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Even by the bizarre standard set by other fandoms, the fandom surrounding the Fallout video game series is weird. Where your typical human would rather spend a Friday night doing strange things like “hang out with friends” and “go out,” your average Fallout fan is likely spending his or her night asking “Could super mutants exist?” or debating the ethical merits of Fallout 4’s factions. In the spirit of this tradition, we wanted to ask: how realistic are Fallout’s cities? It’s worth first asking, does the Fallout universe even have cities? On the one hand, what we call “cities” in Fallout are quite small. In terms of actual visible inhabitants, even the largest of the Fallout cities—the urban area of New Vegas—has fewer than 150 known residents. Other large communities like Megaton, Rivet City, and Diamond City have approximately 50 residents each. The settlements that dot Fallout 4’s Commonwealth all have maximum populations of 21. Even the earliest known cities—take for example, Jericho—had estimated populations ranging from 2,000 to 3,000 in 9,000 BCE. There are two possible responses to this: First, we could be generous and look at Fallout concept art. After all, what we see in the virtual world of Fallout may fall short of the game designers’ vision of each city. Renditions of Megaton, Diamond City, and Rivet City depict cities with populations likely in the hundreds. In the case of New Vegas, concept art depicts a large city potentially supporting thousands of residents. Each is still smaller than even the earliest cities, but they are hardly the villages we experience in the games. Second, we could set aside population as an issue altogether. In The Urban Revolution, archaeologist V. Gordon Childe sets out 10 general metrics for urban cities. We won’t go through them here, […]
A metropolitan economy, if it is working well, is constantly transforming many poor people into middle-class people, many illiterates into skilled people, many greenhorns into competent citizens. … Cities don’t lure the middle class. They create it. – Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities If you follow urban issues in the press, you might be forgiven for thinking that there are only three cities in America: San Francisco, New York, and Portland. All three are victims of their own success, as rising demand for housing has increased rents to unsustainable levels. Despite their best efforts, from rent control to inclusionary zoning mandates, middle- and lower-class households are increasingly forced to leave these cities as each progressively transforms into a playground of the rich. Yet there is a fourth city, a city which must not be named except to be derided as a sprawling, suburban hellscape. This fourth city has managed to balance a booming economy, explosive population growth, and affordable housing. This city has—as cities have for thousands of years—steadily grown denser, more walkable, and more attractive to low-income migrants seeking opportunity. This city is Houston, and it’s well past time for her to come out of the shadows. Explosive Economic Growth, Booming Population, Functioning Housing Market Before jumping into the nitty-gritty of how Houston has handled explosive growth in the demand for housing, it is worth first getting a handle on the magnitude of the challenge facing the city. When many people think of the Houston economy, they understandably think of large energy companies. Indeed, energy companies dominated Houston’s economy for much of the last century and continue to play a major role today. But in the years following the 1980s oil glut, Houston’s economy has been diversified in large part by startups and emerging small […]
Inclusionary Zoning is an Oxymoron The term “Inclusionary Zoning” gives a nod to the fact that zoning is inherently exclusionary, but pretends to be somehow different. Given that, by definition, zoning is exclusionary, Inclusionary Zoning completely within the exclusionary paradigm is synonymous with Inclusionary Exclusion. What is Inclusionary Zoning? “Inclusionary Zoning” is a policy requiring a certain percentage of units in new developments to be affordable to certain income groups. Sometimes, this includes a slight loosening of restrictions on the overall scale of the development, but rarely enough loosening to overcome the burden of subsidizing units. Many cities, particularly the most expensive ones, have adopted Inclusionary Zoning as a strategy intended to improve housing affordability. Often, demand for below-market units are so high, one must literally win a lottery to obtain a developer-subsidized unit. Economics of Exclusion We must first acknowledge the purpose of zoning is to EXCLUDE certain people and/or businesses from an area. Zoning does this by limiting how buildings are used within a district, as well as limiting the scale of buildings . These restriction cap the supply of built real estate space in an area. As we know from microeconomics, when rising demand runs into this artificially created upward limit on supply, prices rise to make up the difference. As every district in a region competes to be more exclusive than its neighbors through the abuse of zoning, regional prices rise in the aggregate. Since the invention of the automobile, and subsequent government overspending on highways, sprawl has served as the relief valve. We’ve built out instead of up for the last several decades and this sprawl has relieved some of the pressure major metropolitan areas would have otherwise felt. In fact, it’s worked so well–and led to the abuse of zoning rules for such a long time–that exclusionary zoning has become the accepted paradigm. Zoning is the default flavor of […]
One common argument I have read in various places is that the high rent of New York and other large cities is a result of globalization and inequality (English translation: rich foreigners). According to this theory, rich people have created a surge of demand so overwhelming that no amount of construction could possibly meet it. It seems that if this argument were true, rent would be growing most rapidly in rich neighborhoods full of super-expensive skyscrapers, such as New York’s Upper East and West Sides. This week, NYU’s Furman Center helpfully came out with its latest report on housing in New York City. Page 6 of the report reveals that between 1990 and 2014, rent in the Upper East Side rose by 23 percent- about the same as the citywide average. Upper West Side rent rose by 38 percent- more than the citywide average, but less than ten of the city’s 50-odd other neighborhood clusters, including not only hipstery Greenpoint, but also not-so-nice areas like East Harlem. So this bit of data, although not conclusive, seems inconsistent with the “rich foreigners” theory.
