Out of Control

In theory, it could happen. Here’s Otis White:

[T]here’s no reason cities couldn’t have taxes as low as, or maybe even lower than, their suburbs. After all, most have ample tax bases (all those skyscrapers and other commercial areas) and fewer children per 1,000 population to educate. That they don’t have lower taxes is usually attributed to two factors: a needier population (although with gentrification this is changing somewhat) and more difficult municipal worker unions. But there’s another reason: In the past, big cities haven’t tried very hard to be efficient.

He points to New York’s Michael Bloomberg as a mayor who is applying some CEO know-how to city government in hopes of making it more efficient. His approach is a simple one—measure government’s performance.

There’s even a report that attempts to do this. It notes, for example, that

New York’s transportation department filled 190,626 potholes in 2004, up sharply from 101,280 in 2002, and that it now repairs 96 percent of potholes within 30 days of notification. You’ll also learn that autopsy reports are being completed faster (72 percent are issued within 90 days of the autopsy, up from 67 percent in 2002) but that death certificates are dawdling a bit (89 percent are issued within four hours of an autopsy, down from 93 percent in 2002 — and well below the goal of 95 percent).

OK, so score one for Big Apple efficiency, but take a step back and efficiency doesn’t look so good:

City-funded operating expenditures under the newly adopted 2005 budget were slated to increase by a record $3.1 billion, or nearly 10 percent, according to projections in the June financial plan. Excluding federal and state grants, the cost of running city government is growing from $31.9 billion to $35 billion.

If this trend remains unchanged, the overall increase in city-funded expenses during Michael Bloomberg’s first three years as mayor will reach 21 percent - more than double the inflation rate. Relative to New Yorkers’ personal income, this measure of spending will reach its highest level in more than a decade.

That’s how this article from The Economist (via Peter Gordon) describes eminent domain.

Len has been all over the New London case.

Earlier I noted that New York would be site of the biggest big-box brawl yet.

Like Mike Tyson fights from years ago, this one was over almost before it began:

Facing intense opposition, a large real estate developer has dropped its plans to include a Wal-Mart store in a Queens shopping complex, thwarting Wal-Mart's plan to open its first store in New York City, city officials and real estate executives said yesterday.

The decision by the developer, Vornado Realty Trust, is a blow to Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, and comes after company officials said that New York City was an important new frontier in which Wal-Mart was eager to expand ...

[O]ne executive briefed on the talks between Vornado and Wal-Mart said Vornado had concluded that keeping Wal-Mart would jeopardize the city's approval of a large, ambitious project that included other stores and two 25-story apartment towers.

"There were people who felt it was a major risk for the project," said the executive, who asked not to be identified in order not to anger either side.

Flashback to Inglewood, where WM also went down to defeat.

This Sunday night just wait till Leonardo DiCaprio rolls up to the red carpet in his Prius. Those waiting lists for hybrids will get even longer.

So why are politicos spending so much time passing special perks for hybrids?

Check out my reasononline article.

Welcomes the Montana state legislature.

Lawmakers there are considering a tax on big box retailers to offset welfare costs for low-paid employees:

The measure would impose a 1 percent tax on stores with more than $20 million in sales. It would rise to 1.5 percent for more than $30 million and 2 percent for sales of more than $40 million.

Then again a common alternative to low wage employment is, well, unemployment. My hunch is that those who have a job, even if the pay isn’t great, impose less welfare cost on the rest of us than the unemployed.

Montana might now have more opportunity to examine the effects of unemployment since the bill

has irked retailers and prompted Costco to postpone plans to build a larger store in Kalispell, population 13,000, in the northwest corner of the state.

"We're waiting to see how the legislation shakes out," said Doug Schutt, head of operations for Costco's northern division. "The bill singles out retailers, and we think that's unfair."

These legislators do seem to be jumping on the hate-the-big-box bandwagon.

Fast food restaurants don’t pay that well. Neither do movie theatres. And lots of these establishments are run by big corporations. Why not target these cash cows?

I don’t want to give them any new ideas, but If we’re going to slip into Orwellian rhetoric where job creators are welfare leeches, fast food joints and theaters would seem to be fair game, too.

But this is more about following fads, and right now bearing down on big boxes is the thing to do. It’s probably even more about government greed.

After all:

The tax would apply to 160 stores, accounting for about half the state's total retail activity, and funnel about $20 million a year to state coffers…

That's a pretty penny to a small state like Montana.

After years of declining influence in the retail sector, the regional shopping mall fights back:

For years the retail pie has been getting divvied up into smaller slivers. It used to be that there were only two big slices: regional malls and strip centers. But then came outlet malls. Power centers followed. And most recently, lifestyle and town centers have been the hot properties. This has produced conundrums for owners of major regional malls. They've ceded entire retail categories — pet supplies and furniture, for example — to other formats. And it has become exceedingly difficult to erect a plain vanilla shell anywhere in the U.S.

So the big developers, such as Simon Property Group and General Growth Properties, have come up with a new way to spice up their offerings. They're trying to build the best of all worlds, creating massive hybrid centers, or “power towns,” as one-stop destinations. Several current projects — some completed, some under development — include spruced-up regional malls, lifestyle and power centers all on one master-planned site. A hybrid center fits somewhere between lifestyle centers and even more ambitious mixed-use properties.

Read the article here. Perhaps I'm behind the curve or jargon-challenged, but I was having a hard time visualizing what exactly a "hybrid center" was until I read this:

General Growth's Jordan Creek embodies the broad scope of the new hybrid. It cost $200 million, provides 200 acres of retail, dining, entertainment and recreation, and single-handedly makes Iowa more competitive against competing destinations. General Growth CEO John Bucksbaum projects that in 2005 the center will recapture more than $82 million from Iowans who previously trekked to Minneapolis, Chicago and Kansas City to shop.

. . . .

Jordan Creek is a three-part project that incorporates a two-level “shopping district” that houses such retailers as Williams-Sonoma and Ann Taylor as well as a Century Theatres movie complex with 20 screens, the largest in Iowa; a “village district” populated by specialty and big-box retailers, including Iowa's first Costco; and a “lake district” featuring a 3.5-acre lake surrounded by bike trails and a boardwalk featuring waterfront dining, along with an amphitheater and hotel.

The innovation spurred by commerce and its response to changing consumer preferences never ceases to amaze me.

Ten years ago I would have never imagined that someone could drive to one location, have a coffee at Barnes & Noble, pick up some drill bits at Home Depot, hit some bike trails and picnic by a lake, catch a matinee, browse cookwear at Williams-Sonoma, grab a sandwich at a boardwalk bistro, and stroll over to a symphony performance in the ampitheater.

And there's an important benefit of this innovation. While not every dying mall will be ripe for retrofit, the emerging "hybrid center" concept is likely to be a major shot in the arm for the struggling regional mall sector and may help to allay fears of the mass extinction of malls and concerns about what to do with the empty shells.

Just another example of inexhaustable human ability to find new uses for old things...

(Hat tip: Planetizen)

For all of the climate geeks out there, Derek Kelly's piece today in Asia Times Online has a really handy chronology of global climate change over the last 15,000 years. When you think of things on a geologic time scale (even an extrememly abbreviated one of 15,000 years), it's amazing how silly the whole global warming scare becomes.

The above chronology of recent (geologically speaking) climate changes should place global-warming catastrophists (such as those who developed the Kyoto treaty) in an awkward position. Their fundamental assumption is that Earth's climate was stable and was doing just fine before the Industrial Revolution started interfering with climate's "natural" state. It is the Industrial Revolution, and in particular the use of fossil-fuel-burning machines, that has led us to the brink of environmental catastrophe due to global warming caused by increasing amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere.

But it is plain to see that both warming and cooling occurred numerous times before the Industrial Revolution. Similarly, all the dire predictions of global-warming consequences - sea-level rise, for example - have happened in the past...

Read the whole thing.

New research showing that hydroelectric power ain't as green as you might have thought.

Hydroelectric dams produce significant amounts of carbon dioxide and methane, and in some cases produce more of these greenhouse gases than power plants running on fossil fuels.

Tech Central Station's Craig Winneker comments on Europe's reaction to the official birth of the Kyoto Protocol in the aptly titled, "Kyotophilia":

Several deep, cleansing breaths have been necessary in the face of what can only be described as the religious fervor that greeted the coming of Kyoto in Europe's bureaucratic and political circles. It was practically a new EU holiday. Vigils were held, ribbon-cuttings performed, commemorative paraphernalia distributed, hosannas sung. The only thing missing was some sort of lofty anthem.

