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Monthly Archives: March 2008

Polarization Poisons Public Policy

By | | Why Planning Fails
58 Comments

A few years ago, Al Franken wrote a “satire on the breakdown of civility in public discourse.” He called it, Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot. Franken’s point was that Limbaugh became popular by polarizing people. Franken made that point by writing as polarizing a book as possible.

We see this polarization in the current presidential campaign. Obama has become popular because he promises a way out of the polarization. Hillary’s response is to polarize Democratic voters against Obama, and it seems to have worked: two weeks ago, polls showed that Hillary supporters would vote for Obama if he became the nominee; after the Texas-Ohio primaries, polls showed her supporters to be more hostile of him.

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Correlation vs. Causation

By | | News commentary, Regional planning
21 Comments

An recent article in the American Conservative magazine observes that home prices have gone up more in blue states while housing has remained more affordable in red states. Republicans are more likely to get married and have more children, the writer argues, so they want to live in places where they can afford a house with a yard.

Or is it, as Dave Barry once suggested, that living in suburbs and paying property taxes turns people into Republicans? Is the war on sprawl a plot by Al Gore aimed at boosting the fortunes of the Democratic Party?
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Since I am on the road, I don’t have time to explore this in detail, but I am sure many of the commenters will enjoy doing so.

Melbourne to Relieve Housing Shortage

By | | News commentary, Regional planning
19 Comments

Australia has some of the least-affordable housing in the English-speaking world. But the premier of Victoria has announced that his state’s government will make 90,000 new home sites available for housing by rezoning land in the Melbourne urban area.

Housing in Melbourne.Flickr photo by Mark Larrimore.

As near as I can tell from the stories, he is not proposing to expand Melbourne’s urban-growth boundary, but to immediately reclassify lands in what American planners would call the “urban reserve” for housing. He also promises to streamline the approval process so as to take a full year off the time it takes to get a permit to build. Of course, once the 90,000 home sites are taken up, the government may have to expand the boundary for real if it wants to keep housing affordable.

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Back in the Air Again

By | | Housekeeping
14 Comments

The Antiplanner will be speaking in Golden, Colorado tonight at the Independence Institute. I’ll be presenting an updated version of my analysis of rail transit’s impact on energy consumption and greenhouse gases. I’ll be joined by Jessica Corry, who will talk about eminent domain issues involving transit in the Denver area. The reception begins at 5:30 and our presentations begin at 6 pm.

Tomorrow, the Antiplanner will be in Bismarck, North Dakota, speaking about smart growth on behalf of the North Dakota Policy Center. The session begins at 7 am at the Best Western Doublewood Inn.

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Anyway, if you are in the Denver or Bismarck areas, I hope to see you at one of these events.

Americans Buy Less Gasoline — Everybody Panic! (Not)

By | | News commentary
22 Comments

The Wall Street Journal reports that the nation’s gasoline consumption has dropped by 1.1 percent from the previous year’s levels. No doubt the end-of-the-suburbs crowd will use this to justify their claims.

Are Americans ready for $4 a gallon gas?
Flickr photo by slworking2.

The problem is that, though people may be buying less gasoline, they aren’t driving any less. According to the latest report from the U.S. Department of Transportation, driving through October of 2007 was almost exactly the same as in 2006, which was a little more than in 2005.

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Research Database

By | | Mission
6 Comments

As if I don’t have enough to do, I’ve started an Antiplanning Database. Since a blog is really just a database, I thought that we could have a blog that had nothing but research papers, data, and other useful information.

As long as we can agree on a standard format, I would be glad to allow anyone, planner or antiplanner, who asked to post to this database. This would give everyone access to all the latest on-line research and reports on planning and antiplanning issues. As long as there are no copyright problems, I also want to upload all documents to the Thoreau Institute’s or American Dream Coalition’s web sites so we won’t have to worry about addresses changing and/or documents disappearing.
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So far I have only added a half-dozen documents to the database. But take a look at it, give me your comments on the format, and let me know if you would like to be added to the list of people who can post to the site.

$82 Million Per Mile Is Cost Effective?

By | | News commentary, Planning Disasters, Transportation
21 Comments

Last week, the Twin Cities’ Metropolitan Council approved a new light-rail line between downtown Minneapolis and downtown St. Paul. As approved, the 11-mile line will cost $909 million, or more than $82 million per mile.

Socialist light-railism in Minneapolis.

The Met Council’s original proposal, which was projected to cost $990 million, was rejected two years ago by the Federal Transit Administration. Under cost-effectiveness criteria that the FTA established in 2005, any project that cost $24 or more “per hour of transportation system user benefits” would be ineligible for federal funding. The $990 million Central Corridor line was projected to cost $26.05 per hour; cutting the cost to $909 million would improve this to a mere $23.80 per hour.

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Agricultural Planning Disasters

By | | News commentary, Planning Disasters
12 Comments

A great op ed in Saturday’s New York Times illustrates some of the dangers of government planning with a story about farming. The author of the article, a Minnesota farmer, made the naive mistake of responding to the market demand for local fruits and vegetables by converting 25 acres of corn fields into watermelons, tomatoes, and other vegetables.

Don’t try to grow watermelons here.
Flickr photo by Beggs.

It turns out that the U.S. Department of Agriculture forbids farmers from growing most fruits and vegetables on “corn base” lands. The farmer had to pay a stiff fine, equal to all his profits, for daring to grow watermelons instead.

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Where Will We Find the Next Slums?

By | | News commentary
24 Comments

The Atlantic has joined the chorus of those who say that suburbs are declining as everyone who is anyone will soon move back to the cities. In The Next Slum, New Urbanist Christopher Leinberger predicts that many of our suburbs will turn into slums as people of wealth and income return to high-density, mixed-use developments.

The Antiplanner has addressed this issue at least once before. To make sure there isn’t any confusion, I don’t really care whether people move back to the cities or not. I just think it is foolish, wasteful, and intrusive for state and local governments to base their land-use policies on the assumption that Leinberger is right.

Belmar row houses “from the mid 300s.”
Photo taken by Jennifer Lang in January 2007.

For example, Leinberger extolls Belmar, a mixed-use development in Lakewood Colorado “built on the site of a razed mall.” Housing there, he says, “commands a 60 percent premium per square foot over the single-family homes in the neighborhoods around it.”

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