Bait and Switch

Don’t you just hate that! You thought it was going to be one way from what you heard and understood at the time, however after it was all said and done…and at the last moment… it turn out to be something quite different.  If so, I feel your pain, disappointment and confusion.   I just wish someone or business would just keep their word and live up to what they promised. 

Of course, we are all very interested in how to rebuild many of our inner city neighborhoods which have gone through decades of decline.  This has included closure of major industry plants, outsourcing of jobs overseas, shifts in population and aging infrastructure and housing.   These communities were once striving places, working class people, and great streets with bright futures.  With that in mind, we will listen to any and all proposals that achieve that goal, to bring the community back, new businesses, jobs, services and housing.  

Now, here we go again! Believing once more, that you can trust people who have a great smile, wonderful presentation, appear to be honest, sincere, take the necessary steps, meet the right people and know how to say the right words… This will strengthen the community in the long term, in your best interest and one of my favorite “is a good fit.”  Anyway…it just goes to prove that people who want favors also want to make up the rules as they go.  And if they decide to change in mid-stream or at the end… they assume that they have the right to do so. 

In far too many recurring situations, we forget that people and businesses are only coming for their self-interest.  All they really want is to get in, pass through and make their money… without regards to how it will affects those who must deal with the reality of what is left behind, good or bad.  They are not interested in building the community from within in the long term, its residents, its neighborhoods, but rather are only interested for what potentially can come from the community in the short term.     

Residents living in urban America have far too long been dealing with a new age of sleight of hand.  Tell us one thing and then… switcheroo… which is the sudden unexpected reversal or of swapping two objects.  Like my grandmother use to say… “If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is…”