All this is strange, given that even Kyoto's most fervent apostles admit, when forced, that it will do little if anything to reverse global warming trends and will, instead, have a chilling effect on Europe's already frigid economy. But you wouldn't know that from the public reaction -- especially in the press -- to what quickly became known as "Kyoto Day."

On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in the eagerly-anticipated Kelo vs. New London eminent domain case. By most accounts, the tone of the hearing left the impression that the Court was unlikely to step in and overturn precedent, much to the delight of those backing the city's pro-eminent domain position. Property-rights advocates will likely have to regroup and fight another day.

According to the New York Times:

The justices were not unsympathetic to the homeowners' plight, but several said they saw no way of adopting Mr. Bullock's position without overturning decades of precedents that had endorsed the use of eminent domain for slum clearance, rail lines and public utilities. "The rationale for this is essentially the rationale for the railroads, the public utilities, and so on: there isn't another practical way to do it," Justice David H. Souter said.

Reason's own Sam Staley offered this response:

"The Supreme Court may not want to overturn its previous rulings, but it needs to protect the homeowners here. If a city is allowed to take property just because it can make more money by giving it to someone else, the deed to your home or land won't be worth the paper it's printed on. New London's attorneys showed what a slippery slope this is when they admitted they'd condemn a Motel 6 and give the land to the Ritz Carlton if they could. When property rights are meaningless, the government can and will go after you, Motel 6 and anybody else that stands between it and more revenue."

Sam also notes that the Institute for Justice (the law firm representing the property owners) asked the Court for what seems like a very reasonable restraint on the power of eminent domain: requiring that the benefits from economic development projects be "reasonably foreseeable." This would require cities to establish some baseline standards to demonstrate that the economic benefits are likely to come about. This would be far from the victory that property-rights advocates are seeking, but it would at least place some boundaries around the eminent domain power and likely stave off the most egregious condemnation cases.

We'll have to wait and see what happens this summer when the Court's decision is rendered. In the meantime, the blog world has been weighing in on the Kelo hearing. Here's a sampling:

• New London = Old Moscow from Professor Bainbridge (more from the Prof here).
• JurisPundit doesn't think things look as bad for the Kelo plantiffs as reports would suggest.
• One of the writers at Ex Post takes the temperature of the Court and opines that the Court probably wouldn't have taken the case had there not been a potential to narrow the boundaries established in previous eminent domain cases.
• Marty Lederman at SCOTUSBlog isn't betting on the homeowners' side, but finds a silver lining: that this case may open the door to reconsidering the traditional measures of just compensation under the Fifth Amendment.
• Orin Kerr at the Volokh Conspiracy poses a "simple" question about the Takings Clause, though judging by the comments the answer isn't that clear cut.
• Pejman Yousefzadeh weighs in on Kelo and outlines a framework for legislation to curb the abuse of eminent domain.

UPDATE: David Sucher at City Comforts Blog makes an interesting suggestion:

I'll suggest a solution, (sorry about the legal code words) which cuts through a lot of issues in eminent domain and zoning both. It is pretty simple. Extend to property rights the protections (to some degree) given to civil rights and liberties when faced with governmental intrusion -- i.e. some sort of "least intrusive means" test.

While government can interfere with your rights when it comes to limiting, say, free speech because of some conflict with, say, public safety in a theater. But govt. must tailor (and that is the word commonly used) the remedy to the "least intrusive means" of solving the specific problem while preserving as much of the underlying civil right/liberty as possible.

SCOTUS long ago moved away from such a limitation on government power and gave great deference to legislative authority when it comes to regulating property rights. "Public policy is what we say it is." This is an apt time to reconsider that balance and nudge things back in the other direction. The problems we face in land use these days do not stem from lack of governmental power but simply from

1. fundamental disagreements about how society should be formed and
2. insufficient human wisdom.

More regulatory power solves neither problem.

That last thought is powerful and one to savor.

Education Week has a nice summary of all of the school choice plans and proposals in state legislatures across th US.

Mark it down: 2005 may be a banner year for private school choice in state legislatures.

Meanwhile, Wisconsin and Ohio lawmakers are studying expansions of their well-known school voucher programs. The Texas legislature is considering a limited voucher proposal. Other plans are brewing in Indiana, Minnesota, and Missouri.

Read on for the details about each state plan.

Governor Jeb Bush is at it again. His new education package proposes perhaps the best school voucher model for failing students ever. (that is besides a full-scale voucher or tax credit program that every student was eligible for). More than 170,000 Florida students have flunked the state's reading test three years in a row, a record that Gov. Jeb Bush thinks should qualify them for a voucher to a private school.

His "Reading Compact Scholarship" is part of a broad new education package that Bush presented Wednesday. It would give a taxpayer-funded voucher to any student who scores at the lowest level on the reading portion of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test for three consecutive years.

The program would dramatically increase the size of Florida's voucher efforts. About 25,000 students receive vouchers under one of the state's three programs. If Bush's estimate is correct, his proposal would increase the number of recipients by 40 percent.

I like this program because it is truly a voucher program that targets the children who are being ill-served by the public school system. A student at an A school that scores low on the FCAT would still be eligible for a voucher.

Florida has yet another example of extreme punishment for what seems a minor offense. Zero tolerance laws are like landing on the "Go Directly to Jail" square on the Monopoly board--except there is never a get out of jail free card.

A 13-year-old student in Orange County, Fla., was suspended for 10 days and could be banned from school over an alleged assault with a rubber band, according to a WKMG Local 6 News report.

Rojas said she was shocked to learn that her son was being punished for a Level 4 offense -- the highest Level at the school. Other violations that also receive level 4 punishment include arson, assault and battery, bomb threats and explosives, according to the Code of Student Conduct.

Long gone are the days portrayed in the classic high school film, The Breakfast Club, where high schoolers spent Saturday in detention for much more serious offenses then tossing or even shooting a rubber band on to a teacher's desk. Check out the picture at the link above, the rubber band looks very lightweight and not even substantial for a rubber band.

In his latest Surface Transportation Newsletter (which will be on our home site soon), Bob Poole brings up the often-confused issue of transportation subsidies:

I was on an hour-long NPR affiliate radio talk show on Amtrak last week, and was appalled to hear the director of a transportation think tank claim that highways and airlines get more federal subsidies than Amtrak. This was either unconscionable ignorance or deliberate deception.

What many people do in such debates is a semantic sleight-of-hand. They equate the number of federal dollars spent with the amount of federal subsidy. What this ignores is that the users of airlines and highways pay user taxes that are restricted by law to paying for the infrastructure those transportation modes use. Amtrak users pay no such user taxes. The amount of federal subsidy is the difference between what a mode brings into the federal treasury in user fees/taxes and what the feds spend on that mode.

Bob points to this recent report, by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, which finds that:

On the basis of net federal subsidy per thousand passenger miles, Amtrak finished first, at $186 per thousand, over the 1990-2002 period. In second place was transit, at $118 per thousand. For highways overall, the comparable figure was minus $2—i.e, highway users paid in more than they got back. And in aviation, the airline subsidy was $6 per thousand, while general aviation’s was $90 per thousand.

And on the basis of total dollar amounts of net federal subsidy:

[U]rban transit got the most, averaging $5.1 billion a year (in 2000 dollars) during this time period. Airlines were second, averaging $1.9 billion a year (mostly for FAA safety-related costs covered by general fund appropriations). Amtrak was in third place, averaging just over $1 billion per year over this 13-year period. And over this same period, the highway system was a net provider of federal funds to the tune of $7.4 billion per year (though that’s been trending downward since it peaked at $11.7 billion in 1998).

A perennial economic power is now getting bogged down with lavish government spending, public sector monopolies, high health care costs, and a fumbling education system.

Sounds like the United States.

But in this case it’s Britain. Here a British think tank (fittingly called Reform) offers suggestions for reform.

The San Francisco Chronicle's Debra Saunders takes a dim view of the Kyoto Protocol and offers some sage advice to Kyoto proponents:

"The Kyoto crowd has to get real, however. Be honest with the American people about how much change is involved. Admit that the science is not clear, and even scientists who recognize global warming as human-induced vary widely in what they see as the remedy.

While Europe blames President Bush for the demise of Kyoto, I blame Kyoto negotiators for passing a document that wasn't a pact to spread the pain universally, but a pitchfork aimed at the U.S. economy. They call themselves sophisticates, but they negotiated like Madame Defarge. "

Read the whole thing.

