Steven Malanga works for the fiscally conservative Manhattan Institute and is the author of Shakedown, a book about how bureaucrats and left-wing interest groups seek to make government bigger and bigger. So why does he support the shakedown of local taxpayers for redevelopment projects?
Malanga’s recent article in the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal describes how developers are turning old shopping malls into housing projects. He writes as though this were a brilliantly innovative solution to both the housing shortage and the decline of brick-and-mortar retailing.
It’s not. It’s central planning, pure and simple, and almost every case he cites required a shakedown of local taxpayers to subsidize the residential portions of the developments. Continue reading
