Disqus - Latest Comments for Rationalitate

Re: On Life Expectancy in America

Rationalitate — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 14:03:40 -0000

"Williamsburg"? Based on the fact that it's in the WaPo, I'm tempted to think they mean Williamsburg, VA. However, Williamsburg, Brooklyn has a much larger population.

Re: Cafe on the kindle

Rationalitate — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 02:09:33 -0000

Am I the only one who finds it absurd that Amazon charges you to subscribe to blog feeds?

Re: HSR Urbanists: “We Are All O’Tooles Now”

MarketUrbanism — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 22:31:08 -0000

I'm sorry, but nothing I've seen from O'Toole convinces me that highways or roads pay for themselves. He ignores too many significant costs in his calcs.

I'm willing to give take another look in case I missed something. Maybe you'd like to take a shot at convincing me I'm wrong with a blog post clearly defending O'Toole's numbers - at least from an accounting standpoint. And if you can successfully defend O'Toole from an investment standpoint, I'll buy you a copy of all his books. :) (or maybe something with actual value)

Re: HSR Urbanists: “We Are All O’Tooles Now”

Rationalitate — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 20:52:04 -0000

1. I agree with your opposition to HSR. It is a boondoggle wasting taxpayers' money for little benefit at best, and a serious detriment to urbanism at worst. People will associate rail with interurban rail, and intraurban networks will feel the consequences.

2. I think it's important for honest defenders of market urbanism to point out that O'Toole is correct when he says that roads pay for themselves through the gas tax. What Ryan Advent (if my reading of the data is true) is saying is false - "highways" in actuality means all roads, big and small, locally- and federally-funded. (I believe that this figure actually also includes some police patrols.) If I'm wrong about this, let me know, but I don't think I am. That having been said, O'Toole errs in that he ignores the opportunity cost of the roads as well as the density-inhibiting regulations that essentially force people to use roads. Also, there's the fact that more-traveled roads subsidized less-traveled roads, although this goes both ways - under a more localized system of payment, all other things being equal, the subsidizing roads would be enlargened.

Re: Unwire the Regulators

Rationalitate — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 18:08:35 -0000

Amen to that! This is how I feel every time I hear some "libertarian"/conservative railing against mass transit and in favor of roads. As if those were built by the free market, and mass transit systems were built by the government...

(In reality, it's the complete opposite. Most intraurban mass transit systems in the US were built by private corporations, whereas 99% of the roads were built by the government.)

Re: Unwire the Regulators

Rationalitate — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 18:06:05 -0000

You shouldn't be so condescending - it makes you look very silly when you're proven wrong. I'd recommend this article which explains what exactly interference is and why it's not as cut-and-dry as the FCC makes it out to be. Or, if you're in a hurry and would rather not read that long thing (though I highly recommend it), I excerpted what I felt were the most important parts in my blog

Re: Unwire the Regulators

Rationalitate — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 18:02:20 -0000

I don't have time to listen to the whole podcast, but in this episode:

http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2009/06/helpri...

...he seemed very sympathetic to the author's ideas, didn't really press him on his very pro-IP stance on copyright, and I'm pretty sure at one point likened those who believe in the abolition of copyright to those who support Barack Obama (which I presume is the Russ Roberts equivalent of Sean Hannity yelling "socialist!" at one of his guests). I'd very much like to be proven wrong, though...

Re: Rothbard the Urbanist Part 3: Prevention of Blockades

MarketUrbanism — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:29:16 -0000

Absolutely! The advantage of large scale developments is that they are able to internalize externailies. (positive and negative) Successful developers know how to capitalize on this internalization.
Take shopping malls for example. Mall owners subsidize the rent of the large anchors because they attract shoppers. This loss is made up by the higher rent of the smaller stores.
The example here would be that safe, desirable locations offer positive externalities to its surroundings. Large managers of land have the incentive to internalize these positive aspects.
Nonetheless, there are forms of home ownership that could be compatible with this model, such as condos, HOAs, land leases, and covenants...

