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Monthly Archives: January 2011

Driverless Cars and the Law

By | | Transportation
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The Center for Automotive Research at Stanford (CARS), which has done much of the development of driverless cars, may join with Stanford’s law school to review the legal changes needed for driverless cars to take the road. The most important (and most difficult) change will probably be to liability law: true no-fault insurance systems would be more welcoming to driverless cars than the systems found in most states today.

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The Vision of the Urbanites

By | | Why Planning Fails
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As the Antiplanner has traveled and visited people all over the country, I’ve noticed an interesting phenomenon. Though I’ve met thousands of suburban and rural residents who are very happy with their homes and lifestyles, I’ve never met one who thinks the power of government should be used to force others to live in the same lifestyle. Yet I’ve met lots of urban residents who openly admit that they believe their lifestyle is so perfect that government should force more if not most people to live in dense, “walkable” cities.

Do cities turn people into liberal fascists? Or do liberal fascists naturally congregate into cities, and if so, why?

A general description of the phenomenon I’ve observed can be found in Thomas Sowell’s 1995 book, The Vision of the Anointed. Sowell says that America’s liberal elites view themselves as smarter or more insightful than everyone else, and thus qualified to impose their ideas on everyone else. The process of doing so, says Sowell, follows four steps (p. 8):

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