Mike, You dispute my contention that compact neighborhoods can be safer, cheaper, healthier, saying “Go ahead and provide some evidence when you feel like it.” OK, here’s your evidence:

Safer: Per-capita crime is lower in high-density New York City than in, say, sprawl-oriented Phoenix, or Sacramento. I leave it to you to google the stats.

Cheaper: There’s no difference in the cost to build sprawl v. pedestrian-friendly mixed use, says Randall Shaber, the project manager for Laguna West (Peter Calthorpe’s new urbanist subdivision south of Sacramento that has since been rezoned by clueless policy makers to be sprawl). And both commute costs and environmental impacts are lower when people have an alternative to driving.

Healthier: When you build all the walking out of the environment, as sprawl does, (and subsidize high fructose corn syrup), you get the U.S.’ current health situation: high levels of illnesses that stem from inactivity — like depression, obesity, type II diabetes, etc. Even a few minutes of daily walking makes for significantly lower rates of health problems (One U.Georgia study is cited here: http://www.ptproductsonline.com/news/2008-07-16_01.asp., but there are many more. Just Google “walking health benefits”)

Anyway, this is a long reply, but Mike I felt that even though you appear more interested in deception and winning the argument at all costs than in the truth of the matter, anyone who does research on this blog deserves a little attention. Now, if you can just give up the delusional thinking, we can discuss what public policy ought to be for reals.

The “Big Lie” all through this blog is that government can never set a foot right, and private decisions are always best because the tooth fairy…er, I mean the “invisible hand,” will make everything jake. I’m not saying the market doesn’t allocate resources efficiently, I’m saying it’s as likely to require referees as any game in town — and public referees exceed the disclosure required by private ones. There will be referees regardless of what is chosen, public or private, and to pretend otherwise is to begin to leave the world of lies and enter the world of delusion.

The delusional anti-government Reaganite line has produced a few things too:

- Pre-Reagan, the U.S. was the world’s largest creditor nation; after, the world’s largest debtor.

- Pre-Reagan, the U.S. had a trade surplus; after, a trade deficit.

- Despite his anti-government line, Reagan grew the government (as did W), and left a debt larger than all previous administrations combined.

- Pre-Reagan (especially pre-1973 oil shock), real median wages were rising; in the 30 years after, real median wages remained relatively flat while the top 0.01% of income earners got a 497% raise.

- Pre-Reagan (actually pre-1973) the U.S. economy’s growth was roughly 4%, after, roughly 3%, despite all of the miraculous results tax cuts were supposed to produce.

- Pre-Reagan, Savings & Loans were failing; after, the Reagan / Bush method for handling this business failure produced the largest public political and financial scandal in U.S. history.

Finally, to give you an idea of how important public policies can be, here’s a table of job creation from Reagan to Bush II:

President Total Job creation (millions) Private sector job creation (millions)
Reagan (1981 – 1988) 14.8 13.7
Bush I (1989 – 1992) 3.4 2.0
Clinton (1993 – 2000) 23.1 21.2
Bush II (2001 – 2005) 1.7 0.7

Source: bureau of Labor Statistics, 2007, http://www.bls.gov; Dick Alexander, http://www.globalshop.com cited in Ravi Batra’s “The New Golden Age” (p.109)

Notice that the Clinton raised the top income taax brackets, and contrary to the Reaganites and supply-side witch doctors… er, I mean voodoo economists’ assertions that this would lead to economic meltdown, produced many more jobs.

Sprawl is the growth pattern for the let’s-pretend-there’s-no-such-thing-as-intelligent-public-policy crowd, and like sprawl, the promotion of isolation and disempowerment is also a constant theme in this blog. Sneering at the public realm, and the government that manages it is condoned and encouraged.

The idea that a policeman or soldier might put his or her life on the line to defend your little private compound from the invading Visigoths… well, that’s kind of ignored. The fellow-feeling that keeps your suppliers from poisoning your food or medicine not vetted by the FDA or the agriculture dept….. not much encouraged.