Thanks to the Education Intelligence Agency for this one:

The attendance officer at Philadelphia's Martin Luther King High School was concerned about the chronic truancy of James Dowling's daughter. Dowling would sometimes receive up to five calls a week from the school, asking him why his daughter was missing school.

Dowling and McAninley received misdirected calls for two years. It's pretty ballsy to claim it was a measure of dedicated public service.

Even the funny papers take notice of the great example Bush is setting for our personal finances.

In an ongoing markets in everything piece, Marginal Revolution highlights what happened when one high school banned candy:

Students at a high school in Austin, Texas gave their teachers a lesson in the economics of prohibition.

"It's all about supply and demand," said Austin junior Scott Roudebush. "We've got some entrepreneurs around here."

One of my favorite commentators on California politics, Jill Stewart, takes California's School Superintendent Jack O'Connell and others like him to task for holding English Language Learners back in California.

Under Proposition 227, immigrant children were only supposed to stay in special immersion for a year or so, then go to mainstream class. But O'Connell has refused to credit English immersion for soaring English literacy rates. His silence emboldens the anti-English ideologues who still strive to keep Latino kids in a separate world.

Virulently anti-Proposition 227 Berkeley Unified is almost frozen in place. In 2001, of the 1,000 Berkeley kids who weren't native English speakers, 42 percent scored "advanced or early advanced" on English tests. Today, 45 percent do. L.A. -- far more urban and poverty-riddled -- has blown past leafy Berkeley.

This nice brief paper goes over what studies have found on the benefits a WalMart or other big box store brings with it.

Lessee, more jobs, more sales, higher productivity, lower prices. Easy to see why we must fight such evil things at every turn.

Fortunately, the Virginia Senate killed the "droopy drawers" bill that would have imposed a fine on anyone that showed their underwear in a lewd manner...State Senator John H. Chichester added “I have my own personal thinking about people who walk around with their skivvies hiked up above their
navel and their pants down to their knees, but legislating that freedom away is a very serious undertaking.”

Too bad the good senator doesn't think that invoking huge tax hikes on the citizens of Virginia is the same as legislating away their freedoms. Last year, "Chi-taxer" introduced a $4 billion tax hike plan.

An LA Times news story suggests that California legislators and Governor Schwarzenegger are finaly ready to act on getting more housing built in California. There seem to be some reasonable thoughts such as this from Tom Perata of Oakland.

We're trying to put some certainty in the development process," said Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata (D-Oakland). "It's just too easy now to let NIMBYs drag a project out, and what you're left with is something no one really wants."

But, there are always defenders of existing regulation like these:

It's inaccurate to see CEQA as a barrier," said Caroline Farrell, attorney for the Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment. "It may slow down a project, but it ensures it will be designed in a way to minimize environmental damage. It holds developers accountable."

Really? That would be news to anyone who tries to do anything innovative in California. CEQA is more about rules, than results. The main thing it does is stall or kill projects and drive costs up for California housing consumers.

Proposals are on the table for setting aside a 20 year inventory of land for new housing and the obligatory "encourage high-density projects in aging city centers and near job and transit centers."

It seems to me that how much land you dedicate for the first proposal depends on how you accomplish the second. Will this solve anything? I can just see the environmental/anti-sprawl lobby presenting their 20-year inventory - existing paring lots, brownfields, and abandoned land in ghettos around the state. Then, the building industry presents their version - pristine, cheap land on the urban fringe where the other 60-70% want to live. Isn't this essentially where we are now?

Schwarzenegger, in his recent budget message, said that every city is responsible for providing new housing for its natural population growth, and should do that "on the most efficient land-use pattern possible, minimizing impacts on valuable habitat and productive farmland."

Sounds great, but I still don't see the mechanisms which make this possible. Where are the pricing policies? Otherwise, "encourage" just means "subsidize" and that alone won't limit urban sprawl, just increase overall development.

The only housing bill introduced so far, SB 223 by Torlakson, would provide loans of up to $1 million for cities and counties to draw new plans for high-density and affordable housing in aging communities served by public transportation.

Great, more plans to do more ineffective and costly inclusionary zoning.

At least the issue is gaining attention, but everybody is really pushing the issue onto each other. I see little here, as of yet, that can have meaningful impact other than some margial benefits of modifying CEQA (which will be a political battle).

If, in the coming weeks and months, LA politicos complain that there’s not enough money for (fill in the blank), perhaps they should think long and hard about why the city council just decided to fork over $177 million to a wealthy developer to build a fancy hotel next to the money losing Convention Center.

Interesting that, as Peter Gordon points out, the same city council just voted against hiring more cops.

And it turns out that the Convention Center has already been dipping into public safety funds:

The dearth of conventions means the Convention Center has not generated enough money to meet its payments on $525 million in bonds that were issued in 1993 to pay for a major expansion. As a result, the city uses $22 million a year from its general fund, which normally pays for police and fire services, to meet the debt payments on the bonds.

This opinon piece from the Christian Science Monitor got me thinking. I certainly agree with the author that society is much different today and we are generally a less neighborly society than we once were. He writes:

Often I long for an earlier America, one I've seen more of in historical photos than experienced in real life. It's an America of concrete stoops and front porches, of town and city life where people not only know neighbors by name, but take the time to talk with them.

and also..

After a recent snow, I walked my golden retriever, Casey, and passed between two neighbors shoveling snow. On my right was an elderly man, approaching 80. He clearly labored as he shoveled his walk. Across the street, a young father, in his 30s, was putting the finishing touches on his perfect snow-blower cleared walkway, which arced around the front and side of his property. If he noticed the old fellow 25 feet away, he never acknowledged him. He clearly hadn't offered to lend a hand.

Lanson, the piece's author, laments the state of our populus and sees little hope in the internet building a new form of community. While this is not a commentary on urban design, I can't help but ponder the promise of new urbanism, with its front porches, town centers, narrow streets, and an overall alleged return to the "old days."

At least, that is how it is marketed. "Nostalgia-burbs" I call them because they are not all that different from many other suburbs except for the fact that they offer buyers the promise of exactly what Lanson is talking about - the good old days.

The problem of course is that building retro urban design will not change people and the society that Lanson is concerned about. And they still may not help their neighbors shovel the snow.

A new report Wednesday fueled concerns that the high cost of doing business in Los Angeles and much of California puts the region at a serious disadvantage in trying to compete for high-tech businesses against less-expensive Western and Midwestern cities.

Said the head of the company that conducted the study:

"The harsh reality is your state is suffering today not only from a corporate exodus but intellectual capacity (too). Some of your best and brightest college graduates cannot afford to live here; that's a huge problem."

We've heard this before:

The study echoes warnings that were sounded last year by the California Business Roundtable, which found that nearly 40 percent of California companies planned to move jobs out of state.

At the same time, analysts at Bain & Co., a business consulting firm, found that 100 percent of the senior-level executives they interviewed said California's business climate was unfavorable.

Get the whole story here.

I just mentioned some of the partying down that went on at a rail groundbreaking event in Seattle. Now there’s this.

The Seattle monorail will cost more than expected, and local officials have reportedly know this for months. They’re now trying to figure out how to pare down the project:

The Seattle Monorail Project is trying to pare down its plans because the sole bid came in roughly $200 million higher than expected …

Cost-saving issues that have been discussed include whether to delay purchasing some trains until the ridership peaks; how to equip special "tourist trains" that cost more but might generate operating money; and how much of the line would use slower but cheaper single tracks, sources say.

Even before this latest development money was tight because, no surprise, tax revenue fell short of projections.

Note the similarities with Miami’s rail experience.

Light rail groundbreaking events are rather strange affairs. Local politicos hire bands, brush up on their hyperboles, and celebrate the sublime power of rail transit.

At a 2003 groundbreaking ceremony in Seattle, amid the fireworks display, free bbq sandwiches, and live bands belting out classics like “Brick House,” local dignitaries proclaimed that rail would help make their city “world class,” and even lift the region’s psyche.

Seattle’s mayor called local taxpayers “the real heroes” for underwriting $2B worth of transit investments, and he couldn’t help but see parallels with another milestone in world history: “Today we celebrate one small step for light rail, one giant leap for Seattle.”

Poking at skeptics who questioned the usefulness of rail, a local congressman relayed an anecdote about Benjamin Franklin: When someone questioned the usefulness of hot-air balloon travel, the inventor replied, “What good is a newborn baby?” The Sound Transit system starts small but will grow until it reaches his district, Inslee said. “Someday, there’s going to be nothing ‘light’ about light rail.”

