Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Fire, Flood, Plague, Pestilence… and Bacon’s Rebellion

—

by

James A. Bacon
in

Brace yourselves for another round of provocative, hard-hitting op-ed columns, such a refreshing change of pace from the safe, sonorous expressions of the conventional wisdom you find in the daily newspapers. The February 11, 2008, edition of Bacon’s Rebellion is now online.

If you are not a consistent reader of this blog, you really need to sign up for our free subscription so you can be sure to catch every single issue.

Now, for your reading pleasure…

The Innovation Gap
There are compelling reasons for people to ditch their cars and use mass transit. Unfortunately, auto companies are reinventing themselves while the transit sector stands still.
by James A. Bacon

It’s There to Be Used
Level-headedness is the key to the use of the revenue stabilization fund.
by Doug Koelemay

What Is the Problem with Cars?
Cars are a 20th century answer to a 19th century problem. Tweaking our auto-centric transportation system will not address the 21st century realities of traffic congestion, escalating energy prices and Global Warming.
by EM Risse

Let the Sun Shine In
Getting the political establishment to agree to budget transparency is like pulling teeth — from a saber-tooth tiger. But Virginia is slowly making progress.
by Michael Thompson

Virginia Is for Lovers – Behind Closed Doors
Virginia has been roiled of late by a sex workers’ show, mildly racy Abercrombie & Fitch displays and trailer hitches that look like bull testicles. What’s going on?
by Norm Leahy

Call for Philip Morris
Richmond’s elite lauds the cigarette maker for putting its R&D center downtown. But its newly spun-off sister unit still aims to make butts the old-fashioned way, endangering the lives of millions around the world.
by Peter Galuszka

A Transit Network for NoVa
The odds look good for the General Assembly to study a rapid transit network covering Northern Virginia to points as far flung as Winchester and Fredericksburg.
by William Vincent

Toro! Toro!
Tim Kaine is upset that the Federal Transit Administration turned down funding for Tysons-Dulles heavy rail. But the project had more red flags than a bull-fighting ring.
by Ken Orski

Nice & Curious Questions
Virginia: Home of the Outdoor Privy Race. Or, Whatever Happened to Outdoor Plumbing?
by Edwin S. Clay III and Patricia Bangs

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  1. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “The car is rapidly becoming the ultimate Rorschach test of political and social attitudes. Try it: Do you see the car as a means of freedom, a great democratic tool offering mobility and independence to the masses, a symbol of comfort and self-expression, an instrument capable of providing pleasure and enjoyment, a venue for romance? Or do you think of the car as essentially a rolling cigarette, complete with addictive properties and second-hand emissions that are harmful to our children? Do you think the car is a symbol of dependence instead of freedom? Do you speak disdainfully of Americans’ “love affair with the car” as though it were a despicable perversion, or at least some kind of serious irrationality? Do you think American Graffiti should be classified as a pornographic movie? Do you think cars lead to aggression and crime (think of “road rage” and those drive-by shootings), and are responsible for despoiling the earth (“They paved paradise/Put up a parking lot”)?

    The second set of attitudes now constitutes the politically correct view of cars and car culture, and if the car haters have their way, it won’t be long until the “car lobby” evokes the same odious connotation as the “tobacco lobby.” If you think this is a paranoid exaggeration from a Jeep-driving life member of the Auto Club, just browse practically any page of Jane Holtz Kay’s Asphalt Nation, which is the most complete compendium of anti-car claptrap ever assembled. Perhaps we should not be surprised at the result, since Kay is the architecture critic for The Nation. The book would make for hilarious saloon reading – in fact, I thought perhaps the book could be a tongue-in-cheek put-on, which is what I think Click and Clack of NPR’s Car Talk had in mind when they provided a dust jacket blurb – were it not for the fact that anti-car sentiments are becoming increasingly accepted. Not long ago I watched a grown congressman on C-SPAN calling for a tax break for commuters “who would like to do the right thing” and ride mass transit instead of driving to work. The premise – that driving to work is immoral – went unchallenged.

