The impetus behind the AVI is to "value at market rate" -- the idea is that by updating the valuations, they'll eliminate the unintentional tax break/overcharge some people were getting.

A funny thing about gmaps and Philly -- Philly's changing so fast that that 'dump' is probably a new renovation by now. The building I live in now still appears on Gmaps in its unrenovated state.

Regardless of whether it remains a dump or doesn't, the reported valuation of the dump for 2014, according to the linked application, is $92k, while the nice place has a valuation over $5m. So the dump is paying over 1% while the mansion is paying .2%

I'm not the reporter on the project, but from what I've heard in the media, it sounds that renters are supposedly the biggest losers -- some properties are seeing thousands of dollars in tax increases, which they'll most assuredly pass onto renters in a tax hike (my opinion, also that of some other Philadelphians). Related article: http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/local//taxipedia/51402-ar...

assuredly why? is rental pricing competition purely cost-driven?

Since rental units don't have much marginal cost, that seems unlikely -- They are capital investments, financed by mortgages or owned outright.

Love it. Where's Fem Anon?

Idan's talking about this still being up:

"All concepts and screens looks great when you insert pics of models [strike]& nice girls[/strike], so here comes a part of my secret sauce:"

There may be others I didn't catch. Thanks for fixing some of it, it stops the copy from distracting from the content.

Interesting article and perspective -- when I get ideas about building things, I definitely don't remember marketing! It's like "hmm, well, I'll just make it and dumb it on the appstore. People will find it!"

But that probably doesn't work so well :)

That's from your perspective inside the industry, to be fair.

However, it does annoy me when articles make broad, sweeping cultural generalizations without any support.

Well said good sir. I want a developer writing this stuff. The "Lighten Up" is a post I can respect, as it points out a REAL problem, not a media hyped one that we read about every other day.

The writer of this article seems to be a developer or at least is trying to present herself as one.

"Media depictions of computer scientists only serve to further alienate women from the profession. When I watched Revenge of the Nerds as a child, it was hard to relate to a nearly all-male cast.

Turns out, I’m not alone."

Also I worked in laid back, and corporate environments, and my observation stands for every place I worked at. The more laid back the more fit and lively and sociable the people are.

They said it was the stereotype that they were trying to bust, not that it was an accurate representation of the culture.