The Phoenix area just had its own groundbreaking ceremony. Sure it had lots of the usual stuff, but it wasn’t quite as over-the-top as Seattle’s:

Hundreds of people gathered in Tempe Beach Park on Tuesday night to celebrate the birth of a 20-mile rail system that promises to transform the Valley.

"We know that this light rail will change the face of this community," Tempe Mayor Hugh Hallman told revelers at the ceremonial groundbreaking.

That’s all? You don’t want to compare it to, say, the fall of the Berlin Wall? Can we get a Nelson Mandela reference?

Dignitaries flipped a gigantic "on" switch that illuminated a 30-foot replica of the light-rail bridge that will stretch across Tempe Town Lake, just east of the existing railroad bridge. When the real-life $21 million span is complete, it will glow with special lights.

During a dramatic demonstration, taped orchestral music thundered and fake smoke swirled as the replica's lights shifted colors. Officials also filled a time capsule that will be sealed and put inside a future Metro station.

The time capsule was a nice touch, but I still have to give the edge to Seattle. The politicos’ speechifying really made the difference.

Mongolia is selling its State Circus, and that’s not all.

Other stuff on the to-be-privatized list includes:

The Mongolian Camel Wool company, Ulaanbaatar’s Number Three Hospital and Number Two Power Station, the national airline (MIAT), and the Mongolia Railway.

I’m still hung up on that State Circus.

(Via Mackinac.)

The headline says it all:

Detroit educators in a battle to keep students in the city.

In what appears to be Detroit Public Schools' latest attempt to hang on to students, officials said Tuesday they will no longer give students waivers to attend other districts.

It's unclear how many of the estimated 6,000 Detroit students attending suburban public schools will be affected. The DPS could not provide that number.

Detroit Public Schools has a $200-million deficit, which administrators blame largely on declining enrollment. The district has lost 40,000 students during the past decade, and says it could lose 10,000 a year until 2008. Last week, the district announced 34 schools would close in June.

In addition to the 6,000 students attending schools-of-choice districts, an estimated 33,000 Detroit students attend charter schools. School choice districts are those that open their borders to students who live outside that district.

I'm not sure how this will be legal as the schools-of-choice program is a state-level program. It will be interesting to see if Detroit can legally deny a child the right of exit if other districts are willing to accept the child.

After much anticipation, today marks the beginning of the global implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, the latest and perhaps greatest validation of the theory that the mixing of good intentions and public policy usually results in pure insanity.

Why is Kyoto insane? Iain Murray reminds us of the one basic fact that sold me on this point of view long ago:

"So the Kyoto Protocol will do virtually nothing to halt any possible global temperature increase — the temperature that would have been reached in 2100 will be reached in 2106. Yet independent analyses of the annual cost to the world of complying with Kyoto put it at between $150 billion and $350 billion a year (the global development aid budget is $50 billion annually). The cost of the "solution" vastly outweighs any purported benefits."

So for roughly $15-35 TRILLION dollars over the next century, we buy a whopping 6 extra years to reach the same temperature level? What a deal! Where do I sign up?

The Washington Post adds this:

"The global environmental movement calls it a historic victory, but critics in the industry and elsewhere say the bang could end in a whimper: Emissions of carbon dioxide will continue to rise, many of the cuts in greenhouse gases claimed under Kyoto probably would have happened anyway, and its future could be derailed by the stony opposition of the Bush administration.

Supporters acknowledge those realities but argue that the real impact of the treaty is not tangible.

"The greatest value is symbolic," said Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, an independent research and advocacy organization that works with many large companies interested in addressing the risks of global warming."

So all of those TRILLIONS of dollars are really going to buy some symbolism. Fantastic. This deal just gets better and better.

The funny thing is, it appears that the old adage "be careful what you wish for" is starting to sink in around the world:

"With the Kyoto Protocol set to take effect tomorrow, a disturbing realization is hitting many of the world's biggest global-warming suspects: Trying to meet their obligations to limit global-warming emissions under the treaty is proving a political and economic nightmare.

What is confronting many of the industrialized participants is the fact that turning their abstract environmental promise into tangible economic policy is extremely unpopular with politically powerful interests. Joining the Kyoto club was the easy part; now governments have to figure out how to divvy up responsibility for the cuts among companies and consumers that produce the emissions. Particularly since economies -- and emissions -- in many of these countries have grown significantly since the pact was negotiated in 1997, the process is producing a nasty political backlash."

As usual, EnviroSpin Watch's Phillip Stott hits the nail on the head:

"The Kyoto Protocol is a shambles and one utter waste of political effort. It will do absolutely nothing about climate change, although it will cost us all dear in energy prices, taxes, and jobs. Even its few remaining supporters should be putting the champagne back in the fridge. The sooner we stop playing this farcical charade, the better for everyone."

Finally, Steven Milloy of JunkScience.com has thoughtfully offered the world one of those famous calculators that we all love so much: the Kyoto Count! It tells us at any given moment how much the world has spent on Kyoto and the projected temperature savings by 2050. So far, in the first day of implementation, we're already upwards of $300 million spent. But don't forget what we've already bought with that...a massive 0.000002848 degrees C reduction in potential 2050 temperature. What a deal!

Seriously, it will be amusing over the next several years to watch the Kyoto Protocol wither on the vine, meeting the same fate of irrelevancy as the League of Nations. But it's too bad that so many resources have to be squandered in the process, as they could have been spent much more effectively on any number of other pressing global issues, like malaria, AIDS, Third World economic development, etc...

Houston's Superintendent Abe Saavedra announced plans to contract out control of Houston's lowest-performing high schools.

The Houston schools chief announced Tuesday he wants outsiders to take control of the city's three lowest-performing high schools to accomplish what the school system hasn't been able to do on its own.

The School District of Philadelphia has hired a handful of groups, including Kaplan, Drexel University and the Princeton Review, to manage 16 high schools beginning next school year. Private companies already run 54 of Philadelphia's elementary and middle schools.

Florida is also moving toward outsourcing failing schools.

If Florida's F-rated public schools don't improve this year, the state could ask someone else -- perhaps a private company or a state college -- to step in and run the troubled institutions.

The state Board of Education took the first step toward enforcing that "ultimate sanction" when it agreed Tuesday to put out a request seeking groups that might be interested in running failing public schools.

What would new urbanists think of this? According to this USA Today story, downtown high rise living is on the rise citing numerous high rise condos under construction or recently completed in several cities.

The increased density these high rises provide should please the anti-sprawl activists. But, past comments from several New Urbanists and Smart Growth supporters indicate otherwise. Many have stated that anything above 8-12 stories is too high and essentially ruins street life. If this sounds counterintuitive, you're following correctly.

Maybe more interesting is the fact that market demand is more of a driver or density than any growth management policy. The big question is how many of the condo buyers are moving from the suburbs or are second homes for the wealthy. A peek at the prices indicates that your "average Joe" will not be buying these. If indeed it is prmarily second home buying, downtowns may see a little revival, but there would be little in the way of limiting outward growth.

That’s what DC commuters say:

A 2 to 1 majority of Washington area residents prefer tolls to taxes as a way to fund road construction, a view in line with that of transportation officials who are planning a regional network of pay-as-you-go highways, according to new local and national polls by The Washington Post.

A majority of traffic-beleaguered residents also said they were willing to try new types of tolls to bypass congestion: 58 percent of respondents approved of the concept of allowing drivers with no passengers to pay a fee to use carpool lanes, compared with just 36 percent nationally.

Less clear was support for variable pricing:

[L]ocal commuters were divided on whether to create adjustable-toll highways, while a majority polled nationally was opposed. The concept of allowing tolls to rise and fall according to traffic levels is critical to several projects in Maryland, including a planned east-west highway north of the Capital Beltway.

Real time pricing is key to reducing congestion, and other surveys have found that once they get to know the concept, commuters like variable pricing.

The results of a survey of those familiar with San Diego's HOT lane facility on the I-15 found

that motorists with the most extensive experience with the FasTrak lanes were the most ardent supporters. Ninety-one percent of users supported having a time-saving option on I-15, and 66 percent of I-15 users who did not use the FasTrak lanes supported them. Moreover, I-15 users overwhelmingly supported the facility’s expansion with HOT lanes, and tolling of new lanes was preferred over providing new free lanes.

But will it matter?

