Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

FROM CNN

—

by

James A. Bacon
in

“Fed chief Ben Bernanke today told lawmakers the current financial crisis is rippling through the economy. He said it’s harder for businesses to get loans to create jobs, and harder for consumers to get loans to buy cars — hurting automakers and auto workers.”

He could have added that “it is harder for consumers to get loans to buy houses — hurting builders and construction workers…”

As we noted in “Good News Bad Reporting” on 24 March what he and his predecessors should have been saying since at least 1973 is:

“Citizens of the US of A cannot continue to expect to live off of natural capital, imported energy and loans from foreign investors. The economy must be restructured so that citizens do not have to rely on buying more Large, Private Vehicles and buying more Wrong-Size Dwellings in the wrong location to be happy and safe.”

Every bailout and every recovery that relies on buying more Large, Private Vehicles and more Wrong-Size Dwellings in the wrong location makes the prospect of a sustainable future less likely.

EMR

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Comments

39 responses to “FROM CNN”

  1. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    How is my future in a small apartment without a car any more sustainable if I don’t have a job making something for people to consume?

    RH

  2. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “The slowing of global economic growth has already resulted in lower oil prices. But if that slowdown becomes a recession, particularly one triggered by a significant tightening of credit, the expansion of both conventional and alternative energy supplies could be affected, along with investments in improved energy efficiency, including more fuel-efficient automobiles.”

    Energy Outlook

    RH

  3. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Lets assume that all those bankers were producing nothing of value, and they all go get other jobs.

    We will wind up with more goods and services to consume, not less.

    RH

  4. Tyler Craddock Avatar
    Tyler Craddock

    EMR,

    I ask this question in all condor becuae I am curious. What is the right size house for a family of four (two adults, two kids)? Is there a rule of thumb based on number of occupants?

    Thanks!

  5. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    Tyler:

    You asked:

    “What is the right size house for a family of four (two adults, two kids)? Is there a rule of thumb based on number of occupants?”

    Three points:

    When I talk about “wrong size house in the wrong location,” I am concerned with gross excess for which the owner does not pay the full cost.

    The McMansion on a 5 acre lot, the McEstate on a 10 acre “horse farm” and the McLodge in a 50 acre “forest.”

    This is not new. People have been buying oversize houses for an “investment” and to satify egos for years.

    The problem is the huge number that were have over-housed since the late 70s with government subsidies, unfair allocation of location-variable costs and more recently “Freddie and Fannie will by it up” no-risk-to-the-lender loans.

    At the same time we need Affordable and Accessible housing for those lower on the economic Ziggurat (90 percent of the subsidy goes to those in the top 30 percent of the income spectrum).

    The second point is that the square feet in the house and the floor plan is not as important from a human settlement pattern perspective as the location of the lot, the size of the lot and the location of the dwelling on the lot.

    There are millions of great units that have plenty of room to raise a family — inside and outside — in Communities with 10 persons per acre (at the Alpha Community scale.)

    Third, and perhaps the answer you were looking for re layout is best found by checking out Sarah Susanka’s work. “The Not So Big House” and “The Not So Big Life” and those that have reviewed her work.

    In my view there are many parameters to consider for any Household and no “right answers.”

    The important thing is the cumulative impact of the individual decisions about which the individual decison maker is unaware, is duped by advertising or is happy to let someone else pay.

    EMR

  6. Larry G Avatar
    Larry G

    I appreciate EMR’s explanation and much of it is understandable even if some of leaves other questions.

    For someone who is rich enough – living in a 10,000 sqft castle with limos and helicopters, whatever – paying for their full location costs is not trivial is certainly in a different category than a lower-middle class family wanted to live like they can afford an upper-middle class lifestyle… ergo..

    .. driving until they “qualify” – not that they could not actually “qualify” for a much more modest place to live closer to where they work but for want of a better phrase – they are seeking the American Dream – a nice sized home with enough bedrooms .. for one per kid at least if they are different genders… a garage and a yard… a family room, etc, in a cul-de-saced or equivalent neighborhood with decent schools and the schools and neighborhoods .. places where their kids can be.. in relative safety.

    And the guiding force for these folks is essentially “how much am I worth for a 30-year loan” and what would my monthly payments be.

    I would say that virtually everyone who lives basically from one paycheck to another with perhaps 3 or 4 months of “reserve” … think along these lines.

    Some are willing to push the envelope more than others but really .. it’s what the mortgage company that says what you can afford – that drives many decisions.

    They want as much as they can get for their money – with the sure belief that after a few years, they can sell the house for what they have in it or even make a little on it for another down payment – if they have to move.

    How you get back and forth to this house is a secondary issue.. but for many – “you do what you must do to make it work”.

    EMR does not seem to differentiate – for folks that commute – whether they drive solo – or whether they take a commuter bus or van pool or commuter rail.

    If they can afford to pay – then what is it that they are not paying for?

    Gasoline is $8.00 a gallon in other parts of the world – and the way that many get to work – is by commuter rail or bus or some combo of mass transit.

    Is $8.00 a gallon for gasoline closer to the “paying for your full locational cost” idea?

    Am I even on the right track?

    If I am.. and commuting and gasoline use is one of the biggies.. what are the other bigggies?

    I have a hard time buying the electricity idea.. since we have a grid.. and whether you live in NoVa, Spotsylvania or Richmond – you’re getting the same basic location deal – no particular advantage to living urban or balanced or alpha community as far as I can see but I’ll allow that I’m ignorant and probably need help.

    So.. EMR.. have at it.. and remember.. there are LOTs of folks who would benefit from your tolerance and patience in explaining the in’s and out’s of optimized settlement patterns.

    and thank you.

  7. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    10 per acre sounds like quarter acre lots. I’ll concede that there are some nice neighborhoods built that way. But you can als see areas that are half acre on one side of the street, and quarter acre on the other. One side looks junky, crowded, and cluttered compared to the other.

    RH

  8. charlie Avatar
    charlie

    hmm.

    unpack this:

    “Citizens of the US of A cannot continue to expect to live off of natural capital, imported energy and loans from foreign investors”

    OK. Completely agree. Not sure what “natural capital” is. Non EMR talk would suggest it may be commodities or ag products. In any case, I get the point: ever since Breton Woods collapsed we’ve been living in a hollow world.

    But the problem I have is with the prescription:

    “The economy must be restructured so that citizens do not have to rely on buying more Large, Private Vehicles and buying more Wrong-Size Dwellings in the wrong location to be happy and safe.”

    1. Large, Private, Vehicles: well, the largest were full scale SUVs, which thanks to a number of factors (cough, CAFE and import ban) were the only vehicles being MADE in the US for the last 20 years that were profitable. So we should get rid of SUVs in exchange for Honda Accords? Or sell our Honda Accords in exchange for a Honda Fit? Or not buy a car and instead rely on a train system made by Canadians and Italians?

    2. “Wrong-Size Dwellings” OK, I understand that EMR has invented some sort of new language, but the point about housing is again the money stays in our economy (except for the Mexicans building them). The problem we are dealing with is BORROWING money to buy external goods; BORROWING money to invest inside the US — even when there is a lot of waste in the cycle — is not a negative.

    Let’s be honest: the problem here is not so much consumer debt, but what happens when you leverage that debt 50x to create new money. That’s what Wall Street was doing. Moving to “right-size” houses isn’t going to stop ultra leveraging and now deleveraging.

  9. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Natural capital is stuff we take from the earth and cannot put back, like mining coal.

    Charlie is correct about the rest.

    RH

  10. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    “The problem is the huge number that were have over-housed since the late 70s with government subsidies, unfair allocation of location-variable costs and more recently “Freddie and Fannie will by it up” no-risk-to-the-lender loans.”.

    Wow. That’s quite a sentence. Let’s examine it in parts.

    1. “huge number that were have (sic) over-housed” – Tyler asked a simple question about the right size house for a family of 4. The answer was to ask more questions and refer him to a book. Yet, the “huge number” of people who are over-housed is presented as a statement as if it were a matter of physical science. How can this be true? How can a simple question about the right sized house for a simple family be too hard to answer while a sweeping statement about an entire nation can be made?

    2. “since the late 1970s” – What happened in the late 1970s to occasion this. I reall the late 1970s as a period of terrible economic conditions. There was stagflation, gas prices escalated until there were lines at gas stations (if the stations had any gas to sell). Unemployment was high and interest rates skyrocketed. Obama, Sr. … er, I mean Jimmy Carter… was in office and the country was in a state of malaise. This was the time when the presumed epidemic of huge numbers of people becoming over-housed started? This seems about as likely as growing palm trees in the artic (pre global warming, of course).

