In the midst of other things, I had forgotten that I gave a “24 hour challenge” that, unfortunately, only one person took me up on, and even that one was late. This is what happens when you have a mind that is constantly thinking of many different yet related things and you don’t write a note to remind yourself to stay on track. So, thanks Big Daddy for being brave enough to be the only one to venture a guess at the challenge.
The question was: “Moving cars quickly is an underlying purpose for wide streets, but can anyone tell me what the most significant reason for our wider-than-needed streets is?” (Read the entire post)
The answer that Big Daddy gave was “The [drivers] and their zig zagging, foot stomping, hair raising commuting events … are the reason for those wide streets, not to mention those rounded corners.”
Essentially, this answer reflects an interesting, but probably not uncommon, misconception that drivers have demanded such a road design, thus it was built. This may work in the marketplace to a certain extent, where a Furby craze will induce stores to devote entire isles to annoying little electronic creatures (the demand-induced supply model), but not when it comes to roads and other similar public investments. In the case of such large-scale public infrastructure investments, Shoeless Joe Jackson, as portrayed in Field of Dreams, had a perfect understanding of how things work: “If you build it, they will come.” More specifically, if we design streets to support wild driving, then wild driving will occur, but if we prevent “zig zagging, foot stomping, hair raising commuting events” by making it obviously unsafe for drivers to behave in such a manner (narrower streets, wide-turn corners, on-street parking), then streets will become much less unruly.
Incidentally, this concept of “supply-induced demand” also applies to suburban housing. We tend to think that we have so much suburban housing because that is what we the people want. In fact, we have an abundance of suburbia because that is what some people want, and that “some” includes politicians, developers, bankers, and, yes, planners. The demand for urban or inner-ring suburban housing is currently at around 51%, according to Chris Nelson, a premier housing demand researcher, meaning that the majority of people actually prefer to be closer to the city and all of its amenities and culture, not further away. Yet, we keep building the majority of our new housing as far from the city as possible while neglecting our decaying cities. Do we really think demand is inducing supply here?
Actually, the answer to my question above is so obscure that almost nobody outside of planning circles (and a good portion of this group has no clue) will have ever thought of it. The biggest reason why suburban streets are wider than urban streets (and why urban streets are under constant pressure to widen, to the outrage of their inhabitants) is because of fire department rules that changed several decades ago. The reason these rules changed: longer fire trucks. Fire chiefs wanted to make sure that new municipalities were built to support such beastly machines, so they began to “strongly suggest” (with political backing, making it a virtual requirement) that new suburban streets be wide enough for a fire truck to do a complete 180 degree turn in order to get back out of the neighborhood in which it was needed. Now, besides the ridiculousness of needing such a long fire truck (its length was meant to support longer ladders) in low-density neighborhoods where the tallest building is perhaps 3 stories, this is actually a reasonable request because suburban neighborhoods are built to impede through traffic. If the fire truck wants to get out of such a neighborhood, it must turn around and go back the way it came. But the pressure to widen urban neighborhood streets doesn’t make a whole heck of a lot of sense, because urban streets are laid in a grid pattern, meaning that the fire truck would need to simply make 3 right or left turns to get back to where it came from. The urban areas that have the tallest buildings to support the need for longer fire trucks already have the street structure to handle the vehicles without needing to widen, and the suburban areas do not need such long trucks, and therefore do not need the wider streets. This, of course, is to say nothing about the inefficiencies of suburban street patterns, which I have already addressed before.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Saturday, August 29, 2009
The Relationship Between Federal Spending and Recessions
I recently received a Wall Street Journal article (“Big Government, Big Recession,” August 21, 2009) in the mail from Big Daddy that makes the claim that recessions are made worse by Big Government spending (which it claims started in the 1930s with Roosevelt’s administration). This is an interesting claim for several reasons. The most obvious reason is that the Great Depression began before Roosevelt took office (indeed, the greatest leader we’ve had this century probably would not have been voted in without a drastic time of national suffering). We have not had a recession anywhere near as catastrophic as the Depression since it ended in 1941. Big Government spending on infrastructure and making sure people’s basic needs were met brought us out of that Depression. Some people argue with that by saying that the War ended the Depression, as it did in several other countries, but the U.S. was out of the woods before it entered the fighting.
Another reason this claim is debatable: recessions have always been intricately tied to government spending and regulation actions, but not in the way most conservatives claim. Here are some reasons that recessions have begun and ended since 1900:
~The recession of 1913-1914, during the Woodrow Wilson administration, began as real incomes declined in a very unregulated market and ended around the time of the institution of the Federal Reserve System.
~The recession of 1921 set off the greatest deflationary period in the country’s history at just over 36%. This is largely recognized as a result of the conservative fiscal policies of the Harding administration.
~The recession of 1926-27, interestingly, is thought to have occurred because Henry Ford shut down is factories to transition from production of the Model T, the machine that began the period of government road, and thus infrastructure spending, expansion.
~The Great Depression began as a result of lax fiscal policies of the expansion period of the Roaring 20’s and widespread environmental destruction of farm lands (the Dust Bowl), both reflections of the federal policies of the Hoover years. It is important to note that economists don’t think the U.S. was actually in any kind of recession between the years of 1933 and 1937, a reflection of Roosevelt’s policies.
~The recession of 1937 was caused by crumbling infrastructure and a large population who were falling through the cracks in the system. The New Deal was instituted, putting vast quantity of people to work, rebuilding a large chunk of the country, and providing basic services for millions of people who needed them. The economy continued to grow following this period of vastly increased government spending until Roosevelt died and many parts of the New Deal were repealed.
~The recession of 1945 was caused by a great decline in federal spending after the War.
~The recession of 1953 is thought to have been caused by a change in Federal Reserve policy.
~The recession of 1960-61 ended when President Kennedy increased federal spending to improve GNP and unemployment.
~The 1973-74 recession coincided with the Oil Embargo. If U.S. policies did not entangle the country and make it completely dependent on oil to run almost every sector of the economy, this recession and many more to come would never have occurred to the extent that they did. The same issue caused a recession in the early 1980s after the Iranian Revolution.
~And, of course, our current recession has been attributed to lax fiscal policies and financial sector regulation, in which many abuses took place, as well as a vastly underfunded infrastructure.
If there’s any lesson we can learn from this, it is that Small Government led to many of these recessions, including the Depression and our current recession, and Big Government spending has gotten us out of them. The article makes a good point that we cannot say with much confidence that government spending has gotten us out of the current recession because not much of the increase has actually been spent yet, but it is clear that we got into the mess during a time of less government spending and regulation, and continuing that trend to get us out of it would not be reasonable.
The chart in the following link shows Federal spending from 1920 to 1941.
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/downchart_gs.php?year=1920_1941&view=1&expand=&units=b&fy=fy10&chart=F0-total&bar=1&stack=1&size=m&title=Total%20Spending&state=US&color=c&local=Total%20Spending
This graph shows clearly what I have been trying to explain: once the spending increased at the end of the 30s and beginning of the 40s, the Depression ended, just as Keynes, the economist discredited by the article, said it would. It’s easy to see that the recessions described above were ended with more spending, not less.
