i feel that being a nimby is a terrible losing battle, the proverbial slippery slope. a nimby is willing to spend a ton of money fighting against a project. if they win, that means the developer got fed up, abandoned the project, and left town. then, another developer comes along, buys the parcel of land, sees that philly is in a "hot" real estate boom and creates plans for a new building--this time 20 stories taller than the last one. so, barely on the heels of celebrating their recent victory, the nimby's are back out on the front line spending money and wasting dozens of manhours to oppose this new project. after 3 years of hassle, the nimby's win again, and the developer backs out. another one comes along (as they always do), and sees that the height allowance on the property is 10 stories and decides to build a 9 story parking garage/monstrosity that will increase traffic/pollution/noise and decrease the neighborhoods likeability. the nimby's cant fight this one...and so after 9 years of legal wrangling, thousands of dollars spent, what do they get? an ugly parking garage instead of a condo/hotel tower.

the fact is that as philly's urban renewal continues, ALL of these lots in CC are going to be built on eventually, and the height of the buildings is really only determined by the state of the market. the hotter the market? the higher the building. these lots may not fill in for another decade, but at some point, a building WILL occupy these grasslots. anyways, it always seems that as a nimby, you are going to eventually lose. you fight one project and win, another one comes along. as we are seeing now, the nimby's that won their fights a few years ago are now facing the prospect of an even HIGHER buildings being built on the plots instead...

they fought 30 stories, and now, because the developer is old college buddies with someone on the zoning committee, they are going to get 52 stories...

oh well. hopefully the big holes on market and penn square are filled in with a nice new building before this real estate cycle slows to a screeching hault. i should also caveat this post by saying that i dont believe building anything that is ever proposed is right. i want the best to be built in this city.