    At times it seems as though Kay is striving to find new extremes through which idealism can marginalize itself. Even the Progressives and FDR come in for criticism because they liked cars and roads too much. But far from being marginalized, Kay’s anti-car philosophy is the intellectual underpinning of the dominant currents in transportation and urban planning policy today. From the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (“Ice Tea” to the cognoscenti) to the much in vogue “new urbanism” on the local level, the moral disapprobation of the car is the central premise of policy. For both Kay and Moshe Safdie in his The City After the Automobile, at the heart of the argument about cars is a much bigger argument about land use and urban planning. You know what’s coming: a huge expansion of government power.”

    http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1568/is_n8_v29/ai_20201378

  2. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    re: “What Is the Problem with Cars?”

    An impressive treatise COMPLETE with foot notes!

    Question: How different is this from similar articles entitled:

    The Trouble with Air Travel
    The Trouble with Transit
    The Trouble with Rail
    The Trouble with ATVs and ORV

    ….

    The Trouble with (name your mode)

    …

    The Trouble with Mobility and Access?

    ??????

    What is the point of the article?

    To me, it’s like someone in 1850 writing “The trouble with black belching locomotives” when back in that time – it was considered the fundamental breakthrough that the nation needed to unleash the power of National Markets.

    No.. folks in NY could get tomatoes in winter…

    that farm is Missouri could get that part needed for the broken windmill that provided water for the farm stock.

    so let’s fast forward to …

    “The Trouble with Solar-Powered Autos”.

    🙂

    is THE problem – MOBILITY and ACCESS?

    or is the problem HOW WE DO IT?

    because it seems that the argument is almost like.. mobility and access itself is evil… unless it can be accomplished without impacts – like roads… or tires… or fuel.

    If we “fuel” cars with electricity – will the same argument against cars still exist?

    Will electricity or solar-powered cars render once and for all – the demise of New Urban Areas “correct” way of mobility and access?

    Imagine a world where there are no Walmarts, no 7-11s and the only choices you have at the store you walk to – is what has been grown locally and transported to that store by foot or donkey.

    You may not find a stronger critic of the automobile beyond EMR than myself but I really do doubt that in theory or practice that the desire for mobility and access will reject all modern implementations of it and essentially revert back to a world where wherever you go – you go on foot or beast of burden.

    And perhaps – that is not at all what was intended with the article – but it’s what predominately came across to me.

  3. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    I missed out on all of that. What I keyed in on was the following:

    “The second set of attitudes now constitutes the politically correct view of cars and car culture, and if the car haters have their way, it won’t be long until the “car lobby” evokes the same odious connotation as the “tobacco lobby.” “

    If the car haters have their way, this will be done politically, and it will have little or nothing to do with ccarefully analyzing what really works best, or might, if we bothered to invent it.

    Anyway, the article is from Heritage Institute, so take it and the footnotes with a grain of salt.

    RH

  4. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “What about biofuels, or electric cars?”

    “The problem is that there IS no better car, no matter what energy source powers it, because the car itself lays the foundation for the thinly scattered, resource-demanding environment that we’ve built around ourselves. The only way to solve the car problem is to get out of the old mindset and move to what would actually work. “

    For some people, nothing is good enough.

    RH

  5. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    Ray, I would favor a modified version of Ed’s statement:

    Energy-efficient hybrids, electric cars, etc, *are* better than gasoline-fueled cars in the sense that they reduce U.S. petroleum dependency and emit less pollution. But even energy-efficient vehicles do not address the costs associated with the “thinly scattered, resource-demanding environment that we’ve built around ourselves.”

    Larry, That’s an interesting quote from the Heritage Institute. I guess I fall in the middle. I don’t consider cars to be evil. I love the mobility that my car provides. To the extent that cars provide mobility for the general population, they are liberating. However, we also have to recognize that auto-mobility has costs, that those costs are escalating, and that we are approaching the limits of an auto-centric transportation system. We must create a transportation system that offers people alternatives. That doesn’t mean herding people onto cattle-car subway systems. But it does mean leveling the playing field between cars and transit and giving people more choices.

