Earlier today I posted the video of the Cato discussion on housing with Randal O'Toole, Ryan Avent, Adam Gordon, and Matt Yglesias, but I wanted to transcribe one segment towards the end. (Like I said, it's hard to skip to the end of the streaming video because you can't scroll beyond what's already … [Read more...]
Market Urbanism vs. Market Suburbanism smackdown at Cato: “The Death and Life of Affordable Housing”
The debate you've been waiting for! Randal O'Toole, Matt Yglesias, Ryan Avent, and Adam Gordon participated yesterday in a discussion at the Cato Institute moderated by Diana Lind from Next American City/Forefront. (How had this never happened before??) Randal O'Toole did not disappoint, arriving … [Read more...]
Randal O’Toole’s responds on “per passenger miles”
I've had my disagreements with Randal O'Toole, a libertarian defender of suburban sprawl, but to his credit, he's done the most convincing accounting of subsidies (well, accounting costs, at least) that I've seen yet. And though he normally concentrates on federal costs, his write-up of an American … [Read more...]
Is O’Toole right that California is too dense to matter?
Remember my response yesterday to Randal O'Toole's Cato article on parking, when I said that I could easily write a three-part series? Not a joke! (Though I might spare you and leave the trilogy unfinished. Maybe.) Today, I'd like to take on O'Toole's comments on California, which he argues is … [Read more...]
Links
1. Maps of sprawl and gentrification in Detroit, St. Louis, Chicago, and Boston. At first the picture looks bleak for cities, but Jesus – even downtown Detroit is growing! (More here.) 2. A real, live Texan (just kidding – he lives in Austin) replies to O'Toole on parking. 3. Why aren't (more) … [Read more...]
A far-too-long rebuttal of Randal O’Toole on parking
Donald Shoup and Randal O'Toole – they just can't get enough of each other! Donald Shoup, you may recall, is the granddaddy of free market parking policy, and Randal O'Toole is the self-styled Antiplanner. Though they both claim to be libertarians, they seem to have some pretty fundamental … [Read more...]
Livechat invitation and more thinktank responses
As promised, I want to reprint the responses I got from Wendell Cox and Randal O'Toole, but first I wanted to invite everyone to a livechat that's being organized by Tim Lee. Tim used to write for Cato, but now he's pursuing a PhD at MIT and doing freelance writing on tech policy. He organizes … [Read more...]
The mirage of revealed preferences
I often hear from libertarian-inclined defenders of the suburban status quo that the fact that American is so overwhelmingly suburban is proof that it's what Americans want. Economists call this "revealed preference," but it could also be understood as voting with your feet and wallet. People have … [Read more...]