NewGeography.com blogs

There was a popular book in 1973 – A Random Walk Down Wall Street. (by Burton Malkiel, now in its 9th edition, 2007) – that pooh-pooh’ed the idea that one investor’s stock picks could always be better than another investor’s stock picks. The punch line is that you could randomly throw darts at the Wall Street Journal financial pages and do just as well as anyone else investing in the stock market. I first read it in 1980, while taking Investment 101 in business school at night and editing economic research documents for the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco during the day. I had a very memorable argument with John P. Judd, then senior research economist and more recently special advisor to the Bank president and CEO Janet Yellen.

John thought the Wall Street brokers were crazy for thinking they could make more than average returns on investment. I thought the Federal Reserve was crazy for thinking they could control the money supply. John was already a PhD economist; I was still working on my Bachelor degree in business administration.

Twenty years later I also have a PhD in economics, but there are still two camps pulling in different directions in their dangerous tug-of-war on the economy. There are the double-dip pessimists led by Yale Economist Bob Shiller and most recently discouraged by Paul Ferrell of MarketWatch. And there are the “Mad Money” optimists who believe that Jim Cramer will tell them everything they need to know to get and stay rich, while Ben Bernanke consoles them with sound bites like “increased optimism among consumers … should aid the recovery.”

At the heart of the problem is the same, original argument I had with John Judd – “is there a way to beat the averages” – except that this time around Wall Street is in bed with the Federal Reserve. You can no longer tell the crazies apart.

Which brings me back to the Random Walk. If Wall Street has their way, they will inflate the market just enough to induce you to put your money back in. Don’t forget the Weenie Roast of 2008. If the government – either Congress or Treasury or the Federal Reserve – has their way, they will let it crash again, too. Don’t forget that it was only Wall Street that got bailed out the last time. I think the chances are 50-50 either way.

Queensland might be thought of as the Florida of Australia. Like Florida, Queensland is the "Sunshine state." For years, Queensland has been the fastest growing state in the nation, just as Florida has been the fastest growing large state in the United States. The Gold Coast in Southeast Queensland might be characterized as Miami Beach on steroids.

Both states have also faced housing difficulties. With its smart growth land rationing policies, house prices escalated wildly in Florida and then collapsed as America's "drunken sailor" lending policies came home to roost. Queensland has had similar "urban consolidation" land rationing policies and the same house price escalation has occurred. However, the price bust did not follow, because lending standards were more strict. This is because adults were in charge of finance in Australia instead of the cartoon characters that drove policy in the United States. Australian lenders at least asked borrowers if they had a job and checked their pulse.

But there are still housing problems in Queensland. The Urban Development Institute of Australia Queensland has just released its two Richardson reports that, among other things, suggest that restrictions on housing are increasing household sizes. In recent years, only one new house has been produced for each new resident, which compares to an average household size of 2.5. Presumably younger people are living longer with their parents and perhaps, with the strong foreign immigration to Australia, there is substantial "doubling up," as houses are shared by people who would not otherwise live together, such as multiple families (internationally, census authorities define a household as all of the people living in a single house).

Median lot prices and median house prices have risen strongly in Queensland, which has led to a decline in housing construction and a loss of construction jobs. The report recommends allowing more housing development on greenfield sites and developing additional infrastructure on the urban fringe where more housing would be developed. Finally, the report urges that the state establish benchmarks for the time it takes to approve and build greenfield developments.

The Richardson reports are just another indication that the severity of the housing crisis and its causes is more broadly understood in Australia. Queensland would do well to follow its recommendations.

Photo: Gold Coast

In a city notorious for its vast gap between rich and poor and the involvement of children in gang activity and drug trafficking, a music school is providing an opportunity for the young people of the favelas to put their energies to better use in performing for themselves and their communities. The school's band has now toured the world and received visits from heads of state. This documentary tells the story of Sao Paulo's Meninos Do Morumbi and how it has affected the lives of its students.

Barack Obama’s home state is in the news but not for positive reasons. Fitch downgraded Illinois debt. At the end of March, according to the Bond Buyer:

Fitch Ratings late Monday downgraded Illinois’ general obligation rating one notch to A-minus and warned of possible further action by leaving the state’s credit on negative watch ahead of $1.3 billion of short- and long-term GO issuance in three deals over the coming weeks.
Gov. Pat Quinn had hoped that the General Assembly’s passage last week of pension reforms would stave off any negative rating actions and buy the state some additional time to address a nearly $13 billion budget deficit and liquidity crisis in the current legislative session.

