So, 75 to 100 years to complete The Great Park huh? If I'm still alive, it'll be a sight to see and a testament to medical technology.
I remember before the bubble my wife and I had mapped out areas in OC we definitely wanted to keep an eye on to buy a house in the future.
One of our hot-spots was any area that borders The Great Park as we considered that purchasing there, especially prior to its completion, would only increase the value of the property once it was done. We attended a few of the events there, including the opening weekend of the balloon which included an overview of The Great Park vision, and the ice skating rink last winter.
Over the years of renting in Irvine, and reading all the promotional materials that have ended up in my mailbox over those years, we've pretty much concluded that The Great Park is just your average failed government experiment in trying to do something that is well beyond its capabilities (you know...stuff best left to the private sector). Between the waste, the inefficiency, the political posturing, the fraud, the fact that we can expect this project to be run as efficiently and under-budget as other popular government experiments like the Postal Service, Amtrak and Medicare all point to its impending and utterly pathetic whimpering failure.
And of course, there will be nobody to blame. Fingers will get pointed, stones will be thrown and glass will be broken but not a single person or group will ever be spotlighted as the cause of failure. It will be blamed on amorphous concepts like a failing economy, failure to "reach-across-the-aisle" as it relates to local politics, the state cutting funds (why should people in Modesto, Eureka and Santa Maria be paying for our park in Irvine anyway?) the Tea Party, terrorism, failure to approve more stimulus funding, the weather, gold prices, increased demand in China and India or Donald Trump.
Now I read in that article that Politician (pardon my French) Larry Agran claims a great park takes 75 to 100 years to complete. It doesn't matter that he claims it can be done in 25 years or so. I don't remember any of THOSE timelines in the original propaganda material and by saying it can take up to 100 years, Irvine just gave itself a 100 year margin of error.
Another reason why...Big Government fails...and yet another reason (for us personally) to look outside of Irvine for a house even though we love renting here.
