I read this
very disturbing post on New York Streetsblog, which showed that in a community of thousands, one single community board member and a number of citizens you can count on one hand can block an opportunity to bring people to their community and bring the community closer together, despite the fact that 1000 people support this opportunity. And what's worse is that this number of people (four, including a single community board member) actually succeeded, saying that it'll remove 19 parking spaces for a few hours a week! (oh no, the world's about to end because I can't park my car (which I don't need in NYC but I like to have anyway)!)
It sucks that projects that have strong support can be obstructed by a few self-righteous elitists with senses of entitlement who don't want to stop their driving habits. This is the similar situation to the high speed rail line in California, where people from San Francisco, Los Angeles, and even California's Central Valley supported the project in droves, but a few people from a few suburbs managed to make life extremely difficult because of fear of property value loss (which history shows is completely the opposite of what really happens when world-class rail comes to your neighborhood, which will come to these neighborhoods in addition to the high speed rail). -CSM
07-08-2009, 05:27 PM 