    3. “government subsidies” – what subsidies were implemented in the late 1970s to make over-housing a countrywide problem?

    4. “unfair allocation of location-variable costs” – once again, the gift that just keeps giving. After almost three years on this board the only thing of which I am completely convinced is that Fairfax County, the supposed poster county for dysfunctional development, pays for far more than the citizens of Fairfax consume in total. Education is subsidized by Fairfax, transportation is subsidized by Fairfax and on and on. So, how is it that the subsidies used to fund this state consistently come from the locations that have the worst patterns of human settlement? The observable facts just don’t support this rhetoric.

    5. “Freddie and Fannie will buy it up…” – I see the homes that are in foreclosure around here. They seem like they are mostly what constitutes functional settlement. They seem to generally be smaller houses on smaller lots. While I am sure that there have been foreclosures on large houses on large lots, this seems to be the exception rather than the rule (at least for now!).

    I think that linking the current credit crisis to dysfunctional settlement is getting it backwards. Poor human settlement patters did not cause the credit crisis. Loose and ineffective regulations on credit casused both the credit crisis and (to a lesser extent) dysfunctional human settlement patterns.

  11. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    So the government precipitated this (initially) through well-meanig regulations designed to prevent redlining and increase ownership.

    Private interests “took advantage” of the rules of the game, promulgated by the government (us, or at our insistence).

    Now the government wants to step in and correct its own (our) mistake, and we think that is a bailout.

    RH

  12. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “In my view there are many parameters to consider for any Household and no “right answers.”

    The important thing is the cumulative impact of the individual decisions about which the individual decison maker is unaware, is duped by advertising or is happy to let someone else pay.”

    So I read this to say that the individual makes decisions based on his own priorities, and that is OK.

    Except there is a huge market failure caused by individual stupidity, advertising, and bad subsidies. This market falure causes a collective loss fuel by what people percieve as individual gain.

    Translation: it is a public good, and we will all be happier and have more if only you make do with less.

    RH

  13. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    RH:

    I really don’t know whether the regulatory changes were intended to make home ownership more affordable or to give financial companies carte blanche to rev up the morgage market and line their own pockets in the process. I’d guess the latter was the real impetus with the former being the publicly stated reason. Another example of special interests at play. For example, Barak Obama is reputed to have taken $125,000 in campaign contributions from Fannie Mae and its employees over the years. I have not heard a comparable number for McCain but I imagine he’s in “up to his eyeballs too”.

    So, looser requirements to borrow started this misshapen ball rolling. However, like any good disaster, it takes more than one thing to really make a mess. I believe the real catalyst in this whole mess was credit default swaps. This almost unregulated quasi-insurance scheme allowed the companies making the risky loans to hold those loans at nearly full value because they were “insured”. Of course, the hedge funds issuing this “insurance” didn’t have the financial clout to pay off any serious level of default. They simply took the issuing subsidiary into bankruptcy when the defaults reached a critical level.

    Well, every disaster has its heroes and this is no exception. And the hero is …. Warren Buffet. He called these credit default swaps “financial weapons of mass destruction” in 2002 and ordered his financial companies to stop participating in the credit default swap market. Of course, all good heroes have flaws. While Berkshire Hathaway’s insurance companies stopped issuing these derivatives it’s much less clear as to whether the other companies in his portfolio stopped buying and selling them. But – he saw the light and he called it right. Certainly he meets my criteria for being more hero than goat in all this.

    So, who’s really at fault?

    a) The regulators who loosened the standards for borrowing and ignited a bubble?
    b) The people who invented the credit default swap derivative which was insurance masquerading as a financial instrument?
    c) The regulators who watched the level of credit default swaps grow and grow without taking any effective action?
    d) The hedge funds (and others) who issued the credit default swaps as if there was no implied insurance component to it?
    e) The executives at financial institutions who relied on the credit default swaps to provide pseudo-insurance for their risky loan portfolios even though they knew (or should have known) that the companies issuing these instruments lacked the financial clout to make good on a significant level of defaults?

    My answer is:

    f) I don’t care – at least for now.

    The issue at the present moment is that frozen credit markets freeze whole economies. And our economy is built on the very unstable foundation of massive borrowing from abroad (that’s a whole separate question of honesty and competence from our political leadership). And economies that are built on the lagrasse of other nations can’t afford to have fundamental problems in their banking systems. Thomas Friedman calls this The Thundering Herd and he goes through a very good explanation of how The Thundering Herd abandoned certain Asian markets during the Long Term Capital fiasco.

    Don’t think it could happen to the US?

    Think again.

  14. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “I’d guess the latter was the real impetus with the former being the publicly stated reason.”

    Cynic. I guess I agree, I just figured the former gave impetus to the latter, and once that caught on, it had a life of its own.

    I think my basic point is that I agree it takes more than one thing to make a real mess and almost all of us are invested in this one, one way or another.

    RH

  15. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “10 per acre sounds like quarter acre lots.”

    The reason Dr. Risse suggests a Geographic Literacy test prior to posts on human settlement patterns.

    He clearly states “at the Alpha Community Scale.”

    That means at the Alpha Cluster scale the 30,000 to 100,000 dwellings would be 30% SHD, 40% SHA and 30% MH (Multi Household). Reston started with a mix of 25% SHD, 50% SHA and 25% MH.

    “I’ll concede that there are some nice neighborhoods built that way. But you can als see areas that are half acre on one side of the street, and quarter acre on the other. One side looks junky, crowded, and cluttered compared to the other.”

    ‘If you do not know what you are talking about, you do not know what you are talking about.’

    That is, I believe how Dr. Risse put it.

  16. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “He clearly states “at the Alpha Community Scale.”

    Yeah, well, of course that is perfectly clear. And I did consider that phrase before making my comment.

    I merely said that it sounds like quarter acre lots. Sure, they could be mixed and averaged for gross density many ways, but it is hard to get that concept out of “at the Alpha community scale”.

    I still think it sounds like quarter acre lots, and most people on first glance would think of it that way. Rather than beating up on me for my supposed ignorance, you might consider that I’m closer to your audience than you. Take it as a suggestion and improve next time around.

    Next time you think you said soething clearly, back up and try again. You might be right, but it is of no use if you cannot anticipate and steer what your audience will hear as opposed to what you think you said.

    My observation of a neighbor hood with different zoning on different sids of the street is an actual observation. That observation is what it is and it stands as undeniable truth, unless you thnk my vision of “junky” is subjective and wrong.

    To suggest that I do not know what I see and I am ignorant to report it, is just being thin skinned. I’m sure if Dr. Risse had his way there would be tests for everything before any public participation was allowed – all graded by him of course. Everyone else could wear a yellow star.

    RH

  17. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Groveton:

    For what it’s worth.

    “some analysts are saying it wasn’t too little government intervention that cased the mortgage meltdown, but too much, in the form of activists compelling the government to pressure Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae into unsound – though politically correct – lending practices.”

    Stan J. Liebowitz, economics professor at the University of Texas at Dallas, in his forthcoming book, Housing America: Building out of a Crisis,……. contends that the federal government over the last 20 years pushed the mortgage industry so hard to get minority homeownership up, that it undermined the country’s financial foundation to achieve its goal.

    Liebowitz admits this is “not consistent with the nasty-subprime-lender hypothesis currently considered to be the cause of the mortgage meltdown.”

    From Carpe Diem

    RH

  18. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    charlier said:

    “hmm.

    “unpack this:

    ‘Citizens of the US of A cannot continue to expect to live off of natural capital, imported energy and loans from foreign investors’

    “OK. Completely agree.”

    Great

    “Not sure what “natural capital” is.”

    Any non-renewable resource and any potentially renewable resource that is not sustainablly used. Oil, gas, coal, and at this point tropical forests, top soil, marine resouces, ground water, surface water…

    “In any case, I get the point: ever since Breton Woods collapsed we’ve been living in a hollow world.”

    I think I agree but not sure. Do you mean “Bretton Woods” and what do you mean by collapse? IMF and IBRD are still around when last I checked?

    “But the problem I have is with the prescription:

    ‘The economy must be restructured so that citizens do not have to rely on buying more Large, Private Vehicles and buying more Wrong-Size Dwellings in the wrong location to be happy and safe.’

    “1. Large, Private, Vehicles: well, the largest were full scale SUVs, which thanks to a number of factors (cough, CAFE and import ban) were the only vehicles being MADE in the US for the last 20 years that were profitable. So we should get rid of SUVs in exchange for Honda Accords? Or sell our Honda Accords in exchange for a Honda Fit? Or not buy a car and instead rely on a train system made by Canadians and Italians?”

