Two Articles You Should Read Today
"Don't Feed The White Elephant," by Joel Kotkin, in the L.A. Times, discusses the history and economics of the City's plan to subsidize more construction downtown. Long story short: pouring more money into the convention center is a terrible idea, and will benefit only billionaire developers, not the public interest."'Deal'on LAUSD Needs Good Going Over," by Doug Lasken, an English teacher, in the Daily News, explains why the teachers' union and others are supporting the Mayor's plan. Control over the curriculum seems to be the answer.
Posted by Walter Moore @ 7/09/2006 09:03:00 AM
22 Comments:
The Convention Center,once there are a sufficient number of hotel rooms available to actually support a major convention, will be a huge moneymaker for the city of Los Angeles and all of the citizens.
That a few entrepreneurs who are willing to gamble their capital and energy are able to make some money is irrelevant to the overall commerce bump that this city will experience.
For years we have missed the boat due to shortsightness on the part of the leadership. Now we can compete in the marketplace for conventions and will see a huge influx of jobs, money and tax dollars due to the increase in business all the way down the line.
If the labor unions hadn't had such a choke hold on our city, this could, would and should have happened years ago.
If Kotkin knew anything about business he'd be out here in the real world trying to make money like the rest of us.
We need to make the infrastructure investments to have hotel rooms. It is no secret that the Convention Center has lost money; there have been no rooms to hold the prospective conventionaires. Duh.
The State Bar of California has an annual convention; it rotates from Monterrey, to Anaheim to San Diego. Why? Why not Los Angeles?
ROOMS. We have plenty of attractions; everyone wants to see LA and the movie business, the ocean, the access to everything is here.
Kotkin is wrong. Antonio is right. Subsidy or not, Anshutz is not stupid. The hotels will prosper, and so will LA.
Build them and they will come...
ANTI LAUSD
WRITERS: JOEL RUBIN/LA TIMES
PUPPET MASTER HAS THIS GUY BY THE CAJONES.
Jackass Goldberg supported Jimmy Hahn in the last election; Antonio will support her for Superintendent?
I don't think so...
Wanna bet?
No mention of LAPD in Hollywood protecting Minutemen march yesterday. I guess that's no PC
Mr. Krakover and Anon 10:32 are right; the Convention Center will cease to be a "white elephant" once the new Marriott/Ritz finally provides some much-needed hotel rooms nearby. It was a misguided idea to originally build the Convention Center so far from the Financial District and its hotels, and it was foolish to expand it further without any hotels in walking distance. This may be an honest case of throwing good money after bad.
While the City needs Marriott/Ritz to validate its investment in the Convention Center, I think Mr. Moore brings up a good point: Why does the City need to subsidize it? While I think he's out of touch with Angelenos on many issues, I agree with him that "corporate welfare" is not something we ought to support.
Loans, tax breaks, and fee waivers don't constitute a "direct" subsidy, but with the Downtown economic boom running at all cylinders, are we to really believe that companies like AEG and KB Home couldn't build this hotel without them? I think they could.
I can't believe I just defended Joel Kotkin and Walter Moore. I need to take a long shower with lots of soap now...
There is a period between the construction of a hotel and the time it begins to show a profit. In this case, one has to understand that conventions are booked several years in advance, thus the hotels will probably not break even for seven or eight, maybe ten years.
The subsidies are provided as an inducement to make the investment and wait for the business to come.
The tax breaks we provide are little more than a standard CRA "loan", which is really a grant of the money.
Stop counting other people's money and worry about how LA will come out.
It will be a big win for this city and the present leadership, both the Mayor and the Council, are to be commended.
Kotkin and Moore neeed to take Econ 101.
There is a period between the construction of a hotel and the time it begins to show a profit. In this case, one has to understand that conventions are booked several years in advance, thus the hotels will probably not break even for seven or eight, maybe ten years.
The subsidies are provided as an inducement to make the investment and wait for the business to come.
The tax breaks we provide are little more than a standard CRA "loan", which is really a grant of the money.
Stop counting other people's money and worry about how LA will come out.
It will be a big win for this city and the present leadership, both the Mayor and the Council, are to be commended.
Kotkin and Moore neeed to take Econ 101.
I'll stack my Econ credentials up against any anonymous poster! I took a year of micro, a year of macro, econometrics, public finance, Soviet-type economies, and accounting for lawyers. This boondoggle cannot be justified by economic theory, except, perhaps, Marxist theory: it is a rip-off by wealthy developers, using the power of local government to get dollars no rational investor would entrust to them. Welfare should be for the poor, not the rich.
P.S. I left out my paper on Japanese industrial policy. The Japanese, like the geniuses in City Hall, and the comrades who tried to "manage" the Soviet economy, believed that they, too, could predict what industries would be "winners," and therefore justified an "investment" of public monies. They were wrong, wrong, wrong.
Voters should never let bureaucrats play "investment banker" with tax dollars. If they were any good at it, they would be on Wall Street, not City Hall. The government should be neutral when it comes to various types of businesses, rather than taxing some sectors to subsidize others.
Joel Kotkin is the biggest idiot I've ever met. The first and only time I ever heard him speak he ranted on and on that "Nobodby wants to live in high-rises", "nobody wants to take trains", "nobody wants blah blah blah". When he finally shut his pie hole and the moderator asked for comments I stood up and said "Hi, I'd like to introduce myself. I'm NOBODY".
