Nabob of Nothing
I'm always curious as to who reads the blog. I occasionally find out via emails or bumping into people. Or by seeing what web pages people come when they get to the blog.
I'm flattered that one of those readers is the Nabob of Nothing aka Kombatrock or Kelly Benjamin. There has been a Nabob of Nothing who has posted on this blog. Kelly's blog links to this blog regarding Starbucks.
He is an interesting person.
He ran an underground radio station in the Seminole Heights/ Ybor City area until busted by Charlie (FCC). He ran for City Council against Rose Ferlita in the last election.
I first ran into him when he came to a board meeting of the SE Seminole Heights Civic Association. He had nearly been attacked/robbed by some drug delaing criminals while walking home in Ybor Heights area and if I remember correctly wanted to get some help in organizing his community. We advised him to join his neighborhoods defunct civic association and help revive it. The next I know he was running for office. Over the years he never apparently tried use his good talents to rebuild his neighborhood and I have always been disappointed about that. The best way to change the world is to begin with your neighborhood.
4/27/06 Added note: I got a chuckle this morning when I went to the Nabob's blog to reread something. Apparently I am Satan. I especially enjoyed that I was reading the demonic times. He also had some commentary about gentrification that could spark some good discussion. Except that he has his comments turned off. So I will post one part of his post.
"While nobody should have to live in a neighborhood riddled with street drugs and crime except Dick Cheney, making a neighborhood 'safe' usually involves making it unsafe for certain classes of people, who are forced out to other low-rent neighborhoods, to shelters, or to prison. The version of 'safety' used by city government often involves cultural fascism: overzealous code enforcement, criminalizing 'loud music', and certain types of street congregating because they are supposedly associated with street drug trade. The key is figuring out how to protect mixed neighborhoods that are safe, fun, and sustaining for all kinds of people including the original residents."
Go read his blog and come back here and discuss.
23 comments:
That guy does suck and he's a big disappointment to us all, but at least he's not SATAN!!
i'm gonna go with Nabob of Nutjobs...btw love the horns. that's a good look for you scott.
I'm all for gentrification
i guess if he can call David Satan, then ya'll can call Kelly a nutjob, but I think he's right about gentrification. It's not across-the-board good (few things are). It's easy to be for gentrification when you don't have to worry about getting priced out of your own neighborhood. Now this isn't to say that I don't like clean yards and safety, but everyone's idea of safety differs and I don't feel threatened by people hanging out in the street as they often do in my neighborhood (Sulphur Springs). So as glad as I am that things improve in a general things-don't- look-totally-neglected way, and I don't want folks to be able to dump their couches by the river, I also don't want to not be able to buy a house in my neighborhood.
His arguments are specious and self-serving. I'm always suspicious of people who justify their actions because they are protecting people you'd never see them stoop to associate with. H. L. Menken said "The urge to save humanity is almost always a false-face for the urge to rule it."
I'm not sure what is meant by gentrification and how it applies to this neighborhood. What has happened to Seminole Heights has been less rentals and more home owners. I'm not sure how you qualify "gentry" but when I look around, I don't see good moving out and bad moving in.
I would ask anyone to name an example, an actual person who was run out. Most that do leave do so because they want the money. So would those people be better off living in lower value home in a higher crime neighborhood?
In fact, the only people we have run out were criminals like prostitutes and drug dealers, and none of them actually lived here. I've never met a resident who was sad to see them go.
I think most of us truly concerned citizens worry about displacing people but that is less of a worry with the cap on property taxes. That cap allows people to stay where they are and make a hefty sum when they do decide to leave.
This argument seems like a "straw man". Everyone needs a cause, I suppose.
Dear Jeff Harmon,
I apologize if my comments seem "specious" and "self serving" to you. To be fair, yours seem pretentious, misinformed, and obnoxious to me. On a personal level (since you got personal) I try to associate with everyone. From dime bag dealers in robles to dinner parties with Jim Davis. No stooping, not even when I feel obliged to respond to you. Gentrification was used in it's traditional textbook definition, it's not a localized phenomenon, but a rule in the relationship between real estate and capital. You dont see "good moving out and bad moving" in because it's not that black and white. It's nuanced in shades of grey. It's telling that you acknowledge that renters have been pushed out but then you doubt there has been "an actual person" affected?! Are renters not actual people?
I'm one. Along with dozens of folks I know and knew who lived in the area before the property boom. College kids, plumbers, single moms...working class. Those who couldnt afford to buy and cant pay the new rents being asked after the middle to upper-middle transition. They move. I refer you to a front page story in the Tampa Tribune from last Sunday entitled "HIGH PRICES CLOSE DOORS." It's a good article and it lays it out there. It's not your fault though. But please dont snidely confuse my observations with a "cause." I'm sure we disagree on a lot more.
I'm really sorry to hear I've disappointed you David. As the Legendary KO said: God made the path and I'm trying to walk through. and your satan.
