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Re: Tokyo’s surprising lack of density

Stephen Smith — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 04:25:24 -0000

The problem is high housing prices, long commutes, and cramped homes. These are quality-of-life issues in and of themselves, albeit subjective, but I see them as also contributing to Japan's quite dire demographic problem. Not being able to afford an apartment with an extra bedroom for a kid might make you think twice about having one, and not having the money to move out of your parents' house (a problem in Japan, from what I understand) might make it hard to start a family of your own. Having an extra-long commute sucks, but it's also possible that some commutes are just impossibly long, depriving people of job opportunities (also a problem in auto-oriented sprawling US metro areas – it's just impossible for some people to get to high-paying jobs on the other side of the city). Both high housing costs and long commutes hurt the economy, and feeling insecure about your economic future is a yet another reason not to have a kid.

Anyway, obviously there is no "best" way to do things, but the world changes and there will definitely be a better way of doing things. Tokyo has some of the highest housing costs in the world, and to me (who has, admittedly, never been east of Istanbul or west of Hawaii), this seems like one of the things that would be ameliorated in a better world, and I'm trying to present options for doing so.

Re: Tokyo’s surprising lack of density

Stephen Smith — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 23:20:23 -0000

Okay, fair enough, it's quiet because Japanese culture has so internalized being quiet so as not to disturb your neighbors who sleep 10 feet away from you.

And maybe the neighborhoods don't feel particularly crowded, but it's a fact that the living spaces are more crowded. (And like I said, because they're single-family detached houses, they're not even particularly energy efficient.)

Anyway, obviously they're livable, and they have some charm, but that doesn't mean they're the best option or way to deal with the tradeoff between price and aesthetics (or at least, a certain aesthetic).

Re: Tokyo’s surprising lack of density

Stephen Smith — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 21:37:26 -0000

I think you hit the nail on the head with the "backstreet" comment. The planning rules allow 10- to 20-story buildings on main roads and within a block or two (or more in bigger areas) of train stations, but there are plenty of places that are walkable to transit but on small streets or outside of a 5 minute walk from the train station that remain at two or three stories, despite the fact that people demand to live there almost as much as on the big streets and the areas that are within 5 minutes walking distance of the station. (like you said, "palpably dripping with money").

Partly I think this is due to the fact that people don't value wide streets streets nearly as much as planners weight them. You see this in Manhattan too – demand on the streets is definitely lower than on the avenues (I've heard developers talk about the difficulty of charging "avenue prices for street locations"), but the difference isn't nearly as large as the allowed density differences are.

It also seems like Tokyo planners weight railway access too much and walking not enough. When your choice is live in a central-but-not-transit-adjacent area (of which it seems there are many in Tokyo) and walk 15 minutes to the train or live somewhere farther out where you walk for 2 minutes to the train but endure a half hour longer commute, the choice is obvious. But looking at the sort of development that Tokyo authorities allow, it doesn't look like they recognize this.

Re: Tokyo’s surprising lack of density

Stephen Smith — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 20:29:40 -0000

The thing about Tokyo, though, is that you don't get "windows and a quiet street." Your windows are next to useless since you're so close to your neighbors (in fact, there is a law that says that it's incumbent upon the homeowner to make sure that people can't see in), and it's noisy because you're down on the street with everyone else and the streets are narrow (which they have to be, or else everyone couldn't fit into such low-rise buildings).

Re: Tokyo’s surprising lack of density

Stephen Smith — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 04:29:46 -0000

It may be that it's a really, really bad idea to compare yourself to Paris and Manhattan if you're Tel Aviv, but if you're Tokyo, arguably the largest city in the world and inarguably the largest economy, it seems appropriate.

You have a point about the spikiness, and I meant to add something to the original post about average vs. weighted density, which the "market suburbanists" have had problems with in the past, and Cox may be falling prey to here as well. And you're right – in the US and Europe, rapid transit built bigger buildings onto a base of streetcar and walkable neighborhoods.

And the Yamanote loop also has a lot to do with Tokyo's weird downtown. (Suburban railroads were forbidden by the government from crossing it before WWII, and inside was only served by the metro networks – sort of the opposite of an efficient S-Bahn, for those wondering.) Does Osaka have a more defined downtown?

On the other hand, given the simple logic of supply and demand and the yawning gap between construction costs and housing prices, Tokyo consumers could clearly benefit from having one of the gradients (city-level or station-level) made steeper.