  6. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    Larry:

    You said:

    “re: “What Is the Problem with Cars?”

    “An impressive treatise COMPLETE with foot notes!

    “Question: How different is this from similar articles entitled:

    “The Trouble with Air Travel
    The Trouble with Transit
    The Trouble with Rail
    The Trouble with ATVs and ORV”

    Well we have a folder on all those, especailly short haul air travel.

    The answer to your question is, however, human settlement patterns that require the resort to any VEHICLE for most Mobility and Access.

    We will address the options in PART VI of The Problem with Cars.

    In the meantime, if you missed it there is a nice item in WaPo Travel section yesterday on Kongakut River, even more remote than your venture last year.

    Also we tried to wrapped the string Note to Groveton re settlement pattern costs if you are interested. (You have identified yourself as a 12 1/2 % er.)

    Keep up the good work, abandon the rest, no one can do it all.

    EMR

  7. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    re: personal mobility

    there’s a fairly thought-provoking concept (at least for me) delved into in Wikipedia called personal Rapid Transit.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_rapid_transit

    and then JAB mentioned that no matter how “clean” a ‘personal mobility vehicle’ (there IS such a concept as a PMV also) might be that at the end of the day..(to paraphrase, I hope accurately) it is the “scatterization” at issue.

    It would seem that even without the automobile… that all the other forms of personal mobility.. horses, bikes, even rail.. can and do enable ‘scatterization”.

    I’m not smart enough to understand this. Even deer will make a path in the woods between food sources and water and the like.

    Humans will do the same thing… and if they can get access to a wheeled conveyance… doesn’t that meet the standard of “scatterization”?

    How do you keep folks from moving out of but close to the city using the most convenient for of mobility and access that is available to them without….

    some form of draconian command and control of land and land uses and .. the ability of someone to buy land.. put in a road and charge a toll…

    the only way that a person chooses a mass transit conveyance is IF it IS the most convenient way to get to where they want to go.

    and that’s the issue.

    where there is not an availability of shared vehicles systems do we not have scatterization?

    Why is it that “scatterization” with shared vehicles is “ok” but “scatterization” with personal mobility vehicles is not?

    if we ever got to solar-powered Jetson Mobiles.. would it still not be acceptable to live and work wherever one wished?

    I’m still trying to understand.

    Is the externalities and adverse impacts that make personal mobility unacceptable?

    or is it.. the result – “scatterization”?

  8. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    I think it is clear we are approaching the limits of an auto-centric transportation system,in some places.

    In other places we are far beyond the limits (in the oppposite direction) of anything group use can provide.

    I’m still not convinced that “thinly scattered, resource-demanding environment”, is any worse than the heavily developed and even more resource demanding environment – except for auto transport, and even then it isn’t clear. I’ve pretty much convinced myself (even if no one else agrees) that sustainability requires aome minimum amount of space, per person, no matter how the space is distributed.

    That said I can get behind the idea that :

    “That doesn’t mean herding people onto cattle-car subway systems. But it does mean leveling the playing field between cars and transit and giving people more choices.”

    I only suggest that leveling the playing field between cars and transit means being realistic about what transit can and cannot do, as well as about what cars can and cannot do.

    Mass transit is going to have to step up to the innovation plate in a big way to overcome the cattle car image and provide a choice that people will willingly take.

    After all, it isn’t really a choice if you deliberately eliminate the competition in order to complete the Search for the Holy Rail.

    RH

  9. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “…nice item in WaPo Travel section yesterday on Kongakut River, even more remote than your venture last year.”

    WaPo does something right once in a while.

    I wonder how much resources are expended by the thousand or so people that go there every year, just to enjoy the absence of humanity.

    (With the help of a guide and outfitter, naturally.)

