David Harvey on CIty Monopolies and the Art of Rent

David Harvey is wise and usually has interesting things to say. I'm no Marxist but I agree with many of the things he brings up in this interview with Spiegel. I agree with this especially:

SPIEGEL ONLINE: You are a Marxist and social theorist. In your latest book, you refer to the "art of rent," that is, when capital makes extra profits from local discrepancies. What exactly do you mean?
Harvey : Simply put, a monopolist can demand a premium for a sought-after commodity. These days, cities try demanding premiums by advertising themselves as culturally unique. After the Guggenheim Museum was built in Bilbao in 1997, cities all over the world followed its example and began developing landmark projects. The goal is to be able to say: "This city is unique, and that's why you need to pay a special price to be here."SPIEGEL ONLINE: But if every city had a Guggenheim Museum or a philharmonic like the one currently being built in Hamburg, wouldn't there be a sort of inflationary effect when it comes to such flagship projects that would lead them to fail?
Harvey : The bubble has already burst in Spain, and many of the huge projects remain only half-finished. Incidentally, major events like the Olympic Games, the soccer World Cup and music festivals serve the same purpose. Cities try to secure themselves a prime position on the market -- like a rare wine of an exceptionally good vintage.

Chinese Cities Use Prices to Reduce Demand for Autos--and It Works!

Marketplace reports on Beijing subway expansion and wonders if an increase in transit supply can cure congestion and pollution. The answer is no. Specifically, an increase in transit supply will have limited effects as long as driving is relatively cheap. Zhao Jian explains:

Just five years ago, the Beijing subway system was 70 miles long. Today it’s nearly four times that. But economics professor Zhao Jian at Beijing’s Jiaotong University says it’s going to take more than hundreds of miles of subway lines to solve Beijing’s traffic problem.
"The key to alleviating traffic and pollution in Beijing is to raise the cost of owning and using cars," says Zhao. "As it stands, parking fees are very low and traffic tickets aren’t that expensive. This needs to change."

As a counter example, Shanghai has very different policies:

In Shanghai, on the other hand, a license plate typically costs as much as the car itself. And that’s meant Shanghai, which has a bigger, more affluent population than Beijing, has half as many cars and is often spared Beijing’s persistent toxic haze.

The Hassle of Airport Security is Not a Reason to Build High Speed Rail

A group of students in California have created a new high speed rail advocacy group called "I Will Ride." One of the members wrote an op-ed in support of the California high speed rail project in the Merced Sun Star. In the piece the typical statements of support are said, including this:

With the completion of high-speed rail, valley residents will be connected to the rest of the state like never before. In under an hour, we will be able to travel to San Francisco or Los Angeles without the hassle of airport security or high-priced gasoline.

Of all of the reasons to support high speed rail, the hassle of airport security and high priced gasoline are the worst. Even with high gas prices fuel to drive will be cheaper than one ticket on the train. In addition, it now takes two hours to drive from Merced to San Francisco, so by the time you account for door-to-door travel times it is unlikely that there will be any time savings. That said, using the excuse of airport security hassles as a reason to invest $100 billion in a fast train is passive aggressive infrastructure spending. I bet for a lot less than $100 billion we can make air travel much better. More importantly, if air travel is a hassle let's make it better. Air security is lousy because it is managed poorly and there are lots of ways to improve security within the airports we already have. I'm also not sure why people think trains will be exempt from similar security measures. Passengers on the Acela are regularly pulled aside for additional screening as it is.

Let's not let the TSA get away with awful security theater by building new and different infrastructure. Let's fix what we have first.

Read more here: http://www.mercedsunstar.com/2013/05/21/3023379/fast-rail-a-big-step-forward.html#storylink=cpy

Do Local Policies Explain the Decline in Driving?

Driving is declining. Reports like this recent one by USPIRG claim that "The Driving Boom—a six decade-long period of steady increases in per-capita driving in the United States—is over." The US Department of Transportation reported that these trends are continuing, and there was an additional decline of 1.5% in vehicle miles traveled year over year in March. While it is clear that driving is declining, it is less clear why this is happening. Common ideas as to why personal travel is declining in the US include land use changes, transit investment, smart phones and environmental concerns. These may or may not be accurate ideas (I'm skeptical.). This recent report from UCLA suggests that economic factors play a larger role in shifting driving behaviors for young adults.

