Why Are Planners Mad About Koontz?

Last week the Supreme Court ruled on a case that challenged local land use regulations. The case was Koontz v. St. Johns Water Management District and an overview of the ruling and case is at SCOTUS Blog. Many planners and urbanists are upset about the ruling. See here and here and here and here and here for a few examples. It seems that the negative feelings against the ruling are shaped by concern for the environment and weakened local regulations.

It strikes me that the merits of the case, and the implications of the SCOTUS ruling, should be measured against a couple of factors. First, do these types of exactions work? At the heart of the Koontz case was a requirement for wetlands reconstruction in an area away from the development site, which was going to destroy some wetlands. As it turns out, these types of habitat restoration projects have mixed records of success. Here is a link to a timely story in New Scientist about habitat replacement. From the story:

So far, the evidence that eco-offsetting works is not exactly overwhelming. In the biggest and longest-running offset market, the US, auditing of outcomes has been paltry, says Hannah Mowat of FERN, a non-profit European environmental policy think tank. One study that was carried out in Ohio found that two-thirds of wetland offsets did not deliver what they promised.

Planners should be wary of requiring ineffective policies. We must consider the evidence as to whether policies work, and in this case the evidence doesn't suggest that this type of exaction is necessarily worth the expense, at least as a generalized policy. 

Second, it is currently popular in planning circles to blame onerous regulations for high housing and commercial real estate prices. Well, the regulations addressed in Koontz are exactly the types of regulations that coastal areas have and that increase the cost of supplying new development. You won't see a lawsuit like this come from Texas. Height restrictions are often used as a boogeyman to blame for high costs but in reality the environmental regulations add far more cost to new development than height, density or FAR constraints. 

So where does that leave planners? If we value the environment as our priority then all development should be restricted, but of course we need to balance our environmental concerns with economic ones. The court ruling may help planning by focusing regulations on the rational nexus that is the legal basis for these types of interventions in the first place.  If we want to encourage better development in the future then we shouldn't make new development economically infeasible. If we want to encourage affordable development in the future then we need to consider what types of regulations we are willing to forego. The Koontz ruling in no way invalidates urban planning. It does remind planners that there are limits to what we can require.

Also consider who was the defendant. The St. Johns Water Management District is overseen by an appointed body (Appointed by the governor. Details here.). These aren't planners in the conventional sense of police power. They weren't elected, and while I am sure they are all good people, why should they decide local land use regulations? The water district doesn't sign on to long range transportation and land use plans. They serve to protect and manage water.

It may be that this ruling makes regulating land use more difficult, but this remains to be seen. At this point, the ruling limits a policy (eco-offsetting) that doesn't have strong empirical support.  Perhaps the defense would have been stronger had the evidence supporting the benefits of these policies would have been clear. Planners who are concerned that regulations are making new development too expensive should be mildly encouraged, I think, but I am open to considering all sides for this issue.

The Future of Air Travel

MIT researchers are developing a new airplane technology that potentially will reduce fuel consumption by 70 percent. From the story:

The MIT-lead tream developed the twin-aisle "double-bubble" D8 configuration during NASA-funded N+3 studies completed in 2010. In NASA paralance, N+3 means an aircraft that could enter service around 2035. In those studies, the team concluded that the D8 could reduce fuel burn 70% relative to today's 737-800.
Of that saving, 49% comes from the configuration, with its wide lifting-body fuselage, almost-unswept wing and reduced cruise Mach number, and rear-mounted engines ingesting the fuselage boundary layer. The rest of the 70% reduction comes from 2035-timeframe airframe and engine technologies.

 Here is what it looks like:

A new plane like this will be a real improvement for long distance air travel. For short haul trips, there is a new entrant into the market called Surf Air. From a NY Times article:

Travelers who want to shave time off a four-hour car drive don’t have many options. Amtrak’s Acela Express has just a single route. And given airport procedures, flying isn’t such a shortcut. Surf Air, an airline starting this summer, has designs on that short-haul sweet spot.Its concept: eight-seater, first-class planes fly daily loops through uncongested regional airports (inaugural route: Van Nuys-Palo Alto-Monterey/Pebble Beach-Santa Barbara). For a $3,000 membership fee during the initial three-month trial — and for up to $1,500 each month thereafter — members can fly as many times as they wish along that route, subject to availability. They can drive to the airport, hand their car keys to a valet, wheel their bags up to the pilot, and board.Members will be vetted to ensure that they are not a flight risk, and to make sure that the airline’s routes match demand. Members will be able to hold up to six bookings at a time.

Turboprops, like what Surf Air will use, are a potential way to improve the environmental costs of air travel relative to jets.  Megan Smirti has written extensively about this. It is possible to make air travel more environmentally sound through technology and policy. Fixing the unpleasantness of airport security is pure politics.

The Curse of Musburger and the Green Value of Vibrant Downtowns

Since it is college basketball tournament time it is also time to re-visit the Curse of Musburger. Hunter S. Thompson identified the curse years ago in the column linked above. Here is how he described it:

That is when Musburger changed the language of sports forever when he kept repeating this ignorant notion that any basketball player firing off a long 3-point shot is shooting from "downtown." (Celtics announcer Johnny Most might have coined the "downtown" trademark in the 1960s, but it was Musburger who beat it to death.)

 I still hear in my dreams his wild gibberish every time Michael Cooper or Dennis Johnson drilled one of those long flat-line 3-pointers. "From way downtown!" Brent would scream. "Another one from Downtown!"

It drove me mad then -- & it still does every time some fool blurts it out. It was quickly picked up and adopted by a whole generation of half-bright TV commentators every night of the bloody season. It has become part of the Lexicon now, & it will not be easy to correct. In gyms & Coliseums all over America (even in Greece or Korea), wherever basketball as we know it is played, there will be some howling Jackass braying, "From way downtown! Another 3-pointer! Is this a great country, or what?"


It is the Curse of Musburger.

"Going downtown" has more than one meaning -- from going to work at 66 Wall St. in New York to rape in Alcatraz -- but it always means a busy place, for good or ill. The Random House Historical dictionary of American Slang, says it's "where the action is" -- a noisy, crowded place with many intersections & tall buildings & freaky-looking strangers.

Never mind that for most of the years that Musburger prattled on about "downtown" many downtowns were empty, less than active places. But downtowns are back! Or at least some are, and more should be for economic and environmental reasons. In a new report by Matthew J. Holian and Matthew E. Kahn (published by the Mineta Transportation Institute) the authors put some empirical meat on Hunter Thompson's observations, and add that in addition to being where the action is, going downtown helps cities be green:

Policy makers across the country are keenly interested in reducing emissions from driving and increasing public transit use. A large literature has documented that urban sprawl is associated with more driving and less public transit use, suggesting land-use policy might be effective in achieving these objectives. This report corroborates previous studies by using the most recent data to quantify the relationship between urban form and urban transportation patterns; however, the existing literature provides policy makers little guidance on how to reverse sprawl and achieve lower emissions. One potentially important variable, which has largely been ignored in the literature, is the vibrancy of the urban core. A vibrant urban core may plausibly affect both land-use and transportation patterns. Thus a key question remains: Can policy makers promote green cities through fostering a vibrant center core?