Saturday, April 17, 2010

Public School Funding

There have been two recent stories in the local paper about school districts having to cover deficits in one way or another. Easton Area School District is by far the worst of all local districts with an $8 million and change shortfall. The school board, after being pressured by many residents, has cut almost 100 jobs and most extra-curricular activities, including all sports and the music program. And then those same residents praised the school board for making the tough decision to do what had to be done.

This is really frustrating to me because it really didn’t have to come to this. It is the result of top-heavy administrator salaries and poor decisions by those administrators for sure. But even if that wasn’t the case, the district would still have problems because of the way the area has grown, the current economy, resident aversion to paying taxes to benefit someone other than themselves (which is a false belief anyway), and the way we fund public schools in this country.

Up until recently, the growth of the Lehigh Valley has almost exclusively taken place in the suburbs. Part of that growth has come at the expense of the 3 major cities. As a result, businesses closed, property values decreased, and tax revenues followed that trend. The people that could afford the necessary transportation costs moved outward and took their taxes to other municipalities, thus creating a rich source of funding for the suburban schools and a significant loss from the urban schools. Now that everyone is suffering financially, the urban schools, which are the ones that need the most help, lose out even more.

And no one seems to care. We are quick to blame the district administrators, who should shoulder some of it. But we are also quick to write off the kids in the district as future failures anyway. One comment under the story summed up many others by indicating that only 20% of the kids are “worth a damn anyway.” What the hell does that mean? Who gets to decide that? Is that what we want to happen: only 20% of them becoming benefits to the society that largely forgets them? Because that is precisely what will happen if we believe it so strongly and do nothing to counteract it. We seem to think that it is better to pay for their future incarceration and government-reliance than to pay a fraction of that cost now to make sure that they are well-educated and able to be self-sufficient. Conservatives like to slam wasteful policies and programs. I actually agree with them completely. The problem is, conservatives don’t seem to understand, or at least public acknowledge, that it is actually cheaper to invest in people on the front end to prevent the more costly future consequences of not doing so. This applies to education, healthcare, housing, diet… pretty much every social problem you can think of. Instead, we cut budgets for every social program while greatly increasing our corrections budgets, as Pennsylvania did again this year.

So, how can we fix this? The most obvious is to fund more prevention programs. For education, this takes the form of providing every child with as much opportunity as possible to succeed. Cutting teachers and after-school activities in a desperate urban area so that people can pay fewer taxes is not the way to do that. But I do understand that taxes are a burden on some people right now. This gets at the larger problem of how we fund education. If we rely almost entirely on property tax revenues, we are bound to see great inequalities between urban and suburban schools in good times and the complete decimation of both in bad times. We need a better way to ensure that urban students get the opportunities that they need and that those opportunities will not go away when anonymous investment bankers make bad bets on derivative futures.

My solution is to use a four-pronged funding approach. Property taxes can still fund a portion of local schools, but they should be complemented by regional sales taxes along with state and federal funding. If the property taxes are not as much of a burden, people should have more disposable income to purchase goods and services, which would contribute to the schools. Even when both are down, state and federal revenues should prop up the districts that need it to ensure that the public continues to benefit from a public good in the times that they need it most.

What other funding sources do you think would be more appropriate to ensure sustainability for public schools? Do you have any other ideas?

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Why Live in the Suburbs?

As a former suburbanite, I naturally was ingrained with compelling reasons as to why the suburbs were better places to live than the cities. There are three main reasons that I can think of that sum up the argument for suburban living: 1) housing is cheaper and land is more readily available, thus one can afford to live in a larger house on a larger lot; 2) because the house is bigger and there is more open space, suburbanites are happier; and 3) there is less crime, thus it is safer.

Well, two studies are out refuting the first two reasons. The Urban Land Institute recently released a report showing that, when housing and transportation costs are taken together, city dwellers are actually living more cheaply than suburbanites, at least in Boston. But this would be similar to any urban area that prioritizes public transportation and walkability. Why is this? Urban living requires much less car travel; thus, most urbanites drive less, and many urban families have fewer vehicles than their suburban peers. When you consider that gas prices are up around $3.00 per gallon, the average person travels over 20 minutes (which works out to at least 20 miles) to work and 20 minutes (miles) back, and the average vehicle costs $10,000 per year when everything is factored in, you can see how the transportation costs add up quickly. So, the first argument for suburban living is on shaky ground. If we are paying more for suburbia, at least our increased happiness makes up for it, right?

If we are to believe two Swiss Economists (why not, they’re neutral!), then this argument is shaky, too. Frey and Stutzer identified a phenomenon called the “commuters paradox” in which we grossly underestimate the pain that we get from long commutes. In fact, perhaps the most emotionally painful feelings that we experience in our day-to-day lives are felt while stuck in traffic. But when we make the decision to move further away to get the bigger house and larger yard (which we have already seen is not necessarily cheaper), we think this benefit will outweigh the costs (literally and figuratively) of driving so far. Apparently, we are not very good at accurately weighing out these kinds of benefits and costs, and our happiness suffers as a result. This makes me think of the question: what are our priorities? Is status more important than time with family? Just as a caveat, if you ever get a chance to look at the rates of suburbanization and compare it to the rates of divorce over time, you might see something very interesting.

