Market Urbanism - Latest Comments

Re: Bike Shares and Public Goods

Miles Bader — Mon, 14 May 2012 03:53:44 -0000

Of course there are other positive benefits, such as influencing perceptions of the urban environment, and thus future development in the direction of a denser and more walkable environment (as opposed to cars, which push things in the opposite direction). Bicycle travel is vastly more compatible with pedestrians than SOVs, so what's good for one is often good for both.

Such things are of course long term and hard to measure, so I suppose many people would ignore them, but that doesn't make them unimportant.

Re: Bike Shares and Public Goods

Mscribner — Thu, 10 May 2012 16:28:21 -0000

I believe users should bear all costs associated with their use (i.e., remove *all* subsidies, which is not politically feasible at the moment). But one thing that strikes me with bikeshare systems (especially CaBi) is that the classic equity argument in favor of transit subsidies (serving the transit dependent, not the transit-by-choice) is that the system is set up so that it excludes low-income, unbanked persons. Last I checked, 12 percent of D.C. is unbanked, with most of these potential users residing in minority-majority neighborhoods east of the Anacostia River where density is lower and cycling-friendly infrastructure is poor. The service only works if you have a credit card/bank account, which many, particularly minority, low-income, transit-dependent residents lack. Of course, there are attempts to remedy this problem (see, e.g.,
http://capitalbikeshare.com/ba..., but they are rather crude and unrealistic. The equity concerns are great, yet APTA et al. deny they exist, which is completely absurd.

Re: Bike Shares and Public Goods

Michael Andersen — Thu, 10 May 2012 15:35:16 -0000

Any long-term substitution of public transit for auto trips (including increased retention of public transit customers) would be a public good.

http://streetsblog.net/2012/03...

It's definitely possible that this impact is trivial compared to other uses of CMAQ funds. I'm more convinced that bikesharing is a worthwhile public investment than I am convinced that it's being appropriately funded.

(edited)

Re: Bike Shares and Public Goods

Mscribner — Thu, 10 May 2012 14:29:11 -0000

*
the purpose of programs like CMAQ is to reduce public BADS. My bad.

Re: Bike Shares and Public Goods

Mscribner — Thu, 10 May 2012 14:28:35 -0000

From what I recall, they were analyzing unlinked trips, and this improvement you speak of would only show up when you're talking in terms of linked trips. The problem with this approach is very few transit agencies even attempt to collect data on linked trips (think about it). That being said, the purpose of programs like CMAQ is to reduce public goods. The improvements you speak of are private goods. And given the essentially trivial impact on regional travel and all that results from said travel, bikesharing boasts public goods of approximately zero.

Re: Bike Shares and Public Goods

Michael Andersen — Thu, 10 May 2012 13:07:21 -0000

Interesting. Did the Bixi study take into account the general increase in the convenience of low-car transpotation in a city that offers bikesharing? Seems clear to me that bikesharing improves the quality of a foot or transit trip.

Re: Bike Shares and Public Goods

Mscribner — Thu, 10 May 2012 12:31:26 -0000

For this to work, you must assume that trip mode substitution in the form of private auto to bicycle exists represents a sizable reduction in private auto trips. The only decent study was of Montreal's BIXI and presented at the TRB meeting a couple years ago. The authors found virtually no private auto to bicycle substitution (taxi trip substitution was also extremely small, but several times greater than private auto substitution). Most of the BIXI trips were from: 1) people who walked/biked already; 2) people who used existing mass transit; 3) new trip generation. In other words, subsidizing bikeshares are a terribly inefficient use of CMAQ dollars (reducing air pollution and congestion) when compared to value pricing, etc.

Re: Bike Shares and Public Goods

Brianeleryphillips — Wed, 09 May 2012 14:37:26 -0000

Just read the link regarding public goods. I can see now that removal of public bad is not the same as a public good. However, the benefit created by removing a car from a road is equivalent to creation of road, which floats between club good and private good.

Re: Bike Shares and Public Goods

Brianeleryphillips — Wed, 09 May 2012 13:42:12 -0000

Is there much of a difference between creating a public good and removing a public bad? Whether I create more road space by building extra road or taking a car off the road, the end result is that motorists waste less time in traffic.