    Large, Privte Vehicle as defined in THE PROBLEM WITH CARS relates to all of the above. It is not the existance of Large, Private Vehicles that is the problem, it is the space to drive and park them when they are the only source of Mobility and Access.

    “2. “Wrong-Size Dwellings” OK, I understand that EMR has invented some sort of new language, but the point about housing is again the money stays in our economy (except for the Mexicans building them).

    No, is the scattered location (see above), the citing (see not re lot size and configuration above) and the failure to pay the full cost that is the problem.

    “The problem we are dealing with is BORROWING money to buy external goods; BORROWING money to invest inside the US — even when there is a lot of waste in the cycle — is not a negative.”

    Yes it is because of the resulting human settlement pattern that cannot be supported without huge subsidies.

    “Let’s be honest: the problem here is not so much consumer debt, but what happens when you leverage that debt 50x to create new money. That’s what Wall Street was doing.”

    That is a problem too.

    “Moving to “right-size” houses isn’t going to stop ultra leveraging and now deleveraging.”

    True but right size and righ location will stablalize settlement patterns and result in less churn and so ther will be less oppertunity for all the greed driven activities that you and I agree are a problem.

    EMR

  19. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    Groveton said”

    ‘The problem is the huge number that have over-housed since the late 70s with government subsidies, unfair allocation of location-variable costs and more recently “Freddie and Fannie will by it up” no-risk-to-the-lender loans.’

    “Wow. That’s quite a sentence. Let’s examine it in parts.”

    Good idea, sorry I did not know it was all one sentence.

    1. “huge number that have over-housed” – (EMR corrected) Tyler asked a simple question about the right size house for a family of 4.”

    “The answer was to ask more questions and refer him to a book.”

    What other questions did I ask?

    “Yet, the “huge number” of people who are over-housed is presented as a statement as if it were a matter of physical science.”

    True

    “How can a simple question about the right sized house for a simple family be too hard to answer while a sweeping statement about an entire nation can be made?”

    Because I do not know the data one would need to answer the question about house size for Tyler or anyone else, I do know about what has happened on a Regional and nation-state scale vis a vis housing size and location. There is a lot of data of that.

    2. “since the late 1970s” – What happened in the late 1970s to occasion this. I reall the late 1970s as a period of terrible economic conditions. There was stagflation, gas prices escalated until there were lines at gas stations (if the stations had any gas to sell). Unemployment was high and interest rates skyrocketed.

    You do not recall correctly. In the early 70 (Oct 1973) the OPEC embargo triggered a downturn in the housing market. I know, I was designing Communities all over the US of A at the time. The low point for most Regions housing was in the mid 70 but by the late 70s things were moving along well.

    The Environmental movement was also having an impact in the early 70s. Fairfax County’s Pause for Planning was in 1972.

    The result was that when the building industry came out of the doldrums there was a new regulatory environment and the Interstate system was being completed.

    Bang. Across the country in the “late 70s” the corner was turned and McMansion, McLodges and McEstates started to grow. Five acre lots in the Occaquan etc.

    (I will leave out the Jimmy Carter comment but Jimmy while Governor of GA was briefed on human settlement pattern issues, although we did not call them that at the time.)

    “This was the time when the presumed epidemic of huge numbers of people becoming over-housed started?”

    Yes it was.

    “This seems about as likely as growing palm trees in the artic (pre global warming, of course).”

    Do not bet on it. Of course there was a time when palm trees did grow in what was until recently thought of as “the artic.”

    “3. “government subsidies” – what subsidies were implemented in the late 1970s to make over-housing a countrywide problem?”

    The expansion of federal tax write offs and completion of the Interstate and Defense Highway system and the shifting to federal aid for new radials and circuphrentials (sp?) for starters. Aid for water and sewer systems in counties, to expand urban public safety to nonurban areas the list goes on and on.

    “4. “unfair allocation of location-variable costs” – once again, the gift that just keeps giving.

    I am not sure what you mean by this? You do not understand the 10 X Rule or you have never tried to run those numbers?

    “After almost three years on this board the only thing of which I am completely convinced is that Fairfax County, the supposed poster county for dysfunctional development,”

    Well there are worse

    “pays for far more than the citizens of Fairfax consume in total.”

    I am not sure what this means?

    “Education is subsidized by Fairfax, transportation is subsidized by Fairfax and on and on.”

    You are talking about Fiarfax residents paying more than their fair share of state expenses? True by not related to the fair allocation of location-variable costs.

    “So, how is it that the subsidies used to fund this state consistently come from the locations that have the worst patterns of human settlement?”

    IterRegion transfers are a different issue.

    “The observable facts just don’t support this rhetoric.”

    No I think you are at sea about paying the full cost of location-variable costs mean.

    Do a simple test of just one of the 40 +/- location-variable costs. The electrical distribution system (Larry likes to confuse the generation cost with transmission cost with the distribution cost but lets make this easy.

    Take a map and locate your 40 closest neighbors. Figure up what it costs to build and maintain the electric distribution system — do not forget lineloss from low voltage distribution.

    Now go down to Reston and pick any 10 du ac cluster of Single Household Attached dwellings and make the same calculation.

    Now ask how much they pay per kilowatt.

    You are subsidized everytime you turn on a light.

    And there are 40 +/- more to figure out.

    “5. “Freddie and Fannie will buy it up…” – I see the homes that are in foreclosure around here. They seem like they are mostly what constitutes functional settlement.”

    Sorry, there are no functional settlement patterns “around here” unless you are including Reston.

    Of course there are some foreclosures in almost every Beta Community but where are the concintrations? In our Beta Community they are in orphan subdivisions along Route 28 far from jobs and services.

    “They seem to generally be smaller houses on smaller lots.”

    Yes, as we noted to Lyle the house size is not as important as the lot location and the overall configuration.

    “While I am sure that there have been foreclosures on large houses on large lots, this seems to be the exception rather than the rule (at least for now!).”

    Foreclosures, yes, my problem with Freddie and Fannie has always been their pouring money into scatteration. That is big houses that are not foreclosed yet and small houses in orphan subdivisions.

    “I think that linking the current credit crisis to dysfunctional settlement is getting it backwards.”

    Actuall it does run in both directions.

    “Poor human settlement patterns did not cause the credit crisis.”

    But it did contribute.

    “Loose and ineffective regulations on credit casused both the credit crisis and (to a lesser extent) dysfunctional human settlement patterns.”

    There we agree.

    Keep up the good work…

    EMR

  20. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    Larry Gross said:

    “I appreciate EMR’s explanation and much of it is understandable …”

    Thank you, I think.

    I tried to read the rest of your comment with care and did not find any “question” that I had not answered for you before or which would not be solved by Balanced (Alpha) Communities.

    And you will recall what I said about repeating myself.

    OK there is this one:

    “EMR does not seem to differentiate – for folks that commute – whether they drive solo – or whether they take a commuter bus or van pool or commuter rail.”

    The number of “commuters” in a Balanced Community is so small as to not need to “differentiate” them.

    Recall the only way to help a commuter is to help them become a non-commuter.

    “Am I even on the right track?”

    I do not think so but it is hard to tell.

    EMR

  21. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    For a moment, I thought I had forgotten what it was really like in 1979. So, I looked up some facts. It looks to me like the housing market (as measured by new starts) just about collapsed between 1978 and 1981. The only worse collapse was … well, now.

    http://www.data360.org/dsg.aspx?Data_Set_Group_Id=47

  22. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    While I was looking at graphs, I also found this one (not related to current thread but the subject of much debate in prior threads):

    http://bp1.blogger.com/_pMscxxELHEg/SDjQAq_dmeI/AAAAAAAACCQ/Ip6qQzCxwmg/s1600-h/USVehicleMilesvsRealPrices.jpg

  23. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “Any non-renewable resource and any potentially renewable resource that is not sustainablly used.”

    That is a better explanation than mine. You can do it when you try.

    “It is not the existance of Large, Private Vehicles that is the problem, it is the space to drive and park them when they are the only source of Mobility and Access.”

    I disagree. Large private vehicles are a problem. The space to drive and park them is not a problem: it is only that we try to drive so many in the same space. There is plenty of other space for the vehicles, but we are using that space badly.

    It is true that in many spaces vehicles are the only source of mobility and access, but that is because they are the best and cheapest means.

    Scattered location is not the problem with housing, nor is failure to pay the full costs. There isn’t even a real problem with the allocation of costs other than schools and public protection.

    ————————–

    “human settlement pattern that cannot be supported without huge subsidies.”