Fitch isn’t Illinois’ only problem. The Chicago Tribune wrote a devastating editorial concerning Illinois’ economic performance:

once-thriving Illinois in February had 475,000 fewer jobs than it did in November 2000. Even replacing every one of those jobs wouldn't fix the sorry state of this state: Factoring in population growth over the last decade, Illinois needs 600,000 new jobs just to get the employment level back to where it was. The cumulative cost to Springfield of those lost jobs: $6 billion in tax revenues through fiscal '09 and, barring some miracle, $10 billion through fiscal '11.

Illinois politicians keep trying to blame job losses on the Great Recession. But this is only the latest bad patch in two decades during which Illinois has lagged the nation at growing jobs. Geoffrey Hewings, head of the U. of I.'s Regional Economics Applications Laboratory, says something else has to explain why Illinois unemployment keeps running well above the national rate: "Our economy looks like the U.S. economy" in terms of its blend of manufacturing, service and other sectors. "Yet since 1990, we've underperformed the U.S. in job creation."

In fact, for the decade before this recession began, other researchers have pegged Illinois' job creation rate at 48th in the U.S., ahead of moribund Ohio and Michigan. Can't blame recession for that.

Illinois lawmakers spent much of the last 20 years treating private-sector employers as if they were stupid — unable to understand that they and their workers eventually would have to pay for too much state spending, borrowing and promises of future obligations — none more egregious than the now severely underfunded retirement benefits for public employees.

This kind of editorial might scare away future business expansion in Illinois. It wasn’t easy for the Tribune to write this one because it’s so negative that it even might scare advertisers away. But, the truth can’t be ignored much longer. Special interest groups are thriving, but taxpayers are not. The long time Illinois Speaker of House is more responsible than any individual for Illinois’ persistent financial problems. Illinois declines, but Madigan’s property tax appeals law firm thrives.

There has been a lot written lately about the return to the city. I’ve noted myself how places like central Indianapolis have reversed decades of population declines. That’s exciting. And the New York Times, for example, just trumpeted how “smart growth is taking hold” in America.

But let’s not kid ourselves here. In my view this represents a possible inflection point, but it is way too early for the type of triumphalist rhetoric being bandied about by advocates.

Let’s take a look at the change in the regional population share in core counties in 2009 vs. 2008 for the Midwest cities I typically focus on.

For St. Louis, I use St. Louis city + St. Louis County as the core. For Minneapolis-St. Paul, I used Hennepin+Ramsey as the core.

As you can see, only two regions managed to increase core county share of population, and these by a minuscule amount. Everyone else lost core county share. Keep in mind that even these “core” counties have many places with suburban characteristics. Now you might prefer a purely core city measure, and if so, be my guest. But don’t be surprised if the data gets even worse in many cases. Even in Chicago, which might have experienced the biggest urban core construction boom in America, the city lost population while Cook County gained it. Looking at the core city would make Chicago’s share loss worse.

I think this shows there is still some work to do, to put it mildly.

So why the difference versus the EPA study the NYT trumpets? Well, for one thing, the EPA study is worthless as a measure of urban health. They measure only new building permits, not people. This I think taps into a subtle suburban mindset in our outlook, that new housing units must represent net new inventory and net new people moving in, but in urban areas that’s not necessarily the case.

The sad fact is, many of our urban cores have experienced significant housing abandonment and demolition. So in addition to construction of net new units, there’s a countervailing force of reduction. For example, the greater downtown area of Indianapolis has been seeing lots of construction. But the regional center comprehensive plan noted that between 1990 and 2000, the net number of dwelling units actually decreased. “The actual number of housing units declined over the 10-year period as some housing became dilapidated or was demolished and as some projects were emptied to await renovation (the Census only counts habitable units).”

What’s more, as yuppies move in, and others move out, there is bound to be an effect on household sizes. Is it is really a good idea to price out larger immigrant families to the inner ring suburbs so that DINK’s can move in? How’s that for the environmental footprint of the region?