Adam Smith taught the world that mercantilism impoverished 18th-century nations by erecting barriers to trade and reducing opportunities for specialization and economic growth. Regulations that restrict urban development likewise reduce opportunities for innovation and specialization by limiting cities’ population size and density. Even as improvements in communications technology and falling transportation costs reduce the burden of distance, many industries still benefit from the geographical proximity of human beings that only dense development can provide. Removing land-use regulations will allow greater gains from trade as more people are allowed to live in important economic centers like New York City and Silicon Valley. Cities facilitate innovation by placing people with diverse backgrounds and goals in close proximity. While Israel Kirzner’s research provided a comprehensive analysis of entrepreneurs in the market process and in economic growth, economists have not given sufficient attention to the geography of entrepreneurship. The settings in which entrepreneurs work – Sandy Ikeda’s “action space” – matters, and cities provide a crucial role as the action space for much of human innovation. Silicon Valley is an urban action space where geographical proximity has made entrepreneurs more successful than they would have been without the inspiration they provided one another. The Homebrew Computer Club, a social group founded in 1975 for computer hobbyists, played a crucial role in the development of personal computers. The programmers, engineers, and inventors who attended those early meetings would go on to revolutionize computing thanks, in large part, to the information they gathered from swapping ideas, hardware, and skills from the other group members they encountered. The club began meeting in garages, parking lots, and university auditoriums, but it was only possible because these enthusiasts all worked for semiconductor companies that brought them to the same region of California. Empirical evidence bears out the importance of cities in facilitating […]
Michael Hamilton and I coauthored this post. Tyler Cowen has two new, self-recommending posts questioning whether or not market urbanist arguments are internally consistent. He argues that if land-use regulations are analogous to a tax on land, then either the benefits of deregulation would go to landowners or the costs of regulation are greatly overstated. The problem with this argument is that zoning is not a Georgist tax in which landowners are taxed in proportion to their land’s value; rather, zoning hugely decreases the value of the country’s most valuable land, while it props up the value of land that would be less desirable absent zoning. This is because zoning only acts as a tax on land to the extent that regulations are actually binding. A 250-foot height limit would create zero costs for the vast majority of the country, but would be devastating in Manhattan. Likewise, the large variation in land-use regulations across localities means that the costs of land-use regulation are imposed unevenly, even though there may be some correlation between land value and the tax imposed by zoning. Their repeal would have complicated and mixed effects. Tyler’s post focuses on desirable neighborhoods within the nation’s most highly-demanded cities because it assumes large increases in Ricardian rents from liberalization, i.e. those places where zoning is often the most binding. A broader view would also consider what would happen outside hip neighborhoods, especially exurban commuter suburbs that mostly exist because workers are excluded from areas closer to city centers. These suburbs could see land values plummet under broad liberalization. Whether these price changes are good or bad is a value judgement, but Tyler’s theoretical distributional concerns should also take potential decreases in land value into account. Empirically, cities with more liberal land-use regimes are more affordable, so the premise of zoning being analogous to a land value tax may not be accurate. Toronto, Houston, Chicago, and […]
Over the last decade, Austin has exploded with a food truck revolution. They are so popular that temporary food truck installations on empty lots are mourned when the lot becomes ready for development and the trucks move on. But, taste aside, why do they do so well? What can we learn from them? 1 Food trucks as small business schools Restaurants are notoriously risky businesses to start. Many people start this way because food is their passion, but discover that making delicious food is only one of many components to running a successful restaurant. Food trucks are an opportunity to start your own restaurant at a smaller scale, and with lower costs. Budding restaurateurs can refine their menu, learn the ropes, and figure out whether they’re cut out for this industry without blowing their entire life savings. 2 Food trucks as proving grounds Lenders know that restaurants fail often; this makes them hesitant to fund new ones. By giving owners a chance to prove themselves and their ability to successfully manage a business, food trucks provide a way for lenders to separate the wheat from the chaff prior to making a large loan. This means some restaurants can get funding that would never have received it otherwise. Austin has seen dozens of restaurants that started as food trucks, before eventually finding brick-and-mortar premises. 3 Food trucks as regulatory hack Food trucks are regulated in how they prepare their food, where they may locate, and what kind of signage they can use. However, their regulations are both lighter and more directly related to their business than the regulations for brick-and-mortar businesses. If a food truck on a small lot with some picnic benches decided they would rather build a permanent building with indoor seating, they not only must still comply with the health and safety regulations the city requires; they would also have to provide parking. […]