Any reminder that collective action can profit anyone, ever, is vigorously denied, even at the expense of the truth. The U.S. government has seldom been perfect, but it has been very helpful to its citizens, providing everything from farm-to-market roads, to interstate highways, to silicon chips (yes, Fairchild conductor built them, but for the *government* first), to the internet.

This government-can’t-do-anything-right sentiment is the soft bigotry of low expectations applied to the public realm. It is well-funded and promoted by those oligarchs who have profited mightily from it (497% raise!).

The originating post says transit in the U.S. is crap — something I didn’t dispute — but Curitiba, and other locations (San Francisco, London, Paris) prove it can be done well, even making roads less congested so private auto drivers have an easier time.

Curitiba proves it can be done well on even a third-world budget. Nothing you’ve said or cited contradicts the idea that public policy can be done well (and complaining about the left cheek of transit while the right cheek of land use is not mentioned — well, that’s just half-assed).

Mike says: “Cities … should focus on pure public goods (e.g. safety, local street and parks) and forget about providing niceties like swimming pools. If you want to take your kids to a public pool, bully for you. But to suggest that we ought to the same, or that we should pay for it, well that’s just unfair.”

Mike this is exactly what sparked the Civil War — no not slavery, but whether the majority gets to decide public policy. That’s “settled science” for reals. Personally, I think you are pretty arbitrary when you say cities can manage parks, but not public pools. What makes you draw the line there?

And I won’t dispute your contention that “Cities are large and heterogeneous…not communities” remark. All the more reasons to build neighborhoods that encourage community and personal encounter rather than sprawl. Sprawl is *anti-*neighborhood and anti-community because it isolates people, maximizing privacy, but providing nothing like the public realm required for a social encounter, much less something that could be considered community-promoting.

“Transects” are so far from a fad that they actually describe city building from its inception. But I’m guessing that’s not convincing to a fellow who despairs that Curitiba has blown it with its outrageously successful transit system.

You tell a half truth in saying this article claims Curitiba’s transit rideshare has declined since the TRB study I cited previously. You remember, that older TRB study said Curitiba’s unsubsidized transit, provided 1.9 to 2.1 million trips daily, had been getting increasing rideshare for 30 years, and captured 70 – 75% of all trips. Your NY Times article citation adds later stats: “When the bus system was inaugurated, it transported 54,000 passengers daily. That number has ballooned to 2.3 million, in large part because of innovations that permit passengers to board and exit rapidly.”

So in absolute numbers, the trips are increasing. (But you said the government has made a hash!) That’s not success?! (God help your poor child if he brings home anything less than 100% on his algebra test!)

The NY Times article you cite does say transit is not gaining rideshare, but that’s because “The bus system that has won admirers throughout the world appears to be nearing capacity.”

Not because a hash was made by government; because it’s too successful.

In jumping from “Curitiba has fewer trips in transit since 2005″ despite an increase in the absolute number of trips, to “government makes a hash of everything” to “let’s just discard government altogether, allowing it to make parks, but not pools” the bizarre distortions just grow.

All of these figures are, BTW, astonishing in comparison to the third-rate crap that is U.S. transit, even if I cannot tell you whether this is ordinary for the third world. (Google is no help here.) My understanding is that it’s extraordinary even for Brazil (Brasilia was built for autos, for one example).

Many others posting here appear to be willing to dismiss transit as unworkable because U.S. transit is bad, too — but the Curitiba experience is *different* despite your misdirection.

Oh yes, and let’s not forget that Curitiba got all this for 1/100th of the cost of the subway originally proposed by the U.S.-supported dictatorship, and the administration responsible got re-elected by large pluralities even after the dictators were gone.

More lies: One of your initial post’s concluding remarks says: “To assume that [the "hash" of transit and land use] can be changed by giving the same people more control over urban land allocation strikes me as more than a little naive.”

I never said give the same people more control. I explicitly said that current U.S. transit / land-use policy is crap, and I want to give *different* people charge of such policy — preferably people who would seek informed consent from the public for any transit decisions — including allowing the public to know about the possibility of successful transit like Curitiba’s.

