With the integration of planning principles in today's pop culture-like phenomenon of crowdsourcing and visioning processes, many Master Developers have built a consensus among the collectivist populations of communities in conjunction with city officials and their community newspapers. Of course, planners know that when implementing this sort of planning agenda, one must build a consensus or it will be rejected. This standard is quite uniform wherever you travel. It's undeniably identical in far too many aspects for me to believe it is grassroots. These patterns go on in repetition throughout the country with a Depot Squares in nearby Holyoke Massachusetts, Buffalo Rising in New York, Hempstead Rising in Long Island, and so on. I don't want to delve too far into that in this blog as my aim is to merely dispel the illusion that this type of planning is something designed by locals. Rather, I feel it is designed and funded by a conglomerate of special interest groups with their own economic interests in mind. To illustrate this, I will merely reveal some of those special interests to you and leave you to draw your own conclusion as to whether or not you perceive them as interested in benefiting your local Mom and Pop shop or their own domination of economic activity. In either case, such development most often favors the politically connected. Let me start at the top and work my way down to the state level for now.
7 Apr 2014 - The Global Mayor´s Forum Organizing Committee, Microsoft Latin America, Argos Group, UN-Habitat at the private sector signing of the memorandum of understanding
The participants:
Dr. Josà Alberto VÃlez Cadavid
Duane Kissick
*President and Chairman Planning and Development Collaborative International (PADCO) USA
*Vice Chairman at AECOM International Development where he performs oversight over AECOM activities on sustainable urban development, land and housing, water and sanitation, and public-private partnerships which serve the urban poor.
*AECOM's Mission is "To enhance and sustain the world built, natural, and social environments"
* Drafted "Creating Sustainable Communities Cluster Dialogue on Infrastructure in 2009
Hernan Rincan is President of Microsoft Latin America.
*Microsoft's total sales topped $77.8 billion in 2013
*Speaker at the World Urban Forum driving international policies of urban equity in development.
Here is a sample of the speakers involved in this United Nations Habitat Forum:
Sol Beatriz Arango President Services Nutresa
* International processor,distributor, and marketer of food products.
* 34% of all sales are international.
* earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization of $832.8 billion in 2013
Michael R. Bloomberg UN Special Envoy on Cities and Climate Change
* I could write a series of blogs on this multi-billion dollar tycoon at the helm of Wall Street and the U.N.'s agendas. Let's save his tangent for a later date.
David Bojanini President Sura Group
* 25 million clients and assets under management of over US$120 billion.
*Grupo Sura has brought in minority partners including the International Finance Corp (IFC), the investment arm of the World Bank, and other co-investors to cover up to 25 percent of the total ING asset purchase of $3.7 billion.
AgustÃn Escobar Cañadas Vice-President of Infrastructure and Cities South America, Siemens
*$100.64 Billion annual sales
*#51 on Forbes Global 2000 list
Sandra Fonseca President Empresa Energia de Bogota
*generation, transmission, distribution, and commercialization of electricity and the transportation and distribution of natural gas in Colombia, Peru, and Guatemala.
*401 Employees, $486 M in sales, $6.16 Billion in Assets
Santiago Piedrahita President Mundial Group
*Operates in 16 countries and exports to 25 countries.
*Group sales for 2012 were $1.2 billion.
*4 Divisions: Paints, Chemicals, Commerce and Water Pipes
Darren Walker President, Ford Foundation
* $1,454,538,624 Net Gain for sale of assets in 2012
* $10,984,720,250 in assets in 2012 (link)
Carlos Raul Yepes President Bancolombia Group
* Columbia's 2nd largest corporation
* Acquired HSBC's Panama business in 2013 for $2.1 billion
* 2012 Net Interest Income of $2.7 Billion
*"66% of the Colombian population had been included in the financial system; the national objective is to reach 68% by 2014. Private institutions cannot achieve penetration targets alone. Joint actions by municipalities, chambers of commerce, private enterprises, national government, educational institutions, compensation funds and other stakeholders are vital."
Carlos Raul Yepes (story)
The State of Connecticut and the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority have joined forces with the largest corporations, wealthiest businessmen and most powerful nonprofits in the world through a non-profit called the Local Initiatives Support Corporation.(LISC) The following contributors are listed on their website. Their mission is to "Build Sustainable Communities"
Top All-Time Grantors As of December 31, 2012
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
Ford Foundation
JPMorgan Chase
NFL Foundation
Bank of America
State Farm
John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
The Kresge Foundation
Lilly Endowment Inc.
The McKnight Foundation
The Atlantic Philanthropies
Living Cities
Citi
Fannie Mae
W.K. Kellogg Foundation
The Pew Charitable Trusts
Wells Fargo
The Rockefeller Foundation
The Walton Family Foundation
The Annie E. Casey Foundation
The Hall Family Foundation
Freddie Mac
The William Penn Foundation
MetLife, Inc.
Hartford Foundation for Public Giving
And the following 25 top lenders: Top All-Time Lenders
As of December 31, 2012
JPMorgan Chase
Prudential Financial, Inc.
Bank of America
Citi
Deutsche Bank
Mizuho Bank (USA)
State Farm
Wells Fargo
MetLife, Inc.
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
HSBC Bank USA, N.A.
Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company
TD Bank Group
The Rockefeller Foundation
Goldman Sachs
The Allstate Corporation
The Walton Family Foundation
Morgan Stanley Bank, N.A.
Ford Foundation
AXA Group
Northern Trust
U.S. Bancorp
Harvard University
PNC
Capital One
This is but one nonprofit, of which there are many that have woven capital from some corporations benefiting directly though monopoly driven policies through these partnerships. Instead of exploring them all I will make some references to a few of the players and leave the reader to explore for themselves. Those familiar with the recent economic meltdown that cost taxpayers dearly with the inflationary losses due to trillions in bailouts because of reckless decisions made by some of the same players as in this game. (but that's another story) Some things are best discovered on your own, as I found out in the past year. Either way, Connecticut is driving forward, full steam ahead with it's
Transit-Development (TOD) plan using a specially created predevelopment fund set up with the passage of the recent bill. Governor Malloy revealed the current details of the fund in a recent press release.
"The TOD fund will be a $15 million fund comprised of $1 million from the Office of Policy and Management (OPM), $1 million from CHFA and $13 million from LISC. LISC was selected to serve as the TOD fund manager through a competitive process based on the organizations experience funding and administering TOD projects as well as their knowledge of the unique needs of Connecticut's transit corridor towns. The state capital funding of these transit oriented zones received nearly a million dollars in funding for demolition of blight and the rebuilding of affordable housing in the month of April alone.
Following the grant awards is as simple as following the railroad tracks. They do not divert from the corridor and they leave a wake of affordable housing in it's tide. When Bristol's rising waters recede, there will be a change in the landscape. Who do YOU think that transformation would be best guided by?
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