Publisher's Notes

Followups to Previous Articles

Chicago attorney Bernard H. Siegan, author of "Nonzoning in Houston" (REASON, "Trends," March 1971) has proposed elimination of all zoning as the best way to end America's housing shortage. A 13 May Associated Press story quotes Siegan stating that the best hope for improved housing lies "in maximizing production and competition." With zoning, "one group, those who got there first, exercises considerable restraints over the production of housing intended to benefit many other groups." Merely making zoning changes to allow low-cost housing for minorities would result in "tokenism," he predicted, and the erection of "even bigger exclusionary walls toward everyone else."

The Nixon Administration is getting ready to release the first set of proposals aimed at a phased deregulation of surface transportation (see "Deregulating Transportation" in "Trends," June 1971). The basic proposals would allow rail and truck rates to be raised and lowered (within a broad range) without ICC interference, eliminate ICC restrictions on entering the trucking business, abolish antitrust immunity of the rail and truck company "rate bureaus" (which presently engage in legally protected price-fixing), and make it much easier for railroads to abandon unprofitable branch lines.

INFORMATION WANTED

The editors are seeking information from readers on private, profit-making fire departments. Private fire companies reportedly exist in or near Chatanooga, Tenn., Rochester, N.Y., Grant's Pass, Oregon, and near St. Louis, Mo. (The editors are already familiar with the Rural/Metropolitan Fire Protection Company of Scottsdale, Ariz. which serves over 100,000 persons.)

The editors are also seeking a libertarian M.D. familiar with the Kaiser Plan or other successful prepaid group medical plans to do an article on noncoercive solutions to the high cost of health care.