1. A reader from Vancouver wrote in to let Stephen and me know about a proposed policy to tax foreign investors at a higher rate than local property owners. Support for this policy is growing among residents, and with a mayoral election this Saturday, some are hoping to get candidates to endorse the policy now. Of course the higher tax rate would be done in the name of affordable housing for Vancouver natives. Hmm, with this one I’d say that the road to hell is paved with questionable intentions.
2. In other Vancouver news, recently upzoned parcels have sold for three times their previous value.
3. Two NYC taxi medallions sold for over $1 million each this week. On Marketplace, David Yassky, chairman of the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission said that he believes the fundamentals are solid in the medallion market. When the supply of your commodity is rigidly fixed, you’re already halfway to strong fundamentals.
4. A University of Connecticut study finds that growth in the number of a city’s parking spots is inversely correlated with population growth rates.
5. Some have questioned whether the abismal state of American infrastructure is a fact or just something that everyone knows and repeats. Gizmodo points out that in the United States we have a road system that built with cheap initial construction but expensive and ongoing maintenance costs.
6. Roberta Brandes Gratz at The Atlantic Cities speculates that Jane Jacobs’ female perspective led her to be able to see the small-scale, bottom-up activities of cities more effectively than men, who tend to look at cities from the macro level. Not sure where this leaves Hayek.
James Scott said that being female may have had something to do with Jane Jacobs’ perspective in “Seeing Like a State”. He said similar things about the intra-communist critiques of Leninism from Rosa Luxembourg and Alexandra Kollontai.