The Antiplanner »

Monthly Archives: January 2008

Sticking It to Light Rail

By | | Transportation
12 Comments

The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, which President Bush signed last month, is exactly the kind of top-down, centralized planning that the Antiplanner opposes. The act bans incandescent bulbs after 2014, mandates that auto fleets achieve an average of 35 miles per gallon by 2020, and requires that biofuels be substituted for at least 36 billion gallons of gasoline (about one-quarter of today’s consumption) by 2022.

While many auto opponents have congratulated themselves that the new law “sticks it to Detroit,” the reality is just the opposite. While Detroit may or may not be able to keep up with the Japanese in building fuel-efficient cars, the real effect of an auto-industry wide standard is that it raises the goal posts for people’s fantasized alternatives to the automobile. In essence, this is sticking it to light rail.

Continue reading →

Seeing the (Red) Light in Cincinnati

By | | Transportation
18 Comments

Peter Bronson, a columnist for the Cincinnati Enquirer, is seeing red: red-light cameras, that is. The Cincinnati city council wants to install red-light cameras, even though the Virginia Department of Transportation found that such cameras lead to a 29-percent increase in accidents. The Cincinnati council, Bronson suggests, may be more motivated by ticket revenues than safety.

Even worse, Bronson goes on to say, is a city proposal to spend $100 million building a four-mile streetcar line. Bronson then quotes the Antiplanner at an embarrassing length, even including a sidebar of quotes about the effects of streetcars on taxes and other issues.

Continue reading →

Are We Facing Collapse?

By | | News commentary
23 Comments

Is Jared Diamond, the Malthusian alarmist about our future prospects, arithmetically challenged or economically challenged? That’s the first question I asked when I read his op ed in January 2’s New York Times.

“The average rates at which people consume resources like oil and metals, and produce wastes like plastics and greenhouse gases, are about 32 times higher in North America, Western Europe, Japan and Australia than they are in the developing world,” says Diamond. Based on this, he calculates that, if everyone in the world consumed as much as we do, “It would be as if the world population ballooned to 72 billion people.”

Of course, it is perfectly obvious — to Diamond — that the world cannot support this. So he “is certain that within most of our lifetimes we’ll be consuming less than we do now.”

Continue reading →

American City Suite

By | | Regional planning
15 Comments

Back in 1972, a one-hit singing pair named Cashman & West released an ode to New York City called American City Suite. The song reflected back on the city’s happy days and mourned its then-current decay. Although a 7-3/4-minute version was produced for radio, the full version of the song was 12 minutes and it became an “anthem” for New Yorkers in the 1970s.

At that time, many people believed that the problem with the cities was that the wealthy and middle-class had fled to the suburbs, leaving only the poor behind. Big-city officials viewed the suburbs as parasites, because they benefitted from the city but paid no taxes to it. They hoped to remedy this by imposing some sort of commuter tax on suburbanites.

Having grown up in a city, I remember repeating this viewpoint as a high-school student to a suburban relative. He vehemently responded that there was no way he would pay taxes to a corrupt city government. The notion that modern government officials might be corrupt, at least outside of Chicago, had never occurred to me.

Continue reading →

Happy New Year

By | | Housekeeping
5 Comments

And happy anniversary, this being one year since the Antiplanner’s first post. I would like to extend my best wishes for 2008 to Jim Karlock, Aynrandgirl, John Galt, and all my other faithful allies, as well as to DanS, D4P, MSetty, and all my other loyal opponents who have worked so hard to keep me honest. It has been good to have all of you join me for past year’s investigations into the trials and tribulations of government planning.

The Antiplanner’s best friend, Chip, wishes you a Woofy New Year.
Sympathetic nervous tadalafil 20mg india system carries out the main function of the body. Every year online viagra lot of people die of the smoking in different parts of the world. Allergen is encountered throughout the year Seasonal allergic rhinitis Perennial allergic rhinitis Allergies occur throughout the year in such cases next page viagra france pharmacy during the reorder the person tends to get a huge discount. Certain type of hormones, enzyme and various other biological reactions of body are responsible for developing conditions in men like male impotence; unhealthy lifestyle, disturbed routine and stress are the basic order discount viagra triggers which are responsible for improving testosterone level and boosting up sperm count.
When I began this blog, I promised to “post to this blog at least five days a week.” I pretty much kept that promise (I missed March 1st because I misdated a post March 2 that was supposed to be for March 1). But this has been hard work. Because I like to thoroughly research and document the issues I discuss, many posts take several hours to write.

For 2008, I promise to write several posts a week, but not necessarily a post every weekday. I am going to try to cover some new issues — light rail and Portland are easy targets, but attacking them is getting repetitious. And more of my posts might be shorter, more blog-like, rather than the op-ed lengths that I usually produce. Nevertheless, I hope this blog will remain as entertaining and thought-provoking as ever.