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Illinois Court Rules Against Chicago’s “Vague” Landmark Ordinance

Chicago Real Estate Daily: An Illinois appellate court has struck down the city of Chicago’s landmarks ordinance, saying it is unconstitutionally vague, putting in jeopardy the city’s protection of more than 250 buildings and 50 historic districts. Judge James Fitzgerald Smith of the three person Appellate Court wrote, “We believe that the terms ‘value,’ ‘important,’ ‘significant,’ and ‘unique’ are vague, ambiguous, and overly broad”, and thus found the ordinance in violation of the state constitution. The case involved two plaintiffs and two landmarked districts where attempts to downzone the areas failed before landmarking. However, once the case (including appeals) is over, Chicago’s entire landmarks ordinance would be completely invalidated. Wow! I am surprised this isn’t making bigger waves in Chicago, and other cities. What should we expect to happen if appeals by The City should fail? Would property owners rush to tear down their landmarks before The City enacts a new landmarks ordinance? Per Tribune Architecture critic, Blair Kamin (who calls the ruling wrong-headed, but fielded some good comments): The laws are based on a 1978 U.S. Supreme Court ruling which stopped the bankrupt Penn Central Railroad’s attempt to pile a 55-story office building atop New York City’s Beaux-Arts Grand Central Terminal. In that ruling, the court held that communities have the right to safeguard significant pieces of property, so long as they do not trample the rights of the properties’ owners. The key word is “significant,” a word that appears frequently in Chicago’s seven criteria for landmark designation, as in the site of a significant historical event or a building that is the work of a significant architect. It makes you wonder if there is a more robust solution to landmarks that does less to compromise the property rights of the land owners, and isn’t vulnerable to unforeseen court […]

Urbanization driving reforestation to outpace deforestation?

by Stephen Smith While most people associate cities with pollution and the material and ecological excess of late capitalism, I’ve long believed that urbanization has the potential to be a great environmental savior. The NYT has a fascinating article that confirms what I said about cities attracting people who would otherwise live more environmentally profligate lives: the amount of total rain forest is likely growing, due to the reforestation of towns and villages abandoned by people in Latin America and Asia who are moving to cities. Elisabeth Rosenthal, the article’s author, explains the reasons that people are abandoning land at a growing pace: In Latin America and Asia, birthrates have dropped drastically; most people have two or three children. New jobs tied to global industry, as well as improved transportation, are luring a rural population to fast-growing cities. Better farming techniques and access to seed and fertilizer mean that marginal lands are no longer farmed because it takes fewer farmers to feed a growing population. By some estimates, these demographic and technological shifts mean that forests are growing back far faster than they’re being cut down: These new “secondary” forests are emerging in Latin America, Asia and other tropical regions at such a fast pace that the trend has set off a serious debate about whether saving primeval rain forest – an iconic environmental cause – may be less urgent than once thought. By one estimate, for every acre of rain forest cut down each year, more than 50 acres of new forest are growing in the tropics on land that was once farmed, logged or ravaged by natural disaster. There are two problems, though, with the new forests: they aren’t “old growth” forests, and they aren’t necessarily able to support many endangered species. The first part – the fact […]

Redistribution (a follow up)

I threw up Friday’s Redistribution post somewhat hastily during my break, but there isn’t much more that I haven’t said before.  As a follow-up, I’d like to tie it in with some other interesting reads. Ryan Avent at The Bellows agreed with Yglesias’ post and added: Anyway, I saw in Google reader that libertarian intellectual Will Wilkinson had shared Matt’s post, presumably because he agreed with it. And indeed, this is one of those times when libertarians and liberals can find common cause. On the other hand, most of Cato’s planner types vigorously defend suburban sprawl and highway construction, and vigorously oppose smart growth and transit construction, despite the obvious point that it takes an immense web of regulations and subsidies to support rapid suburban and exurban growth. Over here! Ryan, Will! We’re over here!… Definitely check out The Bellows post. Will Wilkinson stopped in to comment, too. I think the “common cause” concept was conveyed well in Ed Glaeser’s recent NY Times piece, called The Case for Small-Government Egalitarianism. Harvard’s Glaeser reaches out for “common cause” between libertarians and progressives – kinda like the links between Free-Markets and Urbanism: Libertarian progressivism distrusts big increases in government spending because that spending is likely to favor the privileged. Was the Interstate Highway System such a boon for the urban poor? Has rebuilding New Orleans done much for the displaced and disadvantaged of that city? Small-government egalitarianism suggests that direct transfers of federal money to the less fortunate offer a surer path toward a fairer America. and Many of my favorite causes, like fighting land use regulations that make it hard to build affordable housing, aid the poor by reducing the size of government. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, I also argued that it would be far better to give generous […]

