To the Fort Smith Mayor, City Manager, & Board ofDirectors

“QUALITY OF PLACE”, i.e.  â€œUrban Renewal in Drag”.                                       Feb
ruary 17,2010

A quick definition of Urban Renewal, which made the Ft.Smith scene in the ‘60’s, put to a vote and was severely defeated.  Simply put, Urban Renewal was governmentrestoring and acquiring private property, obviously exploiting taxpayers’ (producers)dollars, precisely what is happening in Ft. Smith today and on a proposedgrander scale “Quality of Place”—expansion of city government both in programsand employees resulting in larger government, more control, i.e. rules &regulations, & more taxpayer dollars printed out of thin air. Damn the torpedoes,on to D.C. to lobby for more.

City officials have received numerous complaints from meregarding Fort Smith endeavors and proposed endeavors that are not the properfunction of government.

I received a response from Director Campbell who indicates “Qualityof Place” is neither an international operation nor a federal governmententerprise.  Corrections are in order.  “Quality of Place” is no small governmentdeal; it can only be described as a huge encroachment into the lives andproperty of private citizens.  Examplesfollow;

1.     Director Campbell cited a Dr. Richard Florida asthe progenitor of “Quality of Place”, not so.  That is not to say he has not been veryinfluential, up until recently, in his efforts to promote “Quality of Place”.  “Quality of Place” is proliferating inSocialist U.K. & Canada and if citizens are not informed quickly, same canbe said of Socialist America.

2.     From an article appearing in the Toronto Star,by Richard Lautens, Dr. Florida states regarding cities; “I make it reallyexotic”, also “Dr. Florida’s “CREATIVE CITY” depends on ghost people,working behind the scenes, Immigrants and people of color”, and “he’s therelocation agent for the global bourgeoisie”. Simply stated, Florida’s proposedendeavors create a new special class of Americans, i.e. “KNOWLEDGE WORKERS”.  Everything revolves around the wishes of the “KNOWLEDGEWORKERS” (the perceived Elitists) needs alleged to be on a different planethan average city residents.  Floridagoes on to state, “future economic health for cities relies on broad-brushstroke boosterism of creative professionals, Bohemianism, Cosmopolitanism, andDiversity, and the cities that don’t embrace will be left in a death-spiral ofpost-industrial decay.”  Spoken like atrue Socialist Utopian Elitist.  Myquestion: How did Americans achieve global preeminence without embracing thisgovernment Socialist philosophy of Marx, Hegel, Lenin, Strauss, Alinsky &Florida?

3.     U of T professor Mark Kingwell writings describeFlorida’s public academic career as “Oddly Hucksterish”.  Dr. Florida is the founder of the new “CreativeClass Group” and he is a product of the Pittsburg Mellon’s and theHeinz Foundation.

From the “New Republic” 2/3/10….”Quality of Placesare those neighborhoods and communities that have a range of housing types sothat people who live in small households or on tight budgets aren’t excluded;many transportation options, so that cars are a convenience, but not anecessity; and houses, stores, and offices intersperse and within easy reach ofeach other so that daily life doesn’t require getting behind the wheel”.

“Government involvement under the heading of Quality ofPlace has created Sustainable Communities Initiatives which deals with housing,transportation, and other INVESTMENTS’ (?), and the neighborhood revitalizationefforts.  The government deems this asanother Quality of Place initiative, Choice Neighborhood Program,forming a nexus between public, private, and non-profit entities that work inconcentrated poverty and public housing arena.”

More specifically, “Quality of Place” demands that districtscreate investment strategies identifying assets like historic downtowns,working waterfronts, designed and encouraged to receive preferential fundingfrom federal & state grant programs. (Think Sicard, Griffin, Westphal, HUD,et al)

Back to Richard Florida’s Utopian Quality of Placesingularly catering to the new class of “KNOWLEDGE WORKERS” andtheir alleged inherent and acquired demands. Some of their demands stated byFlorida:

1.     â€œAmenities: Quality of Place—particularly thevariety and accessibility of natural, recreational, and life-style amenities”.Florida treats the “new class” as if it were an endangered species as if theirdesires were more special than average citizens.

2.     â€œA blend of work and leisure. He says “KNOWLEDGEWORKERS” seek environments that allow them to blend rather than separatetheir work & leisure”.

3.     â€œA Sense of Place:  KNOWLEDGE WORKERS are particularlydrawn to areas that feature interesting old structures, a range of publicspaces, a blend of personal & commercial space, and the bustle and buzz ofvaried act
ivities including work, shopping and entertainment.”

4.     â€œActive Lifestyle:  KNOWLEDGE WORKERS prefer doing towatching.” The KNOWLEDGE WORKERS hold Creativity and innovation as thekey success factors of the new economy”.  (Hasn’t this always been the case?)

Dr. Richard Florida’s vision of how to achieve the “NEWECONOMY” is opposite to what the Founders advocated and which allowed ourcountry to achieve the highest standard of living in history. Florida wants agovernment takeover funded by the producers to provide for the demands of “KNOWLEDGE WORKERS”…hisvision is a mixture of Communism & Fascism vs. the Founder’s vision ofcompetition and responsibility for self.

The Fort Smith city government’s involvement in “Quality ofPlace” is nothing more than a proposed raw takeover of citizens’ lives and property,whether they understand or not. The city administration is making an expensivetrek to our nation’s capital seeking specific funding and funding for localprojects (?) from a federal government that is not only stone broke, but trillionsin debt, and these gentlemen want to place millions more debt on the backs ofAmerican families with no hope of the debts ever being paid—then what?

These schemes are not only un-American but absolutelyunconstitutional in every regard. Officials of government are in the samecategory as traditional welfare recipients.

Kindest regards,

Joe McCutchen          Cc: citizens                               arkansasfreedom.net