Bryan Caplan is a Useful Opponent
I don’t know what’s more perplexing to me: that Bryan Caplan seemed to think that labeling the four bullet points in this post, “A few of the leading anti-suburban policies,” would strengthen his argument that government may be anti-suburban on net, or that Tyler Cowen linked to the piece, suggesting he felt it was worth reading. Caplan’s leading anti-suburban policies are:
1. Regulations against developing empty land. In many parts of the country, it is difficult to get permission to actually build anything. Places like the Bay Area are notorious. But even in my own neighborhood in “pro-growth” Fairfax, there is a vacant 1-acre lot. It would be worth half a million dollars, but the authorities won’t give the owner permission to install a septic tank, and won’t attach it to the public sewer at any price.
2. Government land ownership. The federal and state governments own almost 40% of the land in the U.S. Sure, over a third of it is in Alaska. But if the governments’ land were in private hands, its owners would be itching to develop a lot of it.
3. Regulations against mixed use. These actually make suburbia less convenient, encouraging people to move to urban environments where you can walk down the street to a restaurant or a 7-11.
4. Gas taxes. In congested areas, admittedly, taxes might actually make suburbia more desirable by keeping the roads moving. But much of the country is virtually uncongested, and they pay the same federal gas taxes as they do in LA and the northeast corridor.
This is truly a remarkable list. One thing to note is that Caplan doesn’t seem to grasp that criticisms of pro-suburban policies are largely about the forms that are encouraged rather than the locations. To the extent that regulations against developing empty land and government land ownership are actually major issues constraining metropolitan growth, they’re barriers to development of any kind — “urban” or “suburban” in form. Were we to scrap those barriers, we’d still face the many rules that make it difficult or impossible to build in a denser, mixed-use, walkable fashion.
I must admit that my mind is a little blown by Caplan’s citation of “regulations against mixed use” as an anti-suburban policy. It’s like saying that government is anti-suburb, because it forces people in suburbs to build using suburban development forms which are inconvenient and unpleasant.
And then Caplan says that gas taxes in congested areas, which means most of metropolitan America, should actually maybe be increased. He seems unwilling to wrestle with the fact that increasing gas taxes to reduce congestion would make suburbia more desirable and more efficient, and also (and necessarily) more expensive and smaller. That is, if you used higher gas taxes to get rid of the negative externalities produced by suburban growth, you’d probably wind up with less of it (so long as demand curves slope downward).
This is an example of what Yglesias had in mind originally when he complained that libertarians have a weird blind spot when it comes to planning issues. Caplan tries to put together a list of “leading anti-suburban policies” and comes up with, essentially, nothing (if not less than nothing — evidence that he’s wrong and government policies are clearly anti-suburban on net). Tyler Cowen links to this. At no point does either of them seem to notice that these are very bad arguments, and that perhaps Yglesias has a good point after all.
I don’t ever expect to get libertarians on board with a plan to have government heavily fund transit and rail system construction, but I would expect them to understand that intellectual consistency demands they do a bit less fawning over the wonders of suburban development. Or, you know, change belief systems.
September 7th, 2009 at 10:33 pm
Read my comment on Matt Yglesias’s post, you are simply misrepresenting me here.
September 8th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
Funny how Caplan claims that libertarians are opposed to zoning, but can he find any evidence that libertarians are opposed to suburbs? No, because they aren’t.
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9701
For libertarians, planning = cities and lack of planning = suburbs, and lack of planning = libertarianism. Therefore suburbs = libertarian. When they make arguments to the contrary, they are lying.
September 8th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
He puts forward another argument I’ve heard more and more recently: all those really great European cities you flaky liberals love? Those are just tourist traps. That’s not really how Europeans live. Real Europeans are just fat suburbanites just like we are.
Which is a funny parallel to the accusation that Liberals want to turn us into how Europeans live (”hobbit huts” and all that…)
September 8th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
I’ve heard more and more recently: all those really great European cities you flaky liberals love? Those are just tourist traps. That’s not really how Europeans live. Real Europeans are just fat suburbanites just like we are.
That’s a bit of a caricature, but yes, it’s basically correct. Europeans are not quite as fat or quite as suburbanized as we are, but they’re catching up.
September 8th, 2009 at 9:50 pm
You are fighting planning debates from 15-30 years ago. Many libertarians have some pointless atavistic need to celebrate the “market” that produces 5 hour commutes but we can just stipulate that the various greenbelt alliances, the sine qua non interest groups of mega-sprawl, have won completely. Congratulations.
The big debate is whether and how to up-zone existing built environments such that they stop being suburban and take on the density and amenities that can get us into some future where walkability, transit, etc., are possible. The worst possible enemy “we” (people who care about how space is inhabited) have in this ongoing battle is a tie between the respectable center-left and milder prosperous republicans, for whom the idea of 35 unit/acre development in their inner-suburban neighborhoods would literally bring out FEMA, code pink, the reserves, prayer shields, and feng-shui consultant riots. If you think your enemy is some libertarian blogger, try building at transit-supporting density in Berkeley, or Palo Alto, which are fortresses of status-quo-forever land-use thinking.
Not a single progressive town has added any significant population in the last 20 years. On the other hand “Quils mangent de la brioche” center-leftists have been basically undefeated in an ongoing war against what few options remain available to the trustfundless. (cf, the knowing scorn at “drive till you qualify”, as if these people had any other choice.) Recognize that in the debate between middle class people needing somewhere to live and regulatory protection of views and cowpies there is a rote libertarian response that is perfectly tiresome — except that it is basically beside the point. California’s suburban hinterland now extends into Nevada and Arizona, it cannot sprawl any more. People would love to live closer to their work, on smaller lots in smaller places, and the people stopping them are certainly not libertarians — it is a straw man, a ridiculous thing to be demolished in blog posts, a waste of pixels at best and at worst a serious distraction, a pass for credulous “progressive” readers to believe that the same villains as always are behind the problems in urban land use.
September 8th, 2009 at 11:28 pm
I came here as a planning /green infrastructure professional to say some things and Timon beat me to many of them.
There is endless argy-bargy about this topic, and IME certain ideologies don’t really want to see markets open by eliminating Euclidean zoning,, as that will negate many of the last remaining public defenses of their ideology.
And let me point out that the FHA is imposing new condo rules on October 1, 2009. If you thought that the role of FIRE sector was done and the white, wanting-1/2-acre-lots types was over, you are sadly mistaken. Fighting at the margins for scraps is fun and entertaining, but the fight for isolated secure residences for the family is powerful indeed.
Urbanists driving a sane, sustainable policy? Come now.
September 9th, 2009 at 5:31 am
“For libertarians, planning = cities and lack of planning = suburbs, and lack of planning = libertarianism. Therefore suburbs = libertarian. When they make arguments to the contrary, they are lying.”
That is certainly a constructive way to view an entire group of people. Maybe there are libertarians who dislike zoning, and who believe a lack of zoning will result in more urban development and less urban development. Or, maybe there are some libertarians who dislike zoning regardless of the effect that it has on the urban/suburban balance. Then again, nah, it’s easier to just call people liars when they say something you dislike, simply because you know someone else in their party that said something different once.
By the way, I’m libertarian, I think zoning regulations need to be scaled back dramatically in most areas, and I do not believe that will result in greater sprawl or suburbanization. If you think that makes me a liar, I think that makes you an idiot and a few other words not suitable for publication.