I’m glad we’ve got big increases in urban construction and even population increases in some neighborhoods, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves by trumpeting a “fundamental shift”, as the EPA does, when the demographics don’t back it up.

The New York Times article is also a disappointment. It fails to do any independent analysis of the data and only talks to people who are cheerleaders for the study, making it a sad piece of journalism.

Someone recently described me as an “apologist for sprawl”. I in no uncertain terms reject that label. I am a passionate urban advocate who wants to see our core cities thrive and prosper. I want more growth there. I live in a city in a walkable neighborhood and rarely drive.

But advocacy research of the type urbanists are quick to decry in others does a disservice to the cause. To change the trajectory of our cities and our built environment in America, we need to start with something called “reality”. I am optimistic that there’s a change in the air. But let’s not make claims about “fundamental shifts” that are simply not supported by any realistic look at the totality of the data.

This post first appeared at The Urbanophile.

One of the most enduring myths in public policy is that local government consolidations save money. The idea seems to make sense, and most of the academic studies support the proposition. However, rarely, if ever, does the promised reduction in public expenditures or taxes actually take place.

Residents will vote March 16 on a proposal that would merge the village government of Seneca Falls, New York into the more rural and adjacent town of Seneca Falls. Under state law, this can occur without the consent of the town into which the village would be merged.

Paltry Savings and the Risks: A consultant report suggests savings that can only be characterized as pitiful. Out of a combined budget of $13 million, less than $400,000 would be saved, and even that figure is by no means sure, according to the consultant.

Voters may want to consider the following specific risks that could make achievement of the expected savings and tax reductions impossible:

Proponents expect to receive $500,000 annually in funding from a state program that seeks to encourage municipal consolidations. The state program is slated for cuts. Further, with New York’s serious budget difficulties, such a superfluous program could be a prime candidate for discontinuance. Thus, one of the principal factors expected to lower taxes might not survive in the longer run.

Presently, the village has a police department, while the town does not. The new town government is not likely to be able to get away with providing a higher level of police protection in the former village than in the merged town. One of two outcomes seems likely: (1) The first is that the present police protection (and budget) would be spread throughout the merged town. This would dilute police protection in the former village area. (2) The second is that the higher level of police protection in the village would be spread throughout the merged town. This would mean larger expenditures that could easily erase the already minimal projected savings.

The consultant proposes that a new town hall be built. The costs of this building could substantially erode the projected operating cost savings.

A principal reason that municipal consolidations rarely save money is that the necessary “harmonization” of service levels and employee compensation costs inevitably migrate to the level of the more costly former jurisdiction. The police issue in Seneca Falls is a prime example of the service harmonization cost risk.

Learning from Toronto: Seneca Falls does not have to look far to see how local government consolidation can lead to more spending and higher taxes. Less than 150 miles away as the crow flies, Toronto residents were glowingly told of the lower taxes and expenditures that would result from consolidating six jurisdictions into a “megacity” in the late 1990s. As we and others predicted at the time, things have not worked out. Toronto’s spending has risen strongly under the consolidated government. Despite its much smaller population, the risks are similar in Seneca Falls.

A new study by researchers at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University suggests that President Obama’s greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction goal will require gasoline prices of from $7.15 to $8.71 per gallon by 2030. This is not only untrue, but also represents a “roadmap” to economic and environmental folly.

The study begins with the assumption that the transportation sector would need to reduce its GHG emissions by the same 14% percentage as the overall goal for the economy, as proposed by President Obama (Note).

“Across the Board Reductions” are Absurd: The Harvard assumption is flawed from the start. GHG emissions reduction is not about “across the board” reductions of the same percentages applied to economic sectors. Such an approach could result in serious misallocation of resources, as opportunities for less expensive GHG emissions reductions in some sectors are ignored, while more expensive strategies are implemented in other sectors.

The Appropriate Price for GHG Reduction: The study itself assumes that the present GHG price is $30 and that the price will rise to $60 by 2030. Reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and McKinsey/The Conference Board say that sufficient GHG emission reductions can be achieved at below $50 per ton. It is fair to suggest, therefore, that any strategy costing more than the $50-$60 range must be rejected as being too expensive.

