Good news and bad

The good: Bloomberg has seen the light that new affordable housing wedded to market-rate development leads only to net upscaling and displacement, whereas preserving affordable housing preserves communities as they are.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/22/nyregion/22housing.html?ref=todayspaper

The bad news: MTA plans to discontinue the M8 bus on weekends. A hearing will be held on cuts in Manhattan at FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology), Haft Auditorium, 7th Avenue, Thursday, March 4, at 6pm. Further details:
http://www.mta.info/news/stories/?story=11

Tom Angotti teaches on community control and the real estate crisis

Tom Angotti, one of the great urban planning analysts, is teaching a course on The Housing Question: Real Estate Crisis and Community Control of Land at the Brecht Forum. He will be addressing, among other issues, "how many seemingly progressive housing reforms end up reproducing instead of solving the problems." It's the quandary of the Giuliani-Bloomberg era.

The Housing Question: Real Estate Crisis and Community Control of Land
a 4-session class starting Thursday, February 18, 2010 from 5:30 to 7:30 pm
taught by Tom Angotti
at the Brecht Forum
451 West Street
New York City

The latest burst in the financial bubble left our neighborhoods with
abandoned construction sites, bankrupt slumlords, struggling tenants,
foreclosed homeowners, and more homeless people. The Housing Question by
Friedrich Engels, though written in the late 19th century, helps us
understand how these problems are endemic to capitalism and, more
importantly, how many seemingly progressive housing reforms end up
reproducing instead of solving the problems. Four workshops look at The
Housing Question and its relevance to community organizing today, ending
with a review of strategies for gaining community control of land.

1. Engels and The Housing Question

2. Finance capital and real estate in the neoliberal city

3. Anti-capitalist community struggles for land

4. New strategies for community control of land

Tom Angotti teaches at Hunter College in the Department of Urban Affairs
and Planning. He is the author of New York for Sale: Community Planning
Confronts Global Real Estate, Metropolis 2000: Planning, Poverty and
Politics, and Housing in Italy. He is a Fellow at the American Academy in
Rome, co-editor of Progressive Planning Magazine, and participating editor
for Latin American Perspectives and Local Environment.

Tuition--sliding scale: $45/$65
Pre-register online at
http://brechtforum.org/civicrm/event/info?id=11560&reset=1

Benefit for Ray's

Ray's on Avenue A just north of 7th Street is the heart and soul of this place. It used to be the gathering spot for all the local anarchists and squatters, every evening, spilling out onto the street. It was so much a unique part of the EV. Ray's still is, just the crowd is thinner.

EVGrieve has the lineup set for DAY OF RAY, Saturday, Feb. 6, from noon to 6pm at Sidewalk Cafe, 6th&A.

Meanwhile, check out a bit of the authentic Ray's in photos at NietherMoreNorLess.