The argument against this way of thinking is that we are “mortgaging our future” by spending so much. I understand this and would tend to agree in general, except for the fact that our economic, land use, transportation, and foreign policies of the past 60 years have already mortgaged enough of our future that we need to spend wildly just to keep up with the system we have set up. The vast majority of the almost $800 billion stimulus is to be spent on infrastructure, the backbone of our economy, and yet the investment will come up about $2 trillion short. Why? Because we have built our economy on the backs of roads, oil, and automobiles, and we have not cared to pay the full costs of such an inefficient system. As of now, our roads and bridges are in desperate need of repair and updating, but we have defrayed the costs for so long that our infrastructure deficit, now estimated at between $2 and $3 trillion, is more than we’re willing to pay. This tells me that we need to change our entire system if we are worried about bankrupting ourselves over a mere $800 billion when we really need to spend 3 or 4 times that amount. If there is anything that I fault the stimulus plan for, it is that it puts the vast majority of its money toward improving the road and bridge infrastructure that will just cause of bigger problem down the road when the infrastructure deficit will be even larger.
The final interesting portion of this article claims that increased government spending over the past year has decreased our GDP over the past 12 months. But the article cannot accurately claim that the new administration’s spending policies are to blame for our yearly decrease in GDP for two reasons: The largest decreases in GDP over the past year occurred before President Obama took office and the stimulus was passed, and, as the article claims elsewhere, only about 1/8th of the stimulus has actually been spent to this point. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the economy shrunk 1 percent between both the 1st and second quarters and the second and third quarters of this year, while it shrunk 6.4% between the 4th quarter of last year and the 1st quarter of this year. What we have spent so far has drastically slowed the growth in unemployment, and thus slowed the decreases in GDP.
I have no problem with conservatives taking issue with increased spending (except that there is never any complaint among them when it comes to excess war spending and oil and automobile subsidy increases). What I do take issue with is when these opinion articles are presented with misleading numbers and information to support their position. I’m not the biggest fan of government spending excesses because I think the money often goes to the wrong areas, but if you are a fan of the way our economy is currently structured, as I’m sure most conservatives are (though I am not especially), then history shows that these periods of drastic government spending increases are necessary for supporting such a flawed system.
Another reason this claim is debatable: recessions have always been intricately tied to government spending and regulation actions, but not in the way most conservatives claim. Here are some reasons that recessions have begun and ended since 1900:
~The recession of 1913-1914, during the Woodrow Wilson administration, began as real incomes declined in a very unregulated market and ended around the time of the institution of the Federal Reserve System.
~The recession of 1921 set off the greatest deflationary period in the country’s history at just over 36%. This is largely recognized as a result of the conservative fiscal policies of the Harding administration.
~The recession of 1926-27, interestingly, is thought to have occurred because Henry Ford shut down is factories to transition from production of the Model T, the machine that began the period of government road, and thus infrastructure spending, expansion.
~The Great Depression began as a result of lax fiscal policies of the expansion period of the Roaring 20’s and widespread environmental destruction of farm lands (the Dust Bowl), both reflections of the federal policies of the Hoover years. It is important to note that economists don’t think the U.S. was actually in any kind of recession between the years of 1933 and 1937, a reflection of Roosevelt’s policies.
~The recession of 1937 was caused by crumbling infrastructure and a large population who were falling through the cracks in the system. The New Deal was instituted, putting vast quantity of people to work, rebuilding a large chunk of the country, and providing basic services for millions of people who needed them. The economy continued to grow following this period of vastly increased government spending until Roosevelt died and many parts of the New Deal were repealed.
~The recession of 1945 was caused by a great decline in federal spending after the War.
~The recession of 1953 is thought to have been caused by a change in Federal Reserve policy.
~The recession of 1960-61 ended when President Kennedy increased federal spending to improve GNP and unemployment.
~The 1973-74 recession coincided with the Oil Embargo. If U.S. policies did not entangle the country and make it completely dependent on oil to run almost every sector of the economy, this recession and many more to come would never have occurred to the extent that they did. The same issue caused a recession in the early 1980s after the Iranian Revolution.
~And, of course, our current recession has been attributed to lax fiscal policies and financial sector regulation, in which many abuses took place, as well as a vastly underfunded infrastructure.
If there’s any lesson we can learn from this, it is that Small Government led to many of these recessions, including the Depression and our current recession, and Big Government spending has gotten us out of them. The article makes a good point that we cannot say with much confidence that government spending has gotten us out of the current recession because not much of the increase has actually been spent yet, but it is clear that we got into the mess during a time of less government spending and regulation, and continuing that trend to get us out of it would not be reasonable.
The chart in the following link shows Federal spending from 1920 to 1941.
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/downchart_gs.php?year=1920_1941&view=1&expand=&units=b&fy=fy10&chart=F0-total&bar=1&stack=1&size=m&title=Total%20Spending&state=US&color=c&local=Total%20Spending
This graph shows clearly what I have been trying to explain: once the spending increased at the end of the 30s and beginning of the 40s, the Depression ended, just as Keynes, the economist discredited by the article, said it would. It’s easy to see that the recessions described above were ended with more spending, not less.
The argument against this way of thinking is that we are “mortgaging our future” by spending so much. I understand this and would tend to agree in general, except for the fact that our economic, land use, transportation, and foreign policies of the past 60 years have already mortgaged enough of our future that we need to spend wildly just to keep up with the system we have set up. The vast majority of the almost $800 billion stimulus is to be spent on infrastructure, the backbone of our economy, and yet the investment will come up about $2 trillion short. Why? Because we have built our economy on the backs of roads, oil, and automobiles, and we have not cared to pay the full costs of such an inefficient system. As of now, our roads and bridges are in desperate need of repair and updating, but we have defrayed the costs for so long that our infrastructure deficit, now estimated at between $2 and $3 trillion, is more than we’re willing to pay. This tells me that we need to change our entire system if we are worried about bankrupting ourselves over a mere $800 billion when we really need to spend 3 or 4 times that amount. If there is anything that I fault the stimulus plan for, it is that it puts the vast majority of its money toward improving the road and bridge infrastructure that will just cause of bigger problem down the road when the infrastructure deficit will be even larger.
The final interesting portion of this article claims that increased government spending over the past year has decreased our GDP over the past 12 months. But the article cannot accurately claim that the new administration’s spending policies are to blame for our yearly decrease in GDP for two reasons: The largest decreases in GDP over the past year occurred before President Obama took office and the stimulus was passed, and, as the article claims elsewhere, only about 1/8th of the stimulus has actually been spent to this point. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the economy shrunk 1 percent between both the 1st and second quarters and the second and third quarters of this year, while it shrunk 6.4% between the 4th quarter of last year and the 1st quarter of this year. What we have spent so far has drastically slowed the growth in unemployment, and thus slowed the decreases in GDP.
I have no problem with conservatives taking issue with increased spending (except that there is never any complaint among them when it comes to excess war spending and oil and automobile subsidy increases). What I do take issue with is when these opinion articles are presented with misleading numbers and information to support their position. I’m not the biggest fan of government spending excesses because I think the money often goes to the wrong areas, but if you are a fan of the way our economy is currently structured, as I’m sure most conservatives are (though I am not especially), then history shows that these periods of drastic government spending increases are necessary for supporting such a flawed system.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Dan "The Road Warrior" Hartzell Has Got Nothing On Me!