The Harvard study notes that GHG

…prices at their projected levels are far too small to create a significant incentive to drive less. Fuel prices above $8/gallon may be needed to significantly reduce U.S. GHG emissions and oil imports.

This should tell us something. Achieving the proposed reduction is GHG emissions from the transportation sector is just too expensive. If the current market price for GHG emissions cannot significantly reduce gasoline usage, then strategies that can be achieved for the market price should be implemented (in other sectors). Such an approach would by no means interfere with the potential to achieve GHG emissions reductions, rather it would facilitate less disruptive achievement.

$7 Per Gallon Gasoline: The Harvard study goes on to suggest that gasoline prices of $7.15 to $8.71 per gallon by 2030 might be necessary to achieve the overall GHG reduction goal in the transportation sector. These higher prices would be the result of significantly higher fuel taxes. The resulting cost of GHG emissions reductions could be more than $500 per ton (compared to the Department of Energy 2030 gasoline price projection). While the Harvard report “poo-poos” the economic impact of doubling gasoline prices, a Reason Foundation report (and previous research at the University of Paris by Remy Prud’homme and Chang Wong Lee) has found a strong relationship between mobility (driving more) and economic growth.

Focusing on Ends, Not Means: No one should believe it will be easy to achieve any eventual GHG emission objective. Success will be greatly enhanced by focusing on “ends” rather than “means.” This means employing the least costly and least disruptive strategies, without regard to how much we drive, where we live, how much power we consume or any other peripheral (and irrelevant) consideration.

At a price of $500 or more, the Harvard report’s price per ton could be nearly 10 times as much as the $60 GHG price assumed in the very same report. Such an increase in the price of gasoline would be both absurd and unnecessary.

------

Note: There are multiple proposals for economy wide GHG emissions reductions. Congressional have been for 17% to 20% reductions by 2020.

The Daily Telegraph reports that air pollution is getting worse in Sydney, with one in ten days rating “poor” in 2009. Critics of the ruling Labor state government claim that increasing air pollution and the lack of public transport are the cause. They are half right.

Sydney’s Densification is Intensifying Traffic Congestion: Sydney’s intensifying traffic congestion contributes substantially to rising air pollution.

The increasing traffic congestion is an inevitable consequence of the state government’ s “metropolitan strategy” which is “jamming” high rise residential buildings into suburban detached housing neighborhoods. The mathematics of traffic and densification is that unless each additional resident drives minus kilometers and minus hours, there will be more traffic, even before considering the impacts of intensifying commercial and heavy vehicle traffic.

The road system was not built for higher densities and neither was other infrastructure such as sewers or the water system, as Tony Recsei has noted in his preface to the 6th Annual Demographia International Housing Survey.

The fact is that higher densities are strongly associated with more traffic, which means greater traffic congestion. The additional stop and go traffic produces greater pollution on the roads adjacent to which people and their children live. It also means more greenhouse gas emissions, because fuel consumption increases as traffic congestion intensifies.

The association between higher densities and greater traffic congestion is also indicated by the ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability Density-VMT Calculator, based upon Sierra Club research. According to the Calculator, under the urban consolidation (“smart growth”) scenario, residential housing would be 37 housing units per hectare, as opposed to its “business as usual” scenario at a density of 10 housing units per hectare. The density of traffic (vehicle kilometers per square kilometer) under the higher density “urban consolidation” strategy would be 2.5 times as high as under the “business as usual” scenario.

According to federal Bureau of Transport and Regional Economics, Sydney’s total traffic volume is projected to increase nearly 20% over the next decade. Nearly half of the increase will come from commercial and heavy vehicles. With little or no expansion of the urban footprint, there will be nowhere for the new traffic to go except onto the existing already over-crowded roadways.

Stuck in Sydney’s Traffic: Already, the average one-way trip to work in Sydney is longer than in all but one of the 52 metropolitan areas in the United States with more than 1,000,000 population. Only New York takes as long as Sydney, because so many people use public transport, which is inherently slower for nearly all trips.

Of Blind Faith: Public Transport: Public transport serves as an article of faith to which officials cling in the innocent or cynical hope that it can reduce traffic congestion. There is no doubt of the good that public transport can do to get people to the central city (CBD), with its highly concentrated employment. However, Sydney’s CBD oriented system is over-crowded. A succession of state governments have been incapable of providing sufficient service to make the trip comfortable for the less than 20% of Sydney employees who work there. Proposals to centralize more of Sydney’s employment in the CBD could not be more wrong-headed.