And even if you're right that Tokyo is denser where it matters than most cities – even New York and Paris – it's possible that because of this, the amenity value is rising faster than the upzoning, resulting in high prices. This certainly seems true in the US: it's the densest cities where the gap between demand and supply is growing most quickly).

Re: Ryan Avent Needs to Stop Being A Utilitarian

Stephen Smith — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 02:41:54 -0000

If we had never subsidized cars over transit, then only rich people would be able to afford cars, and presumably that would be okay with you. But now that we have subsidized cars, we can't unsubsidize them for everyone, because then only rich people would be able to afford cars. Do you see the disconnect here? I mean, why just because cars and center city driving were once affordable for poor people does it always have to be affordable?

Should we also subsidize air travel for the poor? I mean, after all, right now they don't have mobility – it's practically an attack on them!

Re: E-books for everyone!

Stephen Smith — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 14:56:28 -0000

Cost of living is largely due to housing (and commercial property) costs, which would presumably be brought down by his policy recommendation, which is to allow more supply growth in tight urban real estate markets (i.e., all urban real estate markets).

Re: E-books for everyone!

Stephen Smith — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 23:14:48 -0000

It's pretty good – he focuses a lot on more macro productivity issues than micro land use regulations, which is probably for the best since I spend so much time focusing on micro issues. Essentially his argument is that one reason the economy has been slowing these past few decades is that we don't allow our most productive and high-wage cities like SF and NYC to grow, so low-wage Sunbelt cities get all the growth, and national average wealth stagnates.

You don't need a Kindle to read it – you can download a free Kindle app for just about any electronic device. I read it on my MacBook, but Amazon has Kindle apps for most smartphones, too.

Re: Amanda Burden: Shorter MoMA Tower ‘Is Glorious’

Stephen Smith — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 22:46:30 -0000

Fuck Amanda Burden. I mean, honestly, what makes her so special that she thinks she has better design sense than Jean fucking Nouvel?

Re: Larry Hanley: Part-Time Labor Won’t Save American Transit

Stephen Smith — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 12:38:40 -0000

What about my criticism makes it "ideological"? Every concept has some ideology attached to it – if you criticize military spending, someone can claim you're an ideological pacifist. If you call for more military spending, someone can claim you're an ideological neocon.

So what about my criticisms – which are based on real claims of bad things happening, not a priori anti-union logic – make them "ideological"?

Re: Larry Hanley: Part-Time Labor Won’t Save American Transit

Stephen Smith — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 03:43:09 -0000

...then please point me to the surely thousands that you've written that would address what must be several orders of magnitude the larger problem, namely the subsidies favoring the private auto

Voilà! Okay, maybe not thousands, but hundreds!

Re: Larry Hanley: Part-Time Labor Won’t Save American Transit

Stephen Smith — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 02:41:09 -0000

One last thing:

Finally, transit union abuses don't contribute at all to the externalities such as public health problems (pollution-related, obesity), not to mention AGW, that our ideologically-driven commitment to a system dominated by the private auto generates as a matter of course.

In as far as abuses make transit more costly and lower the amount that can be provided, then yes, actually they do contribute to all those things.

Re: Larry Hanley: Part-Time Labor Won’t Save American Transit

Stephen Smith — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 02:34:24 -0000

I read your article and found it to be typical of its genre...

Why don't we stick to the substance of my arguments and stay away from its "genre," okay?

For the other 4 points, there may be abuses here and there, but would you really argue that our primary transit problem, namely the over dependence on the private automobile, would be even slightly alleviated were unions to tow your line?

American land use and transportation has plenty of problems, and I'm not arguing that transit union CBAs are the most important, but obviously I think it's more important than you do. Certainly worth at least one post on Streetsblog and one article. You say there "may be abuses here and there," and I say the problem is systemic.

So how do we solve this – you say one thing, I say another? By presenting evidence. He didn't refute my point about the eight-hour days – my point was largely about rail, which he pleaded ignorance on – and I still had four other points about union rules. And that's in addition to all the things that commenters on my post brought up – I think that the difficulty in firing people was cited by one person as an even bigger problem with the CBAs. And then there's Buy America, which Tanya asked about but he sidestepped by talking about Walmart. That routinely adds 10-20% (if not more) to procurement costs. All I can do is catalog the abuses that I see (as I've done) and extrapolate from there. Don't agree with me? Fine – address the points themselves, rather than sweeping it under the rug by saying "abuses here and there" without making any attempt to back that up with facts. Also, I have to say, that "abuses here and there" line sounds very reminiscent of what corrupt police departments always say – "there are bad apples, but..." Sorry, but it just doesn't comport with what I see.

