By John Mirisch : citywatch – excerpt

LA TRANSPO – TOD is an acronym. As with many acronyms, it has numerous potential meanings. Time of day. Tour of duty. Terms of delivery. For Indiana Jones fans, Temple of Doom. Truth or dare. The other day. Transfer on death. To name just a few.

But for metropolitan hipsters, Urban Growth Machine acolytes, density fetishists, and other developer shills, TOD can mean one thing and one thing only: transit-oriented development…

It is refreshing for TOD advocates to openly admit that transit was always only a “pretense” for “transit-oriented development.”

With that mask now off, Professor Manville continues:…

“Whatever the benefits of TOD are to residents, the benefits to developers all but ensure that state and local programs to promote TOD will stick around.”

So, TOD was never meant to benefit the residents. It was always meant to benefit developers. Transit-oriented development was always developer-oriented development all along. TOD is really DOD…

“It’s [TOD projects] also close to other things. It’s close to groceries, schools, hospitals, senior centers. The transit stops aren’t in the middle of nowhere. They’re around other stuff. So, the benefit of having that stuff is good for more than just people riding trains to get to work.”

So here we have “stuff-oriented development,” or SOD…

The word “Tod” (roughly pronounced “toad”) in German means “death.” TOD is dead. Long live DOD!

(John Mirisch was elected to the Beverly Hills City Council in 2009 and has served three terms as mayor. He is currently a garden-variety councilmember, and a contributor to CityWatchLA.com.)…(more)