Some planners and economists once built a model of their city. They assumed all the jobs were downtown and people wanted to minimize the combined cost of housing and commuting. How far, on average, would people live from work?
The model said, “One mile.” But census data showed that people actually lived an average of seven miles from work.
The planners and economists had totally opposite responses to this answer. The economists assumed there was something wrong with the model, and set about refining it. Instead of a monocentric model in which all jobs were downtown, they created a polycentric model that spread jobs across several different job centers. The revised model said people would live a little more than two miles from work.
“Naturally we don’t expect the real world to fit the model perfectly,” wrote the economists, “but being off by a factor of seven or even three is hard to swallow.” The economists concluded that the model needed much more refining.
In contrast, the planners concluded instead that there was something wrong with reality. The cities are inefficiently designed, they decided, leading people to waste their time commuting. Typically, they came up with entirely the wrong solution for reducing commute lengths. They proposed to create a “jobs-housing balance” that would put as many jobs in each neighborhood or suburb as there were workers. This, they imagined, would allow more people to drive shorter distances or even walk to work.
But if going from one job center to several job centers doubles projected commuter miles, think what going to many job centers would do. As UC Berkeley planning Professor Robert Cervero discovered, many San Francisco Bay Area communities “are nearly perfectly balanced, yet fewer than a third of their workers reside locally, and even smaller shares of residents work locally.”
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Economist Tom Bogart’s new book, Don’t Call It Sprawl, notes that even the polycentric model fails to come close to the complexity of modern cities. In most American urban areas, only about 30 to 40 percent of jobs are located in downtown or other job centers. “The majority of employment is dispersed throughout the metropolitan area,” says Bogart.
This means the polycentric models account for only about a third of the jobs in many urban areas. No wonder their projections were wrong.
The planners’ ideal jobs-housing balance doesn’t work because people locate their homes for many reasons other than being as close to work as possible. They may want to be in an area with good schools, nice parks, or restaurants and shops that fit their tastes. There is even evidence that people don’t want to live close to work. UC transportation researcher Patricia Mohktarian found that people prefer to live an average of 16 minutes away from work, perhaps so they could use the commute to mentally prepare for work and home environments.
Biologist J.B.S. Haldane once wrote that “The universe is not only queerer than we suppose; it is queerer than we can suppose.” In 1993, forest ecologist Jerry Franklin paraphrased this in a presentation to President Clinton, saying that “old-growth forests are not only more complicated than we imagine, they are more complicated than we can imagine.”
In the same way, cities are not only more complicated that we model, they are more complicated than we can model. Chaos theory teaches us that complicated systems like cities or forests are chaotic, meaning (among other things) that tiny differences in initial conditions can lead to huge differences in outcomes. That is the butterfly effect, the notion that a butterfly flapping its wings in Biejing can change the weather in New York.
In such situations, models will not work and plans based on those models are likely to do more harm than good. This means that planning is impossible and suggests that we need to find other ways to solve the problems that planners claim to address.
Thanks for the case study, Randal, showing all decision-making was based on a model.
That case study shows how decision-makers only have one way of knowing: looking mouth agape at a printout.
Your private planning practice, being booming and all, surely keeps you away from your copious empirical research and your blog.
But when you come back, can you share your recent urban planning consultancy experience where you found large-scale decision-making to provision public works infrastructure was even close to your little conclusion in your post here today?
I wait anxiously for your story. Thank you so much in advance.
DS
There is one model that works. It is called free market capitalism. It has been proven time and again to be the only way to accurately, efficiently and fairly take into account the amazingly complex variables in most markets.
Dan & pdxf, why is it that people of your leaning tend to be so accusatory and, when all else starts to fail, tend to attack the motives of the other side. We see this when studies that might not link global warming to human activity are attacked because the University that did the study received a donation from an oil company or when a study shows that second hand smoke might not be as harmful as once thought must have some connection to the tabacco industry even though these companies give money to lots of organizations that come up with different results?
DS:But when you come back, can you share your recent urban planning consultancy experience where you found large-scale decision-making to provision public works infrastructure was even close to your little conclusion in your post here today?
Can you translate this into commoner english please?
Portland planners are such idiots that they are actually placing now housing in Damascuc (on the Easter edge of the region) and placing new jobs on the Western edge. And no transportation plan. This is what you get from a political process, which government plannig is.
PS to Randal: As I type this, I notice that the text entry box is much more readable than the message that I am responding to.
Thanks
JK
Can you translate this into commoner english please?
Sure Jim.
‘Randal, you appear to be unaware of the process for planmaking. When was the last time you actually saw public works or land-use plans being made?’
Better?
DS
Dan said:
‘Randal, you appear to be unaware of the process for planmaking. When was the last time you actually saw public works or land-use plans being made?’
JK: My experience has been with neighborhood planning where the planners show up, pretend to listen, say it is too early to make that suggestion then suddenly it is too late. I was lied to. In the end the neighborhood got to decide where to put the ugly condo farms, but not whether.
Oh, and they had an input on what color to paint those pigs.
What part of the above process do you support?
Thanks
JK
johngalt:
“Dan & pdxf, why is it that people of your leaning tend to be so accusatory and, when all else starts to fail, tend to attack the motives of the other side.”
