New at Reason

Tim Cavanaugh | September 14, 2005

Julian Sanchez talks with NY Times libertarian mole John Tierney about science, urban planning, Julian Simon, and more.

Comments

|9.14.05 @ 7:41PM|#

John Tierney is doing some amazing things on the NYT editorial page. He's using arguments and ideas that are common to your average Reason reader, but are almost never expressed in the mainstream media (and certainly not the Times.) I can only hope that his exposure of the leftist intelligentsia to new thought has changed at least a couple minds on a few issues.

|9.14.05 @ 10:38PM|#

Nice interview, thanks.

|9.14.05 @ 10:52PM|#

Brief, but interesting, comments on urban planning. Tierney seems to approach the subject with the humility and caution of someone who knows about the subject area.

Dave W.|9.14.05 @ 11:03PM|#

He knows what he doesn't know. Tray refreshant.

|9.14.05 @ 11:45PM|#

I love her [Jane Jacobs'] sense of just letting cities evolve naturally.

Good comment - that's what I like about her too. I'm a lover of cities and it's refreshing to read about ideas from the likes of her and Tierney that can both make cities better and are different from all the tired ideas from the left that I grew up with. I remember reading Tierney's columns about recycling and about Amtrak - he definitely made me think differently about those issues than I had in the past.

|9.15.05 @ 12:08AM|#

I was trained as an environmental lawyer and have done a fair amount of work in the area. Its funny, when pressed most environmental engineers will admit that there is no way to ecologically or economically justify recycling. Despite, this they will still recycle their own trash and will not admit that its a waste of time. There is not a lot of clear thinking going on about the environment these days.

|9.15.05 @ 12:15AM|#

There is not a lot of clear thinking going on about the environment these days.

We can only hope it will be like a Madonna song -- here today, gone tommorrow.

Here's to hoping that people like Tiereny will bring tommorrow to us sooner.

|9.15.05 @ 4:30AM|#

John,

I'm fond of saying that most people are "lazy consequentialists". They are willing neither to admit that they would continue to pursue a policy if it were shown to cause net harm, nor to take seriously the arguments likely to lead to that conclusion.

|9.15.05 @ 6:09AM|#

If you haven't yet, read the link to Tierney's notorious column from years ago about recycling. It's a bit longish, but it addresses one part of the recycling movement which opponents seem to have a hard time grappling with: the fact that recycling satisfies an emotional need to do penance for our prosperity.

|9.15.05 @ 7:03AM|#

Tierney wrote that piece in Science '86 on Kenya and the myths of overpopulation? Wow, I've carried around that article for nearly two decades in my Great Pieces of All Time; one of the things that made me a stronger libertarian and a skeptic of well-meaning intrusion, and introduced me to Julian Simon. Nice to rediscover the connection, great interview, o other Julian S!

|9.15.05 @ 9:03AM|#

You should have seen my life-long Democrat environmental engineering professor rant and rave against recycling and environmentalists in my solid waste management class. As a matter of fact, most of his solutions to solid waste problems were free market based.

|9.15.05 @ 9:19AM|#

Funny that you should call the Times "America's big-government bible", because that's exactly what I was thinking after reading the letters to the editor the other day. (OK, it's hardly an exotic thought.) There were all these letters in response to a piece the Times had run on disaster response, and almost all of them had the exact same thing: Everything would be great if we could just get the right man on the job. No recognition that there might be structural factors at work, no recognition that it's inherently a difficult task, nada.

And I thought, man, doesn't that just sum up perfectly the left-wing view of just about everything. If something doesn't work properly, it's because the Big Cheese is evil or stupid. It is never because central planning may be the wrong idea; it is never because some tasks are very difficult; it's always the Big Cheese's fault. It really made me wonder how happily the left would take to a dictator if he were just ideologically acceptable and made the trains run on time.

|9.15.05 @ 10:25AM|#

So much for individual responsibily, eh JD?

"The government made me do it!" says Brownie.

M1EK|9.15.05 @ 11:24AM|#

Tierney's comments about urban planning show the typical misunderstanding you get when you have just enough knowledge to be dangerous. He correctly states that people want to live in neighborhoods that evolved organically, but then implies that current urban planning is bad because it attempts to recreate that model via imposition of rules. The undercurrent of "those stupid planners are trying to force people to live and develop a certain way" is thick in his work.

In fact, however, 99% of current urban planning effort to recreate 'those neighborhoods' is spent on RELAXING rules which PREVENT them from being built today. From height restrictions to single-use zoning to setbacks to parking restrictions, it is nigh impossible to build anything but suburban sprawl today in the USA, and it's NOT because that's what the market wants. But it's hard to relax those rules since the people who already live in and around the area generally like them, for reasons selfish, stupid, and short-sighted.

As usual, the libertarian ethos of "if something is supported by urban liberals I have to be agin it" rears its ugly head.

M1EK|9.15.05 @ 12:39PM|#

Good read on Tierney here: http://citycomfortsblog.typepad.com/cities/2004/10/fisking_tierney.html

(mostly in comments)

from a generally great blog on urban planning, if you're into that stuff.

M1EK|9.15.05 @ 12:41PM|#

Good read on Tierney here: http://citycomfortsblog.typepad.com/cities/2004/10/fisking_tierney.html

(mostly in comments)

from a generally great blog on urban planning, if you're into that stuff.

|9.15.05 @ 4:14PM|#

There only seems to be one way to get the new urbanism vs. open road thing solved. Someone needs to eliminate zoning prohibitions on joe's (and M1EK's?) beloved multiple family dwellings in the burbs, and charge for use of major arteries to and from the city, and see what happens.

Until then, all we have is one group saying that his preferred method of living and transport should be subsidized. All I can say is that my experience is that regardless of mass transit availability, even city dwellers will drive in sufficient quantities to make the marginal cost of driving so high the next person doesn't want to. Driving does seem to be the first choice.

|9.15.05 @ 4:51PM|#

Jason,

We've got a chicken/egg problem here. The government policies have created a landscape that puts non-sprawl development at a disadvantage. Concluding that people prefer sprawl based on their behavior in sprawlville is like comparing incomes and declaring that white people are beating black people in a meritocratic competition.

The built environment involves a lot of sunken costs. It acts on people, and their individual choices, a lot more than is usually considered in an economic model.

|9.15.05 @ 4:56PM|#

joe:

I was thinking of the 2 years I lived in Osaka. The trains are phenomenal, but they fill up only after traffic congestion reaches critical mass. Its the whole no one drives because everyone drives paradox.

|9.15.05 @ 5:32PM|#

test

M1EK|9.15.05 @ 6:15PM|#

Jason,

Actually, the market is fairly clearly signalling that it wants to provide more dense urban living - prices for what few of those kind of neighborhoods that exist are disproportionately high (i.e. demand is out of balance with supply).

|9.16.05 @ 12:53PM|#

Jason, at least there ARE trains in Osaka, and the trains go to where the jobs and shopping are.

M1EK, to be fair, the supply of urban and neo-trad housing is artificially low, so those higher prices and pent-up demand are themselves somewhat artificial.