This would include letting the public know about peak oil, and offering to have a diversified portfolio of transit options rather than the economically vulnerable auto monoculture covertly subsidized by building only sprawl. You know, real conservatism.

Interestingly, cdquarles, one of the government-can’t-do-anything-right crowd follows your last answer with a post about how centralized transit systems might break down if a disaster — say Katrina — occurred. I can think of no better way to describe W’s response to that disaster in New Orleans, incidentally — a breakdown. Herbert Hoover had a similar New Orleans disaster in 1927, and he managed to do better than W, with just one caveat. He was using horses and buggies.

So different people, please! For the last 30 years, with little respite, the U.S. has had Reagan and his acolytes, the government-can’t-do-anything-right crowd, in power. These are people who believe government is the problem, and set out to demonstrate just how big a problem it can be.

An implied untruth in your posts is that there’s some viable alternative preferred by the market. The market discounts real estate in transit-obstacle sprawl, and pays premiums for transit-friendly New Urbanist neighborhoods, even if no transit is currently available. This isn’t just my opinion; I’ve cited the comparable sales.

Sprawl cities’ developments are so unpopular that they regularly produce anti-growth movements. Even the “un-planned” city of Houston still builds god-awful sprawl because it has sprawl street design standards. In other words, the “un-planned” stuff still has to have some rudimentary public policy about which most of the public is unaware. Even the lack of public policy is a kind of public policy, and produces Houston, which is to say crap (no offense to crap).

The truth is that pedestrian- and transit-friendly New Urbanist codes empower the public, are far simpler and more understandable than the sprawl zoning. Sprawl planning (from the *same* people)truly requires an elite to interpret and profits the usual oligarchs at the expense of the public realm — significantly the auto dealers who now have entire populations that cannot get around without autos.

New Urbanist codes produce something the market likes just fine. Calling the New Urbanists names (“elites”) is just a lie *and* a distraction.

What kind of a system survives damage better, a decentralized one or a centralized one?

If you had to evacuate a city, what kind of a system would be better able to handle the job, a centralized one running on a fixed track, a centralized one running on a decentralized track/road network, or a decentralized one running on a decentralized track/road network?

Whenever these kinds of projects get debated, no one seems to consider disaster planning. If you needed to evacuate New York City from a Cat-3 hurricane in less than 72 hours (and New York City, particularly Long Island has been hit several times by strong hurricanes in the last 150 to 200 years) today, what do you think the result would be? Would it look like New Orleans and Katrina?

Still waiting you to explain what the “Big Lie” is.

You misinterpreted my comment about the swimming pool. My point is that is that public provision is not required for many types of shared goods. The concept of community implies some set of shared values. Cities are typically too large and heterogeneous to function as real ‘communities’. They should focus on pure public goods (e.g. safety, local street and parks) and forget about providing niceties like swimming pools. If you want to take your kids to a public pool, bully for you. But to suggest that we ought to the same, or that we should pay for it, well that’s just unfair.

I have not read “The Urban Oasis”, but I’m guessing its content tends more toward the popular than the academic, since it repeats the oft-cited claim about full buses being more energy efficient than auto travel. This claim is irrelevant, since full transit vehicles are rarely observed. Public transit agencies try to be all things to all people (reduce congestion, reduce pollution, mobilize the poor, end climate change, command the tides, etc.), and end up being nothing to everyone. This is borne out by actual observed load factors and the DoE energy consumption comparisons.

The doom-and-gloom predictions about the elderly being immobile are similarly unlikely. Wiliam Black has shown, using national data from the U.S., that the elderly are not only not using public transit in disproportionate numbers, but that they are also driving longer than they used to. Increasing life expectancy is a beautiful thing. The more likely outcome, which I have observed, is that transportation service will become packaged with senior housing. The housing providers also provide local shuttle bus service for residents to make trips for shopping, medical or other purposes. Not only does this better meet the needs of the elderly, it cuts down on the wasted effort involve with providing fixed-route services.