I thought this was an interesting story and video in the local newspaper. Click on the link to see it:
http://www.mcall.com/news/all-a5_5warrior0821.6993181aug21,0,7175467.column
I’ve heard about “stings” like these, but I had no idea they were being conducted here in Bethlehem. Good for us! I finally feel as though I am part of a protected class: the endangered pedestrian. Unfortunately, I think the city is treating the symptom while being completely blind to the root cause.
It’s the design, stupid! On streets in the middle of a dense city, such as Bethlehem, there’s no way a driver should feel comfortable enough to go over 25 miles per hour. But they do, and the reason why? Because the streets are too wide. Bethlehem has done a great job with allowing on-street parking in many areas (which narrows the street a bit) and avoiding one-way streets in most cases (which serve to encourage speeding). But they have dropped the ball in many cases with street widths. Many perfectly good urban neighborhoods and commercial districts in the city have been tainted by street widths that limit safe walking, as displayed so clearly in this video. Motorists are much less likely to speed on narrow streets because they feel less safe doing so. Of course, one of the main purposes of designing streets for cars is to move them as quickly as possible, which is in direct opposition to pedestrian safety measures.
Have you ever been on one of those streets that seems too narrow for two-way traffic? Or at one of those 5, 6, or 7 way intersections that confuse the crap out of everyone? We have largely “fixed” these streets, but guess what? They are the safest streets in America by far. There’s a very good reason for this: drivers become confused and cautious, which improves safety for both pedestrians and other drivers. So, what’s our goal? To move people quickly, or to do it safely?
Moving cars quickly is an underlying purpose for wide streets, but can anyone tell me what the most significant reason for our wider-than-needed streets is? You have 24 hours!
P.S. It's amazing to me that Mr. Road Warrior is putting these stings down, as if pedestrians don't belong in crosswalks. It's like saying drivers don't belong on the streets, which as much as I would love to make that argument sometimes, it's just a dumb statement. I think I have found my calling: to be the literary arch-nemisis of the Road Warrior.
~The Pedestrian Pacifist
http://www.mcall.com/news/all-a5_5warrior0821.6993181aug21,0,7175467.column
I’ve heard about “stings” like these, but I had no idea they were being conducted here in Bethlehem. Good for us! I finally feel as though I am part of a protected class: the endangered pedestrian. Unfortunately, I think the city is treating the symptom while being completely blind to the root cause.
It’s the design, stupid! On streets in the middle of a dense city, such as Bethlehem, there’s no way a driver should feel comfortable enough to go over 25 miles per hour. But they do, and the reason why? Because the streets are too wide. Bethlehem has done a great job with allowing on-street parking in many areas (which narrows the street a bit) and avoiding one-way streets in most cases (which serve to encourage speeding). But they have dropped the ball in many cases with street widths. Many perfectly good urban neighborhoods and commercial districts in the city have been tainted by street widths that limit safe walking, as displayed so clearly in this video. Motorists are much less likely to speed on narrow streets because they feel less safe doing so. Of course, one of the main purposes of designing streets for cars is to move them as quickly as possible, which is in direct opposition to pedestrian safety measures.
Have you ever been on one of those streets that seems too narrow for two-way traffic? Or at one of those 5, 6, or 7 way intersections that confuse the crap out of everyone? We have largely “fixed” these streets, but guess what? They are the safest streets in America by far. There’s a very good reason for this: drivers become confused and cautious, which improves safety for both pedestrians and other drivers. So, what’s our goal? To move people quickly, or to do it safely?
Moving cars quickly is an underlying purpose for wide streets, but can anyone tell me what the most significant reason for our wider-than-needed streets is? You have 24 hours!
P.S. It's amazing to me that Mr. Road Warrior is putting these stings down, as if pedestrians don't belong in crosswalks. It's like saying drivers don't belong on the streets, which as much as I would love to make that argument sometimes, it's just a dumb statement. I think I have found my calling: to be the literary arch-nemisis of the Road Warrior.
~The Pedestrian Pacifist
Comments on the Comments... Please comment
Since comments can only be so long, I decided to post my reaction to Big Daddy's comments on the main page. I'll also write another posting about a completely unrelated topic so that I can virtually run from this controversy!
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I don't doubt that people are afraid or that they have every right to be afraid that something in their lives will change, I just think it's a little ridiculous the way a chunk of them are acting. I don't think reactions of this nature are helpful in the least. The same kind of reactions to war decisions and spending a few years ago were called unpatriotic, but now the same actions are being touted as the opposite by many. I think it is neither patriotic nor unpatriotic, but an unofficial attempt to filibuster any attempt at reform, which I consider just plain selfishness.
I think it is a poor argument that no one has had time to read the large bill and only lawyers can understand it. The bill has been around for almost a month now, and members of Congress never actually read or write bills anyway. Staffers get the intent of the bill from Congress, then the staffers write it and disseminate it, at which point other staffers read the bill and summarize it for their bosses. And most bills are lengthy and “legal-y”, so to put this one down for its length and legalese is hypocrisy. The legally-trained staffers write it and interpret it just as they have always done.
But I never said I liked the current plan. In fact, the plan I laid out couldn’t be further from any plan that is coming out of congress, perhaps precisely because of special interests, as you pointed out. I do realize, however, that my plan would never work in our current system, so in its place, I am more than willing to accept an insurance company that is willing to get rid of its pre-existing conditions rules, submit to some sort of cost-controls, and stop operating as if only certain people deserve health coverage. There are always special interests at play, but not all of them are considered bad. People don’t complain when Auto companies get billions a year in subsidies after campaign contributions, so why do they complain about this? Because “health care for all” doesn’t fit in with their own entrenched interests.
There is only one study that refutes that 47 million are uninsured, and it does so by saying that there are, indeed, 47 million people who are uninsured, but about half of them can afford insurance but are just not enrolled. This may be because they believe in the virtues of eastern medicine, or they would rather be unhealthy or stick the rest of the country with their bills, or maybe what we consider affordable just isn’t true. Millions of people earn just above the threshold of Medicaid but still cannot afford private health insurance. But even if they could afford it, then this is a perfect reason to mandate coverage. If the argument is that our uninsured numbers are inflated because people are turning down coverage, then make them get coverage. It seems as if people are making this argument to show that reform isn’t needed because things aren’t as bad as they seem, but really the argument is a perfect one for requiring coverage.
I also think it is a poor solution to cut people a check to buy coverage. Even if only about 20 million (per the dissenting study) are not covered because they can’t afford it, giving them the $5,000 (average yearly premium cost) to buy coverage every year would mean $100 billion per year. This would mean $1 trillion over a decade, which is exactly the amount that the first health reform bill was shut down for. Actually, now that I think about it, this would be preferable over doing nothing, but with this price tag, the bill would never get through a committee let alone come up for a vote. Conservatives would make a fuss over the price, and Liberals would scoff at its simplicity.
The government has been there all along to only set regulations, and look where it has gotten us. If you listen to any respected macroeconomist, he or she will tell you that a regulated free market is best for almost every class of consumption except when a system that provides significant externalities is involved, such as education, infrastructure, and, yes, healthcare. The reason is that large systems such as these in the hands of the free market tend to funnel toward monopolization, and prices of monopolies, as we have seen from the example of OPEC, are unruly and cannot be regulated. This is why privatizing education is a really bad idea if we want everyone to have a basic level of education (if all education was private, millions of children would be priced out), and it is also why privatized healthcare has been unattainable for millions of Americans. To say that the government has no place in the development of a country’s human capital (education, health, etc.) is to deceive ourselves. The only countries in the world in which the government does not supply universal, government-funded education are those that are the poorest of the poor. And the only countries in the world in which the government does not supply universal, government-funded healthcare are those that are the poorest of the poor, slowly developing, and us. We don’t seem to realize that investments in the health and well-being of everyone are the best investments we can make.
