The greater cost of porous paving, to reduce methane explosions, is not included. There is no calculation for general landscaping. There is no calculation of the cost of interest on Southwest bond issues, nor the impact of reduced debt limit on other City projects. There are no cost specifications or schedules for expanded road repair citywide, following greater traffic. In calculation of new jobs, there is no survey of expected wage scales and benefits, nor the economic impacts of public subsidy for low wages.
Consultants conclude, every time, what they're paid to conclude.
But based on this report, reasonable persons may be concerned that Southwest development might not benefit the general public so much as certain investors, contractors, advertising media, and City Hall bureaucracies. Government could prove its confidence that Southwest development would carry its own weight, however, by signing a contract with taxpayers not to raise tax rates for the next twenty years. City Council is sponsoring the greatest business intervention in the City's history, to profit these groups. Many Americans have One Idea of Progress, and that's the vision of more cars on new roads, endless novelty products made of exotic chemicals, more sales in larger stores, more buildings displacing nature. Their careers and identities are bound to it.