The Antiplanner » Home Page

Happy Independence Day

By | | Housing, Transportation
2 Comments

Here are some thoughts for your consideration this weekend.

1. Orange County Register: It’s time for Congress to get out of the transportation business.

2. Huffington Post: Five reasons not to raise the gas tax.
Which means you’ll be able to make satisfied to their go to the pharmacy shop purchase cheap cialis lady love with the sexual arousal, and the brain provides signals to the nerves of male private organ. Therefore it is sildenafil india wholesale recommended to consult a doctor to determine how well his recommendations are working). Forzest is well canadian pharmacy cialis tested and known to cause autoimmune disorders, gastrointestinal dysfunction, and organ damage. Escitalopram pdxcommercial.com order cheap levitra is sold in the USA by Lundbeck as Lexapro.
3. Minneapolis Star Tribune: Twin Cities housing report not credible.

Have a safe and happy weekend.

Good-Bye Drakes Bay Oyster Co.

By | | News commentary, Public lands
14 Comments

Antiplanner readers know that I have no sympathy for Clive Bundy, who has been trespassing on federal lands for two decades and somehow made people feel like he was the victim. Perhaps it seems strange, then, that I have a lot more sympathy for the Drakes Bay Oyster Company, whose operations in California’s Point Reyes National Seashore the National Park Service is trying to shut down.


Incompatible use? As long as the oyster company could avoid using motorized equipment in the part of the bay designated wilderness, oyster growing should be compatible with wilderness. Flickr photo by Earthworm.

At first glance, the facts are similar. Both Bundy and Drakes Bay
used public lands or waters for decades, and were allowed to continue to use those resources after the BLM took over the former and the Park Service took over the latter. Then Congress passed laws–the Endangered Species Act in Bundy’s case and a wilderness law covering the oyster farm–that restricted the use of those resources.

Continue reading →

Solar Conways

By | | News commentary
5 Comments

Crowdsourcing is one of those great ideas that could only come about because of the Internet. But it also opens up the possibilities for con artists, or at least advocates of really bad ideas, to get money from people who don’t know any better.

One of those bad ideas is solar roadways, which–thanks to a tweet by George Takei (because actors on science fiction TV shows know so much more about science than other celebrities)–received more than $2 million in pledges when its promoters asked for only half that. The pledges kept coming in even after numerous web sites debunked the proposal to turn roads into solar energy collectors.

Continue reading →

Uncompetitive Transit

By | | Transportation
11 Comments

A web site called You Are Here has put together an intriguing series of maps showing the best mode of transportation from any point in various cites to any other part of those cities. So far, the maps cover Manhattan, Brooklyn, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Portland, Salt Lake City, Cambridge, Boulder, and Santa Monica.


Click image to go to the “Best Mode” Portland map.

Select any of the above cities (or click here to see if more cities have been added), wait for the map to load, then click anywhere on the map. Instantly, the map is color coded to show the fastest mode of transportation from the point you selected to anywhere else in the city. Modes include walking, cycling, public transit, and driving.

Continue reading →

Ignoring the Law of Supply & Demand

By | | Housing, Regional planning
2 Comments

The Twin Cities Metropolitan Council is currently writing the Thrive Plan, which–like so many other urban plans today–aims to cram most new development into high-density transit centers. To justify this policy, the council naturally hired Arthur Nelson, the University of Utah urban planning professor who has predicted that the U.S. will soon have 22 million surplus single-family homes on large lots.


Click image to download a copy of the report.

“Demand for attached and multifamily housing in the Twin Cities will continue to grow,” trumpets the Met Council’s press release about Nelson’s report on Twin Cities housing. That, of course, is what the Met Council wanted Nelson to “prove,” which is why they hired him. However, his report can’t really justify the Met Council’s plans.

Continue reading →

There’s an App for Disruption

By | | News commentary, Transportation
6 Comments

A former limousine driver and current editor of Limo Insider Report has written a persuasive letter of complaint about Uber to the U.S. Attorney General, accusing the ride-sharing company of circumventing all sorts of laws and regulations. Similarly, the Taxicab, Limousine, and Paratransit Association argues that Uber and Lyft are risky for consumers to use. These are both good points.

At the same time, at least some of those regulations are in place for the specific purpose of limiting competition within the taxi industry. As a result, as the Washington Post observes, taxi medallions “have been the best investment in America for years.”