Oh, and by the way, Euell Gibbons had an enlarged aorta, smoked his whole life, and added large amounts of bacon grease and butter to his vegetables, all of which led to his heart attack at the age of 64 (pretty darn close to the average age for men). Pine nuts, some of which he choked on while having the heart attack, probably prolonged his life.
********************************************
I don't doubt that people are afraid or that they have every right to be afraid that something in their lives will change, I just think it's a little ridiculous the way a chunk of them are acting. I don't think reactions of this nature are helpful in the least. The same kind of reactions to war decisions and spending a few years ago were called unpatriotic, but now the same actions are being touted as the opposite by many. I think it is neither patriotic nor unpatriotic, but an unofficial attempt to filibuster any attempt at reform, which I consider just plain selfishness.
I think it is a poor argument that no one has had time to read the large bill and only lawyers can understand it. The bill has been around for almost a month now, and members of Congress never actually read or write bills anyway. Staffers get the intent of the bill from Congress, then the staffers write it and disseminate it, at which point other staffers read the bill and summarize it for their bosses. And most bills are lengthy and “legal-y”, so to put this one down for its length and legalese is hypocrisy. The legally-trained staffers write it and interpret it just as they have always done.
But I never said I liked the current plan. In fact, the plan I laid out couldn’t be further from any plan that is coming out of congress, perhaps precisely because of special interests, as you pointed out. I do realize, however, that my plan would never work in our current system, so in its place, I am more than willing to accept an insurance company that is willing to get rid of its pre-existing conditions rules, submit to some sort of cost-controls, and stop operating as if only certain people deserve health coverage. There are always special interests at play, but not all of them are considered bad. People don’t complain when Auto companies get billions a year in subsidies after campaign contributions, so why do they complain about this? Because “health care for all” doesn’t fit in with their own entrenched interests.
There is only one study that refutes that 47 million are uninsured, and it does so by saying that there are, indeed, 47 million people who are uninsured, but about half of them can afford insurance but are just not enrolled. This may be because they believe in the virtues of eastern medicine, or they would rather be unhealthy or stick the rest of the country with their bills, or maybe what we consider affordable just isn’t true. Millions of people earn just above the threshold of Medicaid but still cannot afford private health insurance. But even if they could afford it, then this is a perfect reason to mandate coverage. If the argument is that our uninsured numbers are inflated because people are turning down coverage, then make them get coverage. It seems as if people are making this argument to show that reform isn’t needed because things aren’t as bad as they seem, but really the argument is a perfect one for requiring coverage.
I also think it is a poor solution to cut people a check to buy coverage. Even if only about 20 million (per the dissenting study) are not covered because they can’t afford it, giving them the $5,000 (average yearly premium cost) to buy coverage every year would mean $100 billion per year. This would mean $1 trillion over a decade, which is exactly the amount that the first health reform bill was shut down for. Actually, now that I think about it, this would be preferable over doing nothing, but with this price tag, the bill would never get through a committee let alone come up for a vote. Conservatives would make a fuss over the price, and Liberals would scoff at its simplicity.
The government has been there all along to only set regulations, and look where it has gotten us. If you listen to any respected macroeconomist, he or she will tell you that a regulated free market is best for almost every class of consumption except when a system that provides significant externalities is involved, such as education, infrastructure, and, yes, healthcare. The reason is that large systems such as these in the hands of the free market tend to funnel toward monopolization, and prices of monopolies, as we have seen from the example of OPEC, are unruly and cannot be regulated. This is why privatizing education is a really bad idea if we want everyone to have a basic level of education (if all education was private, millions of children would be priced out), and it is also why privatized healthcare has been unattainable for millions of Americans. To say that the government has no place in the development of a country’s human capital (education, health, etc.) is to deceive ourselves. The only countries in the world in which the government does not supply universal, government-funded education are those that are the poorest of the poor. And the only countries in the world in which the government does not supply universal, government-funded healthcare are those that are the poorest of the poor, slowly developing, and us. We don’t seem to realize that investments in the health and well-being of everyone are the best investments we can make.
Oh, and by the way, Euell Gibbons had an enlarged aorta, smoked his whole life, and added large amounts of bacon grease and butter to his vegetables, all of which led to his heart attack at the age of 64 (pretty darn close to the average age for men). Pine nuts, some of which he choked on while having the heart attack, probably prolonged his life.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Are we talking about Healthcare, guns, or politics?
At the risk of being booed off of the blogosphere, I’m going to resume my regular writing by going outside of my normal subject area and ranting about the one thing that everyone else is talking about right now: healthcare. First of all, I believe that everyone should have access to affordable and quality healthcare, just like everyone has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of … Okay, you in the back… yes, you with the picture of Obama with a Hitler mustache… please keep your ridiculously nonsensical Nazi comparisons to yourself. And you with the assault rifle, please stop waving it around claiming that it’s your right to make me feel like my life is in danger just because you don’t agree with my opinion. And you, with your finger threateningly pointed my way, please stop acting like you bear no responsibility for the health and welfare of your fellow Americans and human beings. And you, in the way back, with your non-stop, unintelligible shouting for no other reason than to be obnoxiously dissenting against something you really know nothing about, please shut your trap and listen for once; you might learn something. Same goes for you, liberal ideologue who is shouting back, as well as you, overly-partisan Joe-Congressman. And you, former governor of Alaska turned Rush Limbaugh, please speak in complete and coherent sentences and stop sensationalizing EVERYTHING. And you, the “inconvenient” drama king of the FOX network, please try to remember your own healthcare debacle last year and stop pontificating out of both sides of your mouth. And you, madam Speaker, please loosen up a bit and at least acknowledge that good ideas can exist outside of your own head. And you, the great Changer, please change something. And of course you, the general American public, please get a spine and stop only thinking about what’s good for you.
Look, I don’t care how we get this thing done, just as long as we do get it done. I’m sick of politics and arrogance getting in the way. One side is trying to claim the moral high ground, but when it comes down to it, they are not willing to sacrifice their political careers to get it done the right way. And the other side, while bringing up serious and valid concerns, have not even attempted to put forward any solutions and so, as far as I’m concerned, can only claim moral bereavement and partisan one-upmanship. Is this really what we are all about as a people? Is this how we are best represented?
