8/8/13, "How Can We Be So Dense? Anti-Sprawl Policies Threaten America's Future," newgeography.com, Joel Kotkin
"Some have suggested that the Obama administration is conspiring to turn American cities into high-rise forests. But the coalition favoring forced densification — greens, planners, architects, developers, land speculators — predates Obama. They have gained strength by selling densification, however dubiously, as what planner and architect Peter Calthorpe calls “a climate change antibiotic.” Not surprisingly, there’s less self interest in promoting more effective greenhouse gas reduction policies such as boosting work at home and lower-emissions cars.
The density agenda need to be knocked off its perch as the summum bonum of planning policy. These policies may not hurt older Americans, like me, who bought their homes decades ago, but will weigh heavily on the already hard-pressed young adult population. Unless the drive for densification is relaxed in favor of a responsible but largely market-based approach open to diverse housing options, our children can look forward to a regime of ever-higher house prices, declining opportunities for ownership and, like young people in East Asia, an environment hostile to family formation. All for a policy that, for all its progressive allure, will make more Americans more unhappy, less familial, and likely poorer." (last 2 parags. of piece)
======================
The myth, from BlueGreenAlliance:
"Businesses located near public transportation experience more employee reliability and less absenteeism and turnover. Employers have a larger labor pool from which to choose, and employees are happier because they are not stuck in traffic.
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Two comments to newgeography article:
======================
Population flees utopian densely built work/live/transit area:
8/9/13, "Dense Construction Creates Population Exodus," Scott Zwartz
"An excellent example of density driving people
away from a city is Hollywood CA. After the Hollywood subway began
operation and the corrupt city build crowded CRA project, Hollywood lost
thousands of people between 2000 and 2010 and the population loss came
from the census tracts contiguous to the subways stations where the
mixed-use projects were located. The population far away from the
subway stations rose slightly.
When the developers lose hundreds of millions of dollars, the tax payer then picks up the tab. Not only did they build with tax payer dollars, but the city often guaranteed the loans from Goldman Sachs etc. Thus, when the developer's LLC or LLP collapses, the city has to pay off the loan.
Mayor Garcetti calls this phenomenon "revitalization." Actually it is more like money laundering where the mayor gives billions of dollars to his buddies by having the city pay off their loans after the developer has pocketed the loan proceeds."
========================
8/9/13, "Cui Bono?" Phil Best
"You are correct, and the situation is actually even worse than that. I have concluded that the driver of all this urban planning nonsense is in fact vested interests, primarily the owners of centrally located property, which of course is of the highest value and therefore worth the most rent-seeking effort.
Firstly, the whole argument around vested interests has been fraudulently framed around the "vested interests" in "sprawl". I constantly try to point out to people that the "vested interests" in growth containment planning are orders of magnitude greater than the vested interests in "sprawl"; and even worse, the former make massive unearned capital gains as a zero sum wealth transfer from everyone else, while at least those who benefit from "sprawl" are honestly supplying goods and services and building things and providing jobs; in response to legitimate demand.
And in fact the benefits to society and the economy are massive, in the minimisation of economic "rent" (in contrast to the maximisation of them by growth containment planning). The only losers are the primary recipients of the economic rent that is reduced. But this rent is of such magnitude that it is unnecessary for there to be a conspiracy among a number of owners of centrally located properties - the portfolio of just one significant owner is often large enough to justify millions of dollars worth of lobbying and advocacy support. No similar efforts will be found on the part of the "pro sprawl" interests. What are Joel Kotkin, Wendell Cox, Randal O'Toole and the "Reason" people, in comparison to the Goliath "smart growth" advocacy industry?
Secondly, it is not that local government stops at imposing growth boundaries and "transit oriented" zoning that delivers fat quasi-monopoly capital gains to big property owners (and to all existing home owners, unfortunately creating a large constituency in favour of the status quo). As you point out, there are frequently public subsidies as well, on the occasion of redevelopment that actually enriches the property owners enough in its own right even without public subsidies being thrown in. These troughers have perfected their gaming to a fine art to extract economic rent out of every orifice of the local economy and its taxpayers.
Thirdly, it is an economic inevitability that the central part of an urban region will lose certain types of economic activity - the ones that operate more efficiently with larger amounts of land at lower cost. Eg manufacturing, warehousing, big box retailing. The rent-seeking property owners at the centre always look for publicly-supported amenities that will prop up economic activity at the location; eg sports stadiums, convention centres. Nobody makes a cause out of the fact that the public are heavy losers in this or that there is every reason that these amenities should be in suburban locations (lower land cost, less congestion).
