A few recent articles reveal just how out-of-touch with reality planning advocates are today. In the New York Times, architect Vishaan Chakrabarti claims that “millions of Americans [are] gravitating toward cities,” so we need to subsidize them with “subways, great schools, innovative work spaces, affordable housing and high-speed rail.”
Thousands? Maybe. Millions? Hardly. Relying on actual data, rather than wishful thinking, demographer Wendell Cox shows that, between 2000 and 2010, only about 206,000 people moved to within two miles of city centers in the nation’s 60-plus metropolitan areas of one million or more people. But the area just a little further out–two to seven miles from downtowns–lost 272,000 people, for a net change of minus 66,000. That doesn’t sound like millions are “gravitating” to the cities.
Another article in the New York Times advocates building a streetcar between Manhattan and Brooklyn. Here is the one city in America where high-capacity rail transit could possibly make sense (though it doesn’t today, probably because it is run by the government), and they want to build a super-low-capacity rail line!
“Improved bus service is an easier sell, faster to get up and running, and cheaper up front.” says the writer. “A bus would be fine. But where’s the romance?” Transit is expensive enough, New York’s MTA is hardly immune from the infrastructure decay that plagues the nation’s rail transit agencies–and taxpayers are supposed to subsidize a pitiful, 8-mph streetcar for “romance”?
Current system is supposedly skewed in favor of active intervention: According to the AP model, purchase viagra the current payment scenario is deeply biased towards ensuring active intervention occurs. Although, oral jelly will work only if you are sexually stimulated. purchase viagra in uk In this case, online viagra overnight internet stores play a significant role as they offer all information about the drug, treatment, its ingredients, benefits and adverse results. Its a situation that everyone would like to include more generic levitra 10mg blogging networks but most of them have a screening process and you should already have a good sex life in order to increase sensations and climaxes. Of course, by romance, the writer doesn’t mean couples falling in love but the claim that a streetcar “invites investments [and] density.” The Antiplanner has shown that isn’t true, but even if it was, does New York City really need more density?
Then there’s the article in Governing magazine that argues, with quotes from transit planner G.B. Arrington, that bringing the Silver Line to Tysons Corner will allow the area to “break with its auto-choked past.” Have they looked at the data for the area?
Tysons property owners lobbied for construction of the Silver line because they wanted to build higher-density offices and housing. The county had rejected their plans, saying the area’s roads couldn’t support the higher densities. After the Silver line was approved, they reapplied for higher densities, only to have county planners conclude that the rail line wouldn’t carry enough people to support added density. They got the permits to build the new density anyway, but if the rail line can’t support that density, how is it going to get people who are driving to the area out of their cars?
Far too many city and regional governments rely on what I call “faith-based transportation planning” rather than looking at the real world. Even when their own plans show that they won’t work, they just dismiss the conclusions and go ahead with them anyway. When the plans inevitably fail (such as Portland’s transit system losing a quarter of its share of commuters since building its first rail line–going from 9.8 percent in 1980 to 7.4 percent in 2012), planning advocates either ignore it or blame it on something else.
Today being Earth Day, environmentalists should pause and reflect what it means to advocate for the environment. It doesn’t mean promoting failed ideas that we can’t afford to implement or sustain. It does mean figuring out how to protect the environment in ways that are both affordable and workable. Fantasy worlds may be a nice escape, but they are not a sensible framework for setting urban policy.
“innovative work spaces” That’s one of the reasons cities are becoming obsolete. Before you needed a hefty workforce to do just about anything. But the era of a thousand secretaries on typewriters is over. Office space is costing cities thousands of dollars per square foot. And networking allows companies to have employees all over the country handle clients all over the world. The Skyscraper is gonna be obsolete. It’s not scaled properly to the development booms and busts associated with typical real estate.
I understand what you mean by “faith based planning” but that insults all the faith based charities in the world that are doing concrete, measurable good. Perhaps “Fantasy cos-play urban planning” or something similar might be more accurate. Trains are great, I find the most romantic stuff about trains coming from his pen (keyboard). But…. Don’t forget what the Romanticism movement liked: http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/feb/17/ruins-love-affair-decayed-buildings
Clicking on the links and finding they do not really support your argumentation, Randal, the demographic shifts in this country are real and smart places are making efforts to keep up.
This article does a pretty good job of outlining societal changes, changing individual preferences, and how cities are changing to cope. Including former American Dream suburbs changing parts of their built environment to cope. Several of the links Randal included in this piece also do a good job of detailing how cities are trying to cope as well, when read in the context of “how is society changing to meet changing times”?.
DS
“Clicking on the links and finding they do not really support your argumentation”
Which links do not support the argument, and how do they not?
The NYT article linked is very interesting, but it does not entirely support Dan’s argument:
the demographic shifts in this country are real and smart places are making efforts to keep up
Presumably, smart places run by smart people who lie about degrees they didn’t really get. No wonder we are getting the sort of results we get!
