« The Case Against Mukasey | Main | Leftward Ho » The Case for Cities26 Oct 2007 04:30 pm
Tim Harford on the virtues of urbanism and the ways in which our public policy tends to give them short shrift. Via Ryan Avent who sums up the message, "it’s not about arguing the superiority of individual choices to live or not live in cities, it’s about fixing policy so that we aren’t irrationally undermining valuable resources." Photo by Flickr user TylerDurden used under a Creative Commons license Comments (13)
Yeah, it isn't George Bush, Mitch McConnell, or Dennis Hastert who have done this. If New York is an unlivable city for middle class families, it is mostly because rich New Yorkers have demanded that it be so. 
Cities are, for many of us, the preferable place to live. But the reasons that not everyone agrees with me are two-fold: (1) yes, government tends to favor things that support a more suburban lifestyle, and (2) city governments are sufficiently large that corruption becomes endemic, causing these governments to act against their own self-interest because of the individual self-interest of the politicians who run things. Both issues need to be addressed in order to convince folks that urbanism is a good thing.
Cities are, for many of us, the preferable place to live. But the reasons that not everyone agrees with me are two-fold: (1) yes, government tends to favor things that support a more suburban lifestyle, and (2) city governments are sufficiently large that corruption becomes endemic, causing these governments to act against their own self-interest because of the individual self-interest of the politicians who run things. Both issues need to be addressed in order to convince folks that urbanism is a good thing.
What Will Allen said. And let me add, that urban liberals of the Matt Yglesias variety are precisely the people who (i) clamor for more regulations in the city, which drives up the cost of living even further, and (ii) never speak against things like farm subsidies or highway spending, which siphon money away from cities, because to attack any government spending program would just give aid and comfort to the right. Ask yourself, has Jerrold Nadler ever criticized farm subisidies? Has any Dalton family suggested that he should? I don't think so.
Bill Maher has. And so has Matt. Its a pretty boring topic, which probably is why farm subsidies aren't much discussed.
"...never speak against things like farm subsidies or highway spending, which siphon money away from cities" Right on the money here. NYC taxpayers end up contributing to the highways that they don't use, but do suburban resident's taxmoney go to the subways? It is time that cities stop subsidizing things that destroy their own tax base, like new sewer lines for exurbs or highways. Of course the other problem is that cities aren't allowed to grow as they once did. It used to be that, as cities developed to their borders, they annexed the surrounding suburbs. In the post war era, that stopped happening and as a direct correlation cities in America began to decline.
Why are the social costs of human density never factored in? Where are the highest crime rates? Where is the most money spent on resolving disputes? Where is the most money spent on shrinks? Matt is constantly linking to the feminist bloggers who experience sexual harassment, where is this happening? Why should the country mice spend any money to resolve the social issues of human crowding? At least farm subsidies allow country mice to eat.
Should read At least farm subsidies allow city mice to eat.
The ironic part is that farm subsidies actually send money into manhattan, since so many beneficiaries of farm subsidies are rich manhattanites who happen to own farmland elsewhere. Who pointed this out? MattY, on this very weblog. Pay ATTENTION, y81. The thing is that cities are enormously complex entities, and the ability to efficiently manage them declines as they get larger. There's a limited number of people in city government positions who have the ability to deal with such large managerial problems. New York seems to have a lot of them. I presume that, per capita, there are substantially fewer in Detroit and Washington, DC. It may help to somehow reduce the communication/transaction costs of managing a large city, but that would require a lot of bureaucratic changes.
The trouble with cities is that they are full of people. Also they are dirty and loud. They can be good for short visits, but I find them unpleasant to live in. Give me a house in the sticks any day.
What, there isn't dirt in the sticks? As for the loud and crowded part, those are features, not bugs. But as has been said, our tastes simply aren't the point. The point is whether the government is acting to favor one set of tastes over another. And as for the goverment corruption issue --- please. NYC has had its bad moments, but Long Island's been even worse.
Re: NYC taxpayers end up contributing to the highways that they don't use Um, how do consumer goods, especially foodstuffs, get into New York City? Re: But as has been said, our tastes simply aren't the point. Yes, they are. It's always easier to work with the grain of what people want than work against. Rather than some unworkable, (except by tyrannical means) one-size-fits-all policy on something so fundamental as to where people live, why not just fix the oil dependency and greenhouse gas problems by coming up with trbnsportation means that do not run on fossil fuel. A tall order I know, but much, much easier than herding everyone into overpriced, violence-prone slums. Try respecting your fellow citizens for change. You might actually get them to listen to you if you abandon the "I know what's best for all of you" junior god act.
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Heads in the Sand
First, we should address the anti- urban bias of many rich countries. Joe Gyourko, the real-estate economist, estimates that Manhattan residents are paying $7,500 a year each in higher housing costs because of the city’s stranglehold on building permits; even after Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s recent reforms, New York is building smaller apartment blocks than in the 1970s. The high prices drive people away from New York, an environmental and cultural disaster.
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The trend of his argument is that overall public policy discriminates against cities. I'm surprised he would bring this up as it's a problem the city dwellers have inflicted on themselves
Posted by Campesino | October 26, 2007 4:54 PM