Here's what I suggest: 1) Mandate health care (courtesy of the only major rational thinker we have left: John Stewart). We do it for car insurance so that the insured aren’t paying double for the uninsured. Sound familiar? Even Romney supports it. 2) Civic group coverage. We need to take insurance coverage out of employment and only offer it through civic organizations. If we mandate coverage, then everyone will have to be involved in some kind of civic cause, which will give us some sort of sense of community and interdependence again. This type of model worked for and, I would argue, even created our “Greatest” generation, and it could work again. 3) Take the profit out of healthcare. As long as someone can make money off of something, that thing is bound to be corrupted and ever-more expensive. What decision do you think a healthcare provider makes when a more profitable but less healthful option is pitted against a less profitable but more healthful option? As long as the primary focus is on bringing larger profits to shareholders (the definition of a for-profit enterprise) and not providing the best services for customers (the whole reason government designates non-profit status: in order that a community-focused enterprise can compete with a profit-focused one), we will never get better care at affordable rates. Mr. Obama is right: we don’t absolutely need a public option to fix our problem, but we do absolutely need to take the profit out of sickness. 4) Prevention, please! We need the non-profits before we can get this one for the simple reason that it is not profitable in the short-term to prevent anything. But, at least 75% of our healthcare dollars are spent on treating preventable illnesses, and prevention yields, on average, a life-time savings ratio of 5 to 1 (meaning that preventing an illness costs 5 times less than treating that illness). This means that by simply preventing illnesses, our long-term healthcare costs could be 40% of what they are now. But this model does not maximize the healthcare industry profits, even though it maximizes our health, so it will never happen under our current system.
Most of all: 5) We all just need to step back, settle down, stop listening to the propaganda on both sides, and start thinking for ourselves. Turn off the TV. Turn down the radio. Get rid of the distractions. Put away your guns. Go for a walk (shameless plug) and seriously discuss with yourself or, preferably, another person what you really think needs to happen. When you hit the inevitable point at which you start thinking about how a change would negatively impact you personally or politically or financially, stop in your tracks, think about the millions of uninsured people who are less fortunate than you are, and repeat the following phrase five times, out-loud and as slowly and deliberately as possible: “It’s not about me!” Make sure someone else could reasonably hear you say it without having to listen too intently. Really let the phrase sink in to your psyche. Comprehend its meaning as deeply as you can... and then start thinking all over again.
Look, I don’t care how we get this thing done, just as long as we do get it done. I’m sick of politics and arrogance getting in the way. One side is trying to claim the moral high ground, but when it comes down to it, they are not willing to sacrifice their political careers to get it done the right way. And the other side, while bringing up serious and valid concerns, have not even attempted to put forward any solutions and so, as far as I’m concerned, can only claim moral bereavement and partisan one-upmanship. Is this really what we are all about as a people? Is this how we are best represented?
Here's what I suggest: 1) Mandate health care (courtesy of the only major rational thinker we have left: John Stewart). We do it for car insurance so that the insured aren’t paying double for the uninsured. Sound familiar? Even Romney supports it. 2) Civic group coverage. We need to take insurance coverage out of employment and only offer it through civic organizations. If we mandate coverage, then everyone will have to be involved in some kind of civic cause, which will give us some sort of sense of community and interdependence again. This type of model worked for and, I would argue, even created our “Greatest” generation, and it could work again. 3) Take the profit out of healthcare. As long as someone can make money off of something, that thing is bound to be corrupted and ever-more expensive. What decision do you think a healthcare provider makes when a more profitable but less healthful option is pitted against a less profitable but more healthful option? As long as the primary focus is on bringing larger profits to shareholders (the definition of a for-profit enterprise) and not providing the best services for customers (the whole reason government designates non-profit status: in order that a community-focused enterprise can compete with a profit-focused one), we will never get better care at affordable rates. Mr. Obama is right: we don’t absolutely need a public option to fix our problem, but we do absolutely need to take the profit out of sickness. 4) Prevention, please! We need the non-profits before we can get this one for the simple reason that it is not profitable in the short-term to prevent anything. But, at least 75% of our healthcare dollars are spent on treating preventable illnesses, and prevention yields, on average, a life-time savings ratio of 5 to 1 (meaning that preventing an illness costs 5 times less than treating that illness). This means that by simply preventing illnesses, our long-term healthcare costs could be 40% of what they are now. But this model does not maximize the healthcare industry profits, even though it maximizes our health, so it will never happen under our current system.
Most of all: 5) We all just need to step back, settle down, stop listening to the propaganda on both sides, and start thinking for ourselves. Turn off the TV. Turn down the radio. Get rid of the distractions. Put away your guns. Go for a walk (shameless plug) and seriously discuss with yourself or, preferably, another person what you really think needs to happen. When you hit the inevitable point at which you start thinking about how a change would negatively impact you personally or politically or financially, stop in your tracks, think about the millions of uninsured people who are less fortunate than you are, and repeat the following phrase five times, out-loud and as slowly and deliberately as possible: “It’s not about me!” Make sure someone else could reasonably hear you say it without having to listen too intently. Really let the phrase sink in to your psyche. Comprehend its meaning as deeply as you can... and then start thinking all over again.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Don't Bank On Pedestrian-Oriented Suburban Banks... and I Love You Mom!
My “biggest fan” commented on my previous post that she doesn’t know of a bank that isn’t pedestrian-oriented. As much as I will probably regret correcting my own loving mother (I feel like I’m about to break a Commandment here), I’m going to have to respectfully disagree. I can't remember a single pedestrian-oriented bank in the Phoenix metropolitan area; not that they don’t exist there, but I suspect that they are few and far between, and there’s a simple reason why.
It doesn't make sense to build pedestrian-friendly banks (or any other type of business) in standard suburban areas, because people aren’t likely to walk to them. Since residences and businesses are purposely separated by segregated zoning laws, it is just not practical to "walk with a purpose" in these areas. Basically, it would be illogical to design a pedestrian-oriented bank in a standard suburban area.
This is, ultimately, not the fault of business owners or developers. Developers get a bad rap in planning circles, and sometimes for good reason. Developers often are only focused on their bottom line and not on what would be good for the community in which they are building. I don’t subscribe to Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” and neither do the laws of nature (I’ll write about this some time, I promise), so I have no problem with trashing developers for their selfishness. However, some (maybe most) developers are simultaneously looking out for their own interests while trying to provide economic benefits for the community. The only reason these developers create poor products is because they are playing by poor rules. Our planning is the problem, and poor development is simply the highly-visual result.
Now, I need to apologize profusely to my mom because I have committed the cardinal sin of family life: I have publicly disagreed with the person that brought me into this world. As self-inflicted punishment (and because my beautiful wife will be receiving my full attention while she is in town), you have heard the last of me until at least the end of next week. So long, and happy trails!
It doesn't make sense to build pedestrian-friendly banks (or any other type of business) in standard suburban areas, because people aren’t likely to walk to them. Since residences and businesses are purposely separated by segregated zoning laws, it is just not practical to "walk with a purpose" in these areas. Basically, it would be illogical to design a pedestrian-oriented bank in a standard suburban area.
This is, ultimately, not the fault of business owners or developers. Developers get a bad rap in planning circles, and sometimes for good reason. Developers often are only focused on their bottom line and not on what would be good for the community in which they are building. I don’t subscribe to Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” and neither do the laws of nature (I’ll write about this some time, I promise), so I have no problem with trashing developers for their selfishness. However, some (maybe most) developers are simultaneously looking out for their own interests while trying to provide economic benefits for the community. The only reason these developers create poor products is because they are playing by poor rules. Our planning is the problem, and poor development is simply the highly-visual result.
Now, I need to apologize profusely to my mom because I have committed the cardinal sin of family life: I have publicly disagreed with the person that brought me into this world. As self-inflicted punishment (and because my beautiful wife will be receiving my full attention while she is in town), you have heard the last of me until at least the end of next week. So long, and happy trails!
