joenc

Is the SVB office in Charlotte, SVB bank or SVB Securities? Not an expert, but I think SVB Securities still exists

Meanwhile over in Hamburg: https://www.vox.com/2015/1/9/7520805/hamburg-highway https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamburger_Deckel It's kind of sad that I can't imagine anything like this ever happening in current-day America, much less Charlotte.

Did the city/county use eminent domain in Brooklyn Village? Who owned the buildings back then? From a local news site: https://www.wbtv.com/2022/06/28/tearing-down-brooklyn-black-community-charlotte-has-caused-generational-wealth-be-lost/ Yes. So the Alexander family was one of the most successful black families at that time, very active in the civil rights movement. They lived just down basically a block or so that way along with Stonewall, now, Brooklyn Village Avenue, and their house, they received $13,000 for it back in the early 60s, now that this whole property and granted they owned a chunk of it, but this whole property is worth almost $200 million. So you can see. And we ran, you know, an inflation calculator on that $30,000 figure, it’s still only 125,000 in today’s dollars. Was the property forcibly taken, or was it just a bad trade?

Has Peebles really built anything? His portfolio seems like a bunch of drawings and renderings. Interesting wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._Donahue_Peebles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peebles_Corporation Seems like he has found his niche in the world. Honestly glad it has no chance of being built, looks pretty bad.

I walk around the city most mornings. The people going into the office don't look too happy! Hopefully they quit these email jobs! For the good of their souls.

Reminds me of the new Ally building too

That's just money that they can spend on boats and houses. Doesn't matter. That's not power. Ever heard of Stalin, Hitler, FDR, Ceaser or Napolean? More seriously though, they may get a few things here and there, but no one is going to side with Tepper with his 5-12 football team against popular local politicians. Some savvy politicians can make hay with this type of thing, like Desantis against Disney in FL.

Think you are truly mistaken. Billionaires only have influence in well-defined boxes. No one (Elon excepted) is trying to actually seize power or do anything except buy boats and sports teams. If Bezos tried to influence the Post (that he nominally owns!) they'd laugh in his face and just go work at the NYTimes. As for your evidence, did you already forget what just happened in SC? I think Tepper has less power than the average Senator.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakhta_Center

Is it too big of a stretch to say there's something in the NC regulative environment (protecting and nurturing monopolies?!) that lends itself to these rollups of highly regulated industries? Thinking about energy (Duke), banking (Bank of America and Wachovia), and hospitals. There are and have been bigger in these categories of course, so it may be nothing.

Those lists are so bogus. You have to think who is actually putting the list together. Probably some interns or fresh college grads.

If '08 didn't go down like it did, it would have happened a lot faster. Was the same way with nightclubs, high-end restaurants, condo towers. Everything become more Brooklyn/hipster/artisan style, breweries, coffee shops, maybe that started wearing off because of 2020-2022. See watch and handbag sales.

https://www.neom.com/en-us/regions/whatistheline Learned about this recently. Seems like a good idea.

looks better in person.

Well, according to that playbook the #1 thing is equity so it's safe to say there won't be any improvements to the actual parks. Goal should be having the best parks in the country, not these high-minded platitudes. Everyone knows what good parks are and look like, they've been building them for 150-200 years!