By Mathew Millen Santa Monica
(Wednesday’s) Daily News had a story regarding (Los Angeles City Councilmembers) Jan Perry and Bernard Parks calling for the dismissal of CCSM director Joan Ling from the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Commission.
Joan Ling is pushing for the development of “Cabrini Green West,” with the development of huge residential towers in the SM Civic Center... some units will be rented to low-income persons and the others will be condos. The city should require the developers, Joan Ling, the head of the City Housing Division and executives from Related Companies to buy and live in the condos for five years, but I bet the developers won’t.
If you are not familiar with Cabrini Green in Chicago, just put “Cabrini Green” in your search engine — the crime, drugs and gang activity was so bad at this low-income housing project the Chicago Housing Authority evicted all the tenants and then blew the building up as the only way to reduce crime.
So why is SMRR making the same mistake here?
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on December 20, 2007. Read the original PDF.