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Tim Cavanaugh wades back into the muck of Kelo v. New London and finds out what happens when the big developer decides they don't want to do anything with their court-granted land, after all.
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|6.8.06 @ 2:49PM|#
Before we get to the meat of this piece, it's worth commenting on the fact that the large amounts of tax exempt, institutional land in core cities (and the urban highways that also eat up much of their real estate) largely serve people who live outside the city, yet the tax base on which municipalies depend is based on municipal boundaries.
Tax collection, environmental planning, and regional planning really need to move from the level of the municipality to that of the region.
|6.8.06 @ 2:57PM|#
Yes, joe, I would love to have the local corrupt city machine get control of my entire county. I can't see any downsides at all.
|6.8.06 @ 3:01PM|#
Last year, in a burst of ill-founded idealism, I actually entered into an e-mail conversation with one of the guys responsible for this travesty, introducing myself as a Connecticut taxpayer (true) opposed to the decision (also true).
I posted the e-mail conversation on another Hit and Run thread, with the address below, but the whole thing was pointless. I abandoned the discussion when, in an attempt to justify charging the holdouts exorbitant amounts of back rent, the guy sent me a document pointing out that Mrs. Dery, the octogenarian, actually made money renting out some of the properties.
Hmmph. The nerve of some elderly people, trying to make money off of their property when they should make money by getting off their old asses and saying "hello" to Wal-Mart shoppers.
http://www.reason.com/hitandrun/2005/09/a_call_from_the.shtml
Timothy|6.8.06 @ 3:04PM|#
Tax collection, environmental planning, and regional planning really need to move from the level of the municipality to that of the region.
Because that whole Metro thing in the Portland area works so bloody well. People sure love Metro, works great!
|6.8.06 @ 3:15PM|#
I couldn't help but notice, Timothy, that they've never voted to disband it. Or that efforts to disband it have never even had enough support to get on the ballot.
Thank you, Mark, for reminding us that only those evil, er, urban types can be corrupt. Don't worry, we hear you loud and clear.
|6.8.06 @ 3:16PM|#
Jennifer,
It wasn't her property. Like it or not.
|6.8.06 @ 3:20PM|#
I live under the aegis of the Portland Metro gov't.
I can think of two things they've accomplished:
- They've successfully stifled highway planning to the point that Portland has the worst growth in traffic congestion in the country.
- They've paid for fancy new carved-wood and hand-painted signs for the neighborhood associations.
And I still get to deal with my own municipal gov't telling me that they have determined, in their holy wisdom, that I can only have a certain number of bedrooms in my house.
You're beyond out of your gourd, joe.
|6.8.06 @ 3:22PM|#
Love that liberal empathy and concern for the little guy facing a big multi-national corporation.
Where, again, is the line between a Marxist and a Stalinist?
|6.8.06 @ 3:24PM|#
Thank you, Mark, for reminding us that only those evil, er, urban types can be corrupt. Don't worry, we hear you loud and clear.
Yes, that's precisely what I said. Bravo.
|6.8.06 @ 3:25PM|#
It wasn't her property. Like it or not.
It was for over 80 years, until the city decided to take it away and give it to somebody they deemed more deserving of it.
Joe, I am still trying to figure out how a guy like you, who honestly wants to make this country better for the poor people in it, can be so approving of a doctrine that will screw over the poor in order to make life easier for the rich.
We all know damned well that if Fort Trumbull had been like other Connecticut seaside areas--filled with the summer cottages or permanent homes of rich people--none of this would ever have happened.
Official motto of the New London city government: "Ask not what we can do for the taxpayers; ask what the taxpayers can do for us."
Gimme Back My Dog|6.8.06 @ 3:27PM|#
CH,
I haven't lived under PDX Metro for about ten years. I have no idea what you are talking about. I think two lanes is the perfect width for the only artery between the western suburbs and downtown. Traffic jams at all times of the day and night, just like LA!
Timothy|6.8.06 @ 3:28PM|#
Clean Hands: Hey now, Metro wasted millions of dollars putting in that light rail! Remember, the light rail that was supposed to lighten traffic enough so they wouldn't need the highways? And they maintain that urban growth boundary, you know, to reduce "sprawl" and make the city completely unaffordable to anyone who can't afford one of the gentrified warehouses in the Pearl.
joe: You have to understand something about Oregon in general and Portland specifically, the locals will hold on to their local way of doing things in spite of all evidence simply because that way of doing things is theirs. It's why you can't pump your own gas, and why the state gets 85% of its revenue from the income tax, it's why there's still the OLCC eventhough EVERYONE hates it. In all the years I lived in the Portland area, nobody had much positive to say about Metro...but it was accepted because, well, that's the way things are done here.
|6.8.06 @ 3:38PM|#
Tax collection, environmental planning, and regional planning really need to move from the level of the municipality to that of the region.
Why stop there? Why not shift all power and responsibility to the federal government? Then we can stop all this nonsense about federalism once and for good!
Oh, wait, that won't do. What about letting the U.N. run everything. Yessssssss, the U.N.... that's the ticket!
|6.8.06 @ 3:42PM|#
Jennifer,
I'm standing up for the millions of little guys who will be doomed to lives of poverty in crummy neighborhoods if the outmoded cities they live in are not allowed to reinvent themselves to succeed in the modern economy.
"Where, again, is the line between a Marxist and a Stalinist?" How would I know? BTW, are either terribly concerned about providing just compensation for the property they take?
"Love that liberal empathy and concern for the little guy facing a big multi-national corporation." Some of us base our opinions on principles rather than personalities. Sympathy for the underdog in every dispute is a noble reflex, but policy analysis needs to go beyond that.
"- They've successfully stifled highway planning to the point that Portland has the worst growth in traffic congestion in the country." As opposed to LA, Boston, and Houston, where the enormous sums spent on highways have eliminated traffic congestion, I suppose.
"Traffic jams at all times of the day and night, just like LA!" Oops. Wish you could un-post that one.
|6.8.06 @ 3:45PM|#
DA, "Why not shift all power and responsibility to the federal government?"
Because government tasks should be handled by that level of government that is best able to address them, taking into account the tension between the competing needs of responsiveness and comprehensiveness. In some cases, this would mean the devolution of centralized authority to the local, or even neighborhood, level. In others, it would mean the consolidation of authority to the regional, state, or federal level.
|6.8.06 @ 3:46PM|#
I'm standing up for the millions of little guys who will be doomed to lives of poverty in crummy neighborhoods if the outmoded cities they live in are not allowed to reinvent themselves to succeed in the modern economy.
Sincere, serious question: when the poor people are evicted and the crummy neighborhoods torn down to make room for office complexes and yuppie condos, where exactly are the poor people supposed to find housing they can afford?
Don't make the mistake of assuming that the city and its residents are one and the same; this is about the city getting richer by kicking out the residents who are not wealthy in order to make room for new ones who are.
|6.8.06 @ 3:49PM|#
Jennifer,
I've never endorsed the specific plan in question here, and have often denounced it as unnecessarily disrupting a perfectly viable, stable neighborhood. I've also repeatedly called for reforms to prevent governments from abusing their condemnation authority. I might as well ask you, based on your opposition to the Iraq War, why you wish to disband the Marines.
|6.8.06 @ 3:52PM|#
joe, your response to my snide comment, while reasonable, would be far more credible if you could name a few cases where you believe local authority is more appropriate.
|6.8.06 @ 3:53PM|#
Joe, I am still trying to figure out how a guy like you, who honestly wants to make this country better for the poor people in it, can be so approving of a doctrine that will screw over the poor in order to make life easier for the rich.
Because it is those decisions that keep him employed. How else would someone that is completely useless to a productive region/city/metro get work?
|6.8.06 @ 3:55PM|#
when the big developer decides they don't want to do anything with their court-granted land, after all
This reminds me of soemthing that happened in the St. Louis area.
With the Kelo decision as precedent, a judge reluctantly allowed a neighborhood to be declared blighted so that a private developer could have it for commercial use.