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Re: Rothbard the Urbanist Part 3: Prevention of Blockades

Stephen Smith — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 13:56:48 -0000

Although we might not like to admit it (and especially those who see individual homeownership as the paragon of free market capitalism), there ARE economies of scale in land, and this is precisely one of them - the larger plot you own, the less likely these sorts of things are to happen (along with other nuissances such as skyscrapers blocking out light and noisy neighbors). I think these economies of scale alone would be enough to make occurences like this very rare.

Re: O’Toole Under More Fire

Randall Scott — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 00:04:09 -0000

Hi Rationalitate,
The issue is not about local roads, but highways, right? BTW, there is a gray area in that many state highways (& some US routes) are “local” in their use. Then you go off another tangent of selling local roads; big problems there. Why would anybody occupy a building without road access? How would furniture & other goods be delivered? If the tenants have cars, where would they park & how far away? You would also be cutting off existing buildings from roads. Imagine the functionality, if NYC had no roads, as you theorize. I’m glad you realize that NYC is a bad example, being unique as in the most dense (26,000/sq.mi.) & the highest transit use (50%), with 2nd place being SF at a density of 16,000 & transit use at 33%. Keep in mind those are figs for the city not the UA (urban area).

Highways usually either have built up areas on each side or basically nothing [outside of urban areas], right? Well, there is a gradual transition (& a hodge-podge) going thru the transect, away from the core. So, for alternative uses (opportunity cost), there is potential for more development, between development, or more open space/farms between open space/farms. Either case would not “go” near the other, right? (no ag. in UAs & no random building in rural areas) In each case, there’s not necessarily a shortage of land; it depends—outward is an option, but often zoned against (roads still needed); highways might occupy 1-5% of the area’s land. Still, w/out highways there is a major problem of taking away transportation ability, which severely limits, if not eliminate, the potential value of most nearby land. Sure, there are local roads, which would be really over-burdened. Would you like driving on local roads for many miles with an average speed of 20-30 mph, compared to 40-80 mph on highways?

How did privatizing streets get into this? Imagine collecting money. High-speed freeways are somewhat conducive to being tollways, w/there being limited access, but for other roads, there are many difficulties with collection. London’s congestion pricing cost $300 million to set up the monitoring & collection infrastructure.

What do you mean by the profitability of roads? What’s artificial about a large customer base (ie high density)? Sorry, I fail to see the connection, again, in regards to highways being user-paid & having some gov support. As you are aware, public transit used to be private & profitable, with it replacing the horse. Once individual mobility became faster, more efficient & affordable with the car, people gradually [over decades] chose to use less public transit (<4% now vs ~90% a century ago), meaning, demand dropped, thus no more profitability. You do realize that if you take away government support (~2/3 of cost) for public transit, it is not financially viable? Highways could be 100% user supported with only about $0.40/gallon more gas tax. Yes, there are externalities, which require a far more encompassing view, with every little action causing a reaction & such. Shall we stick mostly to direct costs?

Good point, in that increasing density causes more congestion. City policy-makers often ignore the capacity of existing infrastructure when packing more people in, especially with this dumb growth, CNU (Communist New Union w/ Lord Duany), structured [sometimes ~forced] living pattern, which can still have merits, when freely chosen.

My earlier comments about leftism might have been overboard, but it seems like there is an effort for the gov. to coerce users to pay for indirect costs—many not measureable. How far is the Vienna School ideology to go in having limited government & privatizing most everything? Example, education could be not publicly supported at all. How much more ignorant would our populace be then? I admit, that’s off the topic of transportation, but under the subject of public goods, but then again it is excludable & easily chargeable compared to roads in general (w/out tolls). Sure, the market creates spontaneous order, but there are some guidelines & infrastructure needed to avoid complete chaos.

