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George Lucas Building Low-Income Housing Next Door To Millionaires
BarbaraHudson writes His neighbors wouldn't let him build a film studio on his land, so George Lucas is retaliating in a way that only the cream of Hollywood could — by building the largest affordable housing development in the area — and footing the entire $200 million bill, no government subsidies or grants. The complex of affordable housing, funded and designed by Lucas, would sit on 52 acres of land and provide homes to 224 low-income families, and there's very little his fellow Bay Area residents can do about it, because the land is zoned residential.
Meh... everywhere I have seen low income apartments built they start out nice but vandalism, crime and tennants who just generally are very rough on things have brought the places down in quality very quickly.
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are some very deserving good people who need that housing. It just only takes a few bad apples... Unfortunately I don't think you can really help people very well that way.
On the other hand.. Nice! If they thought they didn't want a studio in their neighborhood let's see how they deal with this! If only there was a George Lucas for every HOA!
Pretty sure that's what happened at Columbine.
Nope, that had nothing to do with Columbine. That entire high school zone is pretty much middle/upper-middle class, and neither Harris nor Klebold were from particularly poor families. What they were is high IQ kids (with less than average common sense) in a school system (Jeffco) not known for dealing well with gifted/talented students, the prevailing attitude being "we'll help out the less-capable kids, the smart ones can deal on their own". (There was also a significant pro-jock, anti-nerd bias.)
I lived in and had a kid going to school (not high school) in the area when Columbine happened. There's a fair bit that never made it to the national media, because it upset various applecarts or was "too complicated" for the nightly news.
He didn't do it for the wrong reasons. For YEARS he tried to put a studio there, but they wouldn't budge, and insisted on the residential tag on his land. Finally, he said, ok, fine.
So he could have capitulated- which would frankly be ludicrous- or find a way to actually be smart with it, which is what he did.
This, by the way, is like the third coolest thing he's done, with Star Wars at 2 and 2+ billion to charity at 1.
In California, schools get equal public funding, it's not derived from local property taxes. On the other hand, rich school districts can expect to earn more in private fundraising, and can more realistically require students to pay for "outside resources" like money for field trips, a computer, etc...
97% of the difference between good schools and bad schools is family background (education, income levels, parent availability). If the student bodies of a poor school and a rich school exchanged campuses/teachers, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the educational results of the students would remain basically unchanged.
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