Additionally, I'm not sure that bikes are necessarily lower on the public good scale than any other tangible asset. Sure, only one (maybe two) people can be on one bike at a given time, but the same is true for space on a road or sidewalk. no one can stand where I'm standing. The only difference is that roads and sidewalks are continuous rather than discrete, but if my car is sharing its space on the road with another car, that's a traffic accident.

Re: Bike Shares and Public Goods

Michael Andersen — Fri, 04 May 2012 11:52:08 -0000

That's fair, and that assessment would also apply to lots and lots of policies pushed by liberal urbanists.

But I do think my framing (that, as GGW mentions, the fairly modest subsidies for bikesharing reflect its positive externalities) is more or less the perspective of most urbanist fans of bikesharing.

Re: Brookings Study Ties Exclusionary Zoning to Gaps in School Performance

Emily Washington — Fri, 04 May 2012 11:29:16 -0000

Sorry for a slow response, but I wanted to point out that the study hits on this directly and quantifies the cost of housing that comes from school districts.

Re: Bike Shares and Public Goods

Daniel_N — Fri, 04 May 2012 10:55:42 -0000

This seems to be a legitimate use of CMAQ funds, which are intended to reduce roadway congestion and improve air quality. As Michael mentioned, the mobility provided to the cyclists is a purely private interest but the congestion reduction and air quality improvements resulting from a switch to cycling are a public interest. Funding bikeshare with a combination of membership fees and grants seems to hit this balance pretty well.

As to the regressive nature, this might change as the program grows. It is often the case for many new products or services that the wealthier are early adopters and middle to lower-income users come later, even for low-cost transportation like bicycles. Even so, as mentioned above, providing mobility is not really the federal governments' role in this case.

Re: Bike Shares and Public Goods

Emily Washington — Fri, 04 May 2012 08:48:50 -0000

I think it would be more accurate to say that things like traffic and pollution are public bads rather than saying removing cars from the road is a public good. To address this public bad, it would be much cheaper and more effective to implement congestion pricing or otherwise increase the cost of driving rather than providing bike shares.

Re: Bike Shares and Public Goods

Michael Andersen — Fri, 04 May 2012 03:50:19 -0000

"Bike shares are perfectly rivalrous and excludable. Because no more than one person (maybe two people) can ride a bike at a time, bicycles are lower on the public good scale than transit or roads."

Doesn't this presume that the only "good" created by bike sharing is the mobility of the user, including the assumption that the bike trip isn't substituting for another type of trip?

Isn't the removal of a car from the road a benefit that accrues to all members of society whether we ride bikes ourselves or not? Isn't the increased health and productivity of the bike user a non-excludable, non-rivalrous benefit of bikesharing?

Re: Bike Shares and Public Goods

Anon256 — Thu, 03 May 2012 19:33:52 -0000

All forms of transportation in the US are currently subsidised. Withdrawing subsidy from bikeshare while maintaining it for highways and transit would lead to less use of bikeshare than would occur in an actual open market.

If CaBi diverts users from overcrowded highways and metro stations it might be saving the government money that would otherwise have to be spend expanding that (subsidised/underpriced) infrastructure, and thus have negative opportunity cost.

Re: Brookings Study Ties Exclusionary Zoning to Gaps in School Performance

Eric — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 08:43:23 -0000

My impression is that school district quality is a significant influence on real estate prices, at least in the best districts. This means that the families with the worst educational achievement would not necessarily end up in good school districts even if zoning were eliminated. If a family has to choose between two equally priced units, one small and in a good school district, the other large and in a bad school district, which will they prefer? I think the kind who choose the former are typically not in real socioeconomic danger in the first place.

I grew up in arguably the "best" school district in my metro area. There were a few cheap apartment buildings among our suburb's mostly large houses, but the people I knew there were mostly very recent Asian immigrants, who within a couple generations would likely belong to the upper middle class. They had little money, but made sure to invest what they had based on the school district. Meanwhile, large numbers of Americans were choosing to buy houses in the exurbs rather than renting apartments near me...