(just kidding)
Kelly,
You don’t seem to actually associate with anyone so much as you seek to convey your prophetic vision to the ignorant masses, who should apparently listen and heed your wisdom without comment. Associating with people indicates a willingness to engage them on an equal level. But that starts with having respect for others. You seem to have nothing but disdain for the “pawns” of this neighborhood.
Many of the people you dismiss try very hard to be forces of good and to mitigate the inevitable harm that change brings. When I first moved into this neighborhood many years ago, many people didn’t want to be here. Many long-time residents, people who had lived here longer than you have been alive were regular victims of crime. Home invasions were much too frequent, drug deals happened on the corner, johns propositioned teenagers walking home after school. In cleaning that up, the neighborhood, with its attractive historic fabric, became more appealing. People cashed in, some who didn’t help improve anything, e.g., absentee landlords, took advantage of that. Do I like that? No. Do I focus on it? No. My two neighbors, both who raised families in this neighborhood, one who’s lived here since the 1940s, appreciate the improvement in their lives. Just last week, many residents here participated in Paint Your Heart Out. And your concern for “people of color” is a bit misinformed. Today, I have more African-American neighbors who actually own their home (rather than ones paying rent to white landlords). They paid a lot of money for their homes. They’re also gay. I’m proud to say that your “pawns” have a neighborhood that is pretty inclusive, especially to many who rarely feel welcomed around this country. Overall good? Yes. Perfect? Who expects perfection except those who prefer gloom and doom?
Most of us “pawns” understand that the world can’t fit into a nice tidy box. There is bad with good. We approach problems with a spirit of compromise. We look for resolution rather than perpetual conflict. A person who truly cares would seek to be constructive. Inevitably, the people who project their ills on society can see only darkness. It’s worse than pessimism. For you, the glass that’s half full means some imperialist stole half from the poor single mother plumbers of the world.
Before you chide others for buying into anything. Take a hard look at that triple mocha malaise that feeds your addiction. Who’s sold out?
The pawns was a sorta a reference to the grand chess game of capitalism. I dont dismiss anyone (except for Satan). We dont associate in the same circles but dont get an inferiority complex about my "prophetic vision." (I like your comments) It's cool that you have gay black neighbors but dont get a chip on your shoulder about it. I have gay black neighbors too. It's trendy. In fact, I'm gay. We're taking over. We typically pave the way for gentrification. Real estate analyzers call us "risk oblivious," willing to live in an area with little capital invested in it and high crime rates, eventually making the area palatable for the rest of ya'll with the higher incomes. It happens everywhere.
By the way, what's a triple mocha malaise? What the hell are you talking about??
Kelly is not gay. He's a kommie.
I see some pretty nice affordable housing going up across Tampa...Millions and millions of our tax dollars are being spent on razing old public housing complexes and putting up nice, affordable apartments.
Lake and 22nd
N Florida Ave.
Central Park
There are decent options for people so please don't give me this whiny gentrification b.s. It's typical neighborhood evolution.
except that they kicked out thousands of people and there's only space for a fraction to move back in...Everyone is getting kicked out of Central Park right now. I guess by affordable housing you mean housing projects. As some areas are gentrified others are ghettoized. Social Engineering...
from Overheard In New York:
Realtor guy:...and the area is really gentrifying quite nicely...very safe. The people from the projects never come over to this side of the neighborhood, so it's a great place to raise a family.
Homeless passerby pushing a wheelbarrow full of junk: Could you folks help me out with some money to buy food? Give me money. I haven't eaten in three days.
Realtor guy: Sorry, I... I work on commission. [To his clients]
This happens even in Cobble Hill.
The husband and wife walk towards their car.
Homeless guy: Come on man, I'm hungry!
Realtor guy: Fuck you, you just cost me a commission!
--Dwight & Dikeman, Red Hook
At one time, especially in this city, transitional housing was available mixed within the middle class neighborhoods, as studio apartments, garage apartments. Elites, self-anointed as caretakers of the impoverished, created government projects which separated the poor from everyone else.
I and many others would like to see the return of owner occupied properties with single apartments. There is also a trend, albeit not working real well, to turn the massive government slums into mixed housing.
Within these movements, there are hundreds of avenues to exert effort for positive change. None of them, however, involve Starbucks as Dante's 5th level in Hell.
Get thee out Satan! No, seriously. What do you people expect? As people fix up their homes, work together to lower crime, and generally clean up the neighborhood - prices are going to go up. In Seminole Heights it's a *direct reflection* of the hard work and care put forth by many neighbors long before I even got here. It's not some grand scheme by 'the man' to keep people down. Land isn't being bought up by greedheads putting in 300K condos (yet). So put down the pitchforks and torches and move away from the liberal lattes a moment and realize that what is happening is a natural result of our neighborhood becoming more desirable.
When we bought our home on Idlewild it had its original plumbing and wiring. Critters were living in the walls and attic. Part of the roof was leaking into the bathroom.
Let's say, for the sake of argument, that this home was rented to a low-income family just before we bought it. The owner of the home would have had to spend over $30K to bring the home up to basic safety levels. Pipes were sealed shut in the upstairs bath. Knob and tube wiring was jury-rigged into modern wires and burried under insulation. Lead paint was peeling off the woodowork. Mold and mildew were growing in the leaking areas. Under the kitchen cabinets a family of rats were pulling roach traps into their warren and eating the insects. A chemical spill had seeped into the area as well and was embalming critters and somehow managed to coat an electrical outlet.
This is the "affordable housing" that gentrification took away. People were living in these conditions when we moved into our home. In our case, it was a black gay male that had plans to fix up the place but better circumstances drew him to New York. In many respects the homes lost to gentrification no longer exist; they've been replaced by safe, sound, comfortable dwellings.
Is that what it means to "gentrify" a neighborhood? And if making a neighborhood safe and clean forces people out, should we not make them safe and clean?
Shawn, it sounds like you have done a lot of work and improved something and that is admirable.
However, I don't think that every person that was renting before gentrification was living in the hell-hole that you describe. I know many people who did not and would not have lived in a situation like that but lived in Seminole Heights.
These same people couldn't afford to live there now, since it seems to be difficult to rent for less than $1000.00/month unless you live with 3 other people.
Let Them Eat Cake's posting, though it may sound paranoid or extreme to some of the people on here, is fact. The "Not In My Backyard" feeling seems to characterize the planning for displaced residents of public housing in this city.
Mia,
The unfortunate trend is that there is no place for the "displaced" to go. As was stated in a recent article, the cost of housing has gone up approx. 60% while the average income has gone up around 9%. (Someone please double check these figures as I am quoting from memory.) However, in the same article that Kelly refers to in one of his earlier posts, Seminole Heights is listed as the second most affordable neighborhood in Tampa, behind only East Tampa. The sad fact is that even the lowest cost market rate housing in Tampa is too expensive for a significant percantage of the displaced. Is that Seminole Heights fault? Not really. I think it is a reflection of a society that is so much in personal debt that it can no longer afford to subsidize those in need. Raising the taxes of a highly leveraged suburbanite (or Seminole Heights resident) has a catastrophic impact on that person's standard of living. Given the choice of them or me, it is that surprising that most people (perhaps with the exception of Kelly) would choose me?
Typical rhetoric from some guy who probably skims the Communist Manifesto and suddenly he thinks he understands the complexities of economics and social interaction.
My wife and I both work 40 hours a week to support our two sons. They are both in day care while we work so we can work.
We were able to scrape enough money together and take advantage of interest rates last year to buy our first home in Seminole Heights. Yeah we paid too much but we didn't have many option since we didnt want to live in Brandon or Carrollwood.
We have very little disposable income left when all is said and done each month with the house.
I find it insulting that some naive jughead who orchestrates some Quixotic run for city council has the nerve to call me an evil rich, white gentrifier of Seminole Heights.
Screw you pal, while you're talking to the homeless and the so-called displaced masses, formulating your crackpot theories on life, take a minute to chat with a middle class working family.
We've all got issues and problems bud. Maybe you'll figure that out when you put the Marx and the doobie down for minute.
Marx you can have but aint nobody makin me put down the doobie. You'll have to pry it from my cold dead hands!
(you only say quixotic because your not romantic)
Why is it allways the doobie that suffers? Its just not right.
Mia,
90% of the homes in Seminole Heights that are affordable have original wiring and plumbing. So while the slime and rats and the leaks were bad, the wiring and the plumbing were major disasters waiting for the right moment to strike.
Even if the wiring evades arcing and bursting into flame yet another year, there's a bigger disaster looming: insurance premiums. Our insurance leaped over 100% in the last few years. We've gone through something like 5 insurance companies. Many homeowners are moving to Citizens insurance as they are the company of final resort. This leap in insurance rates will do more to force people out of homes than anything else. Unlike taxes, it affects everyone rich and poor equally.
And to compound things, Citizens sends an inspector to each home to find knob and tube wiring. If you find it, you have to hire a certified electrician to rewire the house. So any landlord that gets caught in this one-two punch may be tempted to sell instead of eat the thousands of dollars he'll be charged.
Finally, roll property taxes into the equation. Rentals don't qualify for the homestead exemption and are reassessed regularly. This will force rents up quickly in an area where housing prices are rising even modestly.
One solution is to increase the supply of rental units in the area by making garage apartment rentals legal and by building mixed-use commercial on the corridors that include rentals.
Just because rental units may be included in mixed use projects does not mean that they would be inexpensive - the tenant - either via the commercial business or the individual renter would still have to cover the expense of R/E taxes.
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