    Subsidies are justified to increase a net public benefit. Whenthat is the case there is nothing wrong with them, as they only correct a market inefficiency. We have different market inefficiencies in different settlement patterns, and different forms of subsidies to compensate. All of this is done at the publics request and with the publics money. Virtually every settlement is subsidised one way or another. Where, exactly is the problem?

    ———————

    “right size and righ location will stablalize settlement patterns and result in less churn and so ther will be less oppertunity for all the greed driven activities “

    Less churn means less opportunity. Is that really what you advocate, less opportunity? There is nothing greedy about acting on an opportunity that works better for you than the current owner, but with out that churn (exchange of information) you will come in contact with fewer opportunities. You will be less likely to find one that suits you and more likely to satisfice sub-optimally. This seems a strange way to encourae people to be happy and safe.

    ————————-

    Because I do not know the data one would need to answer the question about house size for Tyler or anyone else, I do know about what has happened on a Regional and nation-state scale vis a vis housing size and location. There is a lot of data of that.

    OK, but where did that data come from? It is the aggregate of the decisions made by a lot of people who did have the data they needed to choose a house. You are saying, once again, that good individual decisions lead to suboptimal social conditions: therefore people should subjugate their knowledge and their decisions about their happiness to obtain (hopefully) a social condition that is sufficiently better to offset their loss of personal condition.

    In other words, they should offer up a huge personal subsidy to the community.

    ————————-

    “You do not recall correctly.” I believe Groveton’s statement is accurate. I don’t ever recall having heard anyone blame a housing slump on the OPEC embargo.
    I bought my first home around Oct. of 1973, and I recall no problem with that. I do recall I had a struggle keeping it, what with stagflation, etc. Things did straighten out by the late 70’s but I recall it as beeing very late, like 1979 and beyond.

    There are probably two patially correct but unrelated visions here.

    ————————–

    Five acre lots in the Occoquan were the result of a desire for racial and economic separation as much as they were for a better environment. The environment made a good cover story.

    Bang. Across the country in the “late 70s” the boomers were old enough to buy homes, lots of homes. Until then there wer huge numbers of people under-housed: living in dorms, shared apartments, and military barracks.

    —————————-

    “completion of the Interstate and Defense Highway system and the shifting to federal aid for new radials and circuphrentials (sp?) for starters.”

    Nonsense. Those roads were never intended as housing subsidies. They were republican inventions intended as subsidies to businesses. Businesses which once operated satisfactorily in city centers became overconcentrated there as business grew. Housing in city centers was undesirable, unsafe and expensive.

    The market responded appropriately, and the roads built to expand business now needed to support the housing business reequired. There may have been bad planning involved, but it was the opposite from what you claim.

    All of your other so-called subsidies were demanded and paid for by the citizenry.

    ——————————

    “I am not sure what this means?”

    Sure you do. It is probably one reason you moved out of Fairfax. Fairfax county pays for more than its citizens consume and everyone else benefits. Same goes for farms. Everyone loves them for what they can get and no one wants to support them (Fairfax or Farms). If there is a failure to pay full locational costs, it is a lot different than what you describe.

    ——————————-

    “Now go down to Reston and pick any 10 du ac cluster of Single Household Attached dwellings and make the same calculation.”

    I can practically guarantee you are wrong on this. Compact infrastructure is far more expensive to design, construct and maintain. And it is more congested, so you do not get the same value for what you pay. As you describe it, it makes a nice argument, but it is flat wrong. Not only is it wrong, but it isn’t even calculated correctly, as you describe it.

    “And there are 40 +/- more to figure out.”

    We have settled that previously,and yet you persist in making this outrageous claim. Most of those are private services, and they make their own rate structures, and they are subject to competition to keep them honest.

    I’lll give you this. Not every cost is figured out to the foot. There is a reason for that: it isn’t worth the effort.

    RH

  24. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    Groveton:

    Nice graphic. The Data 360 numbers do not undermine in any way the points we made, in fact they support them and suggest you are not reading carefully.

    “For a moment, I thought I had forgotten what it was really like in 1979.”

    I do not know what you were doing in 1979 but I was in the Planned New Community building business and this graphic reflects what I recall.

    Looking at the red line there have been seven low points and I have experienced six of them in my professional work — 1969 to 2008.

    There have been big Regional differences in every one of the national trends so what has happened in the Virginia part of the National Capital Subregion does not exactly track but it is close enough.

    What I said was the TREND To scatteration of urban dwellings started in the late 70s. Perhaps I sould have said around 1976 / 1977 but that is in the latter part of the 70s.

    I was (and am) talking about a trend that has lasted from “the late 70s” until today, even with the drop in starts since 2005 nationally. (You will recall there was no break in his Subregion until late 2006)

    “So, I looked up some facts.”

    Thank you.

    “It looks to me like the housing market (as measured by new starts) just about collapsed between 1978 and 1981.”

    You will recall I was talking about loction, not number.

    “The only worse collapse was … well, now.”

    Actually the graphic is very valuable to demonstrate our concern.

    Look at the difference between the blue (all starts) and the red (1-Unit structures). The trend of scatteration that started in the late 70s exploded in the run up from 1991 to 2006 as demonstrated by lack of seperation between the blue and red lines.

    Hello, Fannie,Freddie and all the other scatteration subsidies.

    There is no way to build Affordable and Accessible dwellings for the bottom half of the economic Ziggurat in single unit buildings for urban citizens with modern conveniences.

    Building such a high percentage of dwellings in 1 unit buildings is “the wrong size house in the wrong location” defined.

    EMR

  25. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    “Look at the difference between the blue (all starts) and the red (1-Unit structures). The trend of scatteration that started in the late 70s exploded in the run up from 1991 to 2006 as demonstrated by lack of seperation between the blue and red lines.”.

    Now that statement fits both the facts and my recollection of things at the time. And…from Wikipedia:

    “The term McMansion first appeared in the San Diego Union-Tribune in 1990[citation needed]; it later appeared in the Los Angeles Times[2] and New York Times in 1998.”.

    That seems about right too. In 1990 the first of the baby boomers were turning 45. They would become the demographic wave that pushed the development of acres and acres of what you call McMansions.

    As to what I was doing in 1979? I was working two jobs while putting myself through college at UVA. I was a waiter and debugged computer programs. In the summer of 1979 I returned to NoVA in hopes of finding construction work for the summer. There was none to be found. So, I returned to Charlottesville and found a job building greenhouses to grow hydroponic tomatoes way out in the countryside. It was there that I met the first bona fide hillbillies I had ever met.

    I also remember driving back and forth from Charlottesville to NoVA. There was no gas in NoVA. The stations were out. But if you had enough to get to Rt 17, you were golden. There was always plenty of gas (an no lines) out in RoVA.

    As for the federal interstate highway system being finished in the mid 1970s – that’s essentially true. However, that system was steadily built up in the decades before the 1970s. The Act was passed in 1956 and the states were soon underway with construction. As time passed, it became clear that the goal of system completion by 1975 would not be achieved. But by 1960, more than 10,000 miles were opened. By 1965, 20,000 miles were opened, and by 1970, 30,000 miles were open to traffic. And by 1980, 40,000 miles were complete. Scatterization must be a very disciplined scourge. It was polite enough to wait until the entire highway system was built rater that begining after the first 10,000 or 20,000 or 30,000 miles.

  26. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “More than a negligible amount of the blame for the mortgage meltdown can be traced back to multiculturalism: government-mandated affirmative-action lending, demographic change, illegal immigration, and the mind-numbing effects of political correctness.

    The chickens have finally come home to roost.

    About half of all mortgages for blacks and Hispanics are subprime, versus roughly one-sixth for whites (see chart above). Not surprisingly, the biggest home price collapses have occurred in heavily Hispanic cities such as Las Vegas, Miami, Phoenix, and Los Angeles.”

    From Carpe Diem

    Maybe there is something besides scatteration at play here.

    RH

  27. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    Groveton:

    You quoted me as saying:

    "Look at the difference between the blue (all starts) and the red (1-Unit structures). The trend of scatteration that started in the late 70s exploded in the run up from 1991 to 2006 as demonstrated by lack of separation between the blue and red lines.".

    And then you said:

    “Now that statement fits both the facts and my recollection of things at the time.

    OK, that point we agree on.

    “And…from Wikipedia:

    "The term McMansion first appeared in the San Diego Union-Tribune in 1990[citation needed]; it later appeared in the Los Angeles Times[2] and New York Times in 1998.".

    “That seems about right too. In 1990 the first of the baby boomers were turning 45. They would become the demographic wave that pushed the development of acres and acres of what you call McMansions.”