So, suburbanites don’t necessarily have a cheaper way of life, and they aren’t necessarily happier, but they must be safer! It is definitely true that suburbanites are less likely to be victims of violent crime, namely murder. There are, however, other measures of safety. Non-violent crime is almost as prevalent in the suburbs as the cities, and certain types of violent crime are actually more prevalent in suburbs. As an example, domestic abuse, both sexual and otherwise, happen more frequently in the suburbs than in the cities (the spread-out and private environment does little to discourage it). But more relevant to this topic is the safety of people operating motor vehicles. Americans are more than 6 times more likely to die in an automobile accident than be murdered. What’s more, automobile accidents are the leading cause of deaths for people between the ages of 15 to 24. With suburbanites doing most of the driving, you can guess the location of residence of most of those who die in car wrecks. By the way, another caveat: if you look at the rates of suburbanization and compare it to the rates of violent crime over time, you’ll see something else very interesting.

We don’t always think logically, and even when we do, we don’t always have all of the information that we need for our logic to give us an outcome that makes sense (remember the image-policy preference discussion in the previous post). If we are led to believe that we will be happier out in the burbs (as all of the real estate advertisements tell us), then the logical thing to do is to move there. However, if we find out that we aren’t happier in the burbs after all, how logical was our decision to move there in the first place? I think with all of the financial mess and foreclosures and gas prices (etc., etc., etc.), people are asking this question of themselves more and more.

When I think about it, I’m left with no real logical argument for living in the suburbs. I like being close to the action (if you can call what happens in Bethlehem “action”). I like not having to drive. I like the diversity (again, if you can call Bethlehem “diverse”). And I can’t honestly say that it’s more expensive, more “painful,” and less safe. So, I’m left to wonder: Are there any other compelling reasons to live in the suburbs? I’d like to hear them, because I’m fresh out.

Monday, April 12, 2010

Tragedy... and Confusion

It’s terrible when something happens that could have been prevented, especially when it happens to a child. Yet another pedestrian was hit by a car in the Lehigh Valley on Saturday; this time, it was a little girl who was trying to cross the street with her sister. The car, traveling along a 45-mile-per-hour street, did not see her. My heart aches for the family of the girl as well as the driver. Out of respect for them, I won’t comment on the intersection, but as time goes on and wounds heal (and hopefully not too long into the future), I hope someone on the township or County councils considers more pedestrian-friendly safety features in that and other residential areas.

I do, however, want to comment on a recent blog post on a website called Mother Jones. Kevin Drum, the author, addresses a debate that has been raging for many years now: does suburban sprawl exist because policies mandate them or because people want them? Not surprisingly, Smart Growth advocates blame the policies, and Randall O’Toole and similar folks point the finger at public opinion. Drum seems to agree with O’Toole when he says, “These regulations aren’t something that’s being imposed by ‘government.’ They exist because people really, really, really want them.”

So, this brings up two issues. First does research really confirm that people “really, really, really” favor low-density suburban development over dense cities and inner-ring suburbs? And second, if the data does support that conclusion, do people always know what’s best for themselves?

Luckily, I did my thesis research on just this very topic. Previous research came to different conclusions. But what I noticed while reviewing them was that the studies that concluded people favored suburbs most often had participants judge only policy statements. This is dangerous because words such as “density” have garnered negative connotations that conjure up images of the Projects or other such monstrosities. What’s more, most studies that found that the majority of people favored more traditional developments were only presenting participants with images of the city blocks and neighborhoods. I would argue that this is a more effective method of gathering people’s reactions because we all have the ingrained ability to instinctually react to visual stimuli; I cannot say the same about written policy stimuli (if such a thing exists). But the downside to only examining images without their underlying policies is that when it comes time for the design codes to either go urban or suburban, the policies are what matter. Therefore, the public often goes in with a vision of what they want (more traditional development features), but they fail to make the necessary policy connections and, instead, rally for suburbia.

To test this hypothesis of visual-policy disconnect, I tested people’s reactions to both images and policies and compared them. What did I find? The people that did visually prefer suburban development also preferred suburban policies. But, those that visually preferred urban designs, which was the vast majority, didn’t seem to show any connection with urban or suburban policies; there was absolutely no relationship whatsoever. I had to conclude that, in a way, Randall O’Toole is right that people really like suburbia… just not all of them, and in the case of the most acute of our 5 senses, most prefer otherwise. But I also had to conclude that the vast majority that wanted their neighborhoods to look more urban also had no clue how to bring about such a vision. For example, a good number of participants that liked pictures of walkable neighborhoods also expressed desire for cul-de-sac policies, which actually counteract walking, as well as narrower streets, which promote walking. And of those that liked pictures of well-designed density, there was no consensus when asked about density policies.

What can we take from this? Both the Smart Growthers and Randall O’Toole are correct: suburbia is the result of policies that most people support, not because they are in favor of the results, but because they misunderstand their consequences. People are just really, really, really confused, and planners are really poor at educating them.

I think I’ve already answered my second question. Don’t get me wrong: I truly believe that people do know what is in their best interest when they completely understand the issue at hand, but when they don’t, as is the case with urban development (as well as many other social policies), the democratic process caves in on itself. We end up enacting costly policies, then enacting more costly policies to correct for the original policies – until we get to the point that we are at today where we can’t even afford to maintain the roads we already have let alone continue to build new ones.

Anyone disagree?