Love them or hate them, the Occupy Wall Street movement appears to be gaining greater potency despite the best efforts of major financial institutions and monied interests to dismiss them, hoping they’ll disperse in advancing winter. Maybe not so ironically the locus of their protests lies in cavernous downtown Manhattan warrens of office buildings and recently converted condo projects, many of which had been grist for fee generating real estate trades and securitizations in the frenzied run up to the financial cataclysm of a few years ago.
And nearby rising above the suddenly (in)famous Zuccotti Park is One World Trade Center, a heavily government subsidized white elephant office behemoth in waiting, which is funded in part by recently raised $12 tolls on Port Authority bridges and tunnels as well as increased PATH train fares. No matter that those higher tolls might be better used on repairing and replacing various essential Port Authority infrastructure for moving people and goods in and out of the metropolitan New York area efficiently and productively. While Wall Street players and real estate interests continue to angle for various tax breaks to maximize profits on projects that might otherwise not be economically viable, it’s no problem for them to saddle commuters, seeing their average income levels decline, with jacked up fares on rusting systems and increasingly crumbling roads.
Of course, the real estate industry claims that their projects increase jobs and will help the local economy. Well, if we used the same money to build or rebuild necessary infrastructure projects wouldn’t that create as many or more jobs, while ensuring that our transportation systems don’t break down? The usual comeback is the private sector gets a better bang for the buck—well certainly better for developers and investors, but for the greater body politic?
So that brings us back to the rag-tag group of protesters, who polls suggest have the support of a significant majority of the American public, including probably many of those commuters, who have less to spend in stores or put away for retirement. Average folks have been slow to connect the dots—it’s been hard with all the continuing blame thrown at big government (by the Tea Party), much of it heavily funded by business groups seeking cover from all the tax loopholes and government contracts they’ve secured over the years with the help of well-placed campaign contributions and high priced lobbying. But now people are beginning make the connections. It really comes down to how can so few be making so much at the expense of all the rest of us and the realization that big government (both major political parties) has been controlled by big money for its own interests (the executive suites, hedge funds, and big shareholders—often the same, relatively few number of mega wealthy people).
In the end everybody loses—the big banks now cut jobs, the government cannot continue to fund defense contractors (more jobs lost), the real estate business goes sideways without its tax breaks, and unemployment remains high with declining wage rates. But that’s the price we will pay for several decades of shenanigans —as a nation we simply don’t have the money anymore to keep subsidizing the ultra rich. It’s not class warfare—rather it’s simple economics.
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Jonathan D. Miller
A marketing communication strategist who turned to real estate analysis, Jonathan D. Miller is a foremost interpreter of 21st citistate futures – cities and suburbs alike – seen through the lens of lifestyles and market realities. For more than 20 years (1992-2013), Miller authored Emerging Trends in Real Estate, the leading commercial real estate industry outlook report, published annually by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Urban Land Institute (ULI). He has lectures frequently on trends in real estate, including the future of America's major 24-hour urban centers and sprawling suburbs. He also has been author of ULI’s annual forecasts on infrastructure and its What’s Next? series of forecasts. On a weekly basis, he writes the Trendczar blog for GlobeStreet.com, the real estate news website. Outside his published forecasting work, Miller is a prominent communications/institutional investor-marketing strategist and partner in Miller Ryan LLC, helping corporate clients develop and execute branding and communications programs. He led the re-branding of GMAC Commercial Mortgage to Capmark Financial Group Inc. and he was part of the management team that helped build Equitable Real Estate Investment Management, Inc. (subsequently Lend Lease Real Estate Investments, Inc.) into the leading real estate advisor to pension funds and other real institutional investors. He joined the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the U.S. in 1981, moving to Equitable Real Estate in 1984 as head of Corporate/Marketing Communications. In the 1980's he managed relations for several of the country's most prominent real estate developments including New York's Trump Tower and the Equitable Center. Earlier in his career, Miller was a reporter for Gannett Newspapers. He is a member of the Citistates Group and a board member of NYC Outward Bound Schools and the Center for Employment Opportunities.