“Transects” are merely the latest design fad among landscape architects and land use planners. Functionally, they are no different from the “dense, walkable” city framework that Smart Growthers and CNU types have been pushing for years now. When Andres Duany, Peter Calthorpe and the rest of the flat-earth society start providing serious empirical research on the travel behavior effects of these types of development, I will start taking them seriously.

The point is here…

The point is that dense neighborhoods are safer, cheaper, healtier, etc.? Go ahead and provide some evidence when you feel like it.

My point is that people can very often find better prospects in goods provided in the private sector (when they are allowed to), making heavy reliance on government unnecessary.

The CNU is wrong. Curitiba is starting to fall apart. Which brings us to our next point:

The bigger point is here…

Visigoths, what?

The TCRP report you cite is now 5 years old. The NYT article identified by Randy Crane was from 2006. What happened in the intervening years? Brazil has been developing economically, and in socities where such activities are not forbidden, this means greater auto ownership and land consumption. It is entirely plausible that transit use is declining in Curitiba.

In 1984, Peter Gordon and Richard Willson published a paper on the determinants of light rail transit demand. It used a cross-sectional data set from around the world to estimated LRT demand, though it could just as easily be applied to other rail or bus rapid transit systems. The relevant factors were the usual culprits: per capita income and auto ownership, urban densities, station spacing, and a dummy variable to identify cities in socialist countries, indicating that cities have land markets that are either non-existent or have limited function.

This model should predict demand in Curitiba quite well. Incomes are low, which is related to low auto ownership levels. Densities are also rather high, but this is largely a function of highly restrictive land use policies, which justify adding the effect of the dummy variable for socialist cities.

However, the model is cross-sectional. Urban change is a process through time. We will have to study this example for several years to see of the predictions are borne out. But the evidence seems to be starting to appear already. As reported, transit ridership is starting to fall, which could easily be explained by rising incomes. I will also look for data on auto ownership levels, though this is typically only available at the national level.

My point is that Curitiba is not really all that exceptional. Like many low-income cities, public transit is still heavily used. Yet the historical evidence on development and urban change suggests that if Brazil is economically successful, not only will transit use decline, but citizens will seek to throw off the shackles of land regulation and demand the opportunity to engage in private land tenure.

This would be germane if sprawl too didn’t ignore a “host of historical and economic factors” that are orders of magnitude larger, like the $300 billion annual petroleum subsidy, the covert subsidy of streets designed to discourage pedestrians, loan underwriting that has short-changed compact development (in a very racist way, BTW) since the New Deal, etc.

Meanwhile, the idea that such neighborhoods automatically produce good transit — you know, the way the “invisible hand” of the market automatically produces good outcomes in the distribution of goods and services — trivializes the argument altogether. Good mass transit – whether public or private – is impossible without pedestrian-friendly streets. How else are riders going to get to stops? Lack of sprawl is necessary. It’s not sufficient.

Mke asserts: “To be successful, fixed-route transit needs concentrations of activity at both the origin and destination locations. The elites at CNU conveniently forget this.” But Mike, can’t riders in a relatively inactive primarily residential area catch the bus to a more active area that is primarily shopping or offices, like my wife does? This just doesn’t make sense, and ignores planner Robert Cervero’s work about the success of transit and even neighborhood commerce in relatively un-dense (13du/acre) neighborhoods. Suburban densities of 1/6 acre lots word to make 13 du/acre, incidentally (5 large homes and an eight-plex on an acre).

Your remark that the “elites at CNU” ignore the need for “concentrations of activity” at both origin and destination is simply untrue. And laughable. Elites! Ha! (No, I want my community designed by folks who don’t eat arugula, they only eat deep-fried regular american lettuce, wrapped in bacon, and dipped in cheese aged in the anus of a bald eagle!)

So Mike, you can find bad examples of government policies action everywhere. You can find similar ones for private institutions too (remember Enron?) It’s not difficult. But finding government malfeasance is like shooting fish in a barrel — heck, their meetings are public! We have to rely on Dilbert to keep us abreast of advances in stupidity in the private sector.

