Shreveport's New Mayor

[Mwahfromtheheart]

Originally Posted by Chance and Change

Yes.. when a city creates an atomsphere of growth and support for growth. Then a city grows.
As we heard many people claim government does not create business. Well they are UNinformed, because it is the basis of government that establishes the foundation and mechanisms for business to become established.
We can know this by the fact that places with poor and non functioning government are poverty stricken and fall in the ranks of third world or less countries. Each country with good government, Prospers.
Look at the Nordic Region, China has strong government, it has kicked our butts in every category, because it has a 'business positive mentality".

I used to think counter to this until I moved. And it's not that a government needs to be massive in reach, just intelligent. I don't think Shreveport has intelligent enough people in government to coordinate any innovative concept that would spur growth. There wont be any kind of change in that unless the people become proactive and that is something they just aren't in the area. In my 25+ years living there, I can't think of any assembly of note that produced meaningful change.

Thing is - what is attractive about the area to businesses? There are almost no colleges, very few training facilities, small commitment to infrastructure (Have you guys fixed your huge water problem yet?), high crime, high poverty ... all things that government traditionally maintains. You're absolutely right, government lays the foundation for a business climate and they adjust the structure around it to fit what the economy is doing (based on bubbles and other factors). I wonder if anybody could read this and still argue that business does not like government involvement in at least some capacity ....

[Chance and Change]

I get your points on the regulatory systems. But likewise so. There will definately come some reforms in these areas. The Glass-Steigal was abandoned, and now we have Dodd-Frank. Dodd Frank falls far short, but we have to remember it was a push to help stop the housing slide. Suddenly the measure was slipped in to weaken Dodd Frank.
BUT: Elizabeth Warren, will challenge things in ways the banks won't like, because if and as they push to water down protections, she is already focused on breaking up "too big to fail".

As to localized lending. We will get to have some nature of mortgage reform banking. It would be great, if Fannie and Freddie who holds all this paper, would consider the "Community Re-investment Spectrum", as HUD already has FHA, which can spring forward quickly to design a special program.
It's just a matter of work.
There are already many contractors who are interested to "re-develop" many inner city older areas, but the city has not moved to do land banks, or designate sectors which fit the modeling to make these moves. It's coming but it may take a bit.
We have areas where 10-20 block squares are in need of massive rebuilding, We need people with new eyes, proactive concept and the will to push ahead, without trying to rely on "old heads who have ridden on name recognition too many years"... When those old heads are out of the equation, then we can have some progressive changes.

I believe in change, we truly should look at other jurisdiction and some of the things they are doing to rebuild.
We can do interesting things, but it matters to get the 'stuck in the mud types" to go sit down, or we simply build enough community support to shut them up. They are stagnation.
It's Like downtown, Old heads, bought up the property, and sit on it trying to wait to make a windfall. When we need to establish ordinances which mandate, you fix it, use it or there is penalty. (there are cities doing exactly this, and it forced those people to either fix it, lease it for commercial usage, sell it, or pay a penalty.
In Mississippi, they had one areas which declared various properties as economic zone property, and when people tried to gridlock it, they used the Economic Domain Clause, paid the people fair market value and seized the property for Municipal Economic Growth.
There is always a way to deal with those who have designs on blocking progress. Our young people deserve a progressive environment, those who came before the Baby boomers, built up this city, they faced challenges and they built anyway.
All the boomers do is hoard and whine about everything, some even want to take us back to the 1940's and 1950's social habits of segregated madness. Even when it comes to environmental regulations, too many baby boomers are too quick to talk about what they use to be able to do without regulations. But what they don't say, is how many people they poisoned, and how much land they contaminated and how much waste was involved in what they were doing.
Imagine how much oil was pumped out of the Ground from 1900- to 1970-- It was a total waste, because greed was so high, no one wanted to invest in the new methods of refining what was pumped out of the ground, so we simply wasted 40 yrs of product, by inefficiency.
We should currently be fixing our electrical grid, we have poles leaning, and the fist heavy wind comes through, we may be powerless for months, when this should have been an ongoing upgrade, which has not even started.
No one in the City even addresses this. We have street lights that should have been LED and or The new low power usage types that give off more lights.
Our night lighting for Schools should be solar power driven lighting, but again, no one is thinking and those who can make decisions are too egotistical to listen, because they are afraid change might make them irrelevant. So we pay for that madness.

I know the program to change how Section 8 works is a program that can be progressive.
When you look at the loan rate and the payment amount. It is payments people can make. Most payments won't exceed what some section 8 people have to pay as a co-payment. but at 3% on less than a 100K... even with tax and insurance, we are talking maybe $450. That means a person can earn 1800 a month, and that is only 1/3 of their pay. a two working person household earning 1800 each, is 3600 a month.

We can make things work if we are willing to have people in position who are there to see to the work being done.

[g3140517]

Local employers don't believe government is hostile to business in the state, and they are the ones doing the growth thing.

[Mwahfromtheheart]

After last year, they'd better be growing something. They blew bad.