Maybe, but I guess that definitely depends on your frame of reference. My own personal moral compass weighs quality urban development (& all the positive externalities that come from it) above historic preservation (even if I really do like the look of old homes, inside and out). Michael Crow's personal compass also included his financial future. If an offer was on the table hundreds of thousands above another one, I can't fault him for wanting that outcome. Did he purposely lie? Maybe, and if he did that makes him less of a likable guy. But I guess my outsider's take is that he's no less unlikable than the people throwing any intellectually dishonest mortars towards him ("think of the boarding house tenants! [breath] we want it converted to a single family home!" or "we need more renters like we need a hole in the head").If Michael Crow lied about this, he's a scumbag.
The whole process is just so effed up and exhausting and we need to identify a better way of handling properties groups feel they want preserved. There's a tension between all sorts of factors (preservation, existing old buildings' affordability, housing supply, housing demand, tax base, emissions, gap between the market rate and the preservation-viable purchase price, etc) and almost all of those conversations are happening past each other right now.
EDIT: I recognize we're talking about real people here, one of whom has posted on this very forum in the past. I didn't mean for that post to pass absolute judgment, simply conjecture. Everything Michael Crow has posted here has seemed sincere and I'm only talking as a 3rd party observer to the whole situation (which I'm sure has been very trying and tiring for all involved).