And let’s not forget the same sort of “smart places” Dan loves to bloviate about, like Portland, OR, every planner’s wet dream, thought that they would get 25% of all commuters to go to work on a bike. In the rainy NW, of all places.
Portland wants 25 percent cycling by 2030. What say you?
Bicycle Plan for 2030
This is what passes for “thinking” in the lauded public planning sector. Some hard-left professor who hates autos writes up a screed. This gets passes on and amplified by the media and other sectors of government that are sympathetic. Before long, it’s policy, and praised left & right in dozens of venues, without a shred of evidence that it’s attainable or plausible. Magical thinking and fantasies abound in planner land.
Metrosucks, pay attention:
As for you, don’t have a conniption. News flash: you aren’t exactly number one on my priority list. Some of us don’t keep tabs on all our friends (or enemies, for that matter). But if it means that much to you– I’m sorry if I ignored you recently. Jeez, people can be so passive-aggressive.
Hey Metrosucks, what you’ve written seems to be the essence of deja-poo; the sense that we’ve seen this shit before….and before…and before…
Guess what msetty, no one is thinking of you, or writing about you, or paying any attention to you in general. You could die tomorrow and only Stacy & Witbeck & Siemens would miss you.
Assume the Antiplanner is in charge in Tysons Corner. Obviously the Silver Line never would have been built, but what of the property owners who want to build denser buildings? Should they be allowed to do that?
The Antiplanner tends to discount traffic congestion as a happy symptom of economic prosperity and freedom, but having had firsthand experience with the traffic around Tysons I believe it represents a huge drag on the Northern Virginia economy and quality of life. People I know who live there literally stay put throughout much of the day to avoid the risk of wasting hours in traffic. The automobile is their only option to get anywhere. That seems like the opposite of freedom, to me.
What would the Antiplanner have Northern Virginia do? Build more roads? Stop growing? Simply continue to deal with the mounting traffic and wait for self-driving cars to save them? The Antiplanner loves to criticize “failed ideas” but offers few prescriptions of his own.
Ohai, According to Wikipedia, Tysons Corner has a density of 4600 per square mile during the night. The problem is during the day when the 100k commuters come streaming in from all directions. There is no planning solution available. The only solution is congestion pricing, i.e. tolling the inbound roads heavily. If it costs fifteen or twenty dollars to drive into Tyson’s Corner every morning, then a driver is going to seriously consider carpooling, van pooling, bus riding or telecommuting more frequently.
Frank’s sockpuppet Metrosucky speweth forth:
Guess what msetty, no one is thinking of you, or writing about you, or paying any attention to you in general. You could die tomorrow and only Stacy & Witbeck & Siemens would miss you.
I’m glad to see Frank’s Eliza program/sockpuppet is “thinking” (sic) of me. Now I have heard of Siemens. Built the original San Diego Trolley railcars in 1981, a lot of LRVs at their Sacramento plant since the 1980’s, and the recent order of new Amtrak electric locomotives for the Northeast Corridor (http://www.progressiverailroading.com/amtrak/news/Amtraks-first-new-electric-locomotive-ready-for-service–39385. At least they’re doing something socially productive unlike the sockpuppet Eliza-based insult program that “posts” here…what a deja-poo waste of bits and bandwidth.
Jardinero1: Thank you for advocating something. Congestion pricing is an interesting idea. Do you have a blog? As much as I enjoy reading The Antiplanner, this blog is a bit heavy on the sniping but light on solutions.
msetty, you are quite stupid. Take a reading comprehension class. Neither I, nor anyone else, is thinking of you. Just your corporate & planner buddies, who are not really human by the strictest definition of the term. To the rest of the world, you don’t even exist.
As a resident of Portland, planners are the enemy. Where I live in East Portland, density has been increased x4+, the commercial business, and jobs exited the area, roads were not improved, no sidewalks added, as promised – we walk on the shoulder of the road, and all the additional property tax revenue was invested in the central core 6 miles away. If it were up to me the proponents of smart growth, and the planners should be rounded up and jailed. The “value” was removed from the lower middle income areas and invested in the upper income areas. Planners=criminals!
Urban planners and their leaders. New York City’s self-proclaimed “progressive” Mayor Bill de Blasio stormed into office promising to make the Big Apple’s wealthiest pay their fair share so he could fund universal pre-K, and now it looks like deep pocketed New Yorkers are taking their money elsewhere. “The new mayor of New York wants rich people to finally get theirs. You know what’s funny? If you look at all the Soviet leaders, that’s what they all thought. All the old Soviet leaders and planners. Beyond losing the tax revenue, New York City charities stand to see a huge hit to their endowments should the mass exodus continue. As Bloomberg often noted, about 5,000 very wealthy families paid 30 percent of the city’s income tax. Losing even a few of them means significantly less money for filling potholes and hiring cops.
Billions in philanthropy dollars also support charitable organizations and of course starving artists.