That government is perfect was not my point. That it can potentially provide enlightened policy, as it unquestionably did in Curitiba was the point. To conclude that because “mode share is dropping” (from what? 80% to 75%? you don’t say, and TRB says it’s rising) it’s a hash is throwing the baby out with the bath water.

But what alternative do you propose? No public institutions or infrastructure? For example, do you really want the drug companies to vet their own medications? (“Here, have some Vioxx, it’s perfectly safe!”) Or do you prefer an agency supervise such things whose dealings are public, if not always honest? Requiring absolute honesty is typical right-wing baloney (like the contention that Clinton was crookeder than Reagan — hilarious!). If it’s a human enterprise, it has some dishonesty. Whether it is public, or private, it doesn’t matter.

BTW, the statement that Curitiba’s transit makes money (i.e., is not subsidized) is Hawken’s from “Natural Capitalism.” Again, I was simply holding out the possibility that shared goods could be cheaper and preferred, even if not perfect. For you to quibble about whether they pay for the stops with the fares when 75% of trips occur on transit is beyond baloney.

“To assume that this can be changed by giving the same people more control over urban land allocation strikes me as more than a little naive. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…here’s the keys to the car.”

Your point is that somehow it’s possible to live in isolation. By extension, you want to control your own transportation, food, clothing, medicine, contracts, security, etc., etc., etc. This is *really* throwing the baby out with the bath water.

I’ll agree that U.S. mass transit is crap — it could be nothing else given the utterly hostile land-use patterns — but what is this private policy that is so successful? Private auto ownership? That’s crap too. The U.S. consumes roughly twice the energy of the Europeans and Japanese per dollar of GDP primarily because autos are such inefficient means of transportation. I should also add that sprawl requires every driving age adult own an auto, so it is one of the cruelest, most regressive of taxes.

As for the hash that is U.S. land-use planning, again, this assumes some non-public way to allocate land exists that is successful. Even Houston, Texas, which purports to have zero planning, has public works standards for its roads, and honors land-use covenants (and builds mind-boggling amounts of sprawl). What’s your alternative for *that* — and what do you do when your neighbor wants to open a nuclear waste dump? Just askin’…

Incidentally, professor Crane, Mike’s authority, also asserts that “I do not really know much about [Bogota or Curitiba] and hope the accidental reader can offer useful comparative information” posted here http://postcarboncities.net/node/411.

Sorry for the lengthy reply, but it’s obvious to me that Mike knows nothing about Curitiba and is hoping that the big lie (“only 75% of transportation is on transit that is self-sufficient, not subisidized — therefore Curitiba transit is a hash”) will pass muster. It’s just a big lie, Mike. Many tyrants have used it before you, but it ain’t convincin’ me.

Mike, if you ever try to do development, you’ll discover that a) government, b) lenders, c) tenants, d) buyers e) private planners and f) builders all play a role in deciding how it’s built. Finding people who know what they are doing to build something other than sprawl is not that easy, and getting them to all agree is doubly difficult.

Furthermore, adopting, or rediscovering an idea unfamiliar to sprawl builders is not something often encouraged by these parties to the decision. Remember — the risks are large, and nobody ever got fired for funding mediocrity if it’s customary — even if it fails. Lenders have been particularly intransigent, but government cluelessness, and commercial tenant demands are certainly factors. There are indications this is turning around, but the inertia alone is monumental.

Meanwhile, the builders who have surmounted these obstacles, and have been building NU developments continue to charge – and get – premiums. Celebration Florida, Kentlands, MD, and Orenco Station in Oregon are a few examples besides Seaside, FL..

The idea that people prefer isolation is one of the underlying design principles of sprawl, but it does not sell as well as urbanism — otherwise, Fifth Ave. apartments in NY City would be cheap. Yes, the Indians and Russians have started building sprawl, just as some teenagers have begun getting tatoos in their imitation of teen idols — but should we call imitation sensible public policy? Isn’t it really just another demonstration that because people have money to spend does not make them spend it intelligently. I believe “nouveau riche” was invented to describe just such people.

On the other hand, I will admit that even though though you promote isolation and disempowerment, Mike, you have elected to use the Google provided by others. A first step in learning to share, I say.

