Market Urbanism

Liberalizing cities | From the bottom up

“Market Urbanism” refers to the synthesis of classical liberal economics and ethics (market), with an appreciation of the urban way of life and its benefits to society (urbanism). We advocate for the emergence of bottom up solutions to urban issues, as opposed to ones imposed from the top down.

New Years link list

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Behold, your first link list of 2011!

1. The automobile may officially in decline (very good article!).

2. Interesting parallels between China and its HSR intellectual property disputes and post-WWII Japan and Korea. More here.

3. Fred Barnes writes a stupid article for the Weekly Standard (“The road to hell is paved with bike baths”), and Jarrett Walker responds with a treatise on “coercion” (“We are the libertarians!”).

4. I forget that although rent control has been thoroughly discredited in the real world, NYC developers are still grappling with it. Vornado and another developer had to shell out tens of millions to break the rent control grip on a Central Park South building they bought, with 15 rent controlled tenants receiving payouts of around $1.5 million each.

5. Vancouver is loosening its grip on the street food market, while Stephen Goldberg is trying to create a one-stop shop for getting NYC restaurant permits/licenses/certificates/inspections.

6. The market-defying schemes that liberals come up with would be amusing if they weren’t so horrifying. Read here as they puzzle over why excess luxury condos built in NYC during the boom couldn’t easily be used as affordable housing (Vancouver redux), and watch out for the part on the third page where an organization called “Right to the City” advocates “using eminent domain to seize vacant residential buildings and turn them into affordable housing.”

7. Niagara Falls’ decades-long megaproject failures. The article ends on a positive note, citing federal money for a new train station and grants for a wine bar and a concert hall, but I wonder if anyone in Niagara Falls ever bothered trying to loosen up the parking restrictions and maybe upzone a few blocks.

Comments

  1. The story of empty New York condos shows that market-rate doesn’t always mean the rate dictated by supply and demand. In New York it more often means a very high rent, based on what developers expect to be able to profit; if there’s a glut, they’d rather leave the property empty for a few years than lower prices to compete.

    What this means is that if the permit process is streamlined and zoning laws relaxed, leading to a large growth in supply, then it won’t immediately lead to a gradual reduction in rents; instead, there will be a glut until the market capitulates and rents crash.

  3. I agree with Alon. One other factor about Manhattan real estate is that it is marketed to foreign pied-à-terre buyers as well, who are looking for an investment that they can use to visit New York. It makes more sense to warehouse apartments for eventual sale to foreign buyers who won’t spend that much time in the apartment (less wear-and-tear on common areas and trash collection, for instance) than to sell them immediately to “affordable” residents who are likely to use and abuse the common areas and put more wear and tear on the apartment and building as a whole.

  4. Wow … who says there is no good news ? The article on the automobile in decline — it was going to happen some time, but why not now ? — is a nice start to the New Year.

  6. I forget that although rent control has been thoroughly discredited in the real world, NYC developers are still grappling with it. Vornado and another developer had to shell out tens of millions to break the rent control grip on a Central Park South building they bought, with 15 rent controlled tenants receiving payouts of around $1.5 million each.

    I think that buyouts are a reasonable and just way to phase out rent control. Although rent control is immoral and should be abolished, rent control tenants now (however unjustly granted) have some sort of property right claim in the units and should be compensated to some degree for that. However, I think the politicians who implemented the rent control are the ones responsible for the reparations to the owners and tenants. I would propose some sort of auction where the state offers to match a certain percent (plus a voucher of some sort) for tenants and owners who reach an agreement to permanently de-control units through buyout until rent control no longer exists…

    I touched on this in the conclusion to my rent control series:
    http://www.marketurbanism.com/2008/06/01/rent-control-part-4-conclusion-and-solutions/

  7. The study cited in your first link appears to be counting only passenger cars. This ignores the fact that there has been a big shift in the private automobile market from cars to light trucks (SUVs and pickups) over the past couple of decades. For the U.S., population data from the Census Bureau and passenger-miles data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics supports the study’s assertion that per capita travel in “cars” declined between 2000 and 2007. But per capita travel in passenger cars and light trucks combined increased significantly. By my calculation, it increased from about 14,200 passenger-miles per capita in 2000 to about 15,200 in 2007.

