Comments on: Chicago Privatizes Parking Meters

By: Market Urbanism

Market Urbanism — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 22:15:22 +0000

Yes. However, I see most cities as too large an entity to properly account for the value added or lost by its micro-level decisions. This is why I think Dave Reid’s suggestion would be reasonable, if done at a more local level.

Otherwise, local knowledge is not properly dispersed in a way that would benefit each local place.

By: mhelie

mhelie — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 22:06:19 +0000

You don’t need to create such an association, or BID, or some such. The city as a whole already is a marketplace.

By: Market Urbanism

Market Urbanism — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 21:36:16 +0000

Good point.

An association, BID, or could be formed to accomplish that if roads and parking were privatized. Places would likely consolidate to compete with other places like shopping centers do. This would enable the entities to internalize externalities as shopping centers do.

By: mhelie

mhelie — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 21:17:41 +0000

The place is competing with other places in the market for marketplaces.

How does a lifestyle center decide how much space to allocate to on-street parking? It does so in competition with other shopping places.

By: Benjamin Hemric

Benjamin Hemric — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 19:19:04 +0000

I think government should protect the marketplace (e.g., keep the playing field level) and avoid allowing itself to become too involved in the marketplace as an active player (which is what seems to me to be happening here to some degree). So my tentative feeling is that this is not a step in the right direction (especially given that this is such a long — 75-year! — lease).

While Jane Jacobs’ remarkable book, “Systems of Survival,” may not really speak to this issue directly, it does seem to me to shed some indirect light on it nevertheless. In the book, she talks about how government and commerce have developed separate ethical systems and how ethical problems are generated when the ethical system appropriate to government (the Guardian Syndrome) is inappropriately mixed-up with the ethical system appropriate to commerce (the Commercial Syndrome) -– problems that can easily arise when government gets too involved in the marketplace (e.g., urban renewal, etc.). However, the general lesson to be learned, so it seems to me, is that government should stick to being government and be very careful to leave commerce to the private sector.

By: Market Urbanism

Market Urbanism — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 23:10:44 +0000

I disagree that the city should sell the land for parking spaces. It would make as little sense as selling the land for street lighting. The city is a marketplace, and there are some structures that must belong to the place instead of the market.

I see what you mean, but without a market, how does the place decide whether parking is, in fact, the best use for each piece of land? (maybe a market within a market like you suggest?) I consider individual ownership (or ability to be owned individually or collectively by choice) of each space as the best way for an efficient bottom-up solution to emerge.

By: Market Urbanism

Market Urbanism — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 21:32:45 +0000

I’d say that is a reasonable solution, as long as it is through some local entity, and doesn’t get jumbled up into a bunch of bureaucracy and pilfering. There would have to be some well thought out checks and balances.

By: mhelie

mhelie — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 21:24:13 +0000

I disagree that the city should sell the land for parking spaces. It would make as little sense as selling the land for street lighting. The city is a marketplace, and there are some structures that must belong to the place instead of the market.

I think the better question to ask is, must the place as a whole be owned by governments, or can it itself be part of a market operating at a different scale (a market of markets), like the stock exchange market?

I’ve written it up in this article: http://mathieuhelie.wordpress.com/2008/11/30/producing-land-with-nested-markets/