Transit is about the CBD, whether in Sydney, Toronto, Portland or Atlanta. The public transport system capable of attracting a significant number of commuters to the smaller concentrated centers like Chatswood, Parramatta, or Norwest (much less the dispersed employment throughout the rest of the metropolitan area) has never been conceived, much less seriously proposed or built.

Why We Regulate Air Pollution: Public health was the very justification for regulating air pollution. Air pollution’s negative impacts are principally local. The consequences are measured reduce the quality of life of people intimately exposed to the more intense air pollution from nearby roads.

Higher densities come with a price. Higher densities are producing greater traffic congestion, higher levels of air pollution and greater public health risks. This is just the beginning.

Photograph: Strathfied, Sydney: Densification of detached housing neighborhood.

As we reported in July of last year, Goldman Sachs and other US bank bailout success stories are reaping big dollar benefits from the “nebulous world of public-private interactions.” Goldman Sachs – somehow always first in line for these things – even got transaction fees for managing the Treasury programs that funded the bailouts.

Now, the senator in my neighboring state of Iowa is once again trying to wake up Congress to the facts. You may recall that Senator Chuck Grassley (D-IA) admitted almost a year ago that he and the other members of Congress were fooled into voting for the bailout because they thought former-Treasury Secretary Paulson actually knew what the hell he was doing when he asked for $750 billion in the fall of 2008. “When it’s all said and done, you realize he didn’t know anything more about it than you did.”

Late last week, the Huffington Post called our attention to a letter that Senator Grassley sent to Goldman Sachs about the fees they will collect on the next bit of federal stimulus – bonds that are used to underwrite the latest jobs bill. Grassley points to a November 27 report from Bloomberg News for some evidence that Goldman may be over-charging local governments by more than 30 percent above what is normally charged for bond underwritings (i.e., handling the paperwork and rounding up some buyers).

In Grassley’s letter, he includes a quote in the article to the effect that the local governments don’t care about the fees since there is a “large subsidy.” However, according to The Financial Times of London – and we agree with their assessment – Goldman and others are able to charge excessive fees because the financial crisis reduced their competition. When banks were required to raise more capital before they could pay back their bailout money, they did – and earned record fees for themselves in the process!

It is eerily similar to the driving forces behind the “subprime crisis” that was repeatedly blamed for the financial crisis. The financial sector gains its profits from fees – issuance fees, trading fees, underwriting fees, etc. – unheeding of the impact on the real economy, taxpayers and the cost to the nation as a whole.

There are many factors and issues that go into winning a political campaign, and the ones swirling about the Texas Republican Primary were numerous. Incumbent governor Rick Perry cruised to an easy victory over sitting U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and activist Debra Medina on Tuesday to set up a general election showdown with former Houston mayor Bill White, a Democrat.

It’s worth recalling that last year Perry distinguished himself as the anti-Smart Growth governor, bucking a trend in which political leaders at all levels embrace this command-and-control planning doctrine. In June 2009, Governor Perry vetoed SB 2169 - a bill relating to “the establishment of a smart growth policy work group and the development of a smart growth policy for this state.”

In his veto message, Governor Perry said:

Senate Bill No. 2169 would create a new governmental body that would centralize the decision-making process in Austin for the planning of communities through an interagency work group on “smart growth” policy…. This legislation would promote a one-size-fits-all approach to land use and planning that would not work across a state as large and diverse as Texas.

I’m not sure if this was on many minds as voters headed to the polls, but there does seem to be a strong sentiment among Texans against top-down centralized planning. The recent mayor’s race in Houston grabbed national attention because of the winner’s sexual orientation. But earlier Annise Parker had soundly defeated über-Smart Growth advocate Peter Brown, setting up her run-off with Gene Locke. Brown had made zoning and central planning a centerpiece of his campaign.

Texas has out-performed most other states in terms of economic vitality, housing affordability and other quality of life indicators, and its cities crowd Business Week’s top ten list of metros least touched by the recession.

When it comes to Smart Growth and centralized planning, political leaders at all levels and in all states should embrace the Lone Star attitude: Don’t Mess With Texas!