Sunday, August 9, 2009
A Tale of Two Design Philosophies
Many skeptics of Smart Growth and pedestrian-oriented development policies assume that such policies are inherently anti-growth. In fact, this is not true. If Smart Growth (emphasis on the word “Growth”) policies were meant to discourage development and “progress”, then we would see in these areas noticeable decreases in standard suburban features, such as parking lots. While it is true, in the case of parking lots, that many New Urban and traditionally-designed towns and cities have less need for parking spaces due to more efficient public transportation (thus smaller parking lots), most commercial, office, and civic buildings in these areas still offer parking lots to their patrons. The key difference between traditional urban and standard suburban designs is not the absence of any particular feature but, instead, its rearrangement.
West Bethlehem provides a striking example of this difference in design philosophy (see the video here). The beer store on one side of the street is set to the back of its lot, forcing a large slab of black-top parking to greet its visitors. What is wrong with this arrangement? Primarily, it fails the equitability test. With the parking lot facing Broad Street, drivers have a clear advantage when patronizing the business. Pedestrians must compete with cars entering and leaving the parking lot, a competition that we, the walkers, are likely to lose. Is the positive connection between driving and alcohol really the message we want to be sending?
On the other side of the street, however, the former Bank of America building (which, if you ask me, would be perfect for a much-needed Westside restaurant) was built in a completely opposite fashion. The building, which would likely be placed in the middle or to the back of a suburban lot, is placed right up against Broad Street, relegating the parking lot to the back. Drivers can still just as easily patronize the business, but pedestrians can just as easily do so as well without competing for space. This design levels the playing field and encourages alternative transportation.
I’m sure some of you will be thinking, “If pedestrian-oriented designs are so effective, why did Bank of America shut down the branch?” I’m not exactly sure why B of A left this location, but the pedestrian-oriented PNC Bank down the street is doing just fine. Perhaps it has to do with toxic loans: While B of A received $45 billion in bailouts, PNC actually took over a troubled bank.
West Bethlehem provides a striking example of this difference in design philosophy (see the video here). The beer store on one side of the street is set to the back of its lot, forcing a large slab of black-top parking to greet its visitors. What is wrong with this arrangement? Primarily, it fails the equitability test. With the parking lot facing Broad Street, drivers have a clear advantage when patronizing the business. Pedestrians must compete with cars entering and leaving the parking lot, a competition that we, the walkers, are likely to lose. Is the positive connection between driving and alcohol really the message we want to be sending?
On the other side of the street, however, the former Bank of America building (which, if you ask me, would be perfect for a much-needed Westside restaurant) was built in a completely opposite fashion. The building, which would likely be placed in the middle or to the back of a suburban lot, is placed right up against Broad Street, relegating the parking lot to the back. Drivers can still just as easily patronize the business, but pedestrians can just as easily do so as well without competing for space. This design levels the playing field and encourages alternative transportation.
I’m sure some of you will be thinking, “If pedestrian-oriented designs are so effective, why did Bank of America shut down the branch?” I’m not exactly sure why B of A left this location, but the pedestrian-oriented PNC Bank down the street is doing just fine. Perhaps it has to do with toxic loans: While B of A received $45 billion in bailouts, PNC actually took over a troubled bank.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Nude Pedestrianism... The Final Frontier
Traveling around by foot or by bus is so(ooo!!!) much more interesting than by car. I’ve known this for a long time, and I’ve already written one post about meeting an interesting neighbor, but this truth was confirmed yet again today. Since my wife is flying in to the Lehigh Valley International Airport this week, I decided to take a bus out there to see if it was possible to bus it between the airport and the city (it is!). As the bus was leaving the airport, something out of the corner of my eye caught my attention. I knew instantly what it was, but I didn’t believe it. It’s not every day that you see it (hopefully), and, in fact, it may be a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. Despite its scarcity, we humans intuitively know what it is before we even get a good look at it, and then we proceed to talk ourselves out of it until we, indeed, see that it is exactly what we had feared it would be. As the object came into clear view, my fears were confirmed as the bus driver mumbled, “Holy…”: a middle-aged, overweight, hairy naked man. He was just walking toward the terminal as if he wasn't aware that everyone could see his “cargo.” The Asian couple in the back of the bus that had just flown in was laughing hysterically. The bus driver remarked, “I need a new job.” I couldn’t help but smile as I shook my head in wonder.
The funny thing about seeing a naked person in public is that, as much as you wish you hadn’t seen what you saw, you (well, I guess I should speak for myself here) inevitably wish you had brought a camera to capture the ridiculousness of the moment. Maybe the camera would have captured the look on his face (for those of you who are curious, you don’t really get a good look at the facial expressions of an unexpectedly nude person). What could he have possibly been thinking? Was he enjoying his freedom from the societal norm of wearing clothing when others are present? Was he nervous? When someone is that brave (or stupid) to do something that you would never do, it makes you curious as to who this person is and what made him that way. Why is he so different from me? It was then that I realized how he was choosing to get around Bethlehem: by foot! Perhaps he and I would be kindred spirits if we ever had a chance to get to know each other, but I don’t think I could get too comfortable with him. After all, if he’s that calm about showing his junk in public, one can only imagine what he would be like with his friends.
The funny thing about seeing a naked person in public is that, as much as you wish you hadn’t seen what you saw, you (well, I guess I should speak for myself here) inevitably wish you had brought a camera to capture the ridiculousness of the moment. Maybe the camera would have captured the look on his face (for those of you who are curious, you don’t really get a good look at the facial expressions of an unexpectedly nude person). What could he have possibly been thinking? Was he enjoying his freedom from the societal norm of wearing clothing when others are present? Was he nervous? When someone is that brave (or stupid) to do something that you would never do, it makes you curious as to who this person is and what made him that way. Why is he so different from me? It was then that I realized how he was choosing to get around Bethlehem: by foot! Perhaps he and I would be kindred spirits if we ever had a chance to get to know each other, but I don’t think I could get too comfortable with him. After all, if he’s that calm about showing his junk in public, one can only imagine what he would be like with his friends.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
This Just In... Garages Lead To Urban Decay
As I explained in the previous posting, there are two different types of houses: those that have garages that are flush with the house and counted as part of the façade, and those that place the garage, if there is one, somewhere else on the lot. This little design feature actually has some large consequences for sense of community and neighborhood safety. When the garage is flush with the house and facing the street, it is often the case (though not always) that the house lacks a front porch. Front porches are important for the cohesiveness of neighborhoods, and thus cities, because they allow neighbors to see each other. When neighbors can see each other, they converse together about local politics, local idiots, and meaningless things. Neighborhoods, and again cities, are built on these simple yet intimate relationships. These things don’t often occur when porches are absent. Even when porches and front garages exist in tandem, the porches are often recessed to the point where the street is hardly visible, which completely defeats the purpose of front porches. Front porches are meant to be public, not private. Private porches are meant to be located on the sides or backs of houses.
We like our private porches, whether in front or back. What does this say about us? I could go into a sociological explanation of American individualism and how it leads us think that we need more privacy than we really do. But I think it is more about our fear than our freedom. It is the same fear that drove many of us away from the cities into the suburbs in the first place. Everything is so… well, public in the city. For some reason, a good portion of us react strongly against the word “public.” Is it because it carries with it negative connotations of inner-city life? Or socialism? Whatever it is, many of us have let our fears overtake us in such a way that a true front porch would be completely unacceptable. We moved to the suburbs to escape from seeing people all the time, so why would we want a porch that encourages us to possibly interact with others? What if the neighbors don’t like me? What if they are annoying? What if they’re satan worshippers? What if the neighborhood kids are getting into mischief and I have to speak up? Won’t that be embarrassing? There are just too many possible things that can go wrong with putting myself into the situation where I might have to talk to my neighbors, so I like my privacy, thank you very much!
