Saturday, March 13, 2004
IT'S NOT WHAT THEY DON'T KNOW ...Will Rogers has been widely quoted as worrying more about "what people know that's wrong" than about what they don't know. More up-to-date scholars like to point out that we do not know anything; it is all about cultural constructs.
The problem with knowing is how we measure and how we interpret. (The latter via the rules of evidence, not political trendiness.) When researchers point their Hubble lenses at the evolving global distribution of income and wealth, they necessarily find a fuzzy picture but the more they focus, the better it looks. The Economist features several pieces that summarize the news.
Undergraduates, reporters and politicians are slow to update their views. So, it seems, are many scholars.
Friday, March 12, 2004
THE VERY SLOW MARCH OF GOOD IDEASTaking exception to people's tastes can be an unrewarding and time consuming project. Most people's tastes for music, movies, books and political platforms do not match mine so I take satisfaction from the fact that we live in a world where people's integrity is respected by the fact that they have choices available to them. Of course, there are those who find fault with "too many choices" and there is even a new book devoted to this theme (I choose not to link to it).
Turning to politics, where to start? The Washington Post (March 8) reports that one of the things that may assure passage of the transportation appropriations bill is the inclusion of large amounts of "popular transit spending", especially light-rail. A mountain of evidence demonstrating the incredible waste resulting from these projects may as well be invisible.
But, there is worse. Educational quality is surely near the top of this country's problems. The popular position among almost all candidates and parties is that more money is needed. (Anti-war speakers like to take the high ground and suggest that war spending hurts the schools). Here too, the evidence points convincingly the other way. Prof. Eric Hanushek's research is especially compelling. More money spent per student has had no detectable impact. It's not the money.
I do believe that good ideas drive out the bad ones but it is a very slow process.
Thursday, March 11, 2004
MOVERS AND STAYERSForbes' Rich Karlgaard writes about his explorations on coldwellbanker.com and reports on the huge cost-of-living disparities between selected coastal metros (NY, LA, SF) and much of the rest of the US. He notes that a chunk of the differences have to do with vastly different local tax rates -- and suggests that some very profitable moves are available.
Why do people like it where they are? The American Housing Survey (2001) asked. Only 28 percent answered "convenient to job". Twenty percent liked their house. Forty-nine percent cited the things outside the home that really matter (convenient to friends and relatives 19%, look and design of neighborhood 18%, good schools, 9%, convenient to leisure 3%). Just 1.6% liked the public services and another 1.6% liked convenient access to public transportation.
Lots more is available at the Census' Why People Move. Interestingly, many of us do move but the disparities cited in Forbes have not caused an uptick in recent years.
Tuesday, March 09, 2004
INSOURCING AND OUTSOURCING"Toyota is the best thing that ever happened to GM," has long been a glib assessment of the benefits of trade. Now Consumer Reports finds that new U.S. autos are in fact better than the imports. Quality has been imported -- as has been the durability of an industry and its jobs.
The perils of international job outsourcing are now the subject of widespread handwringing. The benefits of trade have been derided by the likes of Lou Dobbs as relics of from the age of David Ricardo and Adam Smith. Buicks that are better than BMWs, however, is no abstraction. It may even be invoked against all the demagogery.
Sunday, March 07, 2004
SETTLEMENT CHANGEAccelerating pace of change in most areas defines the modern world. More than ever, people move about between places, changing them more rapidly than ever. Revitalizing traditional downtowns is still a policy goal even though these are less important than ever. There are no correlations between the welfare of downtowns and the welfare of surrounding metro areas and the policy rationalizations are generally thin.
More significant are large numbers of suburban "lifestyle centers" in the U.S. These are the places where shopping, visiting, socializing and relaxing now occur. Developers have their ears to the ground and innovate continuously. There are no closed malls under construction in the U.S. today. No one knows how they will evolve in the coming years. There are payoffs to getting it right and this is why competing developers within a climate of flexible rules are the way to efficient outcomes.
Survey results published by I-Sung Kang of Florida State University show that five new planning tools are widely used; some introduce flexibility (performance zoning and transfer of development rights); others limit flexibility (density bonuses and urban service boundaries).
The weight of other evidence for net outcomes throughout the U.S., however, points to a loss of land market flexibility.