    OK there too.

    I did not claim to coin the word “McMansion,” – I may have, but perhaps I was only an early adopter.

    What I did claim and restate is that the settlement pattern into which McMansions fit launched in the late 70s.

    What we now call “McMansions” had to wait for there to be “AOL millionaires” to buy them.

    However, in the late 70s and thru the 80s there were a lot of Too-Big Houses (e.g. the 5 bedroom "Hamilton" model by Ryland) sitting on bare lots with no curtains and no furniture in many of the rooms.

    “As to what I was doing in 1979? I was working two jobs while putting myself through college at UVA. I was a waiter and debugged computer programs. In the summer of 1979 I returned to NoVA in hopes of finding construction work for the summer. There was none to be found. So, I returned to Charlottesville and found a job building greenhouses to grow hydroponic tomatoes way out in the countryside.”

    I like the word you use but it needs a Capital "C" :>)

    “It was there that I met the first bona fide hillbillies I had ever met.”

    You just told us recently that you knew Route 1 well, relocated hillbillies do not count?

    “I also remember driving back and forth from Charlottesville to NoVA. There was no gas in NoVA. The stations were out. But if you had enough to get to Rt 17, you were golden. There was always plenty of gas (an no lines) out in RoVA.”

    This I do not recall. My home and office were Columbia in 1979. I had to drive (a VW Rabbit) to the northern part of Virginia twice or three times a week. I was not a commuter :>) But I do not recall gas lines other than in 1973 / 1974.

    I do not know how I missed what you saw, I had plenty of gas, it was cheap and I wasted a lot of it sitting thru the Beltway widening.

    “As for the federal Interstate highway system being finished in the mid 1970s" – that's essentially true. However, that system was steadily built up in the decades before the 1970s. The Act was passed in 1956 and the states were soon underway with construction.”

    “As time passed, it became clear that the goal of system completion by 1975 would not be achieved. But by 1960, more than 10,000 miles were opened. By 1965, 20,000 miles were opened, and by 1970, 30,000 miles were open to traffic. And by 1980, 40,000 miles were complete.

    Here is where understanding the importance of location and human settlement patterns kicks in.

    Where were the first miles completed? Map it out. Where were the last miles completed? Map it out.

    The parts that were completed in the mid to late 70s were the ones that spurred scatteration.

    The other point that I passed over too quickly is that as the "Original" Interstate system was wrapping up, fed money was available for all those 695s 795s etc., and for state spending on non-Interstate programs that opened new land.

    “Scatterization must be a very disciplined scourge. It was polite enough to wait until the entire highway system was built rater that beginning after the first 10,000 or 20,000 or 30,000 miles.”

    Cute but no cigar. The early miles did not access land that was close enough to jobs and service as did the later miles.

    One thing you did not mention about the late 70s time frame was the change in the regulator environment.

    To summarize:

    When the doldrums of the ‘72 to ‘75 downturn lifted:

    The regulatory context had fundamentally changed inside R=15/20,

    The roadways were there (when did the various stages of I-66 open?)

    The myth that opening R=20 to R=50 land to “economic development” would pay for the services that new residents needed was broadcast near and wide. Check the dates for the plan changes in Eastern Loudoun and Prince William (R=20 to 30)

    There was money for urban infrastructure in non-urban areas, increased tap fees for water and sewer close in, new regulations to prevent septic tanks on small lots closer in …

    The list goes on and on.

    (The above Radii and jurisdiction are for the northern part of Virginia. Variations on these same themes happened in every one of the prosperous New Urban Regions in the US of A.)

    So that should settle the date issue.

    Upon further review, I am concerned that you thought that the data on housing starts (thank you again for providing the link, we will be using it to make our points in the future) in anyway undermined our perspective on human settlement patterns.

    It is also disturbing that you felt this data was enough to excuse you from considering most of the other points I raised in my response to you detailed and lengthy dissection of our sentence.

    You make a number of sound and useful observations on this Blog and it is distressing that it is so hard for you grasp the scope and importance of dysfunctional settlement patterns and the need for Fundamental Transformation.

    I suspect you and others take some stock in the continuing filibuster of one commentor on this Blog. I long ago gave up reading his posts. His attempts to discredit our work are of no concern to me but they infuriate many, especially former graduate students who carried out some of New Urban Region Conceptual Framework research. After a long conversation with one of them this AM, she will be posting a line by line rebuttal to an earlier comment on this post by The Filibuster.

    For those who came in late or may have missed it:

    The Filibuster intentionally insulted and belittled an elderly gentleman in a public forum. This gentleman, so far as I know had never held public office but was considered by many that I respect to be a pillar or the Greater Warrenton-Fauquier Community. After hearing at his funeral of his many contributions to making the world a better place, I felt the least I could do is vow to have nothing further to do with The Filibuster. The shocking thing is that The Filibuster has insulted so many at public session that he has claimed not to even know who this person was.

    EMR

  28. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    The transplanted hillbillies of Rt 1 were no longer hillibillies. While they often lived and trailers and listned to loud God awful country music they had become just another set of NoVA residents trying to make ends meet in a state where laziness is rewarded and hard work mocked. The real hillbillies outside of Charlottesville were much more in line with what I’ve come to expect. I guess they used to make moonshine. However, by 1979, they found growing marijuana to be a more lucrative pursuit. I understand they have subsequently moved on to methamphetimane. Yeah – these “simple mountain people” are the salt of the earth.

    The problem with your concept of funsamental transformation is that it is defined as som immense a problem that it defies any realistic approcah at starting on a solution. One day I’d love to read your 10 year plan (preferably year by year or quarter by quarter) to solve this problem. Even if the problem can’t be solved in 10 years it would be useful to hear what you think could be done.

    As for the Fillibuster – I have no earthly idea what you are talking about. Were you haning out with some of those “simple mountain people” before writing that?

  29. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    At 10:33 PM on Thursday September 25 a person who opens comments as “Anonymous” and sometimes signs off as RH and at times he is referred to as “Ray” posted a number of misleading and unfounded comments.

    He started with a quote from E M Risse:

    IT IS NOT THE EXISTENCE OF LARGE, PRIVATE VEHICLES THAT IS THE PROBLEM, IT IS THE SPACE TO DRIVE AND PARK THEM WHEN THEY ARE THE ONLY SOURCE OF MOBILITY AND ACCESS.

    RH said:

    “I disagree. Large private vehicles are a problem.

    Agreed.

    “The space to drive and park them is not a problem:”

    As Professor Risse has made very clear in “The Problem With Cars” and other work, the basic problem with cars is that they disaggregate human settlement patterns. Note that Risse say “when they are the only source of Mobility and Access.” Cars (Risse calls them Large, Private Vehicles or “Autonomobiles”) can be of use to provide Mobility and Access in some circumstances. However, if all the costs were fairly allocated the sustainable applications of Large, Private Vehicles is minimal and shrinking each day.

    “There is plenty of other space for the vehicles, but we are using that space badly.”

    ‘Space’ is not the issue, functional settlement patterns is the issue.

    When there is space for a car, then there is distance between the places that people need and want to be. People have to park the cars and walk to where they want to go.

    Market data on alternative settlement patterns make it very clear that citizens prefer car-free places with Mobility and Access provided by alternatives to the car, especially when all the costs are fairly allocated. One data point dramatizes the issue: There are over 7 parking space set aside for every car that exists in the US of A. At least six are vacant at all times. As research by Shoup and others demonstrates, if just the cost of parking space was transparently changed to the parker instead of being buried in the cost of goods and services, the use of cars would plummet.

    “it is only that we try to drive so many in the same space.”

    Only one car can be in any one place at any given time.

    “It is true that in many spaces vehicles are the only source of mobility and access, but that is because they are the best and cheapest means.”

    So long as there was cheap fuel, no concern for emissions and massive subsides it was “best and cheapest” for some. It was never “best and cheapest” for all.

    Auto-centric settlement patterns are now uneconomic and unsustainable. (A car is, however, the only way one could get to the land RH repeatedly says he wants to develop for scattered urban housing.)

    “Scattered location is not the problem with housing, nor is failure to pay the full costs. There isn’t even a real problem with the allocation of costs other than schools and public protection.”

    This is the oft repeated mantra of those who do not understand human settlement patterns and who attempt to avoid any acknowledgment of understanding because to do so would undermine the basis of their past decisions and their speculative dreams for the future.

    ————————–

    HUMAN SETTLEMENT PATTERN THAT CANNOT BE SUPPORTED WITHOUT HUGE
    SUBSIDIES.

    “Subsidies are justified to increase a net public benefit.”

    True.