I would argue that these fears, begun at some point after the Pilgrims arrived in the 1600s, have directly led to the physical and social decay of our cities. We often wonder how our inner city poverty rates got so high, or how our schools became such a joke, or how guns and drugs became so prevalent, or how so many lots (27%, to be exact) have become abandoned in Detroit. Are we missing something? We fear these places, because the people are different from us, buildings are not kept up, and any hope that they might have had as children of “movin’ on up” were dashed by the time they reached their dead-end high school. We now have every right to fear these places because their problems are self-perpetuating and are only getting worse, and because their own residents fear them. So, even in these depressed cities, houses with front porches (and most have them) have very little positive effect because people are, ironically, just as afraid to use them as the suburbanites are, but for very different reasons.
It’s funny how a discussion about garage design can lead to a lesson about front porches, our tendency to choose privacy over publicity, and inner-city problems. It sounds like a large mass of tangents, but that’s our problem: We are so trained to look at things linearly that we get confused when non-linear or organic connections are made. Fortunately, we as a society are beginning to think “organically” again, front porches are making a comeback, garage design and its implications are being discussed, the “privatize everything” movement is losing steam, cities are slowly being revitalized, and Generation Xers are the most civically-involved, community-focused, and mission (not profit)-driven group of Americans since the great generation before the Boomers. There’s hope after all!
We like our private porches, whether in front or back. What does this say about us? I could go into a sociological explanation of American individualism and how it leads us think that we need more privacy than we really do. But I think it is more about our fear than our freedom. It is the same fear that drove many of us away from the cities into the suburbs in the first place. Everything is so… well, public in the city. For some reason, a good portion of us react strongly against the word “public.” Is it because it carries with it negative connotations of inner-city life? Or socialism? Whatever it is, many of us have let our fears overtake us in such a way that a true front porch would be completely unacceptable. We moved to the suburbs to escape from seeing people all the time, so why would we want a porch that encourages us to possibly interact with others? What if the neighbors don’t like me? What if they are annoying? What if they’re satan worshippers? What if the neighborhood kids are getting into mischief and I have to speak up? Won’t that be embarrassing? There are just too many possible things that can go wrong with putting myself into the situation where I might have to talk to my neighbors, so I like my privacy, thank you very much!
I would argue that these fears, begun at some point after the Pilgrims arrived in the 1600s, have directly led to the physical and social decay of our cities. We often wonder how our inner city poverty rates got so high, or how our schools became such a joke, or how guns and drugs became so prevalent, or how so many lots (27%, to be exact) have become abandoned in Detroit. Are we missing something? We fear these places, because the people are different from us, buildings are not kept up, and any hope that they might have had as children of “movin’ on up” were dashed by the time they reached their dead-end high school. We now have every right to fear these places because their problems are self-perpetuating and are only getting worse, and because their own residents fear them. So, even in these depressed cities, houses with front porches (and most have them) have very little positive effect because people are, ironically, just as afraid to use them as the suburbanites are, but for very different reasons.
It’s funny how a discussion about garage design can lead to a lesson about front porches, our tendency to choose privacy over publicity, and inner-city problems. It sounds like a large mass of tangents, but that’s our problem: We are so trained to look at things linearly that we get confused when non-linear or organic connections are made. Fortunately, we as a society are beginning to think “organically” again, front porches are making a comeback, garage design and its implications are being discussed, the “privatize everything” movement is losing steam, cities are slowly being revitalized, and Generation Xers are the most civically-involved, community-focused, and mission (not profit)-driven group of Americans since the great generation before the Boomers. There’s hope after all!
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
"Houses For Cars"
One of the major differences between new suburban housing and their older counterparts is the presence and position of the garage. Almost all new housing structures feature front-loading garages, most with space for two vehicles, but many holding three or more. These “homes for cars” often comprise about a third of the entire façade surfaces of the houses that contain them. This was not always the case. Most older houses either contain a single-car garage on the front façade, a single- or double-car garage off to the side or back of the lot facing an alley or facing the street but set back from the facade, or no garage at all. These design strategies served several purposes: 1) presenting the home, not the garage, as the main focal point; 2) pushing the footprint of the home closer to the street for neighborhood surveillance purposes; and 3) to relegate automobiles to their place as simply one form of getting around.
Take a look at this short video of a Bethlehem neighborhood that epitomizes traditional neighborhood design.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gI9OAtqSLaI&feature=player_profilepage
Since I have very little access to suburban-type housing in Bethlehem due to my lack of wheels, I’d like to challenge you to post a video or image of your suburban neighborhood so that we can all visually compare the two. Let’s get out and learn something about our neighborhoods, folks!
Take a look at this short video of a Bethlehem neighborhood that epitomizes traditional neighborhood design.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gI9OAtqSLaI&feature=player_profilepage
Since I have very little access to suburban-type housing in Bethlehem due to my lack of wheels, I’d like to challenge you to post a video or image of your suburban neighborhood so that we can all visually compare the two. Let’s get out and learn something about our neighborhoods, folks!
Monday, August 3, 2009
The (il)Logic of Rounded Curb Corners
Piggybacking on yesterday’s post, I thought I would discuss the larger concept that underlies rounded curb corners. Again, for reference, you may want to watch the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwPpuPfkjss&feature=player_profilepage
Suburban designs take most of their inspirations from the needs and desires of drivers, so let’s take a moment to look inside the mind of a typical motorist, whom I will call Minnie (Minnie the Motorist, or Minnie Driver, which ever you prefer). Minnie, not unlike the engineers that design suburban streets, is an economic rationalist: time and gas are money. Thus, Minnie wants to be able to get from Point A to Point B in as little time as possible using as little fuel as necessary. Engineers have figured out that satisfying Minnie’s basic desire can be accomplished by doing what all manufacturers of low-quality products do: cut corners (in this case, literally). Although Minnie thinks these intersections are ugly and wouldn’t be caught dead walking across one of them, she enjoys the fact that she can speed around 90 degree turns, cutting about 1.5 seconds off of her driving time for each of these turns that she makes. That can add up to a whole 10, 20, or even 30 minutes in a year! Since Minnie is the average American female, she earns a little over $34,000 in gross income per year, meaning that she takes in about $17 per hour. Assuming she saves 30 minutes of driving time per year with rounded corners (a very, very liberal estimate), rounded corner features would be worth $8.50 per year to Minnie, or 0.025% of her income. Also, since the average gas price is $2.50 per gallon and the average car gets 22.4 miles per gallon (average SUV gets 18 miles per gallon), and assuming that the average suburban surface street has a speed limit of 40 miles per hour, saving 30 minutes (20 miles) of driving time would be worth $2.23 for cars and $2.78 for SUVs in yearly gas expenses. This means that Minnie’s convenience is saving her somewhere between $10 and $12 per year, or less than an hour’s worth of work! Some convenience!
