We’re Not Done Building Yet
I kind of think that Will Wilkinson ends up making Yglesias’ point for him here. Libertarians have a weird blind spot when it comes to transportation and planning issues. Will agrees, and then proceeds to rationalize that blind spot away, which is something libertarians basically never ever do on the issues they care about.
But there’s a bigger point to make about his post. Will writes:
What makes this issue so tricky for me is that the status quo pattern of settlement and transportation certainly does reflect systematic regulatory mandates, but it’s not clear how worthwhile it is to try to back out of this pattern once it has been established — even if those mandates were stupid. The way we live is indeed very much a function of choices made by government some time ago and reinforced by its ongoing decisions to maintain the established system. I think the case for the proposition that many of these choices were big mistakes — that we’d have an overall better pattern of settlement and transportation had government made different choices — is pretty compelling. Yet it remains that whole cities have formed around the suboptimal status quo system and many tens of millions of people have invested in goods like houses and cars taking for granted the structure of the status quo system.
I suspect defenders of greater density and more public transport overstrain themselves trying to make the implausible case that a transition to their favored alternative would cost most everyone less than maintenance of the status quo, despite the fact that almost everyone has already arranged their lives around the current system.
Libertarians, for some reason I haven’t yet grasped, seem to view the world as remarkably static. In their world, population is not growing. New entrants to the workforce aren’t choosing where and how to live. Demographics are etched in stone; the population isn’t getting older and embracing smaller family sizes. And people never, ever move house. Libertarians also seem to like the “newspaper commenter” critique of urbanist arguments: “Why do you want to make everyone live in Manhattan?” There’s no such thing as a shift at the margin in this view.
In practice, the US is far from done building. Tens of millions of new homes will be built in the coming decades. Hundreds of billions of dollars will be spent on transportation infrastructure. The current built environment has, as a result of decades of government policy, taken on a rather suburban, auto-centric tilt. So what? No one is suggesting that we tear down all of that and replace it with something entirely new. I, and others, are suggesting that making it easier (or, you know, legal) to build in a denser, more walkable fashion would be advantageous. Similarly, given the burden of maintaining such a large and costly road infrastructure, it might be wise to devote a larger share of dollars for new construction to substitute technologies.
Will goes on to write:
I don’t think this kind of path-dependency/status-quo bias/lock-in effect would be insuperable if government would simply stop actively subsidizing people to arrange their lives around the status quo system. It could make people pay directly for using roads; price for congestion; shift incidence of taxes from labor income to carbon use, etc.
But this is hard to do in a democracy, since people tend to want what they’ve got and feel entitled to the subsidies that support the status quo. If people live the way they do because they’re being actively subsidized to live that way, and the government takes the subsidy away, people will feel punished.
But surely Will is familiar with the concept of price elasticity of demand and its relationship to the availability of good substitutes. People bristle at removal of subsidies for things that they have come to depend upon. But if they have good alternatives to those things, then suddenly the removal of the subsidy isn’t so painful. Taxes on gas or congestion or carbon aren’t so hard to stomach, in other words, if consumers can substitute easily away from the things being taxed. So much the better if the substitutes are actually more economically efficient in the first place.
It’s like Will, and Tyler, and libertarians generally are stuck in the sunk cost fallacy — “we’ve already built all of this stuff, so it would seem to make sense to keep building similar stuff.” But that makes no sense. And it certainly is no reason to ignore the many bad government policies that prevent developers from building things that people seem to really want.
August 31st, 2009 at 12:09 pm
I appreciate any shots taken at the logic of Libertarians.
But I have noticed something interesting in the world stage recently — the Japanese elections. One thing the incoming party has suggested (and mind you the new coalition is considered more liberal and more focused on a younger, urban population of voters) is to remove all tolls on the expressways. (And many other spending initiatives as well.) But it’s interesting to me, Japan is known for having a wonderful rail infrastructure. Dense walkable communities and policies that make car ownership difficult (no on street parking, requirements to have a parking space before being allowed to register, almost no used car market as older cars aren’t allowed) — and yet apparently the tolls on the roads are enough of a issue that eliminating them was a major piece of their campaign platform.
So economically speaking (where the Japanese clearly have choices) what does this mean? I haven’t a clue.
August 31st, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Libertarians, for some reason I haven’t yet grasped, seem to view the world as remarkably static.