Mike found Professor Crane from UCLA who supposedly credits Curitiba Mayor Jaime Lerner’s accomplishments as something that required a (U.S.-supported) Brazilian military dictatorship, even though his statement is contradicted by this: “According to Crane… “Lerner was effective mainly because he was a coalition builder, even when the system was not particularly democratic.” (http://hundredyearshence.blogspot.com/2007/06/curitiba-v-bogota.html). But a dictator was nearby! Hey!

When it wants to do public improvements, the supposedly dictatorial Curitiba’s municipal government holds meetings with its constituents and offers them alternatives of equivalent cost: You can have this park, or we can pave that road, or… Then takes a vote of the neighborhood to decide what to do. Sorry, no reference here; I heard it from Lerner’s mouth, and have no reason to doubt him.

In my limited experience, few U.S. municipalities are this democratic. My local government either decides by fiat or in a process so obscure that discerning the costs and consequences of public policies is all but impossible. I’ve asked the locals for 20 years to tell me how much of their infrastructure costs for an average house are covered by building fees. Silence is all I’ve encountered.

Mike first quibbles with my private pool v. public pool example. My point in mentioning these two types of swimming pools was that shared goods can potentially be preferred and cheaper — just as fully-used mass transit may be preferrable because it burns roughly 1/8 the energy of single-occupant autos (this figure is from Roxanne Warren’s book “The Urban Oasis”, and is not, as opposed to many things Mike and his sources cite, something made up). My wife prefers it because she can doze or converse with her neighbors on the way to work.

Nothing Mike says concerning private water parks or whether people can afford pools is germane, but something tells me that Mike gets a kind of pleasure in contradiction for its own sake.

So if you want to be isolated and disempowered, Mike, we’ll just have to play marco polo without you. Isolation and disempowerment, particularly of the pre- and the growing post-driving-age populations, is the undesirable side effect of sprawl, incidentally. If we’re lucky enough to live long enough to be unable to drive, what are we going to do in sprawl, besides be warehoused, or simply disempowered when it comes to doing something outside the house?

Incidentally, density is also not necessarily the antithesis of sprawl. See http://www.dpz.com, and click on “transect” for the illustration.

MIKE! THE POINT IS HERE =>> It’s cheaper, and often more fun to have a public pool, or just a shared private pool. The idea that all things exclusive, and private are preferred by humans is baloney. (I just wanted to make sure you get the point. No fair playing dumb.) Neighborhoods where people share the street with autos are healthier too (people walk), and safer, and cheaper, in the long run.

And my point, still unaddressed, was that the original post is delusional in expect successful transit when the U.S. builds pedestrian-friendly, mixed-use neighborhoods that support transit 1/1500th as often as sprawl. Mike doubts land-use alone would produce successful transit, and discounts the success of Curitiba’s transit too (my example of success). I never said the former, and can show Mike how he’s bought a bunch of baloney for the latter.

MIKE! THE BIGGER POINT IS HERE =>> When you build a society so averse to funding, or even thinking what would make intelligent, shared goods then you must ultimately expect to must defend yourself in your private compound against the invading Visigoths. If you don’t get this, stop reading. Nothing else I say will make the slightest difference.

So if you’re still reading, Mike, virtually nothing you say about Curitiba’s transit, or CNU is true. Here’s from the Transportation Research Board at http://onlinepubs.trb.org/Onlinepubs/tcrp/tcrp90v1_cs/Curitiba.pdf, contradicting your conclusion that transit is failing in Curitiba: “Reports of the passenger volumes on the complete citywide system vary from about 1.9 million passengers trip per day (including transfers as two trips) to 2.1 million per day….There is no doubt that RIT ridership in Curitiba has increased since the initial stages of the scheme 30 or so years ago and continues to increase. …. RIT has maintained, if not increased, commuter mode share to transit at 70% to 75%, and there are no indications that this proportion is decreasing.”

So has government like Curitiba’s “made a hash” of transit, as Mike asserts? Only if your hash is delicious and successful.