Re: Joel Kotkin doesn’t know what a “garden city” is, but he knows he loves it

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Re: Mandating attractive urban design

Marc — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 14:42:59 -0000

Wonderful, wonderful points! If almost everything new is crappier than the old stuff slated for replacement, then it's not surprising to see people put up roadblocks to free and unencumbered redevelopment! I really think phenomena like historic preservation are merely a symptom of the public's angst over the unbelievable inhumanity of many modern buildings, as you described so well:

"Everyone knows that while plenty of new buildings are fine, any large
area of new buildings will be lifeless and unpleasant, and no one has
any idea what to do about it. That's why it's basically impossible to
demolish anything old — because it's nearly inevitable that it will be
replaced with something worse — and why people come up with hair-brained
regulatory schemes."

Once architects and builders prove they can do better, then the public's desperate attempt to save everything old will fade away. We were happy to demolish beautiful architecture in the past because we instinctively knew that something even more beautiful would come along. Look at Grand Central Station, for example. Here was the first station:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wi...

It was happily razed for a more beautiful second version...
http://farm4.static.flickr.com...

The second version was happily razed for the even more beautiful third version (still extant)...
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wi...

Not a peep was raised over the numerous demolitions and replacements! We were a confident society back then: we knew our architects/builders could produce a beauty that would resonate with the public, so we eagerly took any opportunity at redevelopment. Could we expect the same thing today?! If some fatuous contemporary starchitect proposed razing GCS and replacing it with some disgusting pile of blank-walled crap (as was the case in 1968 with the proposed Breuer tower, in which the Supreme Court even upheld the station's historic preservation status), what would the public say? There'd be ferocious outrage!

We've over-regulated development and aesthetics because we lack confidence that new development will be as good as any surviving old development. And the crap churned out by most contemporary architects, builders, and developers constantly re-affirms our lack of confidence. ("See, we knew it would turn out awful!")

Re: Mandating attractive urban design

Marc — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 14:04:38 -0000

Tom, it's certainly true that many old cities that people consider to have been "spontaneously emergent" did indeed have quite a few infrastructure and urban design rules. Cities like Pienza, Siena, and Venice may have had codes dictating build-to lines, the form of street enclosure (how far arcades and overhangs could enclose the street), allowable materials (usually masonry to provide basic fire protection), and so on. And things like height limits and form-based codes have actually been around a *long* time. But I'm guessing that few, if any, prewar cities had 500+ page planning/zoning/code manuals full of abstract legalese, arcane formulas, and abstruse technocratic jargon. I guess the problem is more that we replaced the old practice of urban design with the postwar econometrics-based practice of urban planning.

"There are no good examples of un-regulated and un-planned beautiful cities that I am aware of."

There are several towns along the coast of Italy that were basically shantytowns when first founded, but now are famous tourist attractions:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...

These beautiful shantytowns were mostly devoid of top-down planning: there was actually plenty of "planning" here, except it was undertaken by individuals aggregating into larger voluntary groups to get things done a certain way (a public consensus).

I would argue that the unified architecture and urban design in prewar cities was driven mostly by public consensus. Sure, styles and fashions went in and out, but when it came to attractive urban form there was probably a broad-based agreement on how to do most things a certain way: you didn't have to create codes to tell builders not to put up blank walls near the sidewalk, for example, because it was self-evident that these were optimal locations for shopfronts and other eye-catching activities in a society in which most people walked.

Re: Brookings Study Ties Exclusionary Zoning to Gaps in School Performance

Emily Washington — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 10:10:53 -0000

I'm in complete agreement about the limits of open enrollment. From a competition perspective, vouchers or tax credits are more interesting since they don't have to be used within the municipality or school district.

Re: Brookings Study Ties Exclusionary Zoning to Gaps in School Performance

Alex B. — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 09:44:17 -0000

First, I don't think you'd propose to reduce the strictures of zoning solely to achieve better educational outcomes - instead, you'd propose to change zoning and list education as one of many benefits.