When regulations are in place to protect the providers of a good or service, the consumers usually are the losers. Politicians, policy makers, and opinion leaders need to understand that the true value of a policy must be judged from the point of view of consumers, not providers.

Continue reading →

Congress Should Get Out of the Transportation Business

By | | Transportation
Leave a comment

Oregon Senator Ron Wyden has bravely proposed to pass a three-month transportation bill. Three more months, he says, will give Congress a chance to figure out a long-term solution. The only problem is that Congress had three months three months ago and did nothing.


Would you buy a used transportation system from these people?

Meanwhile, Senators Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Bob Corker (R-TN) have proposed to increase gas taxes by 12 cents a gallon. Considering that the gas tax hasn’t been increased in more than 20 inflation-filled years, this would seem to make sense.

Continue reading →

So Much for Baby Boomers Downsizing

By | | Housing
21 Comments

Smart-growth planners justify their preoccupation with multifamily housing on the notion that, not only do Millennials prefer such housing, but as Baby Boomers become Empty Nesters, they too will prefer such housing. This is based on a logical fallacy:

  1. Most people in multifamily housing have no children
  2. When their children leave home, Baby Boomers will no longer have children
  3. Therefore, most Baby Boomers will prefer multifamily housing.

The reality, of course, is that even most Millennials live in suburbs, not dense inner cities–and even more aspire to eventually own their own home. So to presume that Baby Boomers will suddenly move to multifamily housing, out of possible nostalgia for their younger years, is absurd.

This is confirmed by a recent analysis of census data published by Fannie Mae. The share of Baby Boomers with children living at home declined from more than 24 percent in 2006 to 12 percent in 2012. Yet the share of Baby Boomers who live in single-family homes has fallen by just 0.3 percent from their peak, and remain today above the share before the financial crisis.

Did you know that a man can climax while soft? If they climax they are obviously excited, so that is a strong statement to overcome the partners doubts. viagra sale mastercard As it were, it is otherwise called “the 36-hour pill” online viagra australia or “the weekend pill.” It is the main erectile brokenness medicine that is adequate for agreeable sex. If you do your homework india sildenafil first and follow your routine love making and eventually as it starts to work you can experience rigid yet sensitive penile erection. Understand these characteristics, mutual understanding, is also a harmonious sexual life factors. 1, 20-30: levitra 60 mg men in the peak of performing sexual intercourse. Continue reading →

Premature Celebration

By | | Transportation
7 Comments

The Atlantic may be a bit premature in heralding “the triumphant return” of private passenger trains. This claim is based on the Florida East Coast (FEC) Railway’s All Aboard Florida plan to build and operate for-profit passenger trains from Miami to Orlando.

The success of this supposedly unsubsidized train depends on, among other things, the willingness of the federal government to loan the company $1.6 billion to start the service. The plan is to improve 195 miles of existing track and build 40 miles of new track, plus passenger stations, all of which is expected to cost around $2.5 billion.

To partly fund the project, FEC recently stunned the bond market by selling $405 million worth of bonds promising to pay an incredible 12 percent return. Of course, at rates like that the bonds sold quickly, but at a time when comparable bonds are offering to pay just 6 percent, this raises questions about why the railway is offering to pay twice as much.

Continue reading →

East Portland: Another Planning Failure

By | | City planning, Urban areas
49 Comments

Planning of outer southeast Portland has failed so badly that even the planners are recommending that the city slow densification of the area. As reported in the Oregonian late last year, the city upzoned the area to much higher densities but failed to install basic urban services to support those densities. The result is just one more disaster in the model of urban planning called Portland.

Some background: In 1994, Metro, Portland’s regional planning agency, gave every city in the region a population target and told them to upzone neighborhoods to reach that target so they wouldn’t have to make large expansions of the region’s urban-growth boundary. Metro specifically targeted 36 neighborhoods for densification, including outer southeast Portland and the Portland suburb of Oak Grove.

At the time, the Antiplanner lived in Oak Grove, the only targeted neighborhood that successfully fought densification. In 1996, I met someone from outer southeast Portland whose neighborhood was not so lucky. The planners came to their neighborhood and proposed upzoning to as high as 65 housing units per acre. The residents strenuously objected, and after much haggling, the planners agreed to a modest amount of upzoning, but warned that if the neighborhood failed to add enough new housing, even more upzoning would take place later.

Continue reading →