Financial Reform or Social Engineering?
Everyone agrees that, by lowering credit requirements, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac played an important role in the recent financial crisis. Now the Obama administration has promised to reform those “government-sponsored enterprises” (GSEs). However, as faithful Antiplanner ally Ron Utt warns, Obama’s idea of reform is more focused on changing American lifestyles than on preventing […]
Congestion-Priced Parking
The Antiplanner has never considered parking “subsidies” to be the serious problem that Donald Shoup thinks they are. At the same time, there is nothing wrong with cities pricing curbside parking at market rates. Toward that end, San Francisco’s plan to install parking meters whose rates vary depending on demand sounds just fine. Unfortunately, the […]
Despite TIF, the Bells Don’t Toll
Tualatin, a distant suburb of Portland, is the proud owner of three large and expensive bells that may never toll (there were supposed to be four, but one was stolen). The bells were purchased with TIF (tax-increment finance) money as a part of a $12 million subsidy to Tualatin Commons, a New Urbanist development. But […]
The Climate Trust Scam
A couple of years ago, the Antiplanner described a Portland program of accepting carbon-offset funds to do traffic signal coordination. While I support signal coordination, the claimed benefits seemed outlandish. When I found out that the money came from an organization called Climate Trust that was co-founded by the director of Portland’s Office of Sustainable […]
Stossel on Road Privatization
John Stossel says new roads should be built by private entities and paid for with tolls. He supports the privatization of existing roads as well. Subsidies to roads are small, but we don’t need to subsidize them at all and private owners would manage them better, says Stossel. The Antiplanner spent Wednesday in New York […]
Subversive Idea: We Can Keep Our Lifestyles
Instead of giving up our cars, says the August issue of National Geographic, we can simply scrub the skies of CO2. The article describes a process of removing carbon from the atmosphere that is technologically feasible. Though it is hard to guess how expensive it will be, the article suggests it will be a lot […]
Private Bus Takes Over from Taxpayers
Here’s a heartwarming story: Late last year, Clayton County, Georgia (a suburban Atlanta county) decided to terminate its subsidized bus service to Atlanta, saying it was costing $10 million a year but only bringing in $2.5 million in revenue. Despite protests from bus riders, the service was duly ended on March 31, leaving many riders […]
Oregon Land-Use Board Says Zoning Unconstitutional
In a stunning move, the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals, which reviews citizen challenges to zoning and other local land-use decisions, has ruled that a zoning code in the Portland suburb of Hillsboro is unconstitutional. The decision applies to an zone that required that all owners of land within 6,000 feet of the Hillsboro […]
Colorado Teacher Membership Opt-Out Periods Coming in August and September
August has arrived — which not only means that the new school year for most Colorado students lies just around the corner, but also opens a short window of time for many Colorado teachers to make important decisions.
Teachers and other education employees in Colorado of course have a variety of professional and union membership […]
LA Rail Transit a Failure
Los Angeles’ rail transit system is now 20 years old, but the Antiplanner’s faithful ally, Tom Rubin, questions whether it should have been built at all. “The push for rail has forced transit ridership down,” says Rubin, who was the chief financial officer of L.A.’s transit agency when the rail lines were planned in the […]
Server Problems
Readers may have noticed that the Antiplanner was down Wednesday morning and almost all day Thursday. Apparently, our web host was completely down as I couldn’t even access their web site. Does anyone have any recommendations for a new web host? I am backing up the entire web site so I don’t have time to […]
Whaddya Know
It turns out that urban planners really did cause the housing bubble. What’s more, even leftist bloggers like Matthew Yglesias appear to be persuaded by the evidence.