When laypeople hear the phrase “rent control”, they typically conjure up one of a few images. Tenants imagine easy street, a world where housing is ridiculously low cost. Maybe they think of rent control in NYC, where they saw the characters from Friends live in large apartments for far below market value. Landlords think of reduced profits, and tenants who live in a unit for years on end, never paying market value. Economists on both the left and right, meanwhile, simply picture bad policy. A prime example is Thomas Sowell, a world-renowned economist who claims both tenants and landlords suffer from rent control. He discusses the economics of rent control in his book Basic Economics, and his arguments have been summarized here. With Rent Control Comes a Greater Demand for Housing In an uncontrolled market, prices vary with the amount of demand. That is, prices rise because the amount of a product that people want exceeds the amount that is available at current prices. Put simply, more people want an item than there are items to go around, so to get that item you go into an indirect bidding process with other buyers. Imagine a fellow named Jerry and a girl named Elaine. Jerry wants a one-bedroom apartment in San Diego, but he can only afford $850 a month in rent. Elaine also wants to find a one-bedroom apartment, but she can afford $1,500 a month. Because there is currently a free market in San Diego, Jerry can’t find a one-bedroom for $850. There are a limited number of units and there are many more “Elaines” who are also willing to pay $1,500, which means rents hover around that value. As a result, Jerry reluctantly rents a 3-bedroom apartment with two roommates. Elaine finds a one-bedroom one at market price. […]
Last week I wrote a post highlighting how important it is for major cities to have places for low-income people to live. Without the opportunity to live in vibrant, growing cities, our nation’s poor can’t take advantage of the employment and educational opportunities cities offer. My post offended some people who don’t think that reforming quality standards is a necessary part of affordable housing policy. On Twitter @AlJavieera said that my suggestion that people should have the option to live in housing lacking basic amenities is “horribly conservative.” Multiple people said that my account of tenement housing was “ahistorical.” They didn’t elaborate on what they meant, but they seemed to think I was suggesting that tenements were pleasant places to live, or that people today would live in Victorian apartments if such homes were legalized. On the contrary, I argue that in their time, tenements provided a stepping stone for poor immigrants to improve their lives, and that stepping stone housing should be legal today. Historical trends provide evidence that people born into New York’s worst housing moved onto better jobs and housing over time. The Lower East Side tenements were first home to predominantly German and Irish immigrants, and later Italian and Eastern European Jewish immigrants. The waves of ethnicities that dominated these apartments indicate that the earlier immigrants were able to move out of this lowest rung of housing. The Tenement Museum provides multiple oral histories of people who were born into their apartment building and went on to live middle-class lives. In The Power Broker, Robert Caro provides an account of one community that had moved out of the Lower East Side to better housing in the Bronx: The people of East Tremont did not have much. Refugees or the children of refugees from the little shtetles in the Pale of Settlement and from the ghettos of Eastern Europe, the Jews who at […]
Surprise!! I’ve had the intent to wrap-up the Rothbard The Urbanist series for a long time, and it’s been sitting on my todo list for over 6 years. I want to thank Jeffrey Tucker, then at mises.org, and now at FEE.org and liberty.me for enthusiastically granting permission to reprint excerpts from For A New Liberty. Murray Rothbard’s 1973 classic can be downloaded free from Mises.org as pdf, and audio book read by Jeff Riggenbach. This chapter is also discussed by Bryan Caplan as part of an econlog book club series on For A New Liberty. It’s been a while, so you may want to catch up on the first six posts: Rothbard the Urbanist Part 1: Public Education’s Role in Sprawl and Exclusion Rothbard the Urbanist Part 2: Safe Streets Rothbard the Urbanist Part 3: Prevention of Blockades Rothbard the Urbanist Part 4: Policing Rothbard the Urbanist Part 5: Diversity and Discrimination Rothbard The Urbanist Part 6: Traffic Control We pick up in the heart of chapter 11: “The Public Sector, II: Streets and Roads” to expand on a subject core to Market Urbanism: the pricing of highways, and the consequences of a system where politics, special interests, and top-down planning have incarnated a dysfunctional system severely disconnected with bottom-up pricing signals necessary to be sustainable. Tragically, Rothbard’s insights on these subjects have been mostly neglected for over 30 years, while apologists for sprawl and automobile dominance have nearly monopolized the conversation among free-market advocates. We begin the section with Professor Rothbard’s acknowledgement of what sprawl apologists turn a blind eye to, yet urbanists on the left are keenly aware. Government intervention, fueled by special interests and old-fashioned progressive ideology, massively subsidized the highway system and crowded-out otherwise viable railroads. As a result, we have an overbuilt highway system, urban neighborhoods were eviscerated, suburbs spread far-and-wide, privately […]