    Ahh, bitter lemons. I admit I’d love to be able to do it.

    RH

  10. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    If one wants to focus on the extravagant use of resources for some (thinly legitimate) purpose – look no further than adventure tourism (or for that matter heritage tourism). $4500 AFTER you get yourself to Fairbanks which is more than 350 miles from Anchorage to the river which is at 69 deg lat.

    All of that .. to see Caribou – which are as common as tundra.. while swatting black flies and freezing your butt off in a wet raft. Awesome! 🙂

    My trip ONLY required $1200 to fly the last 100 miles to the river.

    In other words most of the cost of that trip was .. fuel.

    A Twin-Otter (twin engine version) costs $7000 to charter a 100 mile flight – that’s $70 a mile.

    Twin-Otters are how much of frontier Canada and Alaska gets goods..and moves people who need to be beyond the road system.

    Fort Simpson (Lat 62) is not powered by Hydro or Nukes or Coal Plants but bunker/fuel oil. Electricity cost 3 times what it does here and several outages a week not uncommon. The Mackenzie River – a river 5 times bigger than the Potomac – freezes over in the winter such that cars can be driven across it as well as those famous “Ice Road Truckers”.

    People who homestead in Canada have their own power generators that they do NOT run 24/7 but just for a few hours each day. Most homes have huge piles of wood and/or propane tanks which they haul in by the pick-up truck load.

    Edmonton (latitude 53) which is the largest city (about a million) the farthest north in North America (and the home of Tar Sands Oil) has visibly dirty air – reminding me of our smokestack cities in the 50’s.

    Okay.. enough blather.. my point

    IF .. the efficiency (location variable costs) of settlements was the determining criteria in where human settlements would be (or not be) – much of Canada would be deemed to be so energy-consumptive as to be not viable.

    The reason I mention all of this is that in that CONTEXT – it would also be laughable to cite Fort Simpson as an example of “scatterization” but not for the inefficient use of land at all.. not when the place is surrounded literally my millions and millions of remote wilderness.

    Folks up there don’t even have a concept of what “SPAWL” is.. even though their lifestyle transplanted back to our area would be – classic sprawl if the criteria is the inefficient use of energy and the inefficient use of land.

    so.. how much of scatterization is as much about consumptive, inefficient use of energy and land and how much as it is about mobility and access?

    turn this around – if we could be mobile without being consumptive of energy – would scatterization and the “inefficient” use of land still be a problem?

    Do we talk about location variable costs, mobility and access and “sprawl” and NURs in Jefferson Iowa or Fort Simpson Candada?

    Just an observation.

    it seems to me that what we’re talking about is the land around our urban centers… right?

    Once you get beyond what is a reasonable commuting distance – the “problem” does not exist.

    20 miles west of Capon Bridge WVa – is that part of the mobility and access conundrum? Why is it not and Leesburg is? It’s the same land and the same people and the same vehicles – right?

  11. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    Larry:

    You said:

    “there’s a fairly thought-provoking concept (at least for me) delved into in Wikipedia called personal Rapid Transit.”

    Type in “PRT” in the search window at db4.dev.baconsrebellion.com and note four columns, the oldest in 2004 on PRT.

    Second point:

    Your discussion of where settlement patterns are dysfunctional is not fine grained enough.

    What you say about Canada and Alaska north of the Circle is true but not about Capon Bridge, etc.

    We have not spent a lot of time above the Artic Circle but have in Urban Support Regions such as the Appalacian Urban Support Region (USR), the DelMarVa USR, the Great Basin USR and the Northern Rockies USR. The dysfunction of human settlement pattern does not end at the Boundary of the New Urban Region.

    We agree on the energy consumptive nature of “adventure” travel. In fact some place you will find a definition of “urban worker” including guides in the Bob Marshall Wildrness. They would have no employment but for urban tourists.

    “The Bob” — with adjacent Wilderness Areas it is the largest “wild area” in the Lower 48. It was accessible on foot out our back door when I was growing up.