This is because [g]libertarians are essentially conservatives who like to get high.
August 31st, 2009 at 3:22 pm
I, and others, are suggesting that making it easier (or, you know, legal) to build in a denser, more walkable fashion would be advantageous.
But people are not buying your arguments. The advantages of low-density, car-oriented development that caused people to favor that form of development in the past are still advantages today. Shorter travel times. Greater comfort and convenience. Cheaper housing.
You’re not likely to eliminate zoning laws that restrict density, either. People support these laws to preserve or improve their quality of life — less noise, less crowding, less congestion, less pollution, more privacy, etc. Even Arlington County, the current poster-child community of New Urbanism, has zoning laws that restrict density.
And changing demographics do not appear to help your cause, either. The population has been aging for decades. The share of households with children has been declining for decades. Over the same period, sprawl and suburbanization have increased, not decreased.
August 31st, 2009 at 5:08 pm
Shorter travel times. Greater comfort and convenience. Cheaper housing.
Tired talking points repeated endlessly notwithstanding, the 4.00/gal gas last summer showed these talking points are merely transitory.
When gas stays around 5.00/gal these talking points will sound as quaint as June Cleaver asking Ward not to be too hard on the Beaver.
August 31st, 2009 at 7:32 pm
“People support these laws to preserve or improve their quality of life — less noise, less crowding, less congestion, less pollution, more privacy, etc.”
This is why its vital not to allow it to be legal to choose of an alternative, since people might find that infill development at sufficient density to support robust common carrier transport provides less congestion and less pollution than endless acreage of government imposed homogeneity. That simply cannot be risked.
August 31st, 2009 at 7:43 pm
More on the market test: “While developers have oversupplied single-family detached homes with backyards, buyers looking for a home within walking distance of jobs, services, good schools, parks and public transit have few options in this state. Communities that have these “sustainable development” characteristics, such as neighborhoods in San Francisco, Pasadena and San Diego, are often among the most expensive in the state. They are also few and far between compared with the vast stretches of suburban homes covering the state. Walk This Way
Walkable “suburban villages” around a regional stopping train with stations every ten miles is 5% walkable infill development and 95% traditional suburbia reconfigured to be within 5 miles of walk and ride transport, if they choose.
Its more choice in neighborhood type and more choice in transport. So obviously libertarians, being in favor of choice, are opposed to it.
August 31st, 2009 at 8:40 pm
Bruce,
Good luck persuading people that they should vote against all zoning laws that regulate density and leave the outcome to market forces alone. As I said, even Arlington County has zoning laws that restrict density. If you can’t win in Arlington, there are probably very few places where you can win.
By the way, is it only minimum density zoning that you oppose, or all zoning?
August 31st, 2009 at 10:16 pm
Mixner, August 31st, 2009 at 8:40 pm
I’d say good luck learning to read, except I’ve read your comments often enough to recognize that you construct red herrings deliberately in order to bait.
Anyone can see for themselves that an easement that allows infill TOD density development in scattered clusters amounting to 5% of an area is not the equivalent of “voting against all zoning laws”. So I am puzzled who you are trying to con with that line - yourself?
August 31st, 2009 at 10:31 pm
Bruce,
You asserted that zoning laws that restrict density prevent people from choosing alternatives that they may prefer. I’m not sure why you think depriving people of this alleged choice in 95% of an “area” is much better than depriving people of it in 100% of the area. I don’t even know where you got that 95/5 split from anyway. It just seems to be completely arbitrary. Your posts are full of numbers and bizarre claims of fact that you just seem to pull out of thin air.
September 1st, 2009 at 11:53 am
You asserted that zoning laws that restrict density prevent people from choosing alternatives that they may prefer. I’m not sure why you think depriving people of this alleged choice in 95% of an “area” is much better than depriving people of it in 100% of the area.
You do realize that people and area are not synonymous? That 95% of an area is not equivalent to 95% of the people? And that people, unlike trees, are not irrevocably tied to a specific place?
Perhaps not. It would explain some things…
September 1st, 2009 at 2:17 pm
Libertarians, for some reason I haven’t yet grasped, seem to view the world as remarkably static.
It’s like Will, and Tyler, and libertarians generally are stuck in the sunk cost fallacy
No, it is more like Ryan Avent is stuck in the hypocrite fallacy; better known as the fallacy of changing his/her views to fit whatever is considered “progressive” that day: Portfolio