Re: O’Toole Under More Fire

Rationalitate — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 02:19:59 -0000

Highways may not have much alternative use, but local roads sure as hell do, and highways would be useless without those local roads. If you were to auction off any given stretch of roadway in NYC, can you imagine ANY of it being kept as a road? I'd guess that the developer would find it most profitable to build some sort of rail line (either above or below ground), and fill the rest with commercial and residential space. Now, you can argue that NYC is an isolated case, but as you start to privatize the streets of New York and other major cities, you're going to see costs of living fall as rents fall due to an increase in capacity, and living in cities is going to become more palatable to Americans...especially when the only other option is to live in suburbs or exurbs where the price of road travel will rise due to the fact that it's these areas where road travel is most heavily subsidized.

Also, you're ignoring the fact that roads become artificially profitable based on density restrictions that are incredibly common in America, even in its largest cities. Density makes roads and cars more difficult (as adding capacity to a roadway is very expensive and almost always involves widening the road, which involves buying shit tons of valuable land), whereas it makes rail much more profitable (since there is tons of excess capacity due to the much smaller footprint that people take up when riding trains as opposed to their own private automobiles).

Both of these things are libertarian arguments, not leftist ones. You associate mass transit with leftism, which sort of understandable given recent history where mass transit is synonymous with public transit, but mass transit wasn't always "public." Around the turn of the century, tons of private mass transit companies were in existence, and in fact built the infrastructure (and much more of it that's no longer in use) that the state has appropriated and now uses as a socialized public transportation network.

Re: O’Toole Under More Fire

Market Urbanism — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 13:42:36 -0000

Good point. Even the cheapest residential land is far greater in value than agrarian land. A pig farmer, in his right mind, would never locate in your relatively expensive neighborhood. If he did, it probably means your land was pretty much worthless before the pig farmer even got there...

Re: O’Toole Under More Fire

Stephen — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 13:29:11 -0000

Presumably your house would be in a neighborhood with relatively expensive land, which means it wouldn't be very profitable to build a pig farm there. Humans need access to jobs, food, social events, etc., and they pay more to live close to them. Factors and pig farms, on the other hand, do not, and so they take advantage of the relatively cheap land that's not suitable for people to really live on. Voila, problem solved, no need to bring zoning into the equation!

Furthermore, if you were a developer and you have a large plot of land, the interior of the plot is naturally shielded from the whims of others based on the fact that you own all the land around it. Many industries have inherent economies of scale, so it's not unusual that real estate would have them, too. Only thing is, our current zoning situation negates those economies of scale. Presumably because homeownership (as opposed to renting a home in a large developer's plot) is a good thing, although since the subprime meltdown that argument doesn't look as solid anymore.

Re: O’Toole Under More Fire

Rationalitate — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 19:16:03 -0000

Ehh, I'd read the comments (haha, i.e., my comment) before you give Ryan Avent too much credit. Sure, he's on our side, but I tend to believe Randal's calculations more than his.

Re: Block vs Poole: The Public-Private Partnership Debate

Rationalitate — Thu, 07 May 2009 12:48:38 -0000

Two things:

1. I agree with Block on a philosophical level - just because the Holocaust was put out for competitive bidding don't make it libertarian.
2. It's frustrating to hear even principled advocates of privatization like Block couch their arguments in terms of lessening traffic congestion and reducing driving deaths. The truth is, Block's alternative vision of a libertarian transportation network just isn't that much more appealing than the status quo, especially for the risk that it entails (what a radical step to save a few thousand lives!, ordinary people must think) – all he envisions is a little tweaking around the edges. In fact, what he's describing looks a lot like those 1950's movies where you see long ribbons of empty highway with the occasional car zipping by at an extremely high speed. It's a shame he doesn't realize how radically different (and I'd say more efficient) our land use and transportation patterns would be under his ideal regime (i.e., no regime).

Re: Books for Beginner Urbanists

Market Urbanism — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 19:45:05 -0000

Thanks Stephen. Those two books are the first that come to mind for Market Urbanists beyond Jacobs, and they are high on my "to read" list.

Dan's list makes me realize that I'm not as well read as I could be, but reminds me that the concepts become so intuitive to many people interested in places and the functioning of cities.