Told they would have to no choice but to sell their homes to the developer, residents accepted the deal, stopped upkeeping on their homes, bought houses elsewhere, and moved out.
Then it turned out the developer had financial troubles that prevented it from paying for the properties that people were forced to sell to it.
Now the neighborhood is full of un-maintained homes, and some people are stuck making payments on both their new homes and the ones the developer was supposed to buy.
Info here.
|6.8.06 @ 3:56PM|#
"- They've successfully stifled highway planning to the point that Portland has the worst growth in traffic congestion in the country." As opposed to LA, Boston, and Houston, where the enormous sums spent on highways have eliminated traffic congestion, I suppose.
"Traffic jams at all times of the day and night, just like LA!" Oops. Wish you could un-post that one.
Mmmmmm, New England democrat telling a Portland resident how it really works in Portland. That's rich.
|6.8.06 @ 3:56PM|#
Clean Hands,
They've also preserved the rural landscape, including working farms and extensive woodlands, within a ten minute drive of a major urban center undergoing a population boom. That ain't chopped liver, whether you approve of their methods or not.
BTW, I think the voters were crazy not to expand the UGB a few years ago, given the rise in the cost of housing. A little "New Portland" a few miles to the southwest, contained within its own growth boundary and designed to make walking and transit practical, is just what the region needed.
|6.8.06 @ 3:57PM|#
Isn't joe a government planner of some sort?
|6.8.06 @ 4:00PM|#
Stevo Darkly,
Now the neighborhood is full of un-maintained homes, and some people are stuck making payments on both their new homes and the ones the developer was supposed to buy.
The government should be forced to pay up.
|6.8.06 @ 4:01PM|#
Joe's right as rain - if you want to stop the creeping Democratic Party acceptance in many suburban counties. GOPers who are in danger, such as Sen. Santorum, will bless whatever big city pols start making noises about annexing the suburbs or taxing them to fund their failed school districts.
|6.8.06 @ 4:01PM|#
DA,
Thanks for asking. Policing is one example. School administration. Awarding Community Development funds. In some of these cases, there would still have to be overarching standards the neighborhood governments would have to meet, in order to make sure they are incorporating broader public goals into their decisions.
|6.8.06 @ 4:02PM|#
Now the neighborhood is full of un-maintained homes, and some people are stuck making payments on both their new homes and the ones the developer was supposed to buy.
Info here.
The city planners were trying to turn those poor people's lives around. They were in the right. They know best.
See? Now three or four more "joes" have jobs! It's a wonderful cycle.
|6.8.06 @ 4:03PM|#
Goiter,
Small minds talk about people. Mediocre minds talk about things. Great minds talk about ideas.
I'll be keeping an eye out for when you start talking about things.
|6.8.06 @ 4:04PM|#
LOL, I wrote my last comment before Goiter's 4:02 "contribution" appeared.
|6.8.06 @ 4:04PM|#
You know, joe may be right. Sometimes planning might lead to a good result. The question is, are we willing to deal with the clusterfucks like that in New London in the process?
The question is then, if we were to do a CBA would it we determine whether planning is doing more help than harm?
|6.8.06 @ 4:05PM|#
We should just build one big, well-planned dome and shove everyone into it. They can leave and see nature with a permit. No cars allowed in the dome, of course. Or yards. Or private property.
Say, Asimov would be proud. All we need are some job classifications, robots, and yeast-based food substitutes. Oh, and big, communal bathrooms.
|6.8.06 @ 4:07PM|#
What sort of mind talks about the same broken, disproved idea of central planning over and over again, Joe? I'd call you a moron, but it would be an insult to morons everywhere.
One can only hope that you plan your own region into such a hole that they no longer have the budget to support your employment.
Then, without the giant albatross that is you hanging around their necks, the region can begin anew and actually grow and flourish.
|6.8.06 @ 4:07PM|#
joe,
You really have absolutely no room to criticize anyone here when it comes to bad behavior, talking about people, etc.
|6.8.06 @ 4:07PM|#
joe,
I have ideas, but they're mostly about hitting people with things. What does that make me?
Thomas Paine's Goiter|6.8.06 @ 4:09PM|#
You know, joe may be right. Sometimes planning might lead to a good result.
Sometimes? What percent of success would you find acceptable? How many miserable failures does it take to snap you back to reality?
Timothy|6.8.06 @ 4:10PM|#
Would it be called the "Terrordome", PL? Would babies get raped in it?
|6.8.06 @ 4:10PM|#
"Sometimes planning might lead to a good result. The question is, are we willing to deal with the clusterfucks like that in New London in the process?" The question assumes that such clusterfucks would have to be allowed. There are reforms that could be implemented. For example, forty years ago, urban renewal clearance plans like the Ft. Trumball Plan were commonplace. Today, they are sufficiently rare that they make the papers across the country.
"The question is then, if we were to do a CBA would it we determine whether planning is doing more help than harm?"
I'll see your Ft. Trumball, and raise you a Fanueil Hall/Quincy Market.
|6.8.06 @ 4:12PM|#
None of these are legitimate tasks for gov't to undertake. If you want a fucking theme park, buy the fucking land outright and I have no objections.
Telling people, "oh, sorry, we have decided that your backyard shall be an urban wilderness area, too bad about your development plans" is exactly the same as telling thm "oh, sorry, we have decided that your savings account shall be used to fund the city philharmonic."
In both cases, the interests of the property owner are subsumed by the interests of elitist holier-than-thou jackasses who have bent the power of gov't to their own ends.
Here's a radical thought for you, joe-the-all-knowing-all-powerful-planner: How about what the owners of the property involved need?
Answer, if you would, please, whether your "principles" include the private ownership of property? Or are we all just stewards against the day when an overstuffed urban planner will inform us what the land we 'own' is to be used for?
Thomas Paine's Goiter|6.8.06 @ 4:12PM|#
I have ideas, but they're mostly about hitting people with things. What does that make me?
Someone that should ride the train that the glorious planners provided for you.
|6.8.06 @ 4:13PM|#
Phil L, I return fire when fired upon. That I am so often flamed, including by your previous incarnations, is hardly an indictment of my manners.
|6.8.06 @ 4:14PM|#
I've never endorsed the specific plan in question here, and have often denounced it as unnecessarily disrupting a perfectly viable, stable neighborhood
No, but you spoke of eminent domain, specifically to take property out of one set of private hands and put it into another, as something to help poor people avoid the fate of being stuck in crummy cities. So I ask again: if you spruce up a poor city by kicking out the poor residents, where exactly are the displaced poor folk going to go?
|6.8.06 @ 4:15PM|#
joe,
There are reforms that could be implemented.
We're talking about human beings here joe.
Today, they are sufficiently rare that they make the papers across the country.
That's an undemonstrated claim. ED abuse advocates argue to the contrary in fact.
|6.8.06 @ 4:15PM|#
Sorry, Clean Hands, I'm done responding to silly-assed whining about the the fact that this isn't libertopia. Now shh, the grownups are talking.
|6.8.06 @ 4:16PM|#
"I'll see your Ft. Trumball, and raise you a Fanueil Hall/Quincy Market."
Quincy Market is a glorified strip mall that services, for the most part, tourists who want to pay for overpriced prime rib at Durgen Park. Are you seriously arguing that stuff like that justifies the use of eminent domain to benefit private entities?
|6.8.06 @ 4:17PM|#
Small minds talk about people. Mediocre minds talk about things. Great minds talk about ideas.
Considered in the context of the present discussion ... I'm afraid that concern for the welfare of The People in the abstract combined with contempt for the costs to actual, concrete individuals is the fatal disease of the Left.
|6.8.06 @ 4:17PM|#
Despite the fact that we still suffer under the yoke of a wasteful and generally useless Metro gov't, there actually is good news in the air in Oregon, with the passage and eventual upholding of Measure 37, which simply stated that if the gov't wants to seize your development rights (via land-use regulation), they must pay you for them.