Redistribution

Discussing Ithaca, New York’s plan to increase permitted density and reduce parking minimums, I can dig what Matthew Yglesias says : The distributive impact of parking minimums is to redistribute income from people who don’t own cars to people who do own cars—not to shift income from poor to rich. A rich family will probably have at least one car for every family member who’s at least 16 years old. A family of more modest means will probably own fewer vehicles. More generally, while I’m obviously not a hard-core free marketers, it does make sense to consider a free market position our default position. Mandating the construction of extra parking doesn’t reduce harmful environmental externalities. Rather, it generates them. It doesn’t help the neediest members of society, it makes it more difficult for them to afford housing. It doesn’t correct important information deficits—people are perfectly capable of asking whether or not a house they’re considering buying or renting comes with a reserved parking space. — Update: here’s a follow up.

Taxing Land Speculation

Bill Hudnut at the Urban Land Institute wrote a post that attracted some attention at Austin Contrarian and Overhead Wire. Hudnut discusses a different approach to taxing land: How about restructuring the property tax across America to install a two-tiered system? More tax on those horizontal pieces of empty land and asphalt, less on the buildings. That is, reduce the tax rate on homes and other improvements, and substantially increase the rate on the site value. I think such a system would induce more compact development and more infill work. It sure would induce more development. Higher taxes on the land, lower taxes on the building, discourages a land holder from leaving his land fallow and speculating on its increased value, and conversely, encourages improvements on the land and redevelopment. The monograph used Sydney Australia as a case study, but its general point, that a site value tax system puts “pressure on owners to sell their property for redevelopment if they cannot or will not redevelop it themselves.” Note that ULI is an organization primarily of real estate developers, investors, and related professions. (I am a member.) So, I can see why developers would favor a mechanism that would force more land into development. Overall, this type of scheme will help drive development in the short run, but be harmful in the long-run.  By encouraging development in the present by discouraging land speculation, we can expect a few consequences: Speculators play an important role in the land market, even if we don’t like the surface parking lots they often operate on their land.  Speculators essentially hold the land until development is optimal for the site, and all sites cannot be optimally built at once. Discouraging speculation drives the land into the hands of developers at cheaper prices than current market […]

The Story of I’On: Struggles of a New Urbanist Project

  I recently googled upon a post at a blog called “Rub-a-Dub” that mentioned a land development project in Mount Pleasant, SC called I’On. I imagine the developers of the I’On “Traditional Neighborhood Development” (TND) community are sympathetic with Market Urbanism, as they named streets after John Galt (of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged), free-market economists Ludwig Von Mises and Thomas Sowell, as well as urbanist writer Jane Jacobs. (ironically, Jane Jacobs Street doesn’t have sidewalks) Who says New Urbanists and free markets can’t mix?  (well, I’m sure we all can name at least one such person…) What I found interesting was the story of the development shared in the comments of the post by Vince Graham, Founder and President of the development company.  The story really conveyes the struggles developers go through to get projects through the approval process; especially when the standard 20th century, auto-centric layout is being challenged by innovative development solutions. The reason why there is only single family homes and a limited amount of commercial space in the neighborhood is due to unfortunate compromises necessary to get the neighborhood approved through the arduous political process. Here is a summary: A Summary of the Political Background and Permitting History for I’On. Background:The traditional walking neighborhood of I’On is located on a 243-acre infill site in Mt. Pleasant, SC located 5 miles from Charleston’s historic district and 3 miles from the Old Village of Mt. Pleasant. The site is surrounded by conventional subdivision development of the 1950’s, 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s. Approximately 60% of I’On’s acreage was originally comprised of former agricultural fields, 30% was 30-40 year old hard wood growth, and 10% took the form of three man made lakes. The design workshop for I’On took place in May of 1995. I’On received approval in March of […]