    “When that is the case there is nothing wrong with them, as they only correct a market inefficiency. We have different market inefficiencies in different settlement patterns, and different forms of subsidies to compensate. All of this is done at the public’s request and with the public’s money. Virtually every settlement is subsidized one way or another. Where, exactly is the problem?”

    For starters, it is very clear that the vast majority of the settlement pattern subsides now go to those at the top of the economic food chain. The tax write-off for mortgage interest is just one example.

    Professor Risse would be the first to agree that to have a functional society there will be settlement patterns subsides in part due to past inequities. Not everyone in a functional society can now afford the full cost of the goods, services and facilities that society believes all citizens should enjoy. He argues that the subsides need to be transparent and serve a public need.

    Perhaps he should have said “… huge hidden subsides…” but since RH sees no harm is hiding car subsidies he would probably have a problem with this too.
    The bigger point Professor Risse makes is that contemporary technology driven society is massively expensive. No one is now paying the full cost. We are all living off, as he notes in this post “natural capital, imported energy and loans from foreign investors.” This is unsustainability defined.

    ———————

    RIGHT SIZE AND RIGHT LOCATION WILL STABILIZE SETTLEMENT PATTERNS AND RESULT IN LESS CHURN AND SO THERE WILL BE LESS OPPORTUNITY FOR ALL THE GREED DRIVEN ACTIVITIES

    “Less churn means less opportunity. Is that really what you advocate, less opportunity?”

    This is typical of RH’s demeaning and misleading non sequiturs.

    Social stability, as Risse points out in his chapters on the topic in “The Shape of the Future” will require less, not more speculative churn – the flipping of real estate interests. If the full location-variable cost caused by the churn was fairly allocated that would be a different matter but it is not.

    “There is nothing greedy about acting on an opportunity that works better for you than the current owner, but with out that churn (exchange of information) …”

    Who is talking about information exchange?

    The topic is speculative buying and selling – what Dr. Risse terms “Wild Abandonment” in a 2003 column of that title.

    “… you will come in contact with fewer opportunities. You will be less likely to find one that suits you and more likely to satisfice (?) sub-optimally. This seems a strange way to encourage people to be happy and safe.”

    Another demeaning and objectionable non sequitur.

    ————————-

    I DO NOT KNOW THE DATA ONE WOULD NEED TO ANSWER THE QUESTION ABOUT HOUSE SIZE FOR TYLER, OR ANYONE ELSE. I DO KNOW ABOUT WHAT HAS HAPPENED ON A REGIONAL AND NATION-STATE SCALE VIS A VIS HOUSING SIZE AND LOCATION. THERE IS A LOT OF DATA OF THAT.

    “OK, but where did that data come from?”

    From the settlement patterns that have evolved over the past 50 years as Risse says over and over.

    “It is the aggregate of the decisions made by a lot of people who did have the data they needed to choose a house.”

    Unfortunately, yes.

    “You are saying, once again, that good individual decisions lead to sub-optimal social conditions.”

    No. I suspect the way he would put it is that ‘the cumulative impact of well-intended, but badly informed, decisions is dysfunctional human settlement patterns.’

    “… therefore people should subjugate their knowledge and their decisions about their happiness to obtain (hopefully) a social condition that is sufficiently better to offset their loss of personal condition.”

    Did RH mean something with these words?

    “In other words, they should offer up a huge personal subsidy to the community.”

    Ditto

    ————————-

    YOU DO NOT RECALL CORRECTLY.

    “I believe Groveton’s statement is accurate.”

    Professor Risse has cleared up the “late 70s” issue with the help of Groveton’s data in his later comment.

    “I don’t ever recall having heard anyone blame a housing slump on the OPEC embargo.”

    No one mentioned this relationship in the prior comments but in fact the OPEC Embargo did trigger an economic recession (including a housing slump) after Oct 1973. We ha
    ve never seen an informed observer that suggests otherwise.

    More important this is typical of RH’s argumentative bombast that does not contribute to understanding human settlement patterns.

    “I bought my first home around Oct. of 1973, and I recall no problem with that. I do recall I had a struggle keeping it, what with stagflation, etc. Things did straighten out by the late 70’s but I recall it as being very late, like 1979 and beyond.”

    Is this relevant?

    “There are probably two partially correct but unrelated visions here.”

    Says the superior overseer of visions?

    ————————–

    “Five acre lots in the Occoquan were the result of a desire for racial and economic separation as much as they were for a better environment. The environment made a good cover story.”

    Many would agree with this but so what? It does not contradict Professor Risse’s point. The net result of the Occoquan down zoning was to push residential development farther from jobs and services (and did not protect the water quality).

    “Bang. Across the country in the “late 70s” the boomers were old enough to buy homes, lots of homes. Until then there were huge numbers of people under-housed: living in dorms, shared apartments, and military barracks.”

    And this means what in the context of the post by Risse?

    —————————-

    COMPLETION OF THE INTERSTATE AND DEFENSE HIGHWAY SYSTEM AND THE SHIFTING TO FEDERAL AID FOR NEW RADIALS AND CIRCUMFERENTIALS FOR STARTERS.

    “Nonsense.”

    To RH perhaps, not to those who know the facts.

    “Those roads were never intended as housing subsidies.”

    And on what information do does RH base this assertion? Many would disagree with RH on the issue of “intent,” almost no one would agree with RH on the issue of “impact.”

    “They were republican inventions…”

    What is “they” the Interstate Highway system? The first comprehensive InterRegional roadway plan was developed during republican administrations – Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge – but the history, causes and effects of InterRegional roadways are far more complex than this suggests.

    “… intended as subsidies to businesses. Businesses which once operated satisfactorily in city centers …”

    What are “city centers”?

    “… became over-concentrated there as business grew.”

    This is a novel theory, on what does RH base it? As Professor Risse points out, there is today far more vacant and underutilized land inside R=20 for all the projected growth to the year 2050 if it were developed in Balanced Alpha Communities.

    “Housing in city centers was undesirable, unsafe and expensive.”

    Has RH read Jane Jacobs?

    “The market responded appropriately, and the roads built to expand business now needed to support the housing business required.”

    Is RH sure this is what he / she meant to say? If so, what does it mean?

    “There may have been bad planning involved, but it was the opposite from what you claim.”

    Opposite of what?

    “All of your other so-called subsidies were demanded and paid for by the citizenry.”

    RH demonstrates over and over that he has no clue about unfair allocation of the costs and benefits.

    ——————————

    I AM NOT SURE WHAT THIS MEANS?

    “Sure you do.”

    Show a little respect, please. Professor Risse has spent his life working on this issue. If he say he is not sure but RH thinks he / she does, perhaps it is RH that is wrong. It is pretty clear from the context of the comment that Groveton mixed up IntraRegional transfers with location-variable costs.

    “It is probably one reason you moved out of Fairfax.”

    This pseudo familiar chumminess is inappropriate since RH has demonstrated over and over he / she has no idea what Professor Risse is talking about.

    “Fairfax County pays for more than its citizens consume and everyone else benefits.”

    This sentence makes no sense.

    “Same goes for farms. Everyone loves them for what they can get and no one wants to support them (Fairfax or Farms).

    Ditto

    “If there is a failure to pay full locational costs, it is a lot different than what you describe.”

    If RH demonstrated some threshold understanding of what Professor Risse describes, RH’s assertions might have some credibility.

    ——————————-

    NOW GO DOWN TO RESTON AND PICK ANY 10 DU AC CLUSTER OF SINGLE HOUSEHOLD ATTACHED DWELLINGS AND MAKE THE SAME CALCULATION.

    “I can practically guarantee you are wrong on this.”

    Now RH is not attacking Professor Risse, he is attacking me and others who actually have done the calculations and it makes me mad.

    All this statement does is prove RH has no idea what he is talking about. Risse developed a strategy to compare apples with apples in human settlement patterns based on the organic components of human settlement. He, and those with whom he worked, articulated five Natural Laws of Human Settlement based on what was actually built since World War II. The two rules applied here are the U Shaped Curve Rule and the 10 X Rule. They are spelled out in detail in “The Shape of the Future.”

    “Compact infrastructure is far more expensive to design, construct and maintain.”

    True in the abstract but RH is lost in scale. According to the U Shaped Curve the sweet spot when we did the calculations was around 10 persons per acre at the Alpha Community scale. As Professor Risse has pointed out, with rising energy costs that number will go up.

    “And it is more congested, …”

    “Congestion” is a function of lack of Balance, not intensity of use.

    “… so you do not get the same value for what you pay. As you describe it, it makes a nice argument, but it is flat wrong.”