    It will help to not call dysfunctional human settlement patterns by the “S” word.

    You know, the old Vocabulary Problem.

    Stay tuned some of the issues will turn up in later PARTs of THE PROBLEM WITH CARS.

    EMR

  12. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Suppose we effectively cap the residential population of each county in Virginia at 1.25 million. Then, growth must move to other places.

    What no one has ever explained satisfactorily to me is why functional growth means more density in Fairfax County and not a doubling of the population in Fauquier County — Spotsylvania County — Orange County — etc.? Given the already dysfunctional nature of Fairfax County and the huge investment necessary to functionalize it (even assuming that could happen), isn’t it more likely that less-developed counties could be better planned than Fairfax?

    My new motto is: “Save Fairfax County; pave the Piedmont.”

    TMT

  13. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    :-).

    You know, when I started saying stuff like that four years ago, I was told I was “almost alone in my thinking”.

    I took that as a great compliment.

    RH

  14. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    A twin Otter doesn’t cost anything like $70 a mile to fly. Somebody is making a nice (gasp) profit.

    Next time try and find someone with a Cessna Caravan.

    RH

  15. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “…so.. how much of scatterization is as much about consumptive, inefficient use of energy and land and how much as it is about mobility and access?”

    It appears that Someone has been reading about trade studies.

    😉

    RH

  16. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    I went to grade schol at a place that had a 24 hole privy. 12 for the boys and 12 for the girls – on the other side of a partial partition.

    I thought the Outdoor privy race was what happened when they rang the recess bell.

    RH

  17. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    “You know what’s coming: a huge expansion of government power.”

    That’s the uncomfortable reality of “functional human settlement patterns”.

    Some will say that roads and road-related costs constitute a huge uncharged “location-variable cost”. I have never seen convincing statistics that demonstrate that belief. In fact, I’ve never seen unconvincing statistics to demonstrate the veracity of that belief.

    However, I doubt it would matter. Let’s say (for the sake of argument) that governments start directly charging a lot more for private vehicle transportation. First, unless the general taxes paid for private vehicle transportation are rebated, this constitutes an expansion of government. Second, the demand for private vehicle transportation is provably inelastic. Gas goes to $3/gallon and people still drive more. The Europeans tax the heck out of petrol and they still need heavy government regulation to prevent suburban sprawl.

    You can have what some people call “functional human settlement patterns”. Or, you can have limited government.

    Not both.

  18. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    re: NURs and USRs

    where can I find a good discussion of USRs especially with regard to comparing and contrasting..

    what the purpose of USR is.

    why NURs need USRs

    etc…

    thanks…

  19. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    re: paving Piedmont

    a few questions:

    TMT views density as a burden… that should be equally shared by all jurisdictions regardless of their Geography.. i.e. location

    Density in Wise Va brings what benefits to Wise?

    The Smart Growth folks view density as desirable but do they feel that way – no matter where density is?

    Density in a Spotsylvania Greenfield Residential development serves what purpose if many of those living there are commuters to NoVa?

    Should Density be tied to the number of jobs that a locality has verses the number of folks who have those jobs but don’t live nearby?

    Does Fairfax have a role and a responsibility in the paving of Piedmont if that paving is done to provide “affordable housing” for folks who have jobs in NoVa?

  20. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    re: twin otter costs

    http://cires.colorado.edu/science/groups/steffen/greenland/Field_07/Air_Greenland_prices.pdf

  21. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    Comrade Gross:

    Housing follows the people, not the jobs. There are no workers’ collectives, there are no communes. If you live in Front Royal you need affordable housing in Front Royal – regardless of where you work.

  22. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    “If you live in Front Royal you need affordable housing in Front Royal – regardless of where you work.”

    If you live in Front Royal and work in NoVa do all of the members of the commune work an extra hour per day to pay for the road you need to do it or do only the workers who use the road pay for it?