Fourthly, the fact that "transport planning" has for decades been heavily monocentric and radial, is a significant cause of perpetuating the primacy of a single regional "CBD" and whatever else is located there. In fact most cities most of the time will be more productive with a dispersed form, and a transport infrastructure network to support it. Eg "grid" pattern road and parkway networks, jitney type public transport. There are numerous beneficial effects from an urban form which has been enabled to "disperse" just as fast as market forces drive it anyway. Resisting these market forces does far more harm than good."
==========================
8/9/13, "For those at square one...UN Agenda 21 in the Federal Register," Democrats Against UN Agenda 21
(Bad news for UN Agenda 21 deniers).
===========================
Comment: Persons attempting to socially engineer 300 million Americans in 2013 are criminally insane. Hitler was well on his way to succeeding in a similar effort in his time. Social engineers think they're saints but they're no different than Hitler.
.
When the developers lose hundreds of millions of dollars, the tax payer then picks up the tab. Not only did they build with tax payer dollars, but the city often guaranteed the loans from Goldman Sachs etc. Thus, when the developer's LLC or LLP collapses, the city has to pay off the loan.
Mayor Garcetti calls this phenomenon "revitalization." Actually it is more like money laundering where the mayor gives billions of dollars to his buddies by having the city pay off their loans after the developer has pocketed the loan proceeds."
========================
8/9/13, "Cui Bono?" Phil Best
"You are correct, and the situation is actually even worse than that. I have concluded that the driver of all this urban planning nonsense is in fact vested interests, primarily the owners of centrally located property, which of course is of the highest value and therefore worth the most rent-seeking effort.
Firstly, the whole argument around vested interests has been fraudulently framed around the "vested interests" in "sprawl". I constantly try to point out to people that the "vested interests" in growth containment planning are orders of magnitude greater than the vested interests in "sprawl"; and even worse, the former make massive unearned capital gains as a zero sum wealth transfer from everyone else, while at least those who benefit from "sprawl" are honestly supplying goods and services and building things and providing jobs; in response to legitimate demand.
And in fact the benefits to society and the economy are massive, in the minimisation of economic "rent" (in contrast to the maximisation of them by growth containment planning). The only losers are the primary recipients of the economic rent that is reduced. But this rent is of such magnitude that it is unnecessary for there to be a conspiracy among a number of owners of centrally located properties - the portfolio of just one significant owner is often large enough to justify millions of dollars worth of lobbying and advocacy support. No similar efforts will be found on the part of the "pro sprawl" interests. What are Joel Kotkin, Wendell Cox, Randal O'Toole and the "Reason" people, in comparison to the Goliath "smart growth" advocacy industry?
Secondly, it is not that local government stops at imposing growth boundaries and "transit oriented" zoning that delivers fat quasi-monopoly capital gains to big property owners (and to all existing home owners, unfortunately creating a large constituency in favour of the status quo). As you point out, there are frequently public subsidies as well, on the occasion of redevelopment that actually enriches the property owners enough in its own right even without public subsidies being thrown in. These troughers have perfected their gaming to a fine art to extract economic rent out of every orifice of the local economy and its taxpayers.
Thirdly, it is an economic inevitability that the central part of an urban region will lose certain types of economic activity - the ones that operate more efficiently with larger amounts of land at lower cost. Eg manufacturing, warehousing, big box retailing. The rent-seeking property owners at the centre always look for publicly-supported amenities that will prop up economic activity at the location; eg sports stadiums, convention centres. Nobody makes a cause out of the fact that the public are heavy losers in this or that there is every reason that these amenities should be in suburban locations (lower land cost, less congestion).
Fourthly, the fact that "transport planning" has for decades been heavily monocentric and radial, is a significant cause of perpetuating the primacy of a single regional "CBD" and whatever else is located there. In fact most cities most of the time will be more productive with a dispersed form, and a transport infrastructure network to support it. Eg "grid" pattern road and parkway networks, jitney type public transport. There are numerous beneficial effects from an urban form which has been enabled to "disperse" just as fast as market forces drive it anyway. Resisting these market forces does far more harm than good."
==========================
8/9/13, "For those at square one...UN Agenda 21 in the Federal Register," Democrats Against UN Agenda 21
(Bad news for UN Agenda 21 deniers).
===========================
Comment: Persons attempting to socially engineer 300 million Americans in 2013 are criminally insane. Hitler was well on his way to succeeding in a similar effort in his time. Social engineers think they're saints but they're no different than Hitler.
.
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