    All one needs to do is run the calculations and see who is “wrong.”

    “Not only is it wrong, but it isn’t even calculated correctly, as you describe it.”
    Professor Risse has planned and supervised the engineering and construction of settlement where over 50,000 people now live and RH suggests he does not know how to calculate infrastructure costs?

    AND THERE ARE 40 +/- MORE TO FIGURE OUT

    “We have settled that previously, …”

    Who is “we?” I checked with Dr. Risse on this specifically. RH has pontificated and filibustered but not produced a single number based on actual analysis of real places – at least not before he stopped bothering to read the RH rants.

    If one understand the land development process, generating the numbers is not hard. If RH does not, it is best to hold their tongue.

    “and yet you persist in making this outrageous claim.”

    Look in the mirror for the one making “outrageous” claims.

    I know for a fact that the calculations upon which The Five Natural Laws of Human Settlement Pattern were derived are based on actual costs. The important thing is that once reduced to functional relationships, these laws have been proved to reflect actual settlement pattern parameters from Region to Region and from nation-state to nation-state.

    “Most of those are private services, and they make their own rate structures, and they are subject to competition to keep them honest.”

    The context is far more complex than this statement suggests. In fact, there are state and federal regulations that require flat rates even when the costs obviously vary by location.

    “I’ll give you this. Not every cost is figured out to the foot. There is a reason for that: it isn’t worth the effort.”

    No, it is worth the effort and it has been done.

    The reason that location-variable costs are not yet widely recognized as an important parameter is
    that those who profit from business as usual see no reason to contribute to citizen understandings that support the need for Fundamental Transformation.

    RH’s continued filibustering raises a larger issue. Citizens are welcome to their opinions and observations. But RH acts as if these views re grounds to belittle and discount the work of Risse and others without ever doing the calculations.

    This is a basic problem with evolving functional human settlement patterns. Everyone lives is human settlement patterns and everyone’s actions impact settlement patterns. Therefore everyone thinks they understand settlement patterns and most are offended by the suggestion that what they have done or are doing contributes to collective dysfunction.

    Risse has drafted land use controls now in effect covering 7,000,000 acres, in at least 15 states in areas where millions of citizens live. He has served on commissions, boards and committees responsible for implementing land use controls. Yet RH – in another post – suggest his / her view of development of one street with different size lots on each side is grounds to dispute validity of a community-wide parameter of settlement pattern.

    In a similar vein Groveton thought the number of housing starts per year had something to do with a settlement pattern trend that spanned four decades.

    In both cases it is the difference between one person having a broken finger nail and half a million people suffering from a newly discovered drug resistant strain of avian conjunctivitis.

    RH’s ranting is akin to shouting fire in a crowed theater with all the doors barred.

  30. Larry G Avatar
    Larry G

    re: "The number of "commuters" in a Balanced Community is so small as to not need to "differentiate" them."

    I might misunderstand but this sounds like this the paradigm associated with balanced communities treats ALL commuting – whether it be done by large private vehicles or commuter rail & bus as dysfunctional.

    From a sustainability point of view – it might be that ultimately commuting in large private vehicles might become just too expensive for most people… but what about commuting on public multi-passenger vehicles?

    What about subways?

    Is New York City a balanced community or not?

    Is it's subway system and commuter rail integral to it's success as a balanced community or is it an impediment and a contributor to dysfunctionality?

    What I'm trying to get to the bottom of is the USE of public transit – for commuting – which as far as I can tell is present in virtually all urbanized areas and appears to be to be absolutely necessary to be able to move the workforce.

    EMR cannot have it both ways.

    Can an advocate of balanced communities be in favor of public transportation – as part of balanced communities but be opposed to it being used for commuting?

    Ray and EMR actually have some things in common.

    Both of them apparently believe that advances in efficiencies are not possible – that increased consumption is inevitable.

    There apparently is no room for the possibility that increased efficiency plays a role.

    It may not be sustainable for people to continue to commute 50 miles a day in a large private vehicle but what makes it an impossibility for those same commuters to "commute" on 50 passenger buses or 1000 passenger commuter rail?

    If you are one who believes that balanced communities have very few commuters…. how can we explain places like New York City?

  31. Larry G Avatar
    Larry G

    re: “Every bailout and every recovery that relies on buying more Large, Private Vehicles and more Wrong-Size Dwellings in the wrong location makes the prospect of a sustainable future less likely.”

    What about large public transport vehicles to move people from their work to their “wrong location” dwellings?

    Is that a sustainable option?

  32. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “(A car is, however, the only way one could get to the land RH repeatedly says he wants to develop for scattered urban housing.)”

    Like you said “When you don’t know what you are talking about….”

    Actually, my land is close by the local and now defunct train station. My wife’s father used to ride his horse to the train station and commute to school. Ironically, he may have been partially responsible for the trains demise: he was founder of what is now the oldest Ford dealer in the state.

    I have no desire to develop my land, but I do not wish to have that ability arbitrarily controlled by others. Those that wish me to own land to be operated for their benefit should expect to pay for what they get: it is a fair allocation of costs that I’m looking for.

    At present the land is zoned only for agriculture, and agriculture is narrowly defined.

    In order to make an income of $74,000 for mamily living expenses, not counting farm operating expenses, you would need 928 acres in corn and soybean rotation, over 10,000 hogs, 948 head of beef cattle, or 127 dairy cows. For my average size farm, animal densities such as that are effectively prohibited under zoning regulations.

    In this county it would take around $5.6 million in “farmland” to make $74,000. Thats an ROI of 1.3% not counting the cost of the farm infrastructure and equipment.
    That’s why almost all farms such as mine are part time operations.

    The next move will be to prohibit farming operations within 400 feet of the floodplains. At that point we will have come perilously close to taking substantially all the value out of the land, and a real taking will have occured.

    As long as farms are paying $2 in taxes for every dollar in services, it isn’t the land use that is dysfunctional, it is the tax structure. Dr. Risses “10X rule” and “natural laws” are pure fabrications with zero provable calculations to back them up. When we do figure out what the full alloction of costs should be, it will be far different from what Dr. Risse envisions, and for all the reasons that TMT and others have stated.

    It isn’t my figures that say that autos and trucks are the best and most efficient system we have, they come from noted economists. And I beleive that system can be improved, but not with the fanciful and economically impossible nonsense promted by Dr. Risse. It is he who is ranting, and he who refuses to see what is around him.

    Let’s face it, Metro is asking for $11 billion for maintenance, twice what was needed last year.

    Most of that money will be paid by motorists.

    RH

  33. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Risse has not it clear at all that the basic problem with cars is that they disaggregate human settlement patterns.

    As he points out: “People have to park the cars and walk to where they want to go.” So without the cars, they cannot get to the portion of their journey that is walkable. Or even trainable. Metro is the largest provider of parking spaces in the metro region.

    Functional settlement patterns is directly and issue of the use of space. Autos are the most efficient technology we have, and functional settlement patterns need to provide space for the best technologies.

    “When there is space for a car, then there is distance between the places that people need and want to be.” Well, duh. And there is distance between the places that people need to be without the car, always has been, always will be. Don’t blame distance on the car.

    “Market data on alternative settlement patterns make it very clear that citizens prefer car-free places with Mobility and Access provided by alternatives to the car, especially when all the costs are fairly allocated.”

    I’m sorry, there is simply no polite way to characterize this as other than an outright lie. It is simply not true.

    “There are over 7 parking space set aside for every car that exists in the US of A. At least six are vacant at all times.” So what? What is the point of going someplace if you cannot stop when you get there. The same thing is true for buses, trains, airplanes and donkey carts. Functional settlement patterns wouydl recognize this truth and plan for it.

    “As research by Shoup and others demonstrates, if just the cost of parking space was transparently changed to the parker instead of being buried in the cost of goods and services, the use of cars would plummet.” Why do we care how the parking spaces are paid for? Isn’t this EXACTLY the reason vendors do NOT charge for parking? Because they know it will reduce their business? The real argument here is that Dr. Risse thinks we need fewer people consuming less stuff. Charging for parking will mean less car use AND less stuff bought. From his point of view it’s a Twofer.

    Of course, after you put all those people out of business, there will be a lot more space between where people are and where they want to be.

    “Only one car can be in any one place at any given time.” And a functional settlement pattern would plan accordingly.

    “So long as there was cheap fuel, no concern for emissions and massive subsides it was “best and cheapest” for some. It was never “best and cheapest” for all.”

    Again, simply not true, a complete falsehood and fabrication from beginning to end. This isn’t about fuel or emissions, it is about total system costs and total system benefits. Fuel, emissions, and subsidies are only part of that equation, one Dr. Risse has failed to formulate, let alone solve.