Only focusing on the decline in driving in the US paints an incomplete picture of associations and policy interventions that may (or may not) have encouraged the shift. I am not convinced that local policies have much to do with the decline in driving in large part because the decline in driving is global (at least in developed nations). Here are data from the UK showing the same kind of decline, and here is a story about research published a couple of years ago covering eight countries. Car companies in Japan have been worried about young people turning away from cars for years, and youth attitudes showing declining interest in driving have been fairly consistent over the past few years. Since these trends are global we should first consider globally shared conditions for explanations as to why travel is going down. Historically high rates of unemployment among young adults is good place to start. Local policy is too heterogeneous to account for overall decline.

Has There Ever Been a Streetcar Feasibility Study That Found Streetcars Unfeasible?

I ask this as a serious question: Does a streetcar study exist that concludes that a streetcar is unfeasible? Check out the studies that show up from a Google search (link). Without spending too much time looking at all of them, I don't see one that offers a critical assessment of streetcars. In fact, if you read them and believe what is written you must conclude that cities are insane and loony and ignoring their fiduciary responsibility not to immediately build as many streetcar lines as possible. Yet cities don't build like crazy--not even Rock Hill, South Carolina, which seems to accept a minimum return on investment of $14 for each $1 spent.

Obviously feasibility studies will take place after projects pass an initial discussion, so there should be some bias toward positive assessments. But it is unreasonable to expect that all feasibility studies will conclude that streetcars are a good investment. If all projects are feasible there really isn't any good reason to keep doing these studies. I do wonder if we would be better off without any type of feasibility justification as currently practiced. Streetcar projects, like many transport projects and other types of economic development investment, are justified on political grounds rather than economic grounds.

Consider stadium deals for pro sports teams. These deals have long been discredited as poor investment by the public, yet they remain popular even when a feasibility study makes clear they are a bad deal. Example: Santa Clara Feasibility Study for a new 49ers Stadium presented these two key takeaways:

• No benefit from NFL events.
• All profits stay with 49ers
• "hidden costs" add up:
• City loses $111 million

And here is the website for Santa Clara's brand new NFL stadium! It opens next year. (Most feasibility studies for new stadiums in the Bay Area supported new construction. For example, here.)

So I wonder if any streetcar feasibility studies have been negative, and as an extension, I wonder why we continue to expect these types of studies that either confirm biases or are ignored. It seems like a lot of excess effort with nothing to show for it.

UPDATE: Alon Levy notes that the Red Hook Streetcar  Feasibility Study guided against the project. I'll admit I didn't review that one as I was more focused on smaller cities. A more accurate question is do any streetcar feasibility studies exist outside of New York City that find streetcars unfeasible.

The Politics of Implementation: NYC Bike Share Edition

New York City is about to launch Citibike bike share, and apparently some people are upset about the bike racks in certain locations. See here and here for examples. Many bike share supporters are quite derisive about any complaints against bike share, but concerns about implementation are to be expected. In fact, for most new transport policies the period immediately prior to implementation is when the public support is at its nadir.

The above figure (taken from a FHWA report) shows the popular support for congestion pricing at various stages of implementation. This is an instructive example of the phenomenon at work. A strong bias toward the status quo exists, which means that the challenge of change is not necessarily one of ideas but rather one of implementation. Once a controversial project is installed, then it represents the new status quo and everyone gets on with their life. Mike Manville, Donald Shoup and I wrote about the political calculus of congestion pricing (link), and the same lessons apply. When a project is initially presented support runs high (in most cases politicians will not introduce projects they expect to be unpopular), but as details are offered support wanes. Then, just before implementation, support craters because of status quo bias, loss aversion and other factors. Once implemented the incentives to fight against the project diminish and support grows.

The consternation about the bike share infrastructure is predictable and will be short lived. Popular support for bike share will follow a similar u-curve as above. There is no need to demonize people who raise concerns.

Under the Influence

Utne Reader's Alt Wire ranks the 500 top urbanism raw feed influencers, and I made the cut. My mojo score is seven, which I never knew.