But Minnie is easily satisfied by small conveniences such as this. It’s the same attitude that is involved when a car that has been tailgating you passes you only to be stopped by the traffic light one car length in front of yours. Don't you think that person is satisfied by her better position? Of course she is, and you are undoubtedly jealous of her. We all like it when we save time and money, no matter how inconsequential, and being cheap and efficient aren’t inherently bad things, but there comes a point where this kind of attitude can become counterproductive and no longer cost-effective. Is the minute amount of money “saved” with rounded corners worth the costs (obesity, sense of community, safety) that come along with discouraging pedestrian activities? In other words, should the average American take a “loss” of $12 per year to make sure that pedestrians are given a fair chance at crossing the street? You tell me… I’m biased.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwPpuPfkjss&feature=player_profilepage
Suburban designs take most of their inspirations from the needs and desires of drivers, so let’s take a moment to look inside the mind of a typical motorist, whom I will call Minnie (Minnie the Motorist, or Minnie Driver, which ever you prefer). Minnie, not unlike the engineers that design suburban streets, is an economic rationalist: time and gas are money. Thus, Minnie wants to be able to get from Point A to Point B in as little time as possible using as little fuel as necessary. Engineers have figured out that satisfying Minnie’s basic desire can be accomplished by doing what all manufacturers of low-quality products do: cut corners (in this case, literally). Although Minnie thinks these intersections are ugly and wouldn’t be caught dead walking across one of them, she enjoys the fact that she can speed around 90 degree turns, cutting about 1.5 seconds off of her driving time for each of these turns that she makes. That can add up to a whole 10, 20, or even 30 minutes in a year! Since Minnie is the average American female, she earns a little over $34,000 in gross income per year, meaning that she takes in about $17 per hour. Assuming she saves 30 minutes of driving time per year with rounded corners (a very, very liberal estimate), rounded corner features would be worth $8.50 per year to Minnie, or 0.025% of her income. Also, since the average gas price is $2.50 per gallon and the average car gets 22.4 miles per gallon (average SUV gets 18 miles per gallon), and assuming that the average suburban surface street has a speed limit of 40 miles per hour, saving 30 minutes (20 miles) of driving time would be worth $2.23 for cars and $2.78 for SUVs in yearly gas expenses. This means that Minnie’s convenience is saving her somewhere between $10 and $12 per year, or less than an hour’s worth of work! Some convenience!
But Minnie is easily satisfied by small conveniences such as this. It’s the same attitude that is involved when a car that has been tailgating you passes you only to be stopped by the traffic light one car length in front of yours. Don't you think that person is satisfied by her better position? Of course she is, and you are undoubtedly jealous of her. We all like it when we save time and money, no matter how inconsequential, and being cheap and efficient aren’t inherently bad things, but there comes a point where this kind of attitude can become counterproductive and no longer cost-effective. Is the minute amount of money “saved” with rounded corners worth the costs (obesity, sense of community, safety) that come along with discouraging pedestrian activities? In other words, should the average American take a “loss” of $12 per year to make sure that pedestrians are given a fair chance at crossing the street? You tell me… I’m biased.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Putting Pedestrians On Equal Footing With Drivers
As a change of pace, I thought it would be interesting to begin adding short videos to much shorter posts than I have been writing so far. I conceive of these new posts as small lessons on single issues relating specifically to the design of Bethlehem streets from the perspective of a pedestrian. Don’t get me wrong: I am likely to write some days about larger issues that may or may not specifically pertain to Bethlehem, but I will always try to make sure that these larger rantings are connected in some way to these new short vignettes. Please don’t expect a new video or new subject every day, but you can be certain that at least one or two a week will be posted… until I decide to change pace again. Finally, I’m a writer, not a photographer nor a news anchor. My videos are not intended to be of the best quality, and my voice isn’t supposed to be catchy or interesting. The videos are intended to supplement my writings, which are meant to be the interesting part (easy for me to say, I know). That being said, I apologize in advance for the crappy videos and hope you can give me some constructive criticism… or recommend someone that can do them for me!
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I first want to talk about the design of sidewalk corner curbs at intersection crossings. Please watch the following video of a Bethlehem intersection to gain a clearer understanding of what I am referring to.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwPpuPfkjss&feature=player_profilepage
There are two basic opposing design philosophies: squared edge and round edge. Now, these are not exclusive categories but have varying degrees of each, ranging from 90 degree angles to completely semi-circular. A squared curb does the best job at putting pedestrians and drivers on as equal footing (pun not intended) as possible. The pedestrian has the obvious right-of-way when crossing the street, and drivers must slow down, almost to a stop, to negotiate the turn, even if no pedestrians are present. Square intersection curbs are widely-recognized urban features. A round curb, as the video depicts, gives the advantage squarely to the motorist. Pedestrians must walk farther to cross from one side to the other, and drivers hardly need to apply pressure to the breaks to make the turn. Rounded curb corners can be extremely dangerous for pedestrians attempting to cross them because drivers are able to take the corner at relatively high speeds. If the driver is distracted and doesn’t notice the pedestrian, there is more momentum and less time to stop when taking a rounded corner rather than a square one. As you can imagine, rounded curbs are prominent in standard suburban areas.
At the risk of slightly contradicting myself, I do have to mention a third type of corner curb design: the extended corner curb. This type of corner extends the sidewalk and narrows the street at each intersection. This decreases pedestrian crossing distances even more while requiring vehicles to take turns even slower. This is more of a New Urban, or neo-traditional, feature that does not often appear in traditionally designed cities, such as Bethlehem. If a city’s goal is to increase walkability, pedestrian trips, and safety, installing extended corners is a superior way of altering the environment to meet that goal.
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/210/502590159_a35c2dd97c.jpg
A corner curb that extends toward the right side of the photograph.
*************************************************
I first want to talk about the design of sidewalk corner curbs at intersection crossings. Please watch the following video of a Bethlehem intersection to gain a clearer understanding of what I am referring to.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwPpuPfkjss&feature=player_profilepage
There are two basic opposing design philosophies: squared edge and round edge. Now, these are not exclusive categories but have varying degrees of each, ranging from 90 degree angles to completely semi-circular. A squared curb does the best job at putting pedestrians and drivers on as equal footing (pun not intended) as possible. The pedestrian has the obvious right-of-way when crossing the street, and drivers must slow down, almost to a stop, to negotiate the turn, even if no pedestrians are present. Square intersection curbs are widely-recognized urban features. A round curb, as the video depicts, gives the advantage squarely to the motorist. Pedestrians must walk farther to cross from one side to the other, and drivers hardly need to apply pressure to the breaks to make the turn. Rounded curb corners can be extremely dangerous for pedestrians attempting to cross them because drivers are able to take the corner at relatively high speeds. If the driver is distracted and doesn’t notice the pedestrian, there is more momentum and less time to stop when taking a rounded corner rather than a square one. As you can imagine, rounded curbs are prominent in standard suburban areas.
At the risk of slightly contradicting myself, I do have to mention a third type of corner curb design: the extended corner curb. This type of corner extends the sidewalk and narrows the street at each intersection. This decreases pedestrian crossing distances even more while requiring vehicles to take turns even slower. This is more of a New Urban, or neo-traditional, feature that does not often appear in traditionally designed cities, such as Bethlehem. If a city’s goal is to increase walkability, pedestrian trips, and safety, installing extended corners is a superior way of altering the environment to meet that goal.
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/210/502590159_a35c2dd97c.jpg
A corner curb that extends toward the right side of the photograph.
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