Of course, in order to pay for these seizures, now they want to tax us for the "windfall profits" we might gain by having the stolen value of our property restored to us when they decide in their infinite wisdom to allow us to develop our land.
|6.8.06 @ 4:18PM|#
Don't make the mistake of assuming that the city and its residents are one and the same; this is about the city getting richer by kicking out the residents who are not wealthy in order to make room for new ones who are.
And they won't even get those. Even if the Fort Trumbull case had worked out, how many of the created jobs would then be New London taxpayers?
|6.8.06 @ 4:19PM|#
Why no, Timothy. What an odd question. Actually, I had visions of the Cave of Steel, the dome city from Logan's Run, the underground city in THX-1138--that sort of thing. Am I missing something? Oh, I was also inspired by something I read as a child about large linear cities (actually, very large buildings). No idea where that came from, though.
Timothy|6.8.06 @ 4:19PM|#
CH: Like those dwarves/little people out in Hillsborough with the farm, they have that show on TLC now. I'm sure that people out in Wilsonville, Gresham and Newburg are TOTALLY STOKED that they can't develop their land rather than not grow anything on it.
|6.8.06 @ 4:23PM|#
Answer, if you would, please, whether your "principles" include the private ownership of property? Or are we all just stewards against the day when an overstuffed urban planner will inform us what the land we 'own' is to be used for?
I'll take that as an answer in the negative to my question, joe.
|6.8.06 @ 4:25PM|#
I'm afraid that concern for the welfare of The People in the abstract combined with contempt for the costs to actual, concrete individuals is the fatal disease of the Left.
Hey hey hey now, Stevo. I'm a lefty too, and I totally disagree with the notion of kicking poor people out of their homes in the name of helping poor cities become not-poor.
|6.8.06 @ 4:25PM|#
So I ask again: if you spruce up a poor city by kicking out the poor residents, where exactly are the displaced poor folk going to go?
Waterbury, Bridgeport or Hartford, it seems.
|6.8.06 @ 4:25PM|#
joe (and everyone),
"They've also preserved the rural landscape, including working farms and extensive woodlands, within a ten minute drive of a major urban center undergoing a population boom. That ain't chopped liver, whether you approve of their methods or not."
We have a big "save the farmland" movement around Seattle as well. I don't get it. I buy free range beef from a farm about 1 hours drive away, and that farm leases 500 acres from surrounding "farmers" to range his herd on. The land is available because none of the other "farmers" is actually farming; there isn't enough money in it, and they go get city jobs.
My local community college is full of people being retrained as welders after being laid-off from various companies. They have to get other jobs because their old jobs became unprofitable. Nobody is screaming "Save the family Beoing engineer", but "Save the family farmer" gets a pass.
Why is one outdated job more important than the other?
|6.8.06 @ 4:28PM|#
Jennifer,
"So I ask again: if you spruce up a poor city by kicking out the poor residents, where exactly are the displaced poor folk going to go?"
If such acquisitions are necessary, then substitute housing needs to be provided. My own city did this successfully in a neighborhood in which dense residential uses and small-scale industrial uses were jammed together cheek-by jowl, leaving both unviable. The homes were blighted by the presence of smelly industrial operations, metal shops with barren yards full of rusting materials, and heavy truck traffic. The business environment was deteriorating because there was no opporunity to expand operations, poor access, and small lots that made parking and expansion impossible.
The plan worked by buying up the industrial properties in part of the neighborhood and helping the businesses relocate to land in another part of the neighborhood, made available by the acquisition of that section's residential properties. The vacant land created by the removal of businesses and by the decades of abandonment by commercial, residential, and industrial property owners in the area where the plan called for housing when then used to construct higher-quality affordable housing, to make up for that lost in the industrial area.
The key here was that the acquisitions were site-specific, with the majority of existing buildings untouched. Compared to large-scale clearance plans like Ft. Trumball, this resulted in much less disruption of people's lives and of the neighborhood's established ways of life.
Of course, there is a major conception difference behind this: the goal was not to turn the area from one type of neighborhood to another - that is, it was not an attempt to wipe it out and start over - but to remove locally-specific problems that were preventing it from succeeding on its own terms.
|6.8.06 @ 4:54PM|#
Joe,
You said
"Small minds talk about people. Mediocre minds talk about things. Great minds talk about ideas."
Your ethics are utterly upside down. Great minds enacting ideas, and ignoring the impact on individuals is what led to the commies killing millions of people. Societies that ignore the impact of their policies on individual people are asking for big problems.
You want to help the little guy but you have an incredible blind spot regarding how corporate interests using compliant government agencies, constantly enact policies that hurt the "little guy" and help the "big guy".
|6.8.06 @ 4:57PM|#
Because, WSDave, we have people like joe who really, really believe, in their heart of hearts, that they know better than we how we should live our lives.
They are so wise that they know better than we do what jobs will make us happiest, what style of neighborhood we will find most attractive, what sorts of shops we want to patronize, the music we want to hear, everything.
We are but children, putty in their hands, and if only we would stop resisting, stop trying to be all independent and individual and stuff, life would be just peachy.
>paugh< And I'm the one living in a utopian fantasyland?
|6.8.06 @ 4:58PM|#
Testing...
|6.8.06 @ 5:00PM|#
Nobody is screaming "Save the family Beoing engineer", but "Save the family farmer" gets a pass.
It has for at least a hundred years, Dave. It must be tradition.
|6.8.06 @ 5:01PM|#
Clean Hands,
"Answer, if you would, please, whether your "principles" include the private ownership of property?" Of course. That's why I wrote approvingly about the urban renewal plan that was minimalist in its acquisitions, and derided those that cleared areas indiscriminately. And why I support paying owners who have their property taken in order to make them whole, including relocation money.
|6.8.06 @ 5:01PM|#
Phil L, I return fire when fired upon. That I am so often flamed, including by your previous incarnations, is hardly an indictment of my manners.
Maybe. But it is rather rich for you to criticize anyone in that way. And it is the sort of lame excuse I used to make about my own behavior - an excuse that frankly most folks never bought. Now maybe that is too existentialist for you (in the sense of Sartre), but that is the way I see it.
Anyway, this is a pointless debate as you seem to be trying to frame it; libertarians simply have different values than you do. We cherish individual liberty, autonomy, etc. in a way that you don't. You define those terms differently, and you know, that's I guess fine. I'd throw in a quote by Lincoln here, but you probably know what it is.
Anyway, I think you are going to have to accept that we honestly disagree on fundamental principles. I say this because I think you're a smart person and I think if we could both do a little bit more listening that we could have some more civil and productive conversations. I also say this as someone who admits that in the past I've not practiced what I preached. Now I hope that wasn't too terribly patronizing.
_______________________
For those of you who are attacking joe: chill the fuck out.
|6.8.06 @ 5:02PM|#
joe,
Obviously the first statement in my response was supposed to be italicized.
Thomas Paine's Goiter|6.8.06 @ 5:03PM|#
And they won't even get those. Even if the Fort Trumbull case had worked out, how many of the created jobs would then be New London taxpayers?
It's not about jobs. Well, it's about the planner's jobs, that's it, it's about "making it better" in the eyes of the planners. Well, the ones that aren't being paid off by developers, anyway.
|6.8.06 @ 5:04PM|#
Dave,
Nobody is screaming "Save the family Beoing engineer", but "Save the family farmer" gets a pass.
Well, pitting groups against groups for access to the public coffers is one thing Hayek warned about.
|6.8.06 @ 5:07PM|#
WS Dave, I mentioned the presevation of farmland in the context of land preservation and community development, not farming jobs.
TJIT, "You want to help the little guy but you have an incredible blind spot regarding how corporate interests using compliant government agencies, constantly enact policies that hurt the "little guy" and help the "big guy"." No, I know far more about this problem as it relates to planning than anyone else here, probably. Which I why I support an array of reforms to address the problem.
Clean Hands, your ignorance about planning is astounding. Please read something about the field before commenting further, because you seem to believe it's still 1953. Ah, yes, the all-powerful planner, considering only abstract idea and imposing his will without having to incorporate the public's concerns and preferences. That's exactly how it works. Oops. My diagram of an ideal concentric city just slipped and knocked my Robert Moses poster off the wall. LOL.
|6.8.06 @ 5:12PM|#
You know, joe may be right. Sometimes planning might lead to a good result. The question is, are we willing to deal with the clusterfucks like that in New London in the process?
