. But small thinking turns out small results. Ya gotta dream and then work yr behind off, crossing your fingers all the way. Win, you’re a hero; lose, the Antis of the world on the sidelines point their fingers and say, na, na, told ya it wouldn’t work, but offer no suggestions. Just criticism.
Dennis
Seems the revitalizing has never been for revitalizing downtown, it’s about revitalizing consultants. We’ve paid some consultant or other to come up with a plan to revitalize the downtown area every couple years for at least the last 50 years, and all the area has done is deteriorate. Somebody decided we needed Old Town. Yeah, it’s not bad, but even with subsidies it’s hanging by a thread. So the solution for that was to build an arena, but the parking problem is dooming its ability to function. So, we’ll pass another sales tax to build a parking facility. Sounds like an old car I once had!
Yeah, I think I had a car like that. Oh wait, I am still driving it.