LA’s King/Drew medical center has lots of problems. Earlier I noted how they might lose $200 million in federal reimbursement funds.

Turns out this particular crisis has been averted:

Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center passed a crucial inspection Tuesday, eliminating for now the threat that $200 million in federal money would be cut off.

The inspection came three days before the deadline the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services had set to pull its funding from the troubled Los Angeles County-owned hospital …

The warning came after regulators found that King/Drew staff had relied too heavily on police officers to shoot aggressive mental patients with Taser stun guns instead of first trying less extreme methods to calm them.

The federal government's threat to cut off money was the third in less than a year. The prior incidents involved medication errors and inappropriate use of Tasers. Those threats were similarly lifted after the hospital demonstrated that it had corrected the problems.

The Wall Street Journal ran a piece yesterday (on the front page, no less) on the 'hockey stick' controversy in climate science (see here and here for background) :

"From the outset, the [hockey-stick] graph was a target of numerous lobbyists and skeptics. When Mr. McIntyre became interested in it, he quickly teamed up with Ross McKitrick, an economist at Canada's University of Guelph who'd written a book questioning global warming. (The two met on an Internet chat group for climate skeptics.) In October 2003, Energy & Environment, a British social-science journal known for contrarian views, published an initial critique by the pair.

. . . .

Dr. Mann and scientists close to him viewed this as a political attack, not science. Dr. Mann offered a strong rebuttal of the Canadians' 2003 journal article, explaining that it didn't correctly apply his techniques. In doing so, however, he revealed details of his data and mathematical methods that hadn't appeared in his original paper.

When Messrs. McIntyre and McKitrick pointed this out to Nature, the journal that first published the hockey-stick graph, Dr. Mann and his two co-authors had to publish a partial correction. In it, they acknowledged one wrong date and the use of some tree-ring data that hadn't been cited in the original paper, and they offered some new details of the statistical methods. The correction, however, stated that "none of these errors affect our previously published results."

Mr. McIntyre thinks there are more errors but says his audit is limited because he still doesn't know the exact computer code Dr. Mann used to generate the graph. Dr. Mann refuses to release it. "Giving them the algorithm would be giving in to the intimidation tactics that these people are engaged in," he says.

So what most scientists would consider a basic part of peer-review and good science -- releasing all of the details of their methods for others to replicate -- Mann would consider to be caving into mean climate skeptic bullies. I find it sad that protecting his scientific and political turf appears to be more important to Mann than the pursuit of science. If Mann is confident in his methods, then he should release them to the scientific community and let the chips fall where they may.

Here's another bit:

"Mainstream scientists have also been scrutinizing the hockey stick. One, Hans von Storch of Germany's GKSS center, has presented theoretical findings arguing that Dr. Mann's technique could sharply underestimate past temperature swings. Indeed, new research from Stockholm University on historical temperatures suggests past fluctuations were nearly twice as great as the hockey stick shows. That could mean the 20th-century jump isn't quite so anomalous.

Dr. von Storch says he faced pressure from colleagues who feared that skeptics could misuse his results. He complains of a tendency in climate science to 'use filters and make only comments that are politically correct.'"

Filters and political correctness are anathema to sound science and the public policy that flows from it. If this were some arcane topic that had little practical impact in the world, then this debate would be easy to ignore. But the stakes with Kyoto are so high -- on the order of hundreds of billions of dollars annually and impacting the lives of millions of people -- that the global populace is entitled to one whopper of a debate on the science behind it. For a prominent scientist to stonewall legitimate inquiry into his work is like a boxer hiding in his corner of the ring and complaining to the ref that his opponent is actually trying to hit him. That's just the nature of the game. Good science should resemble the intellectual equivalent of a street fight; mano-a-mano until the last man is left standing. We don't need a return to the medieval days when science was subservient to social, political or religious agendas.

From Dan Klein:

The Atlantic Ocean separates me from my wife and daughter this Valentine's Day. At the supermarket a few days ago, I lovingly read dozens of cards. I picked some out and covered them with adoring scribbles. I also sent a card from our cat, Tuco. I covered the envelopes with LOVE 37¢ stamps. I strolled to the mailbox with the envelopes in my hand. They radiated affection. They were deep red.

Imagine Valentine's cards in blue. Blue hearts on blue backgrounds, inside blue envelopes. It would just be wrong. We know in our blood that the color of Valentine's Day is red.

Likewise, the new U.S. political chromatics is just wrong. It emerged during the 2000 election and has stuck. The Democrats, however, should be red, not blue. And for the Republicans, blue is perhaps fitting enough.

Read the whole thing here.

California Republicans have renewed their fight to repeal the bill that outlaws outsourcing in public schools. The new bill is weaker than previous bills with many concessions to labor.

Republican lawmakers on Thursday revived their push to make it easier for school districts to contract out for nonteaching services such as food, landscaping and buses.

Legislation being developed would allow schools to outsource for some services, saving districts money while keeping in place protections for employees replaced by contract workers, said Assembly Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield.

The Republican plan this year calls for displaced workers to be offered a job with the contracted company or elsewhere in the district. The employer would have to match the hourly wage and provide the same level of health-care benefits. It also would require more extensive fingerprinting and background checks of school workers.

"It protects wages. Health care, it provides it. Displacement job protection, we take care of that in this bill," said McCarthy, who is sponsoring the legislation along with Assembly Member John Benoit, a Riverside Republican. "We [address] every concern about why the bill could not move forward."

In the last few years, the anti-outsourcing bill has cost districts lots of money and forced some to suspend instructional programs. Fresno is the case in point.

Fresno Unified — in financial shambles and struggling to avoid a state takeover — could save millions of dollars each year if it were allowed to contract out for landscaping, food and printing services, Mehas said. The money could restore downsized music programs.

Mehas said Central Unified School District could save $500,000 per year by using an outside company to do its printing. Doing so, he said, would not hurt employees.

Under Randy Ward the Oakland school district is planning on converting 8 failing schools to charter schools. The reaction from the teacher union president versus Oakland parents really sheds light on the union's priorities. No surprise, but it is always shocking to see how unashamed the union is while locking children in failing schools.

"We don't need to be doing the dirty work for George Bush here in Oakland," teachers union President Ben Visnick told Ward during the meeting. "Don't pick on the poor kids. Shame on you. Shame on you."

Compare that with this quote from a grandparent with a child in a failing school in Oakland:

Great-grandmother Mary Degraffenreed said she does not mind if the school does become a charter, "as long as my grandchild learns."

So trying to make the failing schools more competitive and responsive is picking on poor children but leaving the children in a school that has failed for several years is NOT.

The latest in the WalMart discussion chain. The Eclectic Econoclast points out an interesting story of a WalMart in Quebec closing because of union demands. More important, he notes how the coverage ignores the costs to consumers from losing the store.

The consumers are always the stakeholders who gets ignored in these WalMart fights.

Earlier I noted who’s getting rail dough and who isn’t.

Another light rail project that won’t be moving forward is Orange County, CA’s nine-mile, billion-dollar CenterLine.

And the decision was pretty much done even before the FTA made its funding announcement. CenterLine didn’t even get support from the local congressional delegation. When Uncle Sam says he wants to give you a bunch of federal money, it's the rare local politico who says, “no thanks.”

Now there’s talk about (sigh) a magnetic levitation train. Expanded commuter rail service is also being talked about as are other options:

Building a sophisticated, sleek bus system with its own lanes so other traffic won't slow down the buses ...

Widening Bristol Street in Santa Ana and reserving the street median for future rapid transit. Cost: $240 million.

Funding freeway and/or local street projects with the $340 million now allocated for CenterLine.

Of course light rail never really goes away. In fact, some are saying that bus rapid transit would be seen as merely a stepping stone to rail.

The nation watches as Texas’ transportation plan develops:

Called the Trans-Texas Corridor, it is the most ambitious highway project since the Eisenhower administration introduced the interstate system in the 1950s. The $184 billion, 50-year plan calls for building 4,000 miles of roadways up to a quarter-mile wide. Each corridor would contain six high-speed toll lanes for cars and trucks; six rail lines and easements for petroleum, natural gas and water pipelines, as well as electric, broadband and other telecommunications lines ...

The price would be minimal to taxpayers, say state officials, who are seeking private companies to finance, develop, build and maintain the corridor in exchange for the right to charge tolls for half a century ...

The project's reliance on tolls would mean a significant shift in how road construction is paid for and might not easily translate to such states as Ohio, Washington and Indiana that recently decided a gasoline tax increase to pay for highway construction was more palatable than creating more toll roads.