Well, I think joe is right to the extent that without some kind of planning you rarely get good results.
The question is should people be forced to live according to plans not of their own choosing.
Some of us accept the fact that sometimes allowing people to make their own plans sometimes leads to error and chaos. There are others who are unable to accept that untidy result and feel that they are allowed, even obligated, to impose their wisdom on the error prone masses.
I think the ancient Greeks had a word for that. It escapes me at the moment, can anyone help me with that?
|6.8.06 @ 5:14PM|#
Phil,
"We cherish individual liberty, autonomy, etc. in a way that you don't."
Yes. In a way that I cherish fairness, equal opportunity, and environmental health in a way that you don't. Please note, just as you have not accused me of having no regard for "libertarian" values, neither have I accused you of having no regard for "liberal" values. I guess it's about priorities. Anyway, if I had no regard whatsoever for those values, I doubt I'd continue having these debates in order to better understand the dangers of planning.
|6.8.06 @ 5:18PM|#
Isaac,
"Some of us accept the fact that sometimes allowing people to make their own plans sometimes leads to error and chaos. There are others who are unable to accept that untidy result and feel that they are allowed, even obligated, to impose their wisdom on the error prone masses."
And the majority of us fall somewhere in between. If you were to have more experience with planners - well, those drawn to the urban end of the field, anyway - you would discover a great deal more appreciation for jumbled development and spontaneous order than you might expect. You would also find people who spend a great deal of their time and effort defending these things against politicians and neighborhood busibodies.
I haven't just read Jane Jacobs - I had her books assigned to me as texts in several of my graduate school courses, and never heard Robert Moses invoked as anything but a villain.
|6.8.06 @ 5:18PM|#
joe,
In a way that I cherish fairness, equal opportunity, and environmental health in a way that you don't.
Libertarians cherish those things (as you admit), we simply have different solutions to those problems than you do.
Anyway, if I had no regard whatsoever for those values, I doubt I'd continue having these debates in order to better understand the dangers of planning.
Well, this pointless bickering really leads away from "understanding" IMHO. And this coming from a former master flamer. Anyway, you now understand my concerns. Like I wrote above, I hope my expression of them wasn't too patronizing.
|6.8.06 @ 5:27PM|#
I see, Phil. When I appear insufficiently concerned about your particular ends, it's because I don't sufficiently value them, but when you and your kind appear insufficiently concerned about the values I listed, it's merely a pragmatic difference. Uh huh.
I can't tell you how many times I've seen libertarians on this board condemn the poor for their state, or proclaim that troubled cities should be allowed to die, as those with means can just leave.
I don't think this has all been pointless bickering - I've gained valuable insights from the discussions I've had on this board, ones that I've used in my practice. When selling off a piece of city-owned property, for example, I answered a ZBA member's concern about the new owners not being required to maintain it by arguing about the self-interest of those owners in protecting their investment. I've also learned to reject the "Make no small plans..." hooey, and adopt a deliberate modesty and caution.
Goiter,
I left my job as a planner a month and a half ago, and am now doing engineering on safety plans for wireless communications sites for a national cell phone provider. So you can stick your argument about self protection up your poorly informed ass.
Timothy|6.8.06 @ 5:28PM|#
Phil L: Can you send Dave W to the same reeducation camp?
joe: I think a lot of it comes down to a matter of taste. Personally, I'd rather have a crappier result and more freedom, and feel more secure in my property. I believe, with great fervor, that it is always wrong to force another person to give up his or her property.
I hear you on "just compensation", I do, but really the only compensation that is just is enough to induce the party in question to sell without force. "You will take X, which may or may not be enough that you'd have sold it to me without being compelled to do so" doesn't cut it for me as a just outcome. An arm's length observer might take X, true, but that doesn't really have much to do with specifics.
Yeah, then you get a hold out problem sometimes, but I'd rather live in a world where sometimes the government can't do what it wants than one in which they can knock down my house after deciding how much to pay me for it.
Thomas Paine's Goiter|6.8.06 @ 5:31PM|#
Why is one outdated job more important than the other?
Because the planners know better than you.
|6.8.06 @ 5:35PM|#
joe,
...but when you and your kind...
Dude, we're not a seperate species.
...appear insufficiently concerned about the values I listed, it's merely a pragmatic difference.
I think you are misreading what I wrote. That really wasn't the point I was trying to make.
I can't tell you how many times I've seen libertarians on this board condemn the poor for their state, or proclaim that troubled cities should be allowed to die, as those with means can just leave.
I don't think that is controversial to state that poverty is at least partly the fault of those who are poor and that they have the primary responsibility in getting out of that situation (indeed, that's the theory in part behind things that I support - like Habitat for Humanity). As to the cities issue, in many circumstances that might be the most viable option. Cities are human created things; they aren't "natural"; thus they have no right to exist if humans choose to abandon them.
I don't think this has all been pointless bickering...
My point is that a lot of it is.
|6.8.06 @ 5:39PM|#
Timothy,
Anything I've learned is a result of individual experience.
Thomas Paine's Goiter|6.8.06 @ 5:39PM|#
I left my job as a planner a month and a half ago, and am now doing engineering on safety plans for wireless communications sites for a national cell phone provider.
This explains why Verizon's service went down Monday night.
So you can stick your argument about self protection up your poorly informed ass.
Your city is saved!
|6.8.06 @ 5:41PM|#
The logic used to justify this is like an Alice in Wonderland version of Robin Hood.
We will steal from the poor to give to the rich hoping that the rich will share some of the profits with the poor so they will be able to buy the new more expensive non blighted properties in their old neighborhoods. If that doesn't work out, then we will have plenty of prime real estate available for sale to other rich people. The poor will be forced into another blighted neighborhood and the cycle will start all over again.
|6.8.06 @ 5:44PM|#
PL,
"poverty is at least partly the fault of those who are poor and that they have the primary responsibility in getting out of that situation" Look, I spent three years on the BoD of my local Habitat affiliate, but how much of the housing needed by this country's poor do you think charity can provide? As for "primariy responsibility," how much of the cost of constructing that housing do you think the sweat equity labor of the partner families actually amounts to?
"As to the cities issue, in many circumstances that might be the most viable option." Except that it is never a viable option; cities aren't like unpopular investement vehicles whose value can be reassigned by mouse-click. They don't just vanish. If they are allowed to decline, even if by "natural" forces, the lives of millions of people are runied - their residents, and those of the surrounding areas. Dying cities are like dying stars - they'll explode, and then suck everying down with them. Not to mention the sheer bloody waste of allowing thousands of acres to be denuded of their ecological function, just to abandon it and allow thousands of additional acres to be unnecessarily denuded.
"Cities are human created things; they aren't "natural"; thus they have no right to exist if humans choose to abandon them." The people who live in them have a right to exist, and to have the opportunity for decent lives.
|6.8.06 @ 5:47PM|#
joe,
I understand that you were talking about land use, not specific jobs, and my post wasn't intended to be critical of your position. That said, I honestly don't understand the value of saving farmland near-in to cities at the expense of housing availiblity and pricing. If the farmer that supplies my beef goes under, then the 500+ acres of "saved farmland" is really just tall grass. He could relocate much further from town and still deliver his goods twice a year, just as if he lived downtown. Forcing people to move VERY far from the city just to have a house with a yard don't work because they must commute every day.
Again, I'm not trying to insult you or be mean; I just genuinely don't understand the "save the farmland" idea, when there are no farmers left.
|6.8.06 @ 5:47PM|#
Also, freakneck, my city is one of the great comeback stories of the last 50 years, and the credit is universally given to a series of planning initiatives undertaken to allow it to reinvent itself, which are studies in planning and policy programs across the country, and have been successfully copied by numerous other cities.
|6.8.06 @ 5:47PM|#
Dave W. isn't at risk of being banned from grylliade.
