Bacon's Rebellion

This past Wednesday I drove 500+ miles to Upstate New York. Today I returned.

The only significant delays I encountered in either direction were on I-95 in Northern Virginia. Where was Russ Potts when I needed him?

Looks like I’ve got a good bit of blogosphere catching up to do; I better unpack and get started.

By opposing public spending on behalf of illegal immigrants, Jerry Kilgore “appeared to engage” in the demonization of Hispanics. That’s the inexplicable logic of Richmond Times-Dispatch political writer Jeff Schapiro in his column in today’s paper.

Schapiro takes on Jerry Kilgore for criticizing a decision by the town of Herndon, in Fairfax County, to finance gathering spots for day laborers, many of whom are Spanish-speaking illegal immigrants from Central America. The laborers have been converging at a convenience store to scout for construction, landscaping and janitorial jobs, creating something of a public nuisance.

Although he quotes Kilgore’s “handlers” as saying that government services should be available only to people who reside legally in the country, Schapiro describes that argument as “a coded appeal to voters.” Kilgore is sending signals “rooted in ostracism rather than assimilation” that please conservative voters. “Kilgore’s unspoken message is nativist, spiced with resentment and fear: It is us against them.”

Perhaps that’s all true. I’m not privy to the inside thinking of the Kilgore campaign, so I can’t say for a fact that his handlers aren’t racists and bigots. But Schapiro offers absolutely no evidence other than his own authority that they are the Machiavellians he claims them to be. What I can say is this: Many people, like me, have a problem with illegal immigrants — not because we’re prejudiced against Central Americans but because they’re here illegally! You see, some people have this funny thing about obeying the law. Obeying the law is not just something Americans should do. It’s something that everyone should do.

There may be pragmatic reasons for Herndon’s proposal. (Will Vehrs discusses some of them here.) But to describe Kilgore’s position than anything other that what it is — that government should not provide services to illegals — is to engage in reverse race baiting.

Schapiro and others “appear” to characterize conservative Republicans as racists and bigots with the goal of turning law-abiding voters in the Hispanic community against them. Unlike Schapiro, I have concrete evidence to back up my assertion: Schapiro’s own words. Noting the divide between Kilgore Republicans and President Bush, who supports limited amnesty for illegals, Schapiro notes: “Perhaps Kaine and Warner can use this latest Republic fissure to mobilize the Hispanic vote for November.”

Remember the list of 10 urban issues presented by yours truly, on behalf of Mayor Wilder, to all three of the gubernatorial candidates last week? They have created a lot of discussion. So tomorrow, at 10AM, August 15th, at Richmond City Hall, the campaign manager for Russ Potts is going to meet with the Mayor’s policy advisor to discuss them.

Translation: The Potts Plot thickens!

Diallo Dphrepaulezz is an African-American of Haitian descent, a graduate of Petersburg public schools and Virginia State University, an executive with the Edison Schools, an “education reform” consultant, and a critic of public schools. He’s also running as an independent against Rosalyn Dance, a Democrat and former mayor of Petersburg, who is now considered a shoe-in in the race for the 63rd House of Delegates district.

South of the James, a new blog, has a fascinating profile of Dphrepaulezz, an intense but mysterious young man who could either crash and burn in a very public way, or could stun the local political establishment. Either way, the 63rd district is definitely a race to watch.

It was only a matter of time before Bill Bolling, Republican nominee for Lieutenant Governor, began attacking his Democratic adversary Leslie Byrne for her “liberal extremism.” My only question: What took him so long?

Bolling is running a sound clip on his website from an Aug. 8 meeting between Byrne and the United Mine Workers of America in Castlewood. Someone posed the question: “If you had a chance to do away with the right to work law through legislation would you vote for it?”

Byrne replied: “Absolutely. I call it the right to be poor law.”

For decades, it was political suicide in Virginia to oppose the Right to Work law, which allows employees in a unionized workforce the right to opt out of joining the union. Given the steady erosion of manufacturing employment in Virginia, however, the issue doesn’t resonate like it used to. Labor unions are increasingly irrelevant in Virginia’s service-based knowledge economy. Right to Work still may matter to the few remaining labor unions in Virginia and their die-hard liberal allies like Byrne, but most people see unions as a hindrance to flattening hierarchies, on pushing decision making down to the guys on the factory floor, and dissolving distinctions between “management” and “labor.”

The question is, will Bolling’s attack mean anything to anyone either? Or is the obsession with Right to Work, on both sides of the issue, an artifact of Virginia’s industrial past?

With not much press fanfare, a Republican Congressional debate has come full circle and is being made to sound like the right friends in right places, or perhaps it’s a case of friend’s rights, or what’s left of the mail-ordered leftovers?

“COME ON DOWN!” Mr. Charles Abell … you’re the next appointment director on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Apparently, the Price is Right with DC politics.

The Blue Dog’s conservative friends should demand to hear who barks the loudest about ‘Congressional Nearsightedness’ — including those lame post-911 security background checks concerning the new majority staff director of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Which should be required especially after finding out our ‘sleeping-at-the-spinning wheel’ Senator is busy closing bases in Virginia. ‘Ooh, say can’t you see’ the unemployment lines around DC — and Hampton Roads and Norfolk?

Senator John Warner has gone spinning around and around, where he stops … Nobody knows?

~ the blue dog

What a day! WaPo has six stories on the front page and five of them relate to human settlement patterns and/or to the topic of our current column on Jared Diamonds new book Collapse.

There was some interest noted in one of them (“The Los Angeles Story” about “density”) in the string following Jim Bacons post on the need for a Carbon Tax from yesterday. As we document in “The Shape of the Future,” almost every discussion of economic, social or physical consequence eventually gets to the issue of human settlement pattern.

The Los Angeles story demonstrates the wisdom of the adage “It is not how dense you make it, it is how you make it dense.”

Proximity is a fundamental parameter in the creation of functional urban form. Close proximity of a wide range of elements is a necessary, but not sufficient, parameter for sustainable human settlement patterns. In addition, there must be, among other things, functional dooryards, clusters and neighborhoods that are organized in relatively balanced villages and those villages configured in Balanced Communities that are arranged in such a way to create sustainable New Urban Regions and Urban Support Regions. There is a lot to learn from a careful reading of the story with the right contextual framework into which to fit the information.

Mobility is an example. Attempts to provide a “modern” alternative to the extensive system of “interurban” streetcars in The Los Angeles region just before, during and after WWII was founded on the tragically flawed idea that it is possible to build enough “freeways” so everyone could go wherever they wanted to go when ever they wanted to go there in private automobiles. (Some will recognize this as a variant of the Private Vehicle Mobility Myth. See “The Myths That Blind Us” 20 Oct 2003 and “Myth to Law” 29 Nov 2004 at db4.dev.baconsrebellion.com

A unique combination of significant topographic constraints, early reliance on an extensive shared vehicle system, small municipalities with strong zoning powers, a region-wide lack of water and large manufacturing, fabricating and entertainment venues, among others, resulted in a relatively high density at the village and community scale and a large number of expensive houses in dangerous locations. See “Fire and Flood.” 3 Nov 2003 at db4.dev.baconsrebellion.com

Over the past 20 years the region has slowly and painfully started to reintroduce shared vehicle alternatives for mobility. That accounts for