Using private financing for transportation megaprojects is big news in the U.S., but not so big new in nations like France and Australia where they’re more used to this kind of thing.

Also, California recently signaled its support for privately financed toll roads.

Wal-Mart has its eyes on New York, but:

Small businesses, union leaders, City Council members and even some mayoral candidates are gearing up to prevent Wal-Mart from setting foot in town, now that the world's largest retailer has acknowledged it wants to open its first New York City store, planned for Rego Park, Queens, in 2008.

It could be the biggest battle against a single story in the city’s history:

"There will never be a more diverse and comprehensive coalition than this effort against Wal-Mart," said Richard Lipsky, spokesman for the Neighborhood Retail Alliance, an anti-Wal-Mart coalition in New York. "It will include small-business people, labor people, environmental groups, women's groups, immigrant groups and community groups."

If I were a WM competitor in NY I’d be especially worried. And if you’ve experienced what passes for “customer service” in the Big Apple you know what I’m talking about.

I once witnessed a store employee challenge a customer to a fight because the customer was visibly annoyed by having to wait in a long line while there were several employees just kind of hanging out, chatting with each other.

I bet that customer wouldn’t mind even a slightly-too-chipper “Welcome to Wal-Mart!” greeting.

For more, see this, this, this, oh and this.

Expanding on Ted's post below regarding Florida's Creative Class and Kotkin's Sewer Socialism, here are some thoughts. Kotkin seems to have a better handle on why some metros grow and others stagnate or decline. He has spoken about cost of living, taxes, regulation, and the overall attitude of the local population and officials being the prime factors in determining which areas prosper and others stagnate. To this end, I think he is accurate and he has strong evidence to back it up.

I don't necessarily think Florida is wrong, but he misses the larger picture, I believe. Being hip and tolerant, all things equal, would likely be good for a local region. But, what good is it if you don't have all the things Kotkin talks about - low housing costs, streamlined regulation, and a pro-growth, entrepreneurial attitude. And he doesn't seem to understand that this so-called hipness can not just be created. Greeley, CO can't just become Seattle.

Recently, it was reported Spokane is considering developing a gay district. But, clearly they are folowing the wrong guy's theory. From Kotkin's point of view, Spokane should have a lot going for it - cheap, no state income taxes, pro-growth attitudes, close to recreation, etc. They are just getting impatient. Once they are flooded with newcomers, watch how fast they switch to slow growth policies.

That is the ultimate irony - spend public money to lure newcomers and then drive up private costs when you feel you have had enough. Cities end up restricting what they were subsidizing 20-30 years earlier.

For my full take on Florida's ideas and economic development, check this out.

That’s what a new study claims:

About 50 percent of health care spending is eaten up by waste, excessive prices and fraud, according to a report set for release today by Boston University researchers.

One key area is administrative waste:

The report's criticisms of administrative expenses are based on a study last year by Harvard Medical School that determined that bureaucratic inefficiency on the part of insurance companies, doctors, hospitals, nursing homes and other institutions cost the country $399.4 billion in 2003.

Joanne Jacobs reports on Education Week's story on Philadelphia outsourcing a new standardized high school curriculum to Kaplan K12 Learning Services Group.

The company was given a $4.5 million, one-year contract to develop the college-prep curriculum in 10 core courses required to earn a Pennsylvania diploma: 9th grade physical sciences and world history; 10th grade biology, U.S. history, geometry, and world literature; and 11th grade chemistry, social science, Algebra 2, and American literature. That money also covers related assessments, materials for 9th grade transition classes, and student preparation for state tests. A second $4.5 million contract this year includes revisions to the curriculum as well as scoring the related tests.

Kaplan already had a track record in the district as the provider of the 9th grade transitional English and math courses. Results from the spring 2004 TerraNova, a commercial test taken by Philadelphia students, found significant increases in the percent of 9th graders scoring at or above the national average in reading, language arts, and math, and a significant decrease in the percent of 9th graders in the bottom quartile, following introduction of the program. Ninth grade improvement outpaced that of any other grade level.

And another showdown here.

(Via AL Daily)

Or the Creative Class vs. Sewer Socialism.

I tend to side with Kotkin in this debate (does that make me a socialist?), but Richard Florida often claims his views are misrepresented.

Florida sounds a lot better if this is, as the author of the article suggests, his fundamental message:

[C] ities must move away from funding corporate tax breaks and big-ticket white elephants designed to stimulate the economy. (In one recent example, Washington, DC, convinced the Montreal Expos to settle down by offering to build a new ballpark, raise business taxes and sign over all potential profits to the team’s future owner, all on the public dime.) Instead, says Florida, cities need to promote grassroots innovation and small-scale creativity, conditions that have spawned some of the biggest business successes of the past twenty years.

The Wall Street Journal weighs in on Bush's plan to starve Amtrak unless it gets its act together:

"After more than three decades and $29 billion, it'd be nice to think Washington could learn how to run a railroad. But it hasn't, so it is entirely fitting that in his Fiscal Year 2006 budget President Bush is proposing to eliminate all funding for the operating expenses of the federal railroad known as Amtrak unless significant reform takes place.

. . . .

If going from more than a billion dollars to zero seems unfair, consider that Amtrak has had 34 years to get its caboose in order. It was set up in 1971 with the idea that it would rapidly become a for-profit, self-sustaining entity. Instead, as the nearby chart shows, the federal subsidies have grown larger and larger.

Amtrak supporters love to make the argument that rail travel is somehow more cost-efficient than other modes of transportation and that the billions thrown at the national railroad go further than the money spent on highways, commercial air travel and urban transit. A recent study from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics shows otherwise.

BTS gathered data on federal subsidies to these four areas between 1990-2002, subtracted any revenues brought in by user fees, and then divided by the number of passenger-miles. As the report says, the aim was "to show the amount of subsidy relative to the level of use." This is as close as you can get to comparing apples to apples, says Robert Poole of the Reason Foundation.

The results? Amtrak weighed in with an average subsidy of $186.35 per thousand passenger miles -- a sum that could take you across the country and back on JetBlue. That compares with average subsidies of $118.26 for urban transit and $6 for airlines. Highway users actually ended up paying Washington $1.91 per thousand passenger miles."

Read the whole article here.

The FTA recently announced its rail funding winners and losers. Deciding who’s a winner and who’s a loser depends on your opinion of rail transit.

Who got the dough? Lots of places already secured funding, but new to the group are: New York, Charlotte, Pittsburg, and Phoenix.

Projects were rejected in such places as Las Vegas, Tampa and Santa Clara, California. That last one must have been especially awful because it would have linked downtown San Jose with the Mineta International Airport.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell today released results of the 2004 administration of the annual California English Language Development Test (CELDT) taken by more than 1.3 million English learners.

Compared to the rest of the nation, California has the greatest number of students whose primary language is not English.

The larger issue for California schools is whether districts are willing to let go of these students' classification as English language learners once tests prove they are proficient in English. Unfortunately, this is yet another example where schools and districts force children to wear a specific label for financial gain and deprive them of challenging academic curriculum.

As California Schools Superintendent Jack O'Connell explained in yesterday's press release:

Statewide statistics on the number of English learners reclassified in 2004 to fluent English proficient will be released in August 2005. This information is compiled annually from data submitted to the CDE by local school districts. The statewide Language Census report for 2003, as reported in April 2004, showed 8.3 percent of English learners reclassified to fluent English proficient by their school districts. However, 43 percent of English learners demonstrated English proficiency on the CELDT in 2003.

"In the past four years, there has been a noticeable gap between the percentage of English learners demonstrating English proficiency on the CELDT and the percentage of English learners being reclassified by local school districts," O'Connell said. "I am concerned about this because English learners may not have full access to rigorous academic courses, such as Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate, until they have been reclassified to Fluent English Proficient. So I am urging California school districts to review their reclassifying procedures as well as the academic interventions provided to English learners."

A new report from the Goldwater Institute examines the evidence on universal preschool. A lot of interesting stuff and good points.

I think one of the most important takeaways comes from international comparisons.

While U.S. children are "A" students in fourth grade, they are "D" students
by 12th grade. "The good news is America's early education system is among
the best in the world. The bad news is the secondary system is among the
worst.

The performance problem in our schools doesn't come in with the kids in kindergarten, it's what happens to them when the public school monopoly has control of them for 12 years with no accountability for results.

Joel Kotkin has declared the Sprawl Brawl over. Sprawl has won, he says here.

