[PRCo] Re: Pen's get new luxury hotel

[Schneider Fred]

I will agree with the first point.   Dollar rules.   Politicians will  
do anything to get more tax money or more campaign funds or more  
secret dollars.
I will disagree with Portland having more homeless than Los Angeles,  
both in volume and share of total population.  Does not make sense to  
me.

 From the World Socialist Website this year:   I do not support this  
or defend it.   It is just something I found.

According to this recent study, the number of homeless on any given  
night in Los Angeles County has reached 90,000, up 8.4 percent from  
83,000 in 2003. Ito noted that “the County of Los Angeles is now the  
homeless capital of the United States,” surpassing by far New York  
City’s 40,000, Chicago’s 9,600 and San Francisco’s 9,600 homeless  
populations. “To put it in perspective,” noted Ito, “the homeless  
population of Los Angeles County is larger than the entire population  
of the city of Santa Monica [a beach community that abuts Los  
Angeles]. It is truly an appalling situation.”
The bulk of the LA county homeless—82,291 out of the 90,000—are found  
in the City of Los Angeles—South Central (which includes Watts,  
Downtown, Pico Union, Boyle Heights, Hollywood—and in the City of  
Compton and in some of the smaller cities within the county. The  
industrial city of Long Beach, to the south (California’s sixth  
largest), Pasadena and Glendale to the north conduct their own count  
and provide their own services. They have 6,000, 1,200, and 400  
homeless, respectively.

The best I can find on the web for Portland is that the number of  
homeless in downtown Portland varies from 386 to 1438 depending on  
who counts and on what night and what year of the last three years.   
It was apparently declining because the city had an effort to drive  
them elsewhere, perhaps to L. A.

Admittedly the homeless are most difficult to enumerate.   The census  
department makes an attempt every ten years to do it around April 1st  
and add those numbers into people in houses, apartments, college  
dorms, jails, military and so forth.   But there is no way the census  
people can look into every alley.   But there are some givens.   In a  
small village the number will be close to zero ... if there is  
someone who is homeless in Ringling, Montana, everyone knows who he  
or she is.    You cannot loose a homeless person in a western town of  
a few hundred people.  Same rule applies with undercounting blacks in  
small towns ... you can't miss them in small towns because they  
cannot hide.   The problem is in big cities.    It always has been  
there, it always will be there, and your city is always the worst.

Reality?   Southern cities (warm cities) and cities with high  
unemployment usually have the greatest number of homeless.   Because  
Los Angeles has an unemployment rate of 7l7% and Riverside - San  
Bernardino is 9.5 contrasted with Portland's 6.4, and the south is  
warmer and more conducive to being outside, and because Los Angeles  
is closer to the Mexican border, I would expect a lot more homeless  
in the Southland than Portland.






On Dec 18, 2008, at 2:46 PM, Phillip Clark Campbell wrote:

> ----- Original Message ----
>
>> From: Schneider Fred <fwschneider at comcast.net>
>> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>> Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2008 6:30:57 PM
>> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Pen's get new luxury hotel
>>
>> Imagined tax revenues is the answer.
>
> $$$$$
>
> $$$$$$$
>
> $$$$$$
>
> $$$$$$$$$
>
> It is the dollar that rules isn't it.
>
>>
>> Portland is an enigma to me ... the light rail fits in with the
>> culture ... it fits there like it fits in Europe but doesn't fit in
>> Memphis ... it fits because the mentality of the people there accept
>> urban life. .....   The Oregonians are
>> very jealous about their culture and keeping out the riff raff.
>
> Better look again Mr.Schneider.  Number of Homeless on the
> streets of Portland makes Los Angeles look like Paradise on earth.
> All over downtown Portland.  Appears disproportionate to
> the extreme doesn't it.
>
> Yes, rail works very well in Portland, even the 'so-called streetcar.'
>
>
>
> Phil
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