Re: Books for Beginner Urbanists

Rationalitate — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 20:27:21 -0000

It's a wonkish book, but one that debunks one myth and does it damn well with empirical evidence: the idea that people don't want to live in dense environments, and that the market would have guided us to our present land use/transportation situation even without all the government prodding. The book is called Zoned Out and it's by Jonathan Levine.

Also I'd add to that The High Cost of Free Parking by Donald Shoup. Though I haven't actually read it, I've read enough reviews to know that he essentially does for parking what Levine does for zoning – meticulously proves, empirically, that we have more parking (and cheaper parking) than we'd have under a free market allocation.

Neither of these would be good for someone getting started in urbanism/land use/transportation policy, but for those people who need to be absolutely convinced of an idea before they'll believe it, these books go a long way.

Re: On Non-Magical Government Investment

Stephen — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 01:38:31 -0000

...not to mention the entire commodity agriculture industry in America, which is massively subsidized to the detriment of the environment.

Re: On Non-Magical Government Investment

Stephen — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 01:32:04 -0000

Coal was massively subsidized with projects like the TVA, the entire gasoline industry is predicated on government subsidies to car users, and the heating fuels and AC electricity that we use to heat/cool our massive houses are due to zoning and parking policy that encourages low-density sprawl (which, even if the livable space isn't any bigger than in a city apartment, uses more energy due to the fact that it has more of its surface area exposed to the elements, and thus loses heat/cool air at a quicker pace).

As for your obsession with externalities, all of these things (ESPECIALLY zoning) was meant to "fix" some sort of externality, so be careful when you go trying to compensate for what you perceive as negative externalities, 'cause it can often bite you in the ass.

Re: Barriers to Effective Schooling

Bruce — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 19:23:26 -0000

That's not entirely fair. "Social Studies" is an institutional designation for the branch of studies that includes (most commonly) history, civics, economics, and geography, as well as--to be honest--a smattering of "wishy-washy liberal multicultural bullshit". Alex J's response to Paul Brown's comments were pertinent. Your smarmy reply, not so.

Re: Barriers to Effective Schooling

Stephen — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 16:55:44 -0000

You do realize that "social studies" is just a euphemism for "history," right? Presumably you have this idea that "social studies" is a bunch of wishy-washy liberal multicultural bullshit, but the name "social studies" has nothing to do with that. And that most of the knowledge in a high school library is on Wikipedia, and the stuff that's not is likely not in the high school library anyway? (Hell, a lot of the stuff that I need isn't in my university's library - I don't know how you expect a high school library to come anywhere close to the resources available online.)

Re: Compaine on the Future of Newspapers

Stephen — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 16:34:48 -0000

The news media will rise once privacy regulations fall (or, more precisely, the THREAT of privacy regulations, as the regulations themselves generally aren't too onerous).

Re: The Return of Data Retention

MikeRT — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 18:07:22 -0000

Your point is actually non-theoretical in some states like Arizona where the penalty for possession of a single picture can carry a sentence that is dangerously close to actually molesting a child. I don't think it takes a genius to see that that sort of incentive structure is almost guaranteed to make some people consider actually molesting a child since there is no legal distinction between the fantasy and the actual act.

Re: The Return of Data Retention

Stephen — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 12:48:46 -0000

Considering that (as far as I know) child pornography is shared on the internet freely and isn't profitable, I fail to see how stemming the spread of child porn online is going to do anything to combat the real danger - which is real life sexual abuse. In fact, it's possible that increased prosecution of those who share child porn could actually increase the incidence of child sexual abuse, as those who enjoy that sort of pornography cannot obtain it and instead must go out and "make it" themselves. There's also the possibility that watching child porn encourages people to go out and do it in real life, although few subscribe to this viewpoint when it comes to non-child pornography (for example, many have argued that the increased availability of "rape porn" and stuff like that has actually decreased its incidence in real life).

I'm just saying - I don't think the issue is as clear-cut as you're making it out to be...there doesn't seem to be much of a reason to think that clamping down on child porn will reduce the incidence of child sexual abuse.

Re: Other “Liberation Fronts”

bszoka — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 15:55:49 -0000

Classic. Perhaps I'll start the North Shaw Liberation Front.