Liberal-progressives are fond of grand, sweeping state-planning projects, conceived in abstraction by academic theorists. Their preference is for betting the house on one roll of the dice, for example, with Obamacare. No incremental, careful tests for them.
Still, so-called urban renewal projects, though on a smaller scale, command liberal-progressive planners’ attention. Why miss an opportunity to destroy a neighborhood and wipe out a few thousand local businesses?
Such depredations can be imposed in the name of “caring,” for an abstraction known as “the people.” Because “the people” is an abstraction, misery inflicted in real life is not on the radar screen of liberal-progressive academics. In Nancy Pelosi’s assessment, people will learn to love the works of Big Brother after they’ve been exposed to them long enough and after Democrat/Socialist political orators have explained why they really love Big Brother.
The late Jane Jacobs, ironically regarded as a liberal-progressive until late in her life, was a voice of sanity against Big Brother
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