    “Auto-centric settlement patterns are now uneconomic and unsustainable.” Maybe, but it is still the best technology we have, all the others are even less sustainable and require even higher subsidies. Nice aphorism though, even if it is false.

    —————————–

    “This is the oft repeated mantra of those who do not understand human settlement patterns and who attempt to avoid any acknowledgment of understanding because to do so would undermine the basis of their past decisions and their speculative dreams for the future.”

    Pure ad hominem. Well, when you don’t have a real argument, call your opponent an idiot, unpatriotic, and selfish: that will get you a lot of friends and converts.

    —————————-

    “Subsidies are justified to increase a net public benefit.”

    True.

    Well, now we at least agree. Except for who is getting the subsidies. I too would argue that subsidies need to be transparent, and so should the value of the public benefit. I would not object to a cap on mortgage interest deductions, as a percentage of income.

    —————————–

    “The bigger point Professor Risse makes is that contemporary technology driven society is massively expensive. No one is now paying the full cost. We are all living off, as he notes in this post “natural capital, imported energy and loans from foreign investors.” This is unsustainability defined.”

    Well, if that is the case then the jig is truly up, and it will be up in the most densely populated places first. It is a pretty strong argument against what you think is fairly allocated costs. Look at it this way, when was the last time you saw a plan to evacualte the coutryside TO the urban areas in a crisis?

    RH

  34. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “Both of them apparently believe that advances in efficiencies are not possible – that increased consumption is inevitable.”

    Increased efficiency does not necessarily lead to decreased consumption. In fact, it is just the opposite. Increased efficiency means you get more for what you spend, therefore it behooves you to spend the same amount and get more of what you want. The result of that is more consumption, not less. It is called the Jevon paradox.

    Consider oil. Once it comes out of the ground, it will get sold. If we gain in efficiency, we use less and the price goes down. That opens an opportunity for someone else, who otherwise would be priced out of the market. At the same time, the lower price means that less will be produced, leading to somewhat higher prices. The new balance point may save energy, and yet cost more: the efficiency you gained in use, you lost in production.

    Then you have India, China, and Africa to consider. Not to mention South America.

    Increased consumption appers to be inevitable until, as Dr. Risse puts it, we have fewer people consuming less.

    So my questions are quite simple: Who is the demagogue that is going to tie the bell on that cat? How can we convince ourselves that this will make “everyone” better off?

    RH

  35. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    From a sustainability point of view – it might be that ultimately commuting in large private vehicles might become just too expensive for most people… but what about commuting on public multi-passenger vehicles?

    What about large public transport vehicles to move people from their work to their “wrong location” dwellings?

    —————————-

    Larry, you are entirely missing the point. Large public transport vehicles are no more efficient than private vehicles, in actual practice. Theoretically they are more efficient, but actually they don’t even come close.

    And, they satisfy only a part of the the transportation demand. Only 20% of travel is related to commuting. The other 80% cars and trucks can handle far better and cheaper and more conveniently than mass transit. There is a reason that social service agencies have programs to provide poor inner city residents with servicable autos: it increases their available opportunities by providing more mobility and more access.

    So, if you were going to design a place from scratch, you would design it to provide the best possible service to the most efficient overall transportation: motor vehicles.

    You would avoid from the beginning getting yourself into a job density paradigm that cannot be supported by the car OR you would design your mass transit to jobs so that it is most easily reached by car.

    I don’t see much point in designing building and maintaining two systems when one does the job so well except in a few dysfunctional job centers. Particularly if you are going to send the bill to motorists anyway.

    RH

  36. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “Benefit-cost analysis is required for many regulatory decisions in the United States and many other countries. In this paper, Robert Hahn examines a standard textbook model that is used in benefit-cost analysis as it is actually applied. His primary objective is to suggest how including other key factors in the analysis could promote the development of smarter regulation.

    The author begins by presenting a standard economic model for government intervention in markets, which balances benefits and a narrow definition of costs. Hahn then introduces a richer normative theory that considers several political and economic factors that are frequently not considered in analyzing real-world applications. Examples include costs associated with rent seeking, design and implementation, and raising revenues. The richer theory suggests that the government should supply less of a good, or ask the private sector to provide less of that good, than the standard economic model suggests. The reason is that intervening in markets is often more costly than the standard model assumes. In special cases, the theory provides guidance on the setting of socially optimal taxes and subsidies.”

    http://www.aei-brookings.org/publications/abstract.php?pid=1288

    This is pretty much what I have been arguing all along: our cost benefit analysies are all screwed up.

    Especially EMR’s.

    He argues that the mortgage subsidy is greatly slanted to those on the upper income scale. Well, right, the ones on the bottom cannot afford a home, as we have just seen. Our efforts to get them into homes, backfired grandly.

    EMR claims to be a proponent of free markets, but then he says ‘the cumulative impact of well-intended, but badly informed, decisions is dysfunctional human settlement patterns.’ He apparently believes that information to make good decisions is critical to properly executing markets, and yet he berates my comment that information exchange, churn, and the opportunity to profit are critcal market conditions.

    He says Social stability, will require less, not more speculative churn – the flipping of real estate interests. If the full location-variable cost caused by the churn was fairly allocated that would be a different matter but it is not.

    Says the superior overseer of fairly allocated costs?

    RH

  37. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    ““Compact infrastructure is far more expensive to design, construct and maintain.”

    True in the abstract but RH is lost in scale. According to the U Shaped Curve the sweet spot when we did the calculations was around 10 persons per acre.”

    Well, then we agree, places with more than 10 persons per gross acre should be dispersed to other places and no restrictions should be placed on development that meets that criteria, jobs included.

    It still sounds like junky, crowded quarter acre lots, or garden apartments interspesed with open space, etc. I’ll agree there are lots of design ways to get there, but there aren’t many that many people really aspire to.

    My argument would be that 10 persons per acre is not sustainable without substantial outside inputs (read subsidies from the countryside). I don’t have any problem with that, but it means that those in the countryside need to be adequately compensated for what they provide:

    You know, fair allocation of costs, and all that.

    RH

  38. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “In fact, there are state and federal regulations that require flat rates even when the costs obviously vary by location. “

    Not for private services, which are most of your 40 plus. Where flat rates are required, they are required for a reason, and there was plenty of time for input on the state and local regulations.

    You keep getting hung up on this, when the real issus is how to get the most good to the most people for the least cost. That may or may not have anything to do with true locational costs, and our ability to endure and pay for the required accounting.

    You might know a little about running sewers and streetlights, but you apparently know nothing about calculating the total systems costs or the trade-offs involved.

    For example.

    ““Congestion” is a function of lack of Balance, not intensity of use.”

    This is flat out wrong, not only in human settlement and transportation issues, but in any physical or electronic regime you can postulate. Proper balance gets you more throughput, but only to a point.

    And then you ask for a little respect, please.

    Sorry, you get respect from me when you earn it, PhD or no. All it takes is consistent logical arguments, backed up with verifiable facts. What I see is cicular logic, bombast, spin, ad hominem attacks, and appeal to emotions. All the cheap tricks of bad argumentation.

    So don’t tell me in one breath that you favor properly educated free markets, and tell me in the next that you drafted land use controls now in effect covering 7,000,000 acres, in at least 15 states in areas where millions of citizens live.

    Oh yeah, add self aggrandizement to the list of cheap logical tricks.

    RH

  39. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “Satisficing (a portmanteau of “satisfy” and “suffice”) is a decision-making strategy which attempts to meet criteria for adequacy, rather than to identify an optimal solution. A satisficing strategy may often be (near) optimal if the costs of the decision-making process itself, such as the cost of obtaining complete information, are considered in the outcome calculus.

    The word satisfice was coined by Herbert Simon. He pointed out that human beings lack the cognitive resources to maximize: we usually do not know the relevant probabilities of outcomes, we can rarely evaluate all outcomes with sufficient precision, and our memories are weak and unreliable. A more realistic approach to rationality takes into account these limitations: This is called bounded rationality.”

    Wikipedia

    You may have heard me argue that A satisficing strategy (what people most often decide on their oen behalf) may often be (near) optimal when the transaction costs are considered.

    In a social or societal context, if the costs of the decision-making process itself, such as the cost of obtaining complete information, are considered in the outcome calculus, it may very well be a better solution to ignore all the detailed costs (such as exact locational costs, or who drives how much) and just split the tab. While this may result in subsidies for some and costs for others, the net social benefit is still positive.

    Some of EMR’s arguments are technically correct, but they violate the priciples of bounded rationality.

    RH

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