    Population data here: http://www.census.gov/popest/states/NST-ann-est.html
    Passenger-miles data here: http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_01_37.html

  8. I know that some branches of the US government count SUVs as separate from “regular” cars, but what makes you think that this study is doing the same thing? I’m in a rush and don’t have the time to use my university login to look up the original source, so maybe you could show us why you’ve come to that conclusion.

  9. “I know that some branches of the US government count SUVs as separate from “regular” cars, but what makes you think that this study is doing the same thing?”

    I thought I had explained this. The data I cited indicates that per capita travel in passenger cars has declined (as the study suggests), but that per capita travel in passenger cars + light trucks has increased. This suggests the study is using the data for passenger cars only, not data for all private automobiles.

  10. Couldn’t it also be explained by a) the study’s authors using different data, or b) the fact that the study is generalizing about eight industrialized country, and not just the USA? If you want to argue that they used faulty data, fine, but circumstantial evidence isn’t enough when we have direct access to the paper – you have to actually download the paper and find out what data they used.

  11. My evidence is not circumstantial. It’s official government data on population, from the Census Bureau, and passenger-miles of travel, from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. See the links I provided above. As far as I’m aware, this is the most authoritative data available. The report you link to specifically states that the study found that “passenger travel stopped growing” in the U.S. after 2000. The Census Bureau and BTS data contradict this assertion, at least with respect to per capita passenger-miles of travel by passenger car and light truck. And if the study is wrong about travel the U.S., I’m not sure why we should believe it’s likely to be right about travel in other countries.

  12. Just so you know, when critiquing academic papers, it’s generally good form to actually read them. I understand that you’re so confident in your own data analysis that you don’t feel this is necessary, but you’re not going to convince very many people that way. If you don’t have access to the article but would like to read it anyway and try to confirm your theory that they’re using faulty data, shoot me an email ([email protected]) and I’ll download it and send it to you.

  15. I’m not lying, you are. I did not say say they don’t “address the issue of cars vs. light trucks” (whatever that’s supposed to mean). I said that, for the U.S. at least, they appear to be counting only passenger cars. Because the claim that passenger travel stopped growing in the U.S. after 2000 is flatly contradicted by the Census Bureau and BTS data when light trucks are included. As I also said, they don’t include any clear data in the study. Just a series of roughly-drawn charts. The whole study is very amateurish.

  16. Here’s what the paper had to say in text, when introducing the transportation data:

    “A wide variety of national-level data sources were compiled for this analysis, as
    detailed in Appendix 1. The paper uses a similar dataset to earlier analyses from
    1993 and 1999 (Schipper et al., 1993b; Schipper and Marie-Lilliu, 1999), allowing
    us to capture recent trends.

    “A typical problem is that activity and energy data are published by different
    agencies, and do not necessarily agree. Another is that the scope and procedure
    for data collection often change over time. In general, bottom-up calculations
    using activity and on-road fuel economy data are presented here, calibrated to
    top-down fuel consumption data. Interpolations are sometimes used for missing
    years. Importantly, the analysis includes all transport fuels, not just gasoline. The
    inclusion of diesel for cars as well as public transport makes a significant difference
    to the results in several countries.

    “The data cover passenger travel by car and household light truck, bus, rail and
    domestic air. Household light trucks are significant in Australia, Canada and the
    USA and identified by surveys. Sport utility vehicles in Japan, Sweden, France,
    Germany and the UK that are household vehicles are counted as such as well. The
    rail category includes local metro and streetcar systems, except in Canada where
    official statistics aggregate these modes with bus. Motorcycles are excluded as
    their share of travel is minimal. Water transport is excluded for consistency
    reasons and is small even in Japan. Our analysis does not include non-motorized
    travel, largely because of the poor quality or non-existence of the data in several
    countries.”

    Here’s more on the U.S., from the appendix

    ?”USA

    “Davis, S. C., Diegel, S. W. and Boundy, R. G. (2009) Transportation Energy Data
    Book, 28th edn (Oak Ridge, TN: Oak Ridge National Laboratory). Also previous
    editions.

    “Federal Highway Administration’s Table VM1, Bureau of Transport Statistics
    publishes the ‘authoritative’ table of vehicle registrations, annual usage and fuel
    consumption.

    “The share of light trucks, their annual distances driven and fuel use is taken
    from various editions of Transportation Energy Data Book and interpolated between
    the years in which surveys are taken by the Truck (Vehicle) Inventory and Utiliza-
    tion Survey by the U.S. Department of Commerce, published every five years
    until its demise in 2002.”

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