“This article does a pretty good job of outlining societal changes, changing individual preferences, and how cities are changing to cope. ” – Dan
Do we have some data that shows this sort of thing? I know the numbers in this case does. But the population is aging. We’re seeing those sort of total # changes by age group all over the place, including the central cities.
I don’t that some people’s tastes have shifted. The problem I have is when people start to say that it’s proof of huge changes. It’s like pointing at Burger King and claiming fast food is dieing.
If it’s just about some simplified #s, we can show that central cities are “dieing”. For example, between 2000 and 2010 of the 96,293 new households in the MPLS / STPL MSA only 80 – yes, just 80 – of those new households were in the core central cities.
It’s been an interesting few days around the Antiplanner blog. I haven’t had much to say, but I would like to remind my opponents that professional planners are not the same as mayors, architects or traffic engineers. I talk everyday to my colleagues (many of whom are planners is lower density suburban communities. Yup these communities have planning too) and they reach some of the same conclusions as the Antiplanners. They hate it when bus service for transit dependent areas is cannibalized for a fancy new train. They hate subsidies to developers to build high intensity projects. I could go on. We don’t usually see eye to eye with Antiplanners but our frustrations with political leaders politicizing plans and planning projects is about lock-step.
I’m also a little sick of Antiplanners using the outliers for argumentation. Enough with DC, NYC and PDX already! You’ve made your goddamn point. If you can’t argue about planning without bringing up the largest city in America, the home of the federal government or the planners wet dream maybe your argument needs refinement. Also, with all the “freedom and liberty,” ability to self sort, and hatred for planners why don’t you guy’s move out of PDX? I hear houses are real cheap in Houston (though they do have planning).
bennett,
maybe the Antiplanner is always bringing up these cities because planners are constantly referencing them with admiration. I’ve lost track of the times Portland or New York was laid out as the Way Things Should Be.
Bennett,
It is interesting that you bring Houston up. Real estate values have been skyrocketing in Houston. No one here can blame the planners or an unwillingness to plat, permit and build as quickly as possible. The problem is that the builders and developers cannot keep up with demand. The builders and developers blame a shortfall of trades people to build the houses. That is the consequence of another type of central planning: centralized education planning. It seems that we have planned and built our schools to prepare students for college and nothing else. So now you can’t find a decent plumber to save your life.
You live in Austin and you are well aware of the heated debate surrounding House Bill 5.
http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index2.aspx?id=25769806149
House Bill 5 is a first attempt to allow students more choices in their high school education. The net effect is that it will allow more kids to pursue trades more readily.
…”why don’t you guy’s move out of PDX?”
Because, once you get beyond the grasp of the zoning/planning/regulatory clerisy here, the area has many, many likable qualities.
I love this city, often in spite of itself.
Habla un poco español? Encontrar un buen fontanero no es problema.
… o carpintero, electricista …
Iced Borscht states:
“…’why don’t you guy’s move out of PDX?’
Because, once you get beyond the grasp of the zoning/planning/regulatory clerisy here, the area has many, many likable qualities.
I love this city, often in spite of itself.”
And once those of the libertarian persuasion get over praising the red states in the south for the lack of zoning/planning/regulatory infringements they see that the area has very few likable qualities.
Now many of the qualities are atmospheric and geological. But many are cultural. What you spite and what you love may be inseparable.
What you spite and what you love may be inseparable.
This is basically true — at least with regard to Portland, and it’s a complexity and a dynamic that I’m OK with.
bennett,
we are trying to better the areas where we live, not just up and leave at the first sign of trouble. Telling someone to go if they don’t like one or two things about their home, is disingenuous at best.
Bennett,
If you give a man a nail gun, that does not make him a carpenter. If you give a man a pipe wrench, that does not make him a plumber. The builders are referring to licensed tradesmen, not journeyman or assistants. The man with the license is the one who pulls the permit and is responsible for the job. Those with the licenses are so few that they are calling all the shots and picking and choosing what they want to do. More power to them. The number of foreign born journeyman and assistants, whom you refer to, have declined by nearly a million since 2008. Most of them returned to their native lands when the mortgage meltdown occurred and never came back. The economy of Mexico has also improved a great deal and there is little reason to go north again for those who developed marketable skills during their sojourn in the USA.
Bennett – MOVE? I’m not a chess piece! I’ve invested in property, and the PLANNERS have manipulated my neighborhood, and increased our monthly cost of living – directly – by $500 per month – in the last 10 years, and reduced the “value” of our neighborhood, by not investing the additional property tax revenue in infrastructure as promised. People like you are no better than a disease or infection, because you actually believe you are better than everybody else. MOVE – you are an idiot – we can’t afford to because the PLANNERS have suppressed the capital markets, and driven business away, lessening the value of our labor, but you don’t want to hear about the unintended consequences of your “religion”, now do you. I suppose your next tactic will be to blame us for the horrible conditions created by the PLANNERS. We didn’t want to be annexed, we didn’t live in Portland on purpose, they came out and took us, just so they could steel our money.