  23. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    Larry:

    Re NURs and USRs: Right next to every column is a note re GLOSSARY and a link.

    Both are explored in depth.

    Also try the search function at http://www.bacanrebellion.com

    EMR

  24. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    Note for Groveton:

    “You know what’s coming: a huge expansion of government power.”

    That’s the uncomfortable reality of “functional human settlement patterns”.

    THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH REALITY, IT HAS TO DO WITH MYTH BASED SCARE TACTICS.

    Some will say that roads and road-related costs constitute a huge uncharged “location-variable cost”. I have never seen convincing statistics that demonstrate that belief. In fact, I’ve never seen unconvincing statistics to demonstrate the veracity of that belief.

    PERHAPS YOU ARE AVOIDING READING SOURCES BASED ON FACTS

    However, I doubt it would matter. Let’s say (for the sake of argument) that governments start directly charging a lot more for private vehicle transportation.

    NO, AGENCIES (AKA, “GOVERNMENT”) NEED NOT “CHANGE MORE.” BOTH ENTERPRISES AND AGENCIES NEED TO START FAIRLY ALLOCATING THE TRUE COSTS.

    First, unless the general taxes paid for private vehicle transportation are rebated, this constitutes an expansion of government.

    FAIR ALLOCATION WILL RESULT IN A SHIFT AWAY FROM “GENERAL TAXES” AND A SHIFT TO FEES AND PER USE CHAGES.

    Second, the demand for private vehicle transportation is provably inelastic. Gas goes to $3/gallon and people still drive more.

    IN A RECESSION PERHAPS BUT NOT IN A DEPRESSION WHICH IS WHERE THE CURRENT POLICIES ARE TAKING US.

    The Europeans tax the heck out of petrol and they still need heavy government regulation to prevent suburban sprawl.

    NOT AS “HEAVY” AS THE EURO SPRAWL MYTH TYPES YOUR HAVE YOU BELEIVE.

    IN THE EURO CONTEXT CITIZENS ON THE STREET UNDERSTAND THE NEED FOR A CLEAR EDGE AND FOR FAIR ALLOCATION OF COSTS.

    You can have what some people call “functional human settlement patterns”. Or, you can have limited government.

    Not both.

    YOU AND OTHER 12 1/2% ERS WILL CONTINUE TO TRY TO SELL THIS LINE BUT THERE IS NOT BASIS FOR IT EXCEPT BIAS.

    EMR

  25. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “NOT AS “HEAVY” AS THE EURO SPRAWL MYTH TYPES YOUR HAVE YOU BELEIVE.

    IN THE EURO CONTEXT CITIZENS ON THE STREET UNDERSTAND THE NEED FOR A CLEAR EDGE AND FOR FAIR ALLOCATION OF COSTS.”

    Really? Perhaps you can explain why the netherlands has a specific policy to increase the use of its ring or outlying cities.

    At least you are right about the fair allocation of costs. European countries do heveily subsidise their rural areas, because they recognize that it is the Urban areas that are not paying their full costs.

    Groveton must have touched a sore point. EMR is responding in all caps.

    “PERHAPS YOU ARE AVOIDING READING SOURCES BASED ON FACTS”

    You mean any source other than those approved by EMR?

    RH

  26. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “To be fair to the GMU guys, I do understand what they’re getting at – that a significant faction of the environmental movement is more interested in statism than in correcting externalities. But the solution to that should be promoting sensible policies, determined by careful study. It should not be in automatically taking the polar opposite position.”

    From Mike Moffats Economic Blog – based in Canada.

    “a significant faction of the environmental movement is more interested in statism than in correcting externalities”

    I think that says it all. As long as people like Groveton even think this is true, as long as it has the vaguest possibility of being true, then I believe that people like EMR and Larry do more damage to the movement than good.

    The idea is to get the other sid on our side, not to make them enemies.

    RH

  27. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    Very confusing.