Thomas Paine's Goiter|6.8.06 @ 5:48PM|#
Dying cities are like dying stars - they'll explode, and then suck everying down with them.
*sniff*
That's beautiful!
|6.8.06 @ 5:52PM|#
joe,
Look, I spent three years on the BoD of my local Habitat affiliate, but how much of the housing needed by this country's poor do you think charity can provide?
Most of it. I'd argue that government intervention inhibits charity.
As for "primariy responsibility," how much of the cost of constructing that housing do you think the sweat equity labor of the partner families actually amounts to?
Depends on the house. Some of the houses are built from the bottom up over a weekened by a professional crew. Other houses have a lot of sweat equity in them. Probably depends on the region, etc.
Except that it is never a viable option;...
If San Francisco is leveled to the ground tomorrow by a 10.0 earthquake are you going to tell me that abandonment isn't an option? I know that is an extreme example, but telling me that it is never a viable option lights off bells like that. Never? Really?
...cities aren't like unpopular investement vehicles whose value can be reassigned by mouse-click. They don't just vanish. If they are allowed to decline, even if by "natural" forces, the lives of millions of people are runied - their residents, and those of the surrounding areas. Dying cities are like dying stars - they'll explode, and then suck everying down with them. Not to mention the sheer bloody waste of allowing thousands of acres to be denuded of their ecological function, just to abandon it and allow thousands of additional acres to be unnecessarily denuded.
Dozens of cities have died throughout human history. It is probably the case that at least some of those deaths ended up being a net benefit.
The people who live in them have a right to exist...
I don't think such a right exists. Now, as a U.S. citizen I probably have a right to live in the U.S. I don't think I have a right to live in a specific place, except for whatever right I pay for, and the most the state should do is stop people from trespassing on my property, etc.
|6.8.06 @ 5:54PM|#
"That said, I honestly don't understand the value of saving farmland near-in to cities at the expense of housing availiblity and pricing."
Phil L, please explain again how WSDave values environmental protection, historic preservation, and open space access just as much as I do.
WSDave, it's about the land. It's about what kind of a place people will inhabit, and whether the biotic function of a region will be protected or degraded.
The decision an individual farmer makes to develop his land is entirely independent from the question of whether the region's residents are going to enjoy the asset of a rural landscape, and be connected to what came before them. Not that the individual farmer should be compelled to bear this entire cost by himself - I absolutely support rejiggering the tax code for this social engineering purpose, and confiscating the hard-earned money you all take home to help him make ends meet. So to speak.
|6.8.06 @ 5:56PM|#
Congrats on the new job, joe!
|6.8.06 @ 6:02PM|#
"Most of it. I'd argue that government intervention inhibits charity."
As demonstrated by the highly effective policy of depending entirely on private charity to meet affordable housing demand during the Gilded Age and, well, anywhere else it's been tried.
"If San Francisco is leveled to the ground tomorrow by a 10.0 earthquake are you going to tell me that abandonment isn't an option?" If San Francisco was truly leveled to the ground, there would be no city left to abandon. That's not what we're talking about.
"It is probably the case that at least some of those deaths ended up being a net benefit." To those who had to suffer through the poverty of being stuck there? I think one of the values we differ on is how willing we are to allow aggregate benefit to justify harm to a minority.
"..." chopping off the end of that quote, the part about opportunity for a decent life, completely eliminates its meaning. I just echoed the "exist" phrasing for rhetorical flourish.
Timothy|6.8.06 @ 6:03PM|#
region's residents are going to enjoy the asset of a rural landscape, and be connected to what came before them.
joe: See, this is where we libertoids get all goofy-eyed. We, largely, fail to see how that aesthetic preference should stop a guy from building some condos.
It's one thing to make an argument about externalities and the environment, and I think there are good, sound arguments to be made there, but "asset of a rural landscape"? We should be forced to compensate a farmer for not plowing the field under because some people like taking drives in the country?
|6.8.06 @ 6:03PM|#
thoreau,
Cast what aspersions you want at me.
Anyway, let us note that my actions here have no bearing on my continued presence at grylliade (or H&R for that matter). I could flame here to my heart's content and David wouldn't care. Now I've openly apologized to you and everyone else and if that isn't enough, so be it.
|6.8.06 @ 6:03PM|#
So after devising your Glorious Plan you'll ask my neighbors what I should do with my property, and then impose your will on me. Performing a ritual circle jerk before stealing from me doesn't make it any less theft.
No can do, PL. joe is one of the people who's been fucking this society sideways, by eroding the essential character of ownership - the right to determine usage - with the excuse that it's "for our own good."
He's so convinced of his moral and mental superiority that he won't even deign to discuss things with us mere mortals, who lack the background in modern planning theory and the latest buzzword-laden "research."
It never occurs to him that the very foundations of planning (based on the idea that our ownership rights are, at best, partial, and subject to the approval of his ilk) might be rotten.
Timothy|6.8.06 @ 6:04PM|#
Dave W. isn't at risk of being banned from grylliade.
Doc T: Ahh, I don't get around to grylliade much, haven't the time, really.
|6.8.06 @ 6:05PM|#
Hold your horses there, thoreau. It's contracting work for now. Highly lucrative, though. Where's my cigar and silk top hat?
Phil, you also totally ignored the part of my point about the unnecessarily despoiling of so much land.
"the most the state should do is stop people from trespassing on my property, etc." Another example of you not valuing universal opportunity for a decent life as much as I do.
|6.8.06 @ 6:05PM|#
For those of you who are attacking joe: chill the fuck out.
If joe weren't such a condescending reactionary prick, maybe we would.
Then again, maybe that's the sort of personality that's attracted to government planning and the land-grabbing chess game of overlords who get off on social tinkering and values gerrymandering.
|6.8.06 @ 6:11PM|#
Social engineering requires an agreed-upon goal. Who decides what that goal is? What means are used to achieve that goal? This is the problem. The decisions are politically motivated and are usually made by an interested minority, not a majority.
As for the means, well, that's the big problem, isn't it? Even if a majority approves of the goal we're working towards, what is there other than compulsion to ensure that everyone "supports" the social engineering project in question? Compelled behavior? Compelled payment? Even if you don't agree?
From where I'm sitting, allowing the people to interact in civil society with minimal government intervention makes a whole lot more sense than using government to force a solution that, often as not, is wrong, dated, or serves some purpose other than the "general welfare". It's so easy to want to force others to do what you want them to do, whether it's constructing buildings in the right manner, invading other countries, or making sure no one sees something "offensive". Where does your "right" to compel correct behavior end? I'm not arguing against laws or restrictions on human behavior (sometimes it is necessary); I'm just suggesting that using force to manipulate people isn't as noble a cause as many would have us believe. Building a consensus among voluntary actors is a much harder job, I'll grant, but I think greater things can be achieved in that manner. People resent being forced to do things that they don't accept.
|6.8.06 @ 6:11PM|#
Timothy, we are biological creatures with an innate need to live among the greenery. The denial of that literally drives people to violence and insanity. Don't belittle the community aesthetics, either - they're essential for quality of life.
"So after devising your Glorious Plan" Wrong.
"..you'll ask my neighbors what I should do with my property, and then impose your will on me." Misleading.
'''with the excuse that it's "for our own good."' Wrong.
"He's so convinced of his moral and mental superiority..." Wrong.
'...that he won't even deign to discuss things with us mere mortals who lack the background in modern planning theory and the latest buzzword-laden "research."' Wrong.
"...the very foundations of planning (based on the idea that our ownership rights are, at best, partial, and subject to the approval of his ilk)..." Wrong.
You really have no idea what planning is, or what planners do, and yet you insist on spouting off. It's actually becoming funny to read your posts.
|6.8.06 @ 6:11PM|#
joe,
As demonstrated by the highly effective policy of depending entirely on private charity to meet affordable housing demand during the Gilded Age and, well, anywhere else it's been tried.
There is a problem with statements like this in that historical periods aren't analagous. In other words, just as transportation was slower across the board in the 19th century, so was housing quality in comparison to today.