Sprawl critics aren’t going to give up, of course, but Kotkin makes a pretty compelling case:

Since 1950, more than 90 percent of metropolitan population growth in America has taken place in the suburbs. Today, roughly two out of three people in the nation's metro areas are suburban dwellers. "The burbs" have become the homeland of American success, with an increasing share of our national wealth and half the poverty of the urban core …

Instead of clustering in large, crowded cities, Americans are building bigger and bigger houses -- twice the size of those in 1950 -- and doing so increasingly in low-density, low-cost regions such as Orlando, Fla., San Bernardino-Riverside, Calif., Phoenix and Las Vegas, where job growth has also been most robust.

What about the future?

Over the next quarter century, according to a Brookings Institution study, the nation will add 50 percent to the current stock of houses, offices and shops, and the great majority of that new building will take place in lower-density locations, not traditional inner cities.

Even rising energy prices probably won’t stop the burbs.

Suburbanization proceeded apace during the steep energy price rises of the 1970s; it has also accelerated in Europe and Japan, where energy prices are already sky-high.

Many cities around the world have very extensive rail transit systems, which are often billed as sprawl-stoppers, and yet:

[V]irtually every major metropolitan area in the advanced world is suburbanizing, and usually rapidly. The urban centers of Tokyo, Sydney, London, Frankfurt and even that paragon of enforced centralization, Paris, are either losing population or barely holding steady as both jobs and people flee to the periphery.

Here's a roundup of pieces related to the FY06 Federal Budget released yesterday:

• Program Assessments Factor into Bush Plan to Trim Deficit
• Bush Budget Reels in Non-DoD Discretionary Spending, Aims to Cut $20 Billion
• President Renews Pledge to Reform Personnel System
• Program Assessment Rating Tool Results: President Bush's Fiscal 2006 Budget
• President’s Budget A Solid Step To Rein in Spending
• Cato Experts Respond to President's Budget Proposal

Enjoy.

The feds say two-thirds of us are:

1. overweight or obese, and
2. not exercising regularly.

So what are we to make of this survey, from the International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association, which finds:

Seventy percent of respondents said they were completely or somewhat satisfied with their physical health and 66 percent said the same about their physical appearance …

And just over half (52 percent) of the more than 1,400 people polled last September said they were generally satisfied with the amount of exercise they get.

Still, Bill Howland, IHRSA’s research director, is perplexed: people don’t exercise enough even though nearly 90 percent of respondents said they believe exercise plays a major role in health.

But it’s not big news that—even when armed with all the facts—people still choose activities that don’t optimize physical health. Maybe someday nags will realize that those who don’t behave the way they want them to cannot be “fixed” with more education.

And who among us doesn’t live with (struggle with?) some sort of contradiction between what we want and what we actually do?

This comment from Howland seems to represent what a lot of government busybodies believe their role to be:

“We’ve got to get the behavior to match the beliefs,” he says.

For more on this, see Jacob Sullum’s recent Reason cover story: The War on Fat: Is the size of your butt the government’s business?

Heritage Foundation's Ron Utt praises President Bush's plan to consolidate 18 regional economic development programs (such as the Community Development Block Grants program) under the Department of Commerce:

"Redundant and duplicative programs, especially between different cabinet departments, are a significant source of waste within the federal government. In the case of regional economic development programs, responsibilities—and money—are distributed among the offices and divisions of the Departments of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Labor, Commerce, Agriculture, and Interior, as well as several smaller administrative agencies, including the Small Business Administration. President Bush’s proposal to consolidate these programs under the Department of Commerce is long overdue and should receive the support of Congress. Consolidating responsibility for economic development in a single department will yield two immediate and important benefits to communities throughout the nation: more money for needy beneficiaries and less pork."

Full article is here. This is a great idea and one long overdue. And hopefully it's just the beginning of similar waste-reduction efforts.

In contrast to the oft-heard claim of a "global warming consensus," The Economist has a great piece on how the climate change debate has actually been heating up (bad pun) as of late:

“'The intermixing of science and politics is a bad combination, with a bad history.' So warns Michael Crichton at the end of his current, popular novel, 'State of Fear'. He argues that wilful obfuscation by politicians and wild-eyed greens is leading to a herd mentality over global warming, akin to the uncritical embrace of eugenics a century ago. 'Once again,' he intones ominously, 'critics are few and harshly dealt with.'

. . . .

Despite the arrival of Kyoto, the debate and dissent of recent weeks suggests that the treaty has not produced the world of self-confident greens and smothered critics feared by Dr Crichton. In fact, the contrary seems to be true."

Read the whole thing. It covers several of the topics seen on this blog recently.

(Hat tip: EnviroSpin Watch)

Georgia's legislature is considering legislation to restrict the (ab)use of eminent domain:

"The Georgia Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday voted unanimously to pass legislation restricting the use eminent domain powers. Senate Bill 86, authored by Sen. Jeff Chapman (R-Brunswick), prohibits the exercise of the power of eminent domain for the purpose of transferring the condemned property to a private developer, corporation or any other private entity for the purpose of expanding the tax base or for economic development.

"This bill should help to set property owners' minds at ease that their property can not be condemned by a local government and then turned over to a private developer," Chapman said.

The intent of the bill is that the private rights of residents and businesses should be protected over the interests of private developers and corporations. If passed, it will not restrict local governments' current powers of eminent domain. However, the power of eminent domain should be used sparingly, and such laws should be strictly and narrowly construed for the sole use of legitimate redevelopment projects, Chapman said. The Committee, chaired by Sen. Preston Smith (R-Rome), approved the bill after a brief discussion period with a bi-partisan vote of 10 to 0."

The article is here, and the proposed bill is here.

On the surface, this appears to be encouraging news, though I'd like to get more clarity on how they actually define "legitimate redevelopment projects." Seems a little fuzzy at this point.

(Hat tip: Eminent Domain Watch)

Following up on Adrian's earlier post, Joel Kotkin had another noteworthy piece in yesterday's Washington Post. He points out that growth trends overwhelmingly indicate a strong American preference for suburban living and that rather than fight it, we should embrace an emerging trend -- the cultivation of a new sense of suburban identity:

"The urbanization of suburbia -- the creation of a more sophisticated, self-sufficient community -- is already beginning. From the suburbs of Northern Virginia to the Los Angeles basin, cities are restoring the commercial cores of what had once been autonomous small towns. Often devastated by malls and big-box shopping centers, these downtowns once gave suburban towns a sense of distinctiveness -- something many now wish to recover. Other places are attempting to create whole new communities, with their own defined town centers complete with fine restaurants, smart shops and even nightclubs."

See more on Kotkin's view of the maturation of the suburbs here and here.

As an example of what Kotkin is describing, look no further than yesterday's Denver Post (link here):

"In the ever-sprawling metropolis that is the Front Range, cities and towns want to create a sense of place. They want an attractive gathering spot that makes residents feel larger than themselves, like a community.

. . . .

To create these urban centers, suburban town councils and investors are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to manufacture them from failed malls and big-box stores of the past - or from nothing at all."

While the evolution of the suburbs is certainly exciting and healthy for strengthening a sense of community, planners and policymakers need to be wary of stifling organic growth and dynamism through control and planning (think Jane Jacob's The Death and Life of Great American Cities). From the Denver Post piece:

"Creating a sense of place is a process - one memory at a time and one new business at a time - not an end product, said Roberta Brandes Gratz, an urban critic, journalist and consultant based in New York City.

'A downtown has to have room to breathe, room to grow and evolve,' she said. 'Most of these (planned downtowns) don't. They have planned that out of the process.'"

And our own Sam Staley adds this:

"Critics say the rush to create new town centers is wishful thinking and shameless commerce - a medicine show to con town fathers into investing in trendy development that will lose its luster.

'Downtowns 40 years ago were the economic engines of their communities. Now they're becoming boutique neighborhoods,' says Sam Staley, director of the urban futures program for the free-market Reason Public Policy Institute.

'A lot of times communities get so enamored with the process of planning that they won't get out of the way and let things happen naturally,' Staley says."

Well put, Sam. Too much planning can inhibit the vital process of creative destruction -- the death and rebirth of communities, neighborhoods, etc. though market forces and changing consumer preferences. The best advice for suburbs is to not lose sight of this process by focusing too much on product or outcome.

Anyone interested in the future of property rights in America's cities should take some time to view the Webcast of Case Western Reserve University Law School's conference on eminent domain last Friday.

