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A reader comment on census data

Sorry for the light (/lack of) posting. Hopefully that’ll change soon. In the meantime, here’s a reader comment from a post a few weeks ago on whether or not dense areas are gaining population: I worked for the US Census Bureau in Central Los Angeles last year. Census Bureau management hired about 70% of authorized staffing, failed to distribute census materials in a timely manner or in accordance with published manuals, failed to hire sufficient numbers of foreign-language speakers sufficient to conduct canvassing effectively, and yet demanded that Census results be generated just as quickly in poor, high-density neighborhoods with large numbers of non-English speakers as in affluent suburban neighborhoods. And we wonder why Census numbers show relatively small amounts of growth in cities? I don’t have time to go really in depth with this, but this is a very common criticism of census figures. Here’s an About.com piece about undercounting in Brooklyn for the 2010 census. They identify three undercounted groups: immigrants, Hasids, and people who just recently moved into flashy new high-rises. Considering that these are exactly the three groups you’d imagine to be growing the fastest, this may mean there was considerable undercounting.

If we’re in an urban renaissance, why are cities still losing population?

Despite the general feeling among urbanists that the city is making a comeback after half a century of neglect, I still read from a lot of suburbanists (a catch-all term I’m using to describe Joel Kotkin, Wendell Cox [see comments], etc.)—and even the mainstream media—that cities are still losing population. I don’t have a lot of patience for statistics, so it all becomes a sort of he said/she said argument to me, but here’re a few opinions from the pro-“cities are becoming more desirable” side. First, here’s Ryan Avent, who argues that looking at population stats is misleading without taking into account prices: But of course, population growth is an unreliable indicator of demand, because of the all important supply side of the market. Imagine two areas: Gotham and Pleasantville. Say the demand to live in Pleasantville increases a little while the demand to live in Gotham soars. And say that due to differences in land use restrictions, housing supply responds dramatically in Pleasantville and very little in Gotham. Then what we’ll observe in Pleasantville is a rapid increase in population and slower growth in prices, and what we’ll observe in Gotham is rapid growth in prices and slower growth in population. And this is exactly what we have observed in the real world. Suburbs have seen massive housing growth and rapid population growth, but prices in central cities have soared, even in many places where population numbers are level or falling. If no one wanted to live in central cities, prices for homes there would not rise. And indeed, several decades ago, prices for homes in big central cities were dropping. But that trend has clearly reversed. You can’t draw conclusions about demand shifts from population numbers alone. This is a very simple point, and yet its repeatedly ignored. […]

Alon Levy on Downtown Brooklyn

In my last post about the geometry of cities and the importance of downtowns, it looks like I understated the extent to which Downtown Brooklyn was built up during New York’s market-driven boom during the turn-of-the-century. Quoteth commenter Alon Levy: I think you are essentially correct, but there’s one historical fact you get wrong: when the NYC subway was built, Downtown Brooklyn was a very large CBD, in fact larger than today relative to Manhattan. Nobody seriously expected people to live in the Bronx and work in Brooklyn, but people did expect Brooklynites to work in Downtown Brooklyn, taking advantage of the large network of trolleys and els. The subway was built around Downtown Brooklyn and not just Manhattan. The lines all go through Downtown Brooklyn, with the exception of the L. In addition, the BRT built a few loops going from Downtown Brooklyn to Lower Manhattan and then back to Brooklyn, which have since been rerouted as Midtown eclipsed Brooklyn as a job center. Nowadays, the problem of traveling from a community to one side of the primary CBD to one on the opposite side is acute, on both transit and highways. As a result, the poorest slice of suburbs will usually be the one on the opposite side of the favored quarter and the dominant edge cities; in Washington, this means PG County, which is opposite Tyson’s Corner and poorer than the white-majority DC suburbs. My guess about Downtown Brooklyn – both then and now – is that its jobs were probably not as prestigious or high-paying as those in Lower and Midtown Manhattan, and probably contained a lot of department stores. The reason for the “lesser” jobs would be that if you were trying to attract the best talent, you’d want to pull from the widest range […]