President Obama on Jane Jacobs and Cities

Without getting too political on inauguration day, I’d like to share a positive video featuring our new President that urbanists should appreciate, regardless of political persuasion: Let’s hope President Obama keeps Jane Jacobs’ lessons of spontaneous order from The Death and Life of Great American Cities in mind as he makes economic decisions. While on the subject of Jane Jacobs, Sandy Ikeda discusses Jane Jacobs’ thoughts on poverty from The Economy of Cities (1969). [hat tip for the video: Vince Graham]

Uncomfortable truths about the progressive legacy

by Stephen Smith Yesterday I was listening to the pre-inaugural concert at the Lincoln Memorial on the radio, and one of the speakers said something that struck me as emblematic of the challenges that Barack Obama faces, though I doubt she realized the ironic significance. She was praising Theodore Roosevelt’s conservationist legacy as a model for Obama, with some quotes from him at the Grand Canyon or Yosemite or some other celebrated national park, though she only touched on a small sliver of Roosevelt’s environmental legacy. He definitely did cherish the environment; a timeline of his life shows that in early April 1903 he “commune[d] with deer while writing letters in Yellowstone, WY.” He was indeed a conservationist, as were many progressives at the time. But the progressives were also something else – something that today’s progressives would do well to remember: ardent planners whose plans often had grave unforeseen consequences. Just after his time communing with the deer at Yellowstone, Roosevelt traveled to St. Louis to address the 1903 Good Roads Convention. The “good roads” movement dated back to before the automobile rose to prominence, and was formed to agitate for improved roads for bicyclists and farmers. But around the time of Roosevelt’s speech, the movement was hijacked by the budding auto-industrial complex. Unwilling or unable to compete on their own against mass transit, the automakers, highway engineers, and road contractors sought for the state to both acquire the rights of way necessary for the roads, and to pay for them to be paved – an advantage the streetcars and railroads did not generally have. Not wanting to appear to be too blatant in their rent seeking, these interests lobbied the government indirectly, giving organizations like the AAA money in exchange for influence and seats on their boards. The […]

Urban[ism] Legend: Positive NPV Infrastructure

As Washington debates how many hundreds-of-billions of the nearly trillion-dollar stimulus will go towards infrastructure or to other spending/tax cut schemes, pundits claim that spending billions on “shovel ready” public works projects can effectively create jobs that will lead to recovery. As readers probably know, I am skeptical that the anticipated spending could be activated so quickly. As Bruce Bartlett put it: Despite claims by the Conference of Mayors and the transportation lobby that there is as much as $96 billion in construction “ready to go,” the fact is that it takes a long time before meaningful numbers of workers can be hired for such projects. As a recent Congressional Budget Office study explains, “Practically speaking … public works involve long start-up lags. … Even those that are ‘on the shelf’ generally cannot be undertaken quickly enough to provide timely stimulus to the economy.” The prospects for unconventional projects such as alternative energy sources are even worse. The CBO calls them “totally impractical for counter-cyclical policy” because they take even longer to come online… Finally, the impact of increased public works spending on state and local governments cannot be ignored. Most federal transportation spending goes for projects initiated by them. When they think there is a chance that the federal government will increase its funding, they tend to cut back on their own spending in hopes that the feds will foot the bill. A study by economist Edward Gramlich found that the $2 billion appropriated by the Local Public Works Act of 1976 postponed $22 billion in total spending as state and local governments competed for federal funds and actually reduced GDP by $30 billion ($225 billion today). Meanwhile, proponents of infrastructure spending claim that Congress should sift through the shelved projects to identify those projects that will be economically […]

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