The conference did an excellent job of fleshing out the fundamental differences in perspective between mainstream economic development professionals and those that view property rights as a fundamental civil right. The U.S. Supreme Court will be weighing on this issue later this year when it rules on Kelo v. City of New London. At stake is the future of property rights in U.S. cities. The Institute for Justice is litigating on behalf of the homeowners in New London and have a brief detailing the facts of the case.

If New London and economic development professionals win, housing and neighborhoods are little more than deckchairs that can be rearranged at will. Private property rights in any meaningful sense--protection against either government or other private property owners--will no longer exist. In essence, any public or private land developer that believes they have a project that will generate higher tax revenues for the city and is politically persuasive will be able to use the eminent domain powers of city government to take homes and raze neighborhoods.

The conference featured pitted some of the most prominent advocates for eminent domain in economic development against some of the best and brightest in the property rights school, including Jonathan Adler (Case Western Reserve University), Steve Eagle (George Mason University), Eric Claeys (St. Louis University), Tim Sandefur (Pacific Legal Foundation), and Bert Gall (Institute for Justice).

The second panel focused on policy and that's where the discussion became particularly stark and pointed. Economic Development professionals want complete discretion over property to further the goal of economic development.

Reason has just released a policy study on eminent domain's abuse in cities, and the magazine published an article Eminent Domain Resource Center with links to key cases and studies on eminent domain.

The conference was sponsored by the Federalist Society and the Law School's Center for Business Law and Regulation.

Another interesting article from Joel Kotkin.

He defines the differences between cities of aspiration, which are growing, and cities which have adopted old world norms and values, and which are declining, and traces how the divide arose and what it means for the future of cities. Embedded are strange tales of cultural change in cities and the oddities that follow.

Towards the end, he points out:

Conservatives and Republicans have reasons to celebrate the conflict between a slowly declining Euro-America and the cities of aspiration. Yet the future may not be so easy to predict. Success, defined as increased jobs and population, has a way of turning cities of aspiration toward a more European worldview.
. . .

The American future belongs to those places where people can most fully engage in their private pursuit of happiness. The party--and the politicians--that can appeal to these voters, wherever they are, will be the one likely to win political power.

This is another way of looking at an evolution Kotkin wrote about in The Future of the Center back in '99.

Not being a federal tax policy expert (outside of my in-depth knowledge of TurboTax), I don't know if Cato's "dual-rate income tax" proposal is "The Solution" or not, but it seems compelling and should at least be thrown into the mix of tax reform options along with the flat tax, the national retail sales tax, and other competing ideas:

"The president’s advisory panel will likely consider plans for consumption-based taxes, as well as more limited income tax reforms. A “dual-rate income tax” is a model for reform that would reduce tax rates and simplify the code, while taking steps toward a flat and neutral consumption-based system.

Under the plan, most deductions and credits would be eliminated, but nearly all families would pay tax at a low
15 percent rate. A 27 percent rate would kick in for earnings above the threshold that the Social Security
payroll tax cuts out. The effect would be to cut tax rates on middle-income families and create a consistent marginal rate of about 29 percent on wages.

To promote savings and economic growth, the maximum individual rate on dividends, interest, and capital gains would be set at 15 percent. The corporate tax rate would be dropped to 15 percent and interest made nondeductible. These changes would equalize and cut the combined top federal tax rates on dividends, interest,
wages, and small business profits to less than 30 percent, compared to 35 to 45 percent under current law."

Here's the link.

The D.C. area is projected to gain 2 million new residents, 1.6 million new jobs, and 833,000 new homes over the next 25 years. Anyone following the trends in the area naturally wonder, where are these people and homes going to go?

Well, straight from the playbook of 'smart growth' utopianism, we now have a way to figure this out: get a bunch of major players in a room and play a visioning game with Legos:

"The challenge of Washington's daunting population growth has been turned into a board game that might be called Everybody Squeeze!, and yesterday 300 government, business and civic leaders gathered to play.

With 2 million more residents anticipated in Washington and its suburbs over the next 25 years, the crowd of players...gathered around table-size maps of the region and tried, using yellow Lego blocks to represent dwellings, to locate homes for the coming throngs.

All around the game room at the Ronald Reagan Building, there were signs of conflict and cajoling: Some environmentalists drew bold lines around lands they consider ecologically sacred. Politicians and county planners hemmed and hawed, trying to think regionally but keeping an eye on their own dominions. And some developers looked askance at proposals to build homes closer to or even on top of one another.

'Not all the 2 million people are going to want to live like they do in Manhattan -- we're not an urban community, we're a suburban community,' one Charles County developer, Gary Kret, warned his neighbors. "

Here's the link. Predictably, the "solutions" participants arrived at were smart growth outcomes, with populations being kept in developed areas near transit stations and out of the undeveloped fringe. I'm sure that they weren't led this way by facilitators (cough, cough, wink...).

But there did appear to be some signs of common sense:

"Yet even among some of the most enthusiastic participants, there was ample skepticism about whether the growth visions espoused yesterday can ever come to fruition.

'This event is called 'Reality Check,' but I think we checked reality at the door,' [Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Gerald E.] Connolly said.

For one thing, the high-density development prescribed by many tables is difficult to achieve over the opposition of neighborhood groups. And pushing development into underused areas of eastern Washington and Prince George's County will require drumming up more market demand for offices and homes than has existed there in recent decades.

'The market tells me the demand isn't there,' said Gary Garczynski, a Prince William County developer and former president of the National Association of Home Builders. 'Can it be created there? I don't know.'"

Good observation. And what also should have been mentioned was the effect of the strong smart growth policies already in effect in places like Montgomery County, MD and Loudoun County, VA, which effectively keep large areas off-limits (or severely downzoned) and contribute to skyrocketing housing prices that send prospective residents further and further out to find remotely affordable homes.

Oh well, who needs reality when you can just slide Legos around on a map and come up with an "ideal" solution?

In the latest DDT news, the European Union is threatening Uganda over its plans to use DDT in its anti-malaria efforts:

"The European Union on Wednesday warned Uganda that its exports to Europe may suffer if it goes ahead with plans to use the controversial pesticide DDT to fight malaria.

Unless proper safety measures are put in place, the spraying of DDT to kill malaria-carrying mosquitos could severely hurt Ugandan exports of fruit, produce and other flora to EU countries, officials said. "If Uganda is to use DDT for malaria control, it is advisable to do so under strictly controlled circumstances and in consultation with other countries in the region which may be affected," the EU said in statement released here.

It said that if Kampala began DDT spraying, it would be forced to set up a monitoring system to test for the presence of the pesticide in exports.

The chief of the EU mission in Uganda, Sigurd Illing, said there could be dire consequences for outgoing trade with Europe -- which accounts for more than 30 percent of Uganda's total exports -- if DDT was detected in such goods."

It's absolutely shameful to threaten the economic health of a country for its efforts to stop an illness that kills an estimated 70,000 of its citizens per year. It's also shameful that the writer of this article proceeded to regurgitate the anti-DDT party line without any counterweight on the other side.

For more recent DDT news, see here, here and here.

(hat tip: JunkScience.com)

A gem from the "dumb officials" file:

MIDDLETOWN, Ohio (AP) - The city's tax superintendent has been suspended without pay for a week for trying to inject some humor in the city income tax filing instructions.

The forms - with such lines as, "If we can tax it, we will," - were sent last week to all Middletown businesses and residents who pay city income tax.

The attempt at humor by Linda Stubbs was called "misguided" by city Finance Director John Lyons.

Lyons said revised forms were sent out immediately at a cost to taxpayers of about $5,500.

Among the lines that city officials didn't think were very funny was this one:

"Free advice: if you don't have a profit in a five-year period, you might want to consider another line of work."

Well, at least she was honest...

(via Fark.com)

In yet another blow to the San Diego pension system, it has been recently revealed that about 200 municipal employees continued to receive pension benefits even after they had passed away. Check out the San Diego Union Tribune story on this here.

Also, check out this great piece by Reason friends Dick Rider (San Diego Tax Fighters) and Jon Coupal (Howard Jarvis Taxpayer's Association) that deflates a bunch of pension myths. Full text here.

National Review takes a look at Colorado's Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) on its 10th anniversary:

"TABOR possesses two features which have generated a great deal of tax relief for Colorado residents during the past decade. First, TABOR places a tight cap on all state expenditures, limiting increases in per capita state expenditures to the inflation rate. Second, it mandates immediate refunds of all surplus revenues. As a result, when the state collects revenues above the lim