If San Francisco was truly leveled to the ground, there would be no city left to abandon. That's not what we're talking about.
Some parts of the city would remain of course; the point is that sometimes cities are simply worth abandoning. Now you can try to define your way out of observation, but I don't think that it will help much.
To those who had to suffer through the poverty of being stuck there?
No, historically when cities were abandoned, they were generally abandoned rather fast.
I just echoed the "exist" phrasing for rhetorical flourish.
Well, I assumed that they were different "rights."
|6.8.06 @ 6:11PM|#
"Cities are human created things; they aren't "natural"; thus they have no right to exist if humans choose to abandon them." The people who live in them have a right to exist, and to have the opportunity for decent lives.
That's exactly what I've said all along, Joe--New London residents like Suzette kelo and Wilhelmina Dery have a right to exist in their homes, and have decent lives in their homes.
But New London thinks it can make itself a more pleasant place to live by kicking out the law-abiding people who live there.
|6.8.06 @ 6:13PM|#
Anyway, I'll let this trainwreck proceed on course. My positions are clear enough now I think.
|6.8.06 @ 6:15PM|#
joe says,
"Timothy, we are biological creatures with an innate need to live among the greenery. The denial of that literally drives people to violence and insanity. Don't belittle the community aesthetics, either - they're essential for quality of life."
That's an aesthetic preference, and it's not one we all share. Personally, I have an innate need to live in a city of steel and concrete and people, and too much greenery would drive me to violence and insanity.
|6.8.06 @ 6:16PM|#
Pro L,
"Who decides what that goal is? What means are used to achieve that goal? This is the problem." Yes, that's the problem, and the practice of planning is the process of managing that problem.
"what is there other than compulsion to ensure that everyone "supports" the social engineering project in question? Compelled behavior? Compelled payment? Even if you don't agree?" Yes. There are limits and standards imposed. To a degree, they are unavoidably arbitrary.
Of course there is a tension between individual autonomy and public good. I have immense distrust for anyone who proclaims one of these values to be absolute, and the other meaningless.
"Building a consensus among voluntary actors is a much harder job, I'll grant, but I think greater things can be achieved in that manner. People resent being forced to do things that they don't accept." Quite so. The wise government pushes voluntary cooperation as far as it can possibly go, even to the point of settling for a less than ideal achievement of the public's goals.
|6.8.06 @ 6:17PM|#
Actually, joe, aside from proving my point exactly in regards to your smugness, you're wrong, as well. I've actually served on a planning commission - as you might imagine, I was considered to be "unhelpful," because I kept bringing up silly ideas like "let's ask the property owners."
In my experience, the process I outlined is pretty much exactly how it goes.
|6.8.06 @ 6:21PM|#
Again, not meaning to be difficult, but how is a rural landscape an asset? It's not like a public park that you can take your kids to, it's private property with a fence around it that nobody but the owners ever even sees. I see bumper stickers around town that call for saving the farmland by people who will probably never even go to a farm. Not that looking at mile after mile of tall grass isn't fun when you're driving: Heck, I enjoy that as much as anybody, but "saving farmland" that will never again be farmed just seems silly.
|6.8.06 @ 6:24PM|#
LOL!!
If the public has goals, then just get the fuck out of their way, and they'll achieve their goals.
But, of course, that's not what you meant... what you meant was "...a less than ideal achievement of the planners' goals."
|6.8.06 @ 6:24PM|#
PL, "No, historically when cities were abandoned, they were generally abandoned rather fast." When a catastrophe sufficient to quickly depopulate an entire city occurs, it may be wiser to rebuilt elsewhere, or in several other elsewheres, than in place. Granted.
But again, that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about leaving the slow descent of a city to continue unabated, and doing nothing to make the city viable.
Jennifer, once again, I don't agree with the clearance plan for New London. But in principle, "New London residents like Suzette kelo and Wilhelmina Dery have a right to exist in their homes, and have decent lives in their homes," yes, they do. And such an action can only be justified if it will allow a population an order of magnitude larger to live decent lives that would otherwise be denied them.
Steve, I share your preference for urban living, but there's a reason that the cities that have most effectively attracted people who agree with us to come back are those that have quality open space systems and waterfronts, and access to extensive rural areas nearby - because there needs to be some, even if it is not the defining character of the blocks where most of the people live.
But no, the psychological need to see natural beauty is not a hit-or-miss preference, any more than the need for human contact or the capacity to exert a degree of control over one's surroundings. It is an innate part of the human psyche.
|6.8.06 @ 6:31PM|#
And such an action can only be justified if it will allow a population an order of magnitude larger to live decent lives that would otherwise be denied them.
This is a good example of the classic "five wolves and a sheep voting on dinner" version of democracy.
|6.8.06 @ 6:34PM|#
And there we have it, friends. The desires of the many outweigh the rights of the few, according to a strict pseudo-mathematical formula.
joe, the actions of the New London thugs cannot be justified under any circumstances. They may get away with it, they might even knock down Susan Kelo's house in the coming weeks, but let's not pretend that there's any veneer of "justice" possible for this act of raw, brutal force.
|6.8.06 @ 6:35PM|#
Tax collection, environmental planning, and regional planning really need to move from the level of the municipality to that of the region.
Joe:
They do in some areas, but maybe not to the detail and expansiveness that you may be suggesting. Believe me, the City of Seattle gets all kinds of State and Federal largesse because "so much of this great city is important to the region". By hook or by crook, I think that many cities do benefit (if not through a continuous and official manner) from regional tax base. (Much to the ire of the region, in some cases). In fact, Joe, if Mayor Nickels has his way, you'll be a forkin' over some of your hard earned duckets for Big Dig II: The Big Dig goes to Washington. Because the city of Seattle is so important to our region and nation. Will that be cash or charge, joe?
|6.8.06 @ 6:35PM|#
Clean Hands,
You have to understand the field of planning, because you were a planning commissioner? Yes, just as one must understand economics, because one serves on the House Appropriations Committee.
Wow, you really got me there. That's almost as good as confusing "the public" with "the property owners."
"If the public has goals, then just get the fuck out of their way, and they'll achieve their goals." With a deep understanding of Tragedy of the Commons and other examples of tension between individual and aggregate effects, I'm beginning to understand why you were such a crappy planning official.
|6.8.06 @ 6:37PM|#
joe,
"Timothy, we are biological creatures with an innate need to live among the greenery. The denial of that literally drives people to violence and insanity."
In Seattle, the big push from (almost) every quarter, and certainly all of government, is to build taller and create MUCH more in-city living to avoid "urban sprawl" into the suburbs.
I, for one, LOVE to live in the trees (no small feat in the city), but the planners here seem to disagree with you (unless they have evil in mind).
|6.8.06 @ 6:42PM|#
"...but let's not pretend that there's any veneer of "justice" possible for this act of raw, brutal force."
This particular act of force isn't justified.
"The desires of the many outweigh the rights of the few..." and libertarians' incapacity to understand the truth of this statement, their need to pretend that the needs of the many are always as shallow as dinner while the needs of the few are always to considered as weighty as life and death, are why libertarians are such an irrelevant minority.
Paul, if the regional tax base and spending on items of regional import was handled at the regional level, then there would be less federal money going into core cities.
I've been chatting when I should have been working, so I'm afraid I'll have to work this evening, when I should be chatting.
You won't have joe to kick around any more - you'll just have to make due with the joe in your heads.
See you tomorrow. It's been a fun thread.
Especially Clean Hands.
|6.8.06 @ 6:45PM|#
and libertarians' incapacity to understand the truth of this statement, their need to pretend that the needs of the many are always as shallow as dinner while the needs of the few are always to considered as weighty as life and death, are why libertarians are such an irrelevant minority.
Fucking libertarians would let those poor wolves starve to death, I bet.
|6.8.06 @ 6:53PM|#
Ooo, you really told me, joe.
Damn, I think I'll have that put on my business card - nay, my grave - I can think of no higher compliment than "Crappy Planning Official."
Hell, I'm tempted to even change my handle here.
|6.8.06 @ 6:56PM|#
I think libertarians are an irrelevant minority because we don't promise to hand out goodies and we don't give into irrational prejudices.
