[pconf]

>You can see how ridiculous the argument is ...

It doesn't seem so ridiculous if you follow the money. The author is "executive director of SPUR, a Bay Area nonprofit membership organization" whose directors, advisors and members are comprised almost exclusively of real-estate developers and investors.

The current Berkeley Daily Planet goes in to some detail about this sort of non-profit, http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2013-10-11/article/... as does the Bay Guardian in its "Friends in the Shadows" expose http://www.sfbg.com/2013/10/08/friends-shadows You'll never read these sorts of in-depth articles in the rest of the Bay Area's real-estate advertising filled newspapers.