Second, there are limits to open enrollment. Consider the case of DC - DC already has a process for out-of-boundary students to go to schools in different neighborhoods, but this of course is limited by the fact DC can't send students to Virginia or Maryland. In short, open enrollment can reduce some border effects, but by no means all border effects.

Third, think politically. If you want to actually change zoning rules, then dismissing the educational reform potential as a way to build support for that goal is awfully short-sighted. You might not think that land and education should be tied together in policy, but you'll never actually change that without tying them together politically.

Re: Mandating attractive urban design

aka_Scoop — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 20:50:10 -0000

The real problem is that architecture is a deeply broken profession that somehow escapes from all market correction. It teaches students to hate forms — both of individual buildings and urban layout — that laymen mostly love and to punish practitioners who stray from the fold and cater to the tastes of laymen.

Everyone knows that while plenty of new buildings are fine, any large area of new buildings will be lifeless and unpleasant, and no one has any idea what to do about it. That's why it's basically impossible to demolish anything old — because it's nearly inevitable that it will be replaced with something worse — and why people come up with hair-brained regulatory schemes.

Imagine how much nicer a place the world would be if everything erected since WWI was as nice as that which preceded it. It would make everyone's life better, every single day. And we should be to do it. Hell, we should be able to do much better. We're richer. We have more knowledge to build on. But we build crap instead. Everyone knows it. And, as I said, no one knows how to fix it, even though it seems like it should be simple. So we get people saying it can be fixed with one decent code. (Actually, it probably could be fixed with the right code, but we've regressed so far that the chances of enacting that right code are about zero.)

Re: Mandating attractive urban design

Tom Volckhausen — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 14:11:46 -0000

But this ignores the "wisdom of the crowd" inherent in democracy. Feedback from the public in the form of votes provides an incentive structure to ensure that bureaucracy cannot go too far off course.

Certainly bad bureaucrats and bad regulation exist, as do plenty of bad developers, architects, and building owners. Democracy provides a feed-back mechanism to ensure that a city's development delivers the results that the majority of residents consider "best". Without that feedback mechanism, there is nothing to stop the Donald Trumps or Ray Crocs from destroying the urban fabric, except the finite amount of money they have to spend.

The incentive structure for individuals is certainly not all "positive", as greed, selfishness, and corruption deliver plenty of "incentive" to individuals as they impoverish the community. Crack dealers get very good returns and have strong monetary "incentive structure", but few would argue that they benefit the community as they enrich themselves. I would argue the same about McDonalds and Burger King, though some would disagree.

Re: Mandating attractive urban design

Tom Volckhausen — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 14:03:51 -0000

Mogadishu has "freedom and the competitive drive to do better" too, but somehow beautiful aesthetics did not "arise", despite the absence of parking requirements.

There are no good examples of un-regulated and un-planned beautiful cities that I am aware of.
Certainly planning, especially US-style sprawl mandates can also result in ugly places.

The complicated truth is that it is not the presence or absence of planning and regulation that determines if a city is beautiful, but the quality of the planning and regulation has a huge impact, and all the real world cities that we consider beautiful had very substantial planning, public investment in infrastructure and regulation during their development. Not the simple story that anti-government zealots want to hear.

London and Paris would be literally un-inhabitable without the public planning and investment in their water and sewer systems, and of course death by disease was a major reason that those investments were made. The model of privately owned sewers, water systems, roads, and transit may be a nice pipe dream for libertarian utopias (as the unicorns gallivant among the rainbows), but it does not and will not function at scale in the real world.

Unplanned and un-regulated cities quickly implement both planning and regulation as soon as they have the resources. (Check out what is happening in Kigali right now).

Re: Mandating attractive urban design

baklazhan — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 05:00:29 -0000

This is a good point.

To defend the anti-regulation argument, there is one restriction that Houston has which Paris didn't-- parking minimums which require roughly equal amounts of parking as building floor space. The street layout is also centrally planned, moreso in Houston's case than Paris's, resulting in a much larger fraction of Houston's land area being used for streets. These two things alone are pretty effective at determining the layout of the city.