Timothy|6.8.06 @ 6:57PM|#
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but aren't wolves primarily scavengers anyway?
|6.8.06 @ 7:00PM|#
Clean Hands,
It would be a good nick. :)
|6.8.06 @ 7:02PM|#
OK, I'm really leaving now.
I just wanted to say "Crappy Planning Official" would be an awsome screen name, Timothy and Jennifer's latest posts both made me laugh out loud, and Seattle is both incorporating an extensive park system into its urban areas AND preserving land outside the city to meet its citizens' needs for green space.
|6.8.06 @ 7:05PM|#
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but aren't wolves primarily scavengers anyway?
I think you're wrong. Wolves hunt. Coyotes are primarily scavengers.
|6.8.06 @ 7:14PM|#
joe,
I was thinking that maybe if you read Nozick's Anarchy, State and Utopia you might understand libertarians better. While not every libertarian has read it, I think a lot of Nozck's ideas have filtered down into the libertarian community through what others inspired by him have written, etc.
|6.8.06 @ 7:16PM|#
joe,
Of course, you might have read it already, but I assume that you haven't because it isn't exactly a best seller.
|6.8.06 @ 7:24PM|#
Paul,
You are right. Wolves hunt and kill (indeed, they are a top predator in the food chains that they exist in). Scavengers eat the carrion they leave behind.
|6.8.06 @ 7:25PM|#
In fact, PL, I don't think that joe should try to argue about freedom until he's read it. The Road to Serfdom ought to be required reading, as well.
|6.8.06 @ 7:37PM|#
I might have less of a problem with moving towards the Caves of Steel (I exaggerate for effect) if our system retained more of its original respect for individual rights (expanding "person" to the modern definition, naturally). Not just civil liberties, but the right to decide for myself--within some limits, of course--how to live my own life. And not to be handled by the government in some arbitrary way. In that kind of society, maybe a little government planning would bother me less.
|6.8.06 @ 7:52PM|#
joe,
I don't give a damn about this debate, because ED abuse is wrong on the face of it, and so it's sort of like arguing if murder should be illegal.
But I want to point out where either you misread or misrepresented what was said. The quote, from Clean Hands at 6:34:
"The desires of the many outweigh the rights of the few..."
Your response, at 6:42:
"...libertarians' incapacity to understand the truth of this statement, their need to pretend that the needs of the many are always as shallow as dinner while the needs of the few are always to considered as weighty as life and death..."
Now, I think it's fine to translate 'desires' as 'needs', because there's really no such thing as a 'need' outside of a particularly strong desire.
But translating 'rights' into 'needs' as well is, I think, indicative of the disconnect between you and nearly all liberatarians.
See, we think 'rights' are really important, and 'needs' not so much -- and your 'needs' always end where my rights begin. You may need my credit card, but my rights say you can't have it. And I sure as hell need your car, because mine is old and falling apart, but your rights prevent me from just taking it.
When you conflate the two, you get seemingly irresolvable conflicts like those being discussed in this thread. When you always draw a careful distinction between the two, these issues are not quite as complicated as you'd have us believe.
|6.8.06 @ 7:58PM|#
I think libertarians are an irrelevant minority because we don't promise to hand out goodies and we don't give into irrational prejudices.
Indeed. Excellent point, PL2. (Sorry to the original PL for forgetting that last time I called you PL) :)
As a native Portlander too bad I missed out on all the fun today. Oh and PL2, how about them Beavs! Super regional starts here Saturday with a chance to advance to the College World Series for the second straight year!
|6.8.06 @ 8:04PM|#
I don't even know who I am anymore.
|6.8.06 @ 8:12PM|#
Pro Libertate,
I like your observation about planning and the overall nature of government's intrusion upon our lives.
Brian Courts,
Cool! Go Beavs!
|6.8.06 @ 8:31PM|#
Pro Libertate,
I like your observation about planning and the overall nature of government's intrusion upon our lives.
Brian Courts,
Cool! Go Beavs!
|6.8.06 @ 8:31PM|#
A related anecdote.
Albuqueque NM used ED to raze a portion of one of its historic neighborhoods to build a museum (quite nice, and very successful for the community, but that is a side bar). When one last resident wouldn't sell her house, they just redesigned and built the thing around her. Her house now sits, surrounded on all sides by museum and parking lot. I don't know if she is still living there, or if the family has moved, but she did for at least several years after the project was complete.
Compromise can always be found.
|6.8.06 @ 8:50PM|#
The problem with valuing fairness more highly, or even as highly, as liberty, is that the former quality is almost entirely dependent on the vantage point of the observer, and is thus almost entirely nebulous, without objective quality. Thus, whomever can be most effectively violent, explicitly or implicitly, and whether it be a majority, energetic minority, or autocrat, simply defines what they want as "fair", and forces others to submit. Heck, what could be more "fair", as Holmes argued, than forcing people who score low on I.Q. tests to be sterilized against their will? What could be more "fair" than a majority on a city council deciding that they want more tax revenues?
Liberty, on the other hand, has an objective quality to it; one is either being forced to behave in a certain way, or one is not. Thus, there can be much less argument about whether an act expands or restricts liberty, and those with the most effective access to force can't get away with simply defining the word to suit their interests. Which means, if liberty is the highest value in the hierarchy, those that wish to restrict liberty have to argue for it on objective terms, such as "We need to force people to build prisons, because allowing murderers to go unincarcerated would pose still greater threats to others' liberty". That is a much easier argument to make than "We need to forcibly take away Kelo's home, because failure to do so poses a great threat to the liberty of the rest of the community", or "We need to force people to pay for sugar subsidies, because failure to do so would threaten the liberty of all."
As soon as one gives "fairness" equal standing with "liberty" however, there is no act that cannot be justified, because "fairness" is defined by whomever most effectively wields power.
Finally, whomever stated it above is entirely correct; libertarian values are not popular among the wider electorate largely because they don't carry with them the promise of "free" pony rides.
|6.8.06 @ 9:37PM|#
I can't believe there are so many Portlanders here, all of whom despise their city and what they're trying to do. Not that I can say Portland is really great (I've never been there), but if you hate it so much, why not leave?
Anyway, it's kind of hard to make sense of threads like this, given the rather strong anti-urban feelings of so many libertarians. Comments like "We should just build one big, well-planned dome and shove everyone into it.... No cars allowed in the dome, of course" don't shed any light on cities or on how to improve life there using libertarian principles.
Thomas Paine's Goiter|6.8.06 @ 9:42PM|#
If joe weren't such a condescending reactionary prick, maybe we would.
DING!
Then again, maybe that's the sort of personality that's attracted to government planning and the land-grabbing chess game of overlords who get off on social tinkering and values gerrymandering.
DING!
Thomas Paine's Goiter|6.8.06 @ 9:48PM|#
In my experience, the process I outlined is pretty much exactly how it goes.
Not in JOE'S World! He's a benevolent planner!
Thomas Paine's Goiter|6.8.06 @ 9:49PM|#
You have to understand the field of planning, because you were a planning commissioner? Yes, just as one must understand economics, because one serves on the House Appropriations Committee.
Well, considering that you lack a basic understanding of economics and urban growth, I'd say you're qualified for none of the above. Keep tryin' though buddy, I'm sure one day someone will find a use for you.
Thomas Paine's Goiter|6.8.06 @ 9:56PM|#
The people who live in them have a right to exist, and to have the opportunity for decent lives.
Unless you and the planners are paid enough by developers to push them out of the city, eh Planner Joe?
Thomas Paine's Goiter|6.8.06 @ 9:56PM|#
But, of course, that's not what you meant... what you meant was "...a less than ideal achievement of the planners' goals."
But the planner's goals are better for the majority!
Thomas Paine's Goiter|6.8.06 @ 9:58PM|#
I think libertarians are an irrelevant minority because we don't promise to hand out goodies and we don't give into irrational prejudices.
