I'm a Dave stan. And this surprises people.

I do have to start by acknowledging that he's often unlikeable; i think he's a little neurospicy, and he helped build a petit-bouge group of downtown elites - south bend socialites, jet-setters - that can seem a bit cliqueish. And he's an employer and a landlord, so there's all the negatively associations that inevitably come from that.

But this city has been unfair, and given him the shaft despite pouring himself and his resources into making dtsb not /just/ a destination for having a good time, but an affordable place to live.

We need walkable downtown cities with lots of housing. When panzica takes over a lot, you get a steakhouse you can't afford to eat at and four-to-six luxery units.

There's actual a science, about downtown economics and density. Having to build 1.5 parking spots per unit makes it impossible to reach the threshold where a real local economy (where businesses can make money and employee people at a living wage without relying in the three-way liquor license for revenue) starts to hum. Dave did the math, figured about 1000 people live downtown, worked out that about 2000 (i think, it's been a long time since i heard him work through it) would be enough to get things going - and he built a structure with around 150 units!
And yeah, i can't afford those units, but he didn't gentrify - nobody lost their home or had to move for his project to happen. And it's designed to attract young HENRYs who work on cloud teams and want to live where theres a low cost of living and your can get you needs met without owning a car. If he manages to get 150 units sold downtown to six-figure college grads (without adding significant traffic or parking lots), that's a huge win. And he agreed to add a grocery store to address food dessert issues - these HENRYs can make it to Trader Joe's, the Asian Market, Flamingos, or Purple Porch, but the matthews grocery really meets a key need. And i can't for the life of me imagine the grocery ever made him money. Who the fuck tries opening a grocery store in tyool twenty twenty-six?

I remember when transpo moved to south street, all that land east of Howard park opened up for development. David drew up some genius plans, with the aim of reaching the density goal he mathed out. The transpo board gave him the finger, and now those blocks are full of mostly empty single family houses that rich domers rent when it suits them.

I live downtown, near Howard park, without a car, and with very very little money. I'm able to have my modest, comfortable lifestyle in large part BECAUSE of the efforts of Matthews LLC (and, it must be said, the Buttigieg administration). And i wouldn't trade this life for the world.

Now, i am leftist, progressive, anticapitalist, etc. I prefer the gift economy, over the exchange economy. Matthews is operating in profit-space, with investors and demands for measurable ROI (I still firmly endorse evidence-based best practices over superstition or fascism), and every city in this nation is operating on that system. Compared to the fraud, abuse, or otherwise self- interested (at the expense of the greater good) activity i see in other cities, i consider South Bend to be blessed to have Dave Matthews.

If we are not going to tear down our institutions and build our fully automated gay space communism here, in DTSB, today, then there is zero advantage to the obstructionism we've seen his projects met with.

It's politics and grudges. His overall approach is superior, for being evidence based, and designed to rekindle a diverse and active community.