Downtown and the geometry of cities

Matt Yglesias and Lydia DePillis have been having an interesting discussion about the DC commercial real estate market that I have some thoughts on, so I thought I’d weigh in. I apologize for the length of this post, but I think it’s a really important point that shouldn’t be underestimated. Matt started by stating the following: Downtown DC is full. There’s basically no land left to build on, and you’re not allowed to build higher. If you make it a more attractive place to locate jobs, no additional jobs will be created because there’s noplace to put the jobs. The improved quality will show up as higher rent for landlords, and our rents are already the highest in the nation. If you relaxed the height limit, the high rents would spur new construction (=jobs) which would lead to lower rent per square foot which would make downtown, DC a more attractive employment destination. Lydia agreed that the height restriction should be lifted (I don’t want anyone to think that Lydia is an apologist for this – she’s definitely not, and if given total discretion over DC land use, I think all three of us would implement very similar policies), but argued that Matt is downplaying growth possibilities outside the core of DC’s downtown: But to say that “there’s noplace left to put jobs” is simplistic. Although many office projects stalled during the recession, they’re starting up again in a big way around the city, from Mount Vernon Square to Anacostia. On the longer term horizon, massive office capacity is planned for McMillan, L’Enfant Plaza, and the Capitol Riverfront. Recent changes in who gets what at Walter Reed – the District may now get all of the Georgia Avenue frontage – has Office of Planning director Harriet Tregoning thinking about “more ambitious […]

Even a HUD project in a high-density Bronx neighborhood can’t escape the parking minimum

This should come as no surprise to anyone who’s taken a look at America’s absurdly restrictive minimum parking requirements, but Streetsblog has come up with a really great example of really bad parking policy in action: The HUD-sponsored project, located on Bathgate Avenue between 183rd and 184th Streets, was originally slated to be an 18-unit building. Under the zoning that used to govern the site, the parking minimums were low enough that fewer than five spaces were required, said Ferrara. With such a small number of required spaces, the project was eligible for a waiver, meaning it didn’t need to build any parking at all. In October, however, the area was classified as a “neighborhood preservation area” by the Department of City Planning in its Third Avenue/Tremont Avenue rezoning. The new zoning, known as R6A, carries slightly higher parking requirements for affordable projects [PDF]. “When we went down to an R6A,” said Ferrara, “it put us in a position where we couldn’t get the parking waived.” In effect, the rezoning added parking requirements where there hadn’t been any before. I’ve praised Bloomberg’s rezoning in the past while also worrying that the lack of parking minimum reform would hold back growth. It looks like I was too generous—in some cases, the rezoning has actually made the parking minimum problem worse. And just for the record, I looked up the location on a map, and the specific location is about a 10 minute walk to the closest B/D local station on the Grand Concourse. Its zipcode is pretty poor – 10458’s average adjusted gross income has been in decline since 2000 when adjusted for inflation, and currently stands at only $23,781. And obviously it’s a HUD project. There’s also this interesting bit: Even though he reported that it’s “not uncommon” to subdivide a […]

Not Marshmallows, but a Really, REALLY Big Lollipop

In the last post, commenter AWP helped me realize that the marshmallow mountain analogy could be improved upon, since one person eating a marshmallow prevented another person from eating that same marshmallow.  But the road cannot be subdivided as simply.  Yes, a nit-picky implication of the vagueness of the term “good”, but I want to communicate as well as I can. So, I plan to revise the article to use the analogy of a really, really big lollipop.  It’s a significant enough revision that I think it deserves mentioning.  Let me know if you think of a better analogy.

Urban[ism] Legend: Transportation is a Public Good

In a recent post, commenter Jeremy H. helped point out that the use of the term “public good” is grossly abused in the case of transportation.  Even Nobel economists refer to roads as “important examples of production of public goods,” ( Samuelson and Nordhaus 1985: 48-49).  I’d like to spend a little more time dispensing of this myth, or as I label it, an “Urban[ism] Legend.” As Tyler Cowen wrote the entry on Public Goods at The Concise Library of Economics: Public goods have two distinct aspects: nonexcludability and nonrivalrous consumption. “Nonexcludability” means that the cost of keeping nonpayers from enjoying the benefits of the good or service is prohibitive. And nonrivalrous consumption means that one consumer’s use does not inhibit the consumption by others.  A clear example being that when I look at a star, it doesn’t prevent others from seeing the same star. Back when I took Microeconomics at a respectable university in preparation for grad school, I was taught that in some cases roads are public goods.  We used Greg Mankiw’s book, “Principles of Economics” which states the following on page 234: If a road is not congested, then one person’s use does not effect anyone else. In this case, use is not rival in consumption, and the road is a public good. Yet if a road is congested, then use of that road yields a negative externality. When one person drives on the road, it becomes more crowded, and other people must drive more slowly. In this case, the road is a common resource. This explanation made sense, but I was skeptical – something didn’t sit right with me.  Let’s take a closer look. First, Mankiw uses his assertion as an example of rivalrous vs nonrivalrous consumption, while not addressing the question of excludability.  Roads are easily excludable through gates […]