And we don't promise big plans for other people's lives. And then plan them into the toilet.
|6.8.06 @ 10:20PM|#
I was joking about the dome thing, rhywun. I'm not anti-urban, I'm anti-centralized, politicized control. I'd prefer to have a less-than-ideal city, efficiency-wise than a less-than-ideal city, liberty-wise. Throwing people off of property without paying the actual market price for that property is an evil, regardless of how much some people want to repackage it as a public good or as being in the service of some higher ideal. Might doesn't make right, you know.
|6.8.06 @ 10:48PM|#
Seven consecutive attempts at snappy personal attacks.
I'm flattered.
|6.8.06 @ 11:11PM|#
What do you call an urban planner at the bottom of a well?
A good start.
Joe, I really don't see how you cannot realize that what you advocate is nothing better than common theft. Think about it; it's as if you made a policy of burglarizing houses (but only "minimally") and justified it by saying that the folks who got ripped off get compensated by insurance. Who the fuck cares?! They were robbed, their precious posessions stolen, and they get exactly as much cash as some bureaucrat dictates they deserve. Oh, I forgot, it was for the common good.
I hope you're a strong advocate of gun control Joe, because that's all that's standing between you and a bullet in the head as you "minimally" seize property.
|6.8.06 @ 11:35PM|#
rhywun,
Anyway, it's kind of hard to make sense of threads like this, given the rather strong anti-urban feelings of so many libertarians.
I am not anti-urban. I just find the idea that all urban areas must be saved from decline to be rather strange.
|6.9.06 @ 1:41AM|#
As another poster alluded to earlier, the logical extension of the old proverb "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few", is NOT "the desires of the many outweigh the rights of the few".
Even though I consider the former to be provisional, and it can occasionally be accepted as a reasonable maxim, the latter is NEVER valid.
When you get right down to it, any use of eminent domain that is not a clear cut PUBLIC USE is an expression of the second version, and is therefore an illegitimate use of government power over the rights of an individual. These arbitrary and disingenous arguments about economic benefit, etc., are just a window dressing for those who covet what belongs to another.
Oh, and by the way:
we are biological creatures with an innate need to live among the greenery. The denial of that literally drives people to violence and insanity. Don't belittle the community aesthetics, either - they're essential for quality of life
In what hallucinogenic dreamworld does inactive FARMLAND meet this alleged 'need'? I'm a huge fan of greenery and the appeal of a pristine natural environment, but the presence of inactive farmland does absolutely nothing to address that desire. The only thing it makes me think of is what some comedian said some time back (referring to a farmer getting subsidies), "What do you do? Well, I don't grow corn!"
Dave W.|6.9.06 @ 8:50AM|#
O boy, camp!
MY PROPOSAL
(to deal with takings where the motivator is increased tax revenue):
People being condemned should get to know (by law!) the amount the developer is promising the city in enhanced tax revenue. That amount should be a factor considered in setting just compensation.
Transparency. It's not just for scotch tape anymore.
|6.9.06 @ 9:26AM|#
joe, I wasn't attacking you personally. I just object to the system. rhywun's chastisement probably made a little more cranky than usual, though :)
|6.9.06 @ 10:09AM|#
it's worth commenting on the fact that the large amounts of tax exempt, institutional land in core cities (and the urban highways that also eat up much of their real estate) largely serve people who live outside the city
I have a 1960 (or so) local map of Chicago published by the Tribune; at the time there was only one expressway (the Calumet, on the extreme southern edge which today is considered the worst part of the metro area) and the map had basically an editorial in it that called for more expressways so that outsiders could get into the city easier to spend their money. And as soon as they were built city residents realized "I can get into the city easy, which means I don't have to live in it anymore!! Instead of having to LIVE in congestion I only have to DRIVE in it now!!" Nice example of unintended consequences. Then Daley implemented the "employee head tax" to make up for the outsiders "taking advantage of city services without paying for them" - which then drove businesses to relocate outside the city.
Implying that the unintended consequences were actually intended as a "service" to outsiders must be some kind of joke.
|6.9.06 @ 11:03AM|#
"I'll see your Ft. Trumball, and raise you a Fanueil Hall/Quincy Market."
Faneuil Hall was already city property before that redevelopment began. No ED required.
|6.9.06 @ 12:35PM|#
People being condemned should get to know (by law!) the amount the developer is promising the city in enhanced tax revenue.
And if the developer does not deliver said amount, he shall forfeit all his property to be divided amongst those who were forced to sell their property. All government officials associated with the planning and execution of said project shall forfeit their property in a like manner and shall in addition be banished.
Now that would be fair.
|6.9.06 @ 12:52PM|#
How about just banishing all planning officials, as a pre-emptive measure. After all, the recidivism rate among admitted planners is pretty damned high.
|6.9.06 @ 7:09PM|#
Russ 2000,
My comment about urban highways wasn't about intent, just a description of the status quo.
Also the Quincy Market/Fanueil Hall project went wall beyond the refurbishment of that one building.
Jimbo, is there anyone more pathetic than the internet tough guy making threats with a fake email address. Mine is real, btw, you sissy-assed pussy.
foobie,
"These arbitrary and disingenous arguments about economic benefit, etc., are just a window dressing for those who covet what belongs to another." Sounds to me like you don't have much of an argument against these types of projects, and must fall back on declaring them all fraudulent. The problem here is that it only takes one example of a legitimate project that successfully achieved these goals and wasn't merelly a pretext to demolish your entire argument.
Also, that "inactive farmland" is also known as "fields, meadows, and praries," and most people do find it attractive and meaningful.
Dave W.'s suggestion is a good one. An idea I've kicked around is to require the payment of twice fair market value, with half going to the owner and the half to the occupant, whether owner or tenant. Since I believe the benefit needs to be an order of magnitude larger than the harm in order for the project to be justified, merely doubling the cost would only weed out the projects of dubious merit.
|6.9.06 @ 8:36PM|#
"These arbitrary and disingenous arguments about economic benefit, etc., are just a window dressing for those who covet what belongs to another." Sounds to me like you don't have much of an argument against these types of projects, and must fall back on declaring them all fraudulent. The problem here is that it only takes one example of a legitimate project that successfully achieved these goals and wasn't merelly a pretext to demolish your entire argument.
Doesn't demolish my argument at all. In the cases where the outcome was truly successful, it would have been successful without the forced taking. Even in the very rare circumstances where a case can be made for an 'economic result taking', I agree with a poster above that if the proposed plan fails to meet the goals it claimed as justification for the taking, then the previous property owners and taxpayers should be given recompense from the developers and the politicians who bent over for them.
Also, that "inactive farmland" is also known as "fields, meadows, and praries," and most people do find it attractive and meaningful.
While I accept that viewpoint, it in no way demonstrates that this inactivity needs to be subsidised.
|6.10.06 @ 12:44AM|#
I weep at the feet of your manly, "real" e-mail address, Joe. I mean knowing your Hotmail address must be like giving away the town where you ply your evil trade, right? Now if you had a "real" e-mail address from me, somehow my post would be a real threat? Your ponytail is pulled too-tight, Joey.
Want to stand up and be counted as "real" and a true advocate of the evil you preach? Let us know: which town of Massholes lie quaking in their beds at the mighty power of Joe Boyle's planning authority? Where has the saintly power of government been used to create Plato's republic among the rolling hills? I guess our own little BTK wants to keep that a secret.
Robert|6.10.06 @ 3:43AM|#
I'm pretty sure the Eden preceded the Calumet.
Dave W.|6.10.06 @ 7:14AM|#
I weep at the feet of your manly, "real" e-mail address, Joe. I mean knowing your Hotmail address must be like giving away the town where you ply your evil trade, right? Now if you had a "real" e-mail address from me, somehow my post would be a real threat? Your ponytail is pulled too-tight, Joey.
This is fucking creepy. Don't you guys have a genuflection corner over at Grill-Aide's now?
|6.10.06 @ 4:32PM|#
Generally, Jimbo, nothing spouted by loudmouth bedwetters like you counts as a real threat.
That you need to hide behind anonymity makes you even less of a man.
And I'll pass on inflicting you on my former employers.