    Someone who is staunchly “user-pays”, opposed to most subsidies and believes that supply & demand should be the essence of the economy.. being labeled as a Statist.

    methinks we have might have a slight problem with perceptions…

  28. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    Re NURs and USRs: Right next to every column is a note re GLOSSARY and a link.

    Both are explored in depth.

    All due respects – the RELATIONSHIP between them.. is not covered as far as I can tell.

    Why do NURs need USRs?

    What is it that a USR provides that a NUR cannot provide on it’s own stand alone?

    Does every NUR need a USR?

    You state that a USR serves two or more NURs. Why is that?

    Are USRs aggregations of balanced communities.

    What is the land that is not a USR and not a NUR called?

    NURs and USRs are not lego block versions of civilization are they?

    All I have gotten by reading the vocabulary is the fact that USRs exist and are different than NURs.

    Beyond that – I have no clue what the relationship between them are – and are not.

    Can you compare and contrast the differences?

    Would you.. with some tolerance perhaps, instead of waving your hands and referring one to “more reading” of the vocabulary in hopes of divining more by reading the same stuff over and over?

    thanks. 🙂

  29. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “methinks we have might have a slight problem with perceptions…”

    Agreed. The user pays principle as espoused by you is totally divorced from anything that might be recognized or perceived as a free market.

    RH

  30. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    Really?

    What part of ‘each person should pay for what they use’ do you think is not free market?

  31. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    Larry:

    One last time and then you are on your own:

    “Re NURs and USRs: Right next to every column is a note re GLOSSARY and a link.

    “Both are explored in depth.

    “All due respects – the RELATIONSHIP between them.. is not covered as far as I can tell.”

    SINCE ONE IS DEFINED IN TERMS OF THE OTHER THEY THE RELATIONSHIP HAS TO BE COVERED.

    “Why do NURs need USRs?”

    DelMarVa USR and East Carolina USR provide recreation (beach) and food for Central Carolina NUR, Hampton Roads NUR, Richmond NUR, Washington Baltimore NUR, Philidelphia NUR, Pittsburg NUR, New York New Jersey NUR. And to a lesser extent all other NURs. Check out the licence plates that next time you are at Nags Head.

    “What is it that a USR provides that a NUR cannot provide on it’s own stand alone?”

    Try climbing a 14,000 foot mountain or walking on a Glacier in the Washington-Baltimore NUR.

    “Does every NUR need a USR?”

    Yes

    “You state that a USR serves two or more NURs. Why is that?”

    If a recreation or agricultural or mining or other extensive land use serves only one NUR, it is in the Countrysid that is part of that NUR.

    “Are USRs aggregations of balanced communities.”

    There may be a nearly Balanced Community in a USR and the urban agglomerations in USRs are well served to strive for as much Balance as possible but the lack of Critial Mass to become a NUR and the function of serving more than on NUR keeps USRs from being Balanced.

    “What is the land that is not a USR and not a NUR called?”

    There is none. We live in an urban civilization and even New Guinea has become a USR. You Canadian river serves as an urban recreation destination and serves urban defense and resource extraction functions.

    “NURs and USRs are not lego block versions of civilization are they?”

    I do not know what this means.

    NURs are by definition the smallest organic component of human settlement that can approach sustainability.

    “All I have gotten by reading the vocabulary is the fact that USRs exist and are different than NURs.”

    That is a start but you have demonstrated great insight on a lot of issues and you could do much better than you pretend to do on human settlement pattern issues.

    “Beyond that – I have no clue what the relationship between them are – and are not.”

    Is that your 12 1/2 % er status clouding your vision?

    “Can you compare and contrast the differences?”

    I have done all that I can for the immediate future, you are on your own.

    “Would you.. with some tolerance perhaps, instead of waving your hands and referring one to “more reading” of the vocabulary in hopes of divining more by reading the same stuff over and over?”

    Vocabulary is a place to start, they search the 120 +/- past columns and Backgroundes to place the terms in context.

    thanks. 🙂

    Have a great spring!

    EMR

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