Links

1. An excellent Wikipedia article about the old DC streetcars. I wish there were more economics, and I’d also like to know about the state-mandated consolidation that they talk about in the mid-1890s. Also note that streetcar use reached its peak in the mid 1910s – when people talk about interstate highways and the Great American Streetcar Conspiracy, they’re starting the story decades too late. 2. A dissenting (heh) view of Ed Glaeser’s book. My criticism of Glaeser would be that sometimes he starts speaking very generally and starts sounding a little whacky (which I think is what the reviewer here is picking up on). Perhaps his work wouldn’t be so popular if not for this tendency to paint in broad strokes, but I would like to see more specific analysis of land use laws and how Glaeser would like to change them. I haven’t read the book, though – does it get more nuanced than the excerpt in the Atlantic? 3. Human Transit publishes a reader comment and gives some great analysis of transit agency’s staffing and frequency. Apparently labor is the biggest constraint on frequency outside of peak hours, but many systems have labor and safety regulations that force transit agencies to overstaff trains. The efforts of unions to keep the unnecessary second man on transit vehicles are almost a century old, despite massive advances in transportation technology that have long since obviated the need. 4. This is cool. 5. DC’s gas stations are not long for this world as the condo onslaught continues. Urban gas stations rarely seem to me to be efficient uses of space (the gas station on Houston Street in Manhattan is the prime example) – does anybody know how rigid the zoning guidelines they fall under generally are? Are they zoned only for […]

Links

1. China’s high-speed rail scandal. So much for Obama’s State of the Union shout-out. 2. Boston, Philadelphia, and DC are all moving towards parking reform – both of minimum off-street requirements (unfortunately to be replaced with maximums in most cases) and of underpriced curb parking – but NYC’s the laggard. Like I noted a few weeks ago, this could be sabotaging its recent upzonings. 3. One Democratic Assemblyman wants to hamstring the NYC subway with yet another ridiculously overbearing safety rule – literally forcing trains to come to a complete halt right before entering a station – adding significant time to existing commutes. 4. NYC’s FRESH initiative gives money to a politically-connected supermarket for a parking lot. Wait, isn’t car-owning food desert victim an oxymoron? 5. Downtown San Jose’s Diridon station – the most transit-accessible place in San Jose – is getting $10 billion worth of new rail. Zoning consultants were paid for a year, and came up with the following recommendation: “no proposed changes to current code.” Got that? $10 billion in rail investment in one of the most progressive places in America and there will be no new TOD allowed.

Ed Glaeser on New York City, development as preservation, and more

Ed Glaeser has a sprawling feature story in The Atlantic about skyscrapers that’s full of urbanist history and themes that I’ve been meaning to blog about for a few days now. It’s a great article, with a lot of New York history in it, but I wanted to highlight a few bits. The part I liked most was where Glaeser talks about what I’ve called development as preservation and others have called adaptive reuse – the idea that making use of existing developed land is the best way to preserve historic buildings, although Glaeser also points out that it’s useful for preserving open land like parks, too: In 2006, the developer Aby Rosen proposed putting a glass tower of more than 20 stories atop the old Sotheby Parke-Bernet building at 980 Madison Avenue, in the Upper East Side Historic District. Rosen and his Pritzker Prize–winning architect, Lord Norman Foster, wanted to erect the tower above the original building, much as the MetLife Building (formerly the Pan Am Building) rises above Grand Central Terminal. The building was not itself landmarked, but well-connected neighbors didn’t like the idea of more height, and they complained to the commission. Tom Wolfe, who has written brilliantly about the caprices of both New York City and the real-estate industry, wrote a 3,500-word op-ed in The New York Times warning the landmarks commission against approving the project. Wolfe & Company won. In response to his critics in the 980 Madison Avenue case, of whom I was one, Wolfe was quoted in The Village Voice as saying: To take [Glaeser’s] theory to its logical conclusion would be to develop Central Park … When you consider the thousands and thousands of people who could be housed in Central Park if they would only allow them to build it up, boy, the problem is […]

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