When have I done this? I feel as though I’ve been cordial throughout, only deconstructing the arguments as presented and only based on the logic and data presented. If it hasn’t appeared as such, I apologize. Be sure not to confuse critical thinking with being accusatory. I agree, an accusatory stance is helpful to no one, but there isn’t nearly enough critical thinking in the world todoay. I would however caution you about accusing our side of being accusatory (especially on this site where accusations are thrown about on the motives of planners, architects, engineers, developers, etc…)!
I’ll double check my future postings to make them as non-offensive as possible.
Dan,
Your references to my “urban planning consultancy” are puzzling. I am an antiplanner, not a planning consultant. I review plans to find out if they are valid. In most cases, they are not.
I’ll be providng lots of examples in upcoming posts.
It looks like John posted his response to my post #6 in another thread, but here’s my response to his response (I’m including it here as well, just so the thread stays together):
“I apologize pdxfâ€Â
Apology accepted.
However, I included you because you seem to doubt anything you don’t agree with by first asking (demanding) the writer (usually Randall) to cite the source for even the smallest impertinent detail.
I generally doubt everything, whether I agree with it or not. You’re right, I am skeptical of the claims given here, and point out any small inconsistency. If there are small errors and inconsistencies, it seems to me that there could there be larger errors and inconsistencies. A simple solution is to leave out claims that can’t be proven, or where the claim is just wrong. This would make the argument stronger.
Randall obviously does not mind as he has been quick to give the sources and even posted an entry with the most widely used sources. Given this, do you think you might give the benefit of the doubt for the minor stuff?
No, I’m not one to take things on faith. I’m also not sure what is minor, and what is major. When Randall claims that the population is leveling off, and then I find sources that show that it is not, I would consider that a large error, but other people, perhaps not (http://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=5#comments). When noting that officials “blamed†an individual for getting hit by a light rail train, Randall failed to note that the 87-year-old driver crossed a protective barrier and drove into the path of the train. http://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=20. This may be a small issue, but I would question the motives for leaving this information out, yet include information that a smart growth advocate has been accused of rape.
“Also, I wonder why, when a good point is made from the pro-planning left, there seems to be an effort from the anti-planning side to concede the point “
Where have they conceded a point? I have noted areas where I have made errors in my arguments. I don’t believe I have changed the subject on any issue. If you want, you can interpret dropped issues as a concession, but most I just haven’t had time to reply to (if it’s a response that includes a source, I don’t feel it warrants a reply unless it’s not a good source). I’ll always “attack†(aka ask) for a source. If it comes back to be a good source and reliable information, I’ll let it go.
Speaking of dropped issues, I have a few that I would still love to have addressed:
http://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=11#comments
http://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=7#comments
“Maybe it is just a skewed perception on my part but it seems like arguing with people about creationism or abortion.â€Â
I would definitely agree. Since I’m skeptical and continually asking for data and good science to back up the claims and not taking things on faith, I’m sure you can figure out where I stand on creationism. Where do you stand on creationism?
Your references to my “urban planning consultancy†are puzzling. I am an antiplanner, not a planning consultant. I review plans to find out if they are valid.
Right. You don’t have a consultancy. You aren’t in the practice. You aren’t trained in the practice.
My contention is because you don’t do planning, nor do you practice planning, your views are…er… underinformed. Sorry to be so blunt. Validity judgements have lots of dependencies, which for a while here I’ll have fun pointing out which ones you aren’t considering.
DS
So let me see if I have this straight…
I am not a Communist, a Socialist, a Democrat, a Republican, a Muslim, a Christian, or a Skinhead. I do not practice nor am I trained in any of these pracitices. So, to be blunt, I have no right to any valid judgements of these practices.
…am I on track with your thining Dan?
…am I on track with your thining Dan?
My thinking is your list isn’t populated with professional careers.
DS
Hello John, I replied to your post (“I apologize pdxf, I was primarily…”), but for some reason it isn’t showing up. I’ve emailed randal to see if there is an issue with the system or if he has any suggestions.
“I am not a Communist, a Socialist, a Democrat, a Republican, a Muslim, a Christian, or a Skinhead. I do not practice nor am I trained in any of these pracitices. So, to be blunt, I have no right to any valid judgements of these practices.”
I would say that you can make judgements on those practices, perhaps even valid judgements. However the more you know on a subject the more informed your judgement will be. I don’t know very much about buddhism. Is my opinion as valid as someone who has extensively studied buddhism?
Exactly pdxf,
Dan seems to think otherwise.
Dan,
Planning, as being discussed here, is more like a philosophy than a “professional carreer”. We might discuss the merits of Christianity and not know much about the career of priest. We might discuss the merits of Republicanism without knowing much about the career of a political strategist.
Planning, as being discussed here, is more like a philosophy than a “professional carreerâ€Â.
You’ll then want to, John, ask Randal to be less specific about certain aspects of planning and just stick to discussing philosophization.
Dan seems to think otherwise.
This is incorrect.
I agree completely with pxdf’s assertion that
[h]owever the more you know on a subject the more informed your judgment will be;
my assertion and what I notice here is that the plethora of unsupported assertions and invalid pronouncements indicate the statements about planning are uninformed at best.
HTH,
DS
O’Toole you Cox sucker!