by Stephen SmithThe LA Times reports that Los Angeles is considering "privatizing" ten public parking garages to fill a budget shortfall. The story is, unfortunately, a reminder of how infrastructure "privatization" is often little better than the status quo, and how media reporting of the … [Read more...]
Redistribution
Discussing Ithaca, New York's plan to increase permitted density and reduce parking minimums, I can dig what Matthew Yglesias says : The distributive impact of parking minimums is to redistribute income from people who don’t own cars to people who do own cars—not to shift income from poor to rich. … [Read more...]
Taxing Land Speculation
Bill Hudnut at the Urban Land Institute wrote a post that attracted some attention at Austin Contrarian and Overhead Wire. Hudnut discusses a different approach to taxing land: How about restructuring the property tax across America to install a two-tiered system? More tax on those horizontal … [Read more...]
Urban[ism] Legend: Is Houston really unplanned?
by Stephen SmithIt seems to be an article of faith among many land use commentators – both coming from the pro- and anti-planning positions – that Houston is a fundamentally unplanned city, and that whatever is built there is the manifest destiny of the free market in action. But is this true? … [Read more...]
Irrationality Towards Shortages
Brendan Crain at Where tipped me off to a great post by Ryan Avent at The Bellows. Here's a little snippet of Shortage:For whatever reason, we’re not built to naturally internalize negative externalities. When riding on a crowded highway, no one (no non-economist, at any rate) curses the … [Read more...]
Chicago Privatizes Parking Meters
Of course, Chicago is just privatizing the revenue from meters, not the actual parking spaces. Plus, the city will regulate rate increases, but it's a step in the right direction. (right?)For today's politicians, this is a great way to get windfalls of money today for revenues of future … [Read more...]
Parking Minimums Hamper Development and Affordability
Thanks to Dan and Benjamin for separately tipping me off to this link: AP: Cities rethink wisdom of 50s-era parking standardsLike nearly all U.S. cities, D.C. has requirements for off-street parking. Whenever anything new is built — be it a single-family home, an apartment building, a store … [Read more...]
Happy Park(ing) Day 2008
I guess I must not be hip enough to have known about this beforehand, but there's a very interesting citywide event happening here in New York today called Park(ing) Day. All throughout New York City, people are reclaiming parking spaces for their street-side enjoyment. It's a very novel idea that … [Read more...]