Re: Larry Hanley: Part-Time Labor Won’t Save American Transit

Stephen Smith — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 00:56:03 -0000

"I don’t know that much about rail. I’m a bus driver."

Perhaps he forgot, but he's actually the president of the US and Canada's largest transit union.

Re: Larry Hanley: Part-Time Labor Won’t Save American Transit

Stephen Smith — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 00:40:51 -0000

If you think he's wrong, say why.

I'm the author of the second link in the interview – those are the reasons I think he's wrong.

Anyway, you may call it metonymy or "context matters," but I call it avoiding the question.

Re: Larry Hanley: Part-Time Labor Won’t Save American Transit

Stephen Smith — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 18:24:34 -0000

Three things:

1. LMFAO at this part: "there are a lot of simplistic ideas and simple people that go out and try to push out the idea that somehow after running transit systems for well over 100 years the labor relations system has not sorted out all these issues, but they have." Oh, you sorted the issues out alright!

2. Also: "we have people in China and India and all across the world competing with American kids." Last I checked, the world's largest transit vehicle manufacturers were in places like Japan, France, Germany, Sweden, and Canada...hardly low-wage sweatshop economies.

3. Glad that we can all acknowledge the real problem here: Walmart.

Re: Washington, DC Gets the 7th and 1/2 Floor (a la Malkovich)

Stephen Smith — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 19:33:07 -0000

Does does IZ outside of historic districts give developers more density? In the chart posted above it looks like it just gives them more flexibility in building form, but doesn't increase overall FAR.

Re: A Tale of Two Densities

Stephen Smith — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 02:43:30 -0000

This doesn't sound terribly un-free market to me – think of it as an enforcement mechanism built into the contract.

What does sound un-free market about HOAs is something that I heard once but cannot source: Developers in (some cities in?) Texas were incentivized to sell the land with covenants/HOAs/whatever because it allowed them to build narrower streets, which obviously increased buildable area and thus profits. I remember it being from a reliable source, but I can't back it up with anything more than that.

Re: Amtrak’s Loco Locomotive Purchase for the Northeast Corridor

Stephen Smith — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 23:00:12 -0000

Would you like to explain where I mixed up the FRA and the FTA...? The FRA regulates safety, the FTA administers Buy America.

Re: Amtrak’s Loco Locomotive Purchase for the Northeast Corridor

Stephen Smith — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 19:23:16 -0000

Why would grade crossing accidents have anything to do with heavy FRA-compliant trains? Wouldn't it be easier to stop a lighter UIC/Japanese spec train than an FRA-compliant tank-on-wheels?

Re: Amtrak’s Loco Locomotive Purchase for the Northeast Corridor

Stephen Smith — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 02:21:12 -0000

Hm...your ideas are intriguing to me, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter!

Re: Before there were stimulus projects

Stephen Smith — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 12:37:34 -0000

Japan's deep underground!

Re: “The Joys of Staying Put,” or “The Joys of Rent Control”?

Stephen Smith — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 20:50:12 -0000

Sorry about that! And sorry if what I wrote made it sound like I was criticizing you personally – although I'm obviously not a fan of rent stabilization, I don't blame you (or anyone else) for taking advantage of it. I was more bothered by the article Candace Rosenblum wrote and the quotes she picked out, idolizing rent stabilized tenants without showing the darker side (i.e., NYC's sky high housing prices and the resultant elimination of a market-rate middle class). So, again, sorry that I offended you – I hate the policy, but I have rent stabilized family members, and I understand the difference between enacting a policy and benefiting from it.

- Stephen Smith

Re: Can Brooklyn Build a Pedestrian-Friendly Arena at the Atlantic Yards Site?

Stephen Smith — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 00:55:22 -0000

Not gonna happen – I'm sure Ratner is bound by "the community" to deliver on whatever parking promises he made, and whatever variance or zoning approval that he got is probably only good for what was planned. Furthermore, it takes years to repeal parking minimums – very likely much longer than this development will take.

Re: House Plan to Privatize Northeast Corridor Retains Public Ownership

Stephen Smith — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 20:25:03 -0000

Well, in Japan where most of the train lines (nearly all of them in the big metros) are either privately owned or owned by the state but run as private-seeking corporations that pay taxes and don't get subsidies, companies realize that customer happiness brings profits, and the public for the most part doesn't see any contradiction there. And obviously it works quite well – Japan has far and away the best rail network of any country on earth. Certainly better than in the US, where no passenger rail seeks to make any profit at all.