This is one of those elitist jerks who works from home - his words, not mine, he said so in his speech that day. Yet he bitches about traffic at rush hour. He seemed totally confused when I told him he was dead wrong when he declared the valley's Orange Line a complete failure. He obviously hadn't looked at even the most modest of statistics which show it has decreased traffic. He waved me off when I told him how I lived in a high-rise condo in Boston prior to living in LA and that living and working near transit meant I didn't have to own a car. He said that would never work here. Oh no, Joel, of course it couldn't work here. If it did YOU would be out of work! He makes his living bitching about stuff he doesn't know anything about.
I later wrote him a letter where I dissected more of his speech and countered everything he said with current statistics and demographics that proved him wrong. Needless to say I never heard back.
I'd never listen to Kotkin again, God forbid believe a word out of his twisted self-serving mouth. He's made a cottage industry out of plucking doomsday scenarios out of every progressive idea put forth for smart growth and indeed for the future of California. He's nothing more than a con artist.
Wow, Walter, a whole freaking YEAR of economics. Paul Krugman must be shaking in his loafers. Oh wait, I almost left out the fact that you wrote a PAPER. Ooooohhhhhh!
It's amazing how much you think of yourself. But I guess SOMEBODY has to.
Walter. you left out the Ivy League thing, you know, the Princeton and Georgetown degrees.
What the Hell were they teaching there? Anybody spend time on the relative values of investments and alternative cost of money?
The cost of the Convention Center without hotel rooms has been devastating and would continue to be so unless someone was induced to build some. If the deal were so sweet without subsidies, they would have been built years ago. Heaven knows the property around South Park has been cheap enough for years. That is, until Anshutz (with some subsidies) built the Staples Center, of course.
South Park is on the way back to viable quality downtown living, and once the hotels are in place, the urban renewal will grow like the dickens.
You and Kotkin both need to take a refresher in Urban Planning 101 while you are at it.
I think Phil Krakover teaches it.
I think Phil Krakover is a lobbyist for developers.
KB Homes and AEG do NOT need our subsidies, tax breaks or fee waivers.
Phil Krakover is blogger "The Angeleno" Antonio V. campaign for Mayor
I have to agree with Kotkin about the Convention Center, as much as I detest the guy for his economic illiteracy and his almost awe-inspiring intellectual dishonesty. Subsidizing convention centers is almost always a waste of money. Conventions aren't a growth industry and arguably are a trailing indicator behind other forms of tourism--people have conventions in New Orleans or Chicago because those places are interesting tourist destinations (well, were interesting in the case of the former), not because they have great convention centers. Additionally, Los Angeles is at a disadvantage because of its location relative to the rest of the country. The two big convention centers in Chicagoland (Rosemont near O'Hare and McCormick Place downtown) stay busy year-round despite the distinct unpleasantness of winter in the Windy City. The reason is simple: there isn't anywhere in the Lower 48 that's more than 4 hours from O'Hare, and for 75% of the country's population it's 2 hours. By contrast, Los Angeles is a 6-hour flight from anywhere between DC and Boston and 5 hours from Atlanta or Miami. That Las Vegas and San Diego draw as many conventions as they do despite suffering from the same advantage is a reflection of their deeply entrenched tourism orientations. Los Angeles got away from tourism a long time ago and there's no need to spend loads of money to try to develop it even further.
The convention business in the southwestern US should be left to tourist traps like Las Vegas, Anaheim, and San Diego. As it stands, there are too many players and not a big enough pot to make the expenditures worthwhile.
Kotkin is wrong to lump LA Live in with the Convention Center, though. As long as the bulk of the region's transportation infrastructure--both freeways and transit--is focused on bringing people into downtown Los Angeles, it makes sense for that part of the city to be in use more than just 8-6, Monday-Friday.
BTW, I have an MA in economics from USC. I win the schlong war for now, or at least until someone with a PhD comes along.
The Convention Center Hotel is a a necesity for Los Angeles.
Most people I hear from around the world who speak on this issue , claim that they want the Los Angeles Exeprience and that does not mean going to disneyland only and hollywood.
What it means is being close to the center of public transportation and being able to take in LOs Angeles not aneheim. I have talked to many people who come to conventions and they do take the city buses on a bus tour of the City .
Favorite places they go:
The Grove , Universal Studios , El Mercado , Grand Cenral Market, Hollywood , Sunset blvd , even Long beach to see the Queen Mary. They keep going west thorugh Beverly Hills to the Ocean.
Tourists and conventioneers want the Los Angeles experience the Convention Center Hotel and LA Live will give them this chance.
It looks like we may beat Portland oregon at building a convention Center Hotel and I hope we do.
Sorry Peter. We only give credence to UCLA degrees. Perhaps you could go get your PhD at UCLA and come back and we'll take you more seriously.
11:09 obviously hasn't noticed how UCLA has slid into mediocrity in the last 5-10 years while USC has taken frat-alumni money and pumped it into research and faculty recruitment. You don't complete the second-biggest capital campaign in the history of American universities without improving a whole hell of a lot.
Actually Peter, I was thinking more along the lines of USC=conservative and UCLA=liberal.
I was joking with you.
Now why would a man of your intelligence be up posting on a blog at 2 AM? Don't you work?
USC#1
UCLA-#-99
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