Wildly Unrealistic Policy Proposal of the Day

I like me a good unrealistic proposal, and this Ryan Avent scheme for better regional planning is a doozy:

In inner suburbs, the population of squished out people grows until infrastructure needs grow and tax rates rise, squishing people farther out still. The end result is a terrible distribution of infrastructure investment, since inner infrastructure is, on the whole, underused while outer infrastructure is overused (example: Prince William County can’t build schools fast enough, while the District has school buildings sitting empty). What ought to happen, what I’d expect to happen in an enlightened area with a strong regional authority, is that tax rates would decline as you moved inward, not outward. In that case, taxpayers would pay more for moves that necessitate outward expansions of infrastructure and reductions in agglomeration externalities.

As he himself notes "That outcome is also practically impossible to imagine." Of course, many of our metro areas have more than enough people to be viable states were one allowed to redraw the map, and were state boundaries to conform better to the contours of the metropolitan areas into which our lives are actually organized, it might be possible to have better planning.

Comments

Property is overall more expenses, but here in Chicago every time someone from the suburbs finds out what the property tax rates are in the city they're shocked at how low they are.

Posted by dbt | September 28, 2007 4:56 PM

were state boundaries to conform better to the contours of the metropolitan areas into which our lives are actually organized, it might be possible to have better planning.

I find it amazing no one talks about this; most of the most severly blighted metro areas in our country lie across state boundaries from the main, wealthy city: Newark, Camden, Gary, E. St. Louis, etc.

Posted by right | September 28, 2007 5:17 PM

The problem, as I see it, is that growth in the outer ring of the metro is subsidized at the expense of the inner ring. Where does the money for new roads and sewer lines originate? The tax base that funds all the highways and new development is the core city, which is then drained of its population from the sprawl that it subsidized. A saner approach to development is for cities to annex the outlying growth. They would be able to control the density of the new growth to harmonize with the region, and resources would be more wisely allocated (such as schools). This is how it once was in America: New York City once annexed neighboring Brooklyn. Chicago and Detroit also annexed as they grew.

Posted by James | September 28, 2007 5:32 PM

If you want to stop "squishing out" people into the exurbs with all the associated infrastructure problems, then let's stop having such a rapidly growing population.

And guess what's driving up the population so fast in America these days?

That-which-must-not-be-mentioned, a.k.a., the I-Word.

Posted by Steve Sailer | September 28, 2007 5:39 PM

I wouldn't say that immigration plays no role in our mismanaged growth, Steve, but there are these mythical lands called "Europe" and "Japan" that manage to have higher population densities than the United States without turning into sprawling exurban wastelands like the Inland Empire. Why is that?

This might be a better spot for one of your boilerplate racially-tinged anti-public school diatribes than for your boilerplate anti-immigration diatribe. But Matt's call for better regional planning strikes me as a more productive discussion-starter than either one.

Of course, in faraway lands with modern Parliamentary democracies, local governments can be rearranged to suit the needs of shifting populations. So the genuinely bold, contrarian, politically incorrect comment to be made here is to suggest that one of the root problems is the sainted Constitution of the United States itself.

Despite the horrifying persecution faced by those few, brave souls who dare to mention the "I-Word," Lou Dobbs still has a prime time show on CNN.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | September 28, 2007 6:19 PM

"Of course, many of our metro areas have more than enough people to be viable states were one allowed to redraw the map, and were state boundaries to conform better to the contours of the metropolitan areas into which our lives are actually organized, it might be possible to have better planning."

Don't we in Northern Virginia wish we could break lose from the white trash in Richmond which is robbing us blind. Only 30 cents out of every dollar collected in taxes in Northern Virginia and sent to Richmond is spent in Northern Virginia. If Northern Virginia were a separate state, it would have about the lowest taxes in the nation.

Posted by SLC | September 28, 2007 6:49 PM

speaking of "Wildly Unrealistic Policy Proposals", how do you feel about ENDA being split into ENDA and GENDA? I can never tell in these situations if they're being horrible sell-outs, or logically planning a rational incremental strategy to get us where we want to go?

Posted by Sandy Hereld | September 28, 2007 8:32 PM

Its great that Matt is blogging on local government and urban planning issues. They don't get nearly enough attention. And yes, local government in the U.S. is a mess.

Administratively, its a hodgepodge of cities, many of which are too big for City Hall to be effectively controlled by the voters, towns that are too small to efficiently provide services or lobby the state government, unincorporated areas, county governments with vague powers, and unelected agencies that can issue bonds and have more power than elected local governments. There are also "cities", such as the city of Industry that exist solely as a sort of tax loophole. The whole system makes the 18th century Holy Roman Empire look like a model of rational administration.

And there is the fact that state boundaries run through six major cities, including the country's largest city and the national capital.

Ideally, I'd like to see elected town and neighborhood governments, of fairly uniform physical size and population (usually about 100,000) that control zoning, issue ordnances, and run most of the municipal bureaucracy including the police, and elected metropolitan area governments that run the transportation system, handle environmental issues, and raise revenue, which is then mostly distributed to the smaller governments on a per capita basis. The metro area government could be made up of representatives of the smaller government, with some sort of weighted voting system. That would be considerably more efficient, allow for more local economy, but reflect the fact that metro areas are regional economies. It would keep the wealthy from setting up or moving to gerrymandered towns in order to keep money away from minority areas.

And something like the system I described actually operates in other Western countries, but I have no idea how to get therre.

Posted by Ed | September 28, 2007 8:33 PM

"there are these mythical lands called "Europe" and "Japan" that manage to have higher population densities than the United States without turning into sprawling exurban wastelands like the Inland Empire. Why is that?"

In the 19th Century, because of starvation and emigration. In the 20th Century, because of the Soviet Army and the US Navy for "Europe" and "Japan" respectively.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensraum http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_East_Asia_Co-Prosperity_Sphere

After World War II, both lands were blessed with gifted leaders who built peaceful, prosperous societies. The most gifted of these was Japan's postwar ruler, Douglas MacArthur.

Posted by beowulf | September 28, 2007 8:41 PM

"Of course, many of our metro areas have more than enough people to be viable states were one allowed to redraw the map"

I suspect that, if you empowered core cities to redraw the map to include back in people who've deliberately fled them, those people would just flee further. Like, maybe they left for a reason? Perhaps they didn't WANT to be in the metro area?

What arrogance to respond to people moving out by trying to push out the borders to recapture them, whether they like it or not.

Posted by Brett Bellmore | September 28, 2007 8:50 PM

Inner suburbs aren't just places where ethnic minority strivers buy their first homes (like say northern Orange County CA); they're places like Encino and San Mateo County. In case you haven't been paying attention these are places where very rich people live.

Outer suburbs in contrast tend to be solidly middle class. The very rich who live there tend to be old ranchers who off most of their land to developers and weirdo conservatives who buy 100 acres on the outskirts of town thinking they're men of the people.

But it doesn't surprise me that in Democratic fantasy-land the white middle class outer suburbs should bank roll rich (mostly white and Jewish) people and ethnic 1st and 2nd generation immigrants in inner suburbs; follow the money, and votes.

Posted by Linus | September 28, 2007 10:36 PM

Brett, italicizing something doesn't make it shocking. Its quite obvious to everyone that self-segregation by the well-off is an important driver in these issues.

Posted by yoyo | September 28, 2007 11:57 PM

"there are these mythical lands called "Europe" and "Japan" that manage to have higher population densities than the United States without turning into sprawling exurban wastelands like the Inland Empire. Why is that?"

Spoken by a person who probably never lived in any of these places.

Cities are still accepted in Europe and Japan because they have reasonably homogeneous populations. You can see that changing, however, as some nations take in more immigrants (see england). And the cities change in response with people moving out.

So we get back to the I word, combined with the M word - minorities.

Boston was a great European style city. Then forced busing was implemented and it emptied out in a decade.

I currently live in a European city and I use my car once a week at the most. For all I know it could be stolen right now as I have not seen it in five days.

I love this life style and really wish I could have it in the states, but there is not a city neighborhood that has decent schools unless I pay 15K+ for a private school and there is probably no room in those schools even if my kids could get in.

Honestly, people don't understand want they are losing by taking in so many immigrants so fast who are so poor. They really have no clue.

Posted by Daveg | September 29, 2007 4:24 AM

It's just a form of emphasis, Yoyo; I don't think the idea of redrawing city borders to recapture people who've deliberately moved out of those cities needs anything to be rendered shocking, it ought to be shocking enough on it's own, to anybody who accords human autonomy any value.

People leave cities because they don't want to be in them anymore. Respect that, don't regard it as something to work around.

Posted by Brett Bellmore | September 29, 2007 7:30 AM

People leave central cities, surely, because they don't want to live in the central city anymore. It is not at all clear that they care about the municipality. And a massive extension of municipal boundaries would, of course, change the nature of the municipal government, since suddenly it would be full of all the white middle class people who left the city proper. So I'm not sure what point Brett is trying to make. Do you really find the idea of changing around how local government works so incredibly shocking?

Posted by John | September 29, 2007 8:17 AM

People leave cities because they don't want to be in them anymore. Respect that, don't regard it as something to work around.

You don't get it. In most places, living in the city is more desirable.

That is happening again in some Amermican cities, but problem is that it is mostly childless households for now, because although some cities have become safe enough for adults, kids need more than safety, but access to good schools and activities and the ability to associate with others you are comfortable with.

And bottom line is it is a hell of a lot more efficient on the environment to have people live in the city.

Posted by daveg | September 29, 2007 9:21 AM

Re: Outer suburbs in contrast tend to be solidly middle class.

Make that upper middle class. While you may have some wealthy enclaves in the inner ring (e.g., Gross Point MI just outside Detroit) you also have a lot of decaying industry, retiree neighborhoods, half-empty office parks, ethnic ghettos, and red light districts. The outer edge of the sprawl is yuppie-dom: the kind of people who can afford McMansions and an oversized SUV for their long daily commute.

Re: Cities are still accepted in Europe and Japan because they have reasonably homogeneous populations.

In Europe and Japan most of the land has been owned for centuries, often by wealthy people who reagerded it as a family legacy and were not about to part with it except for at a very high price. This limited sprawl. In the US by contrast a lot of land had only been owned since the late or mid 19th century and often it was/is in the hands of farmers who are not adverse to selling it off to developers so they can retire to Florida (or by their heirs when they die who have no desire to take up farming).

Re: And bottom line is it is a hell of a lot more efficient on the environment to have people live in the city.

Just redrawing the borders will not solvbe that problem. And the real problem is there are just too many people to fit into a handful of compact cities these days. The better solution (barring genocide, which I hope no one advocates) now is to work on a non fossil fuel dependent transportation system.

Posted by JonF | September 29, 2007 10:13 AM

"The outer edge of the sprawl is yuppie-dom: the kind of people who can afford McMansions and an oversized SUV for their long daily commute."

I can't speak for every suburb in America - haven't been to every suburb in America - but in my experience the outer burbs tend to be more populated by younger (30 something) people and families who aren't yet in their peak earning years and want a multi-bedroom home but can't afford one in a more established area.

Posted by Linus | September 29, 2007 11:19 AM

I would add that I'm not sure people who move to exurbs do so for tax reasons alone or would be persuaded to move back to the immediate metro area for tax reasons alone. It's fairly well known by now that the exurbs tend to be more conservative - politically and culturally - and people like to be around other people like them.

Nor do I think taxation is maybe the central issue for the kinds of people who might stay in cities but move elsewhere to buy a home and settle down: liberals, gays, people of color. Property in cities costs too much and it costs too much because demand exceeds supply. There are lots of vacant buildings in a number of cities that should be renovated (and that may be a tax issue in some places). There's land that's polluted which should be cleaned up and developed. There's foot dragging by local politicians (San Francisco comes to mind especially here) about building more and building up; Vancouver BC has built lots of new apartments and condos in recent decades.

But even in American cities - where land is at a premium - Americans still I think want their own private property. This means that even if not especially in condo and apartment communities people should get their own private garden plots, that sort of thing.

Posted by Linus | September 29, 2007 11:51 AM

I work as a city planner and am daily frustrated by the lack of investment in our downtown as opposed to the booming burbs. But I want to add that its a rational phenomenon, not just an externality.

There are at least two things that drive this: (1) A whole heckuva lot of people, not just conservatives, want to have a nice single family house with a yard. I imagine the readership of this blog is more urbanly-inclined, but you gotta realize that most Americans are not. That includes many who would vote democratic. It crosses all income and cultural divides. Thats just what most people want. Unfortunate but true.

(2) The second thing is that fixing urban infrastructure is often more expensive and complicated than just building new ones. Old crumbling schools, water and sewer lines in urban areas are in terrible condition, and they are not easy to fix.

Just my two cents. But there are ways to get people back in the city, and I am all about trying to have better regional planning. Its just harder than it looks from the outside.

Posted by Nathan | September 29, 2007 3:05 PM

If you want to stop "squishing out" people into the exurbs with all the associated infrastructure problems, then let's stop having such a rapidly growing population.

Is America's population growing rapidly?
http://www.npg.org/facts/us_historical_pops.htm

No it isn't

are cities growing rapidly? No, most big American cities hit their peak population over a generation ago. Rather, it seems that the flight to the exurbs is created by sheer ignorance and stupidity of the typical redneck American like Steve here. Should we blame the schools system?

Posted by James | September 29, 2007 10:06 PM

James says I'm ignorant and stupid and to prove it links to a page where the last population figure for the US on it is 1998's 270 million.

Well, the population nine years later is 303 million.

The majority of the that growth stems from immigrants or the children of post-1965 immigrants.

Getting some control over our borders once again is not a "Wildly Unrealistic Policy Proposal" -- it won't be easy, but it's a lot less unrealistic way to ameliorate a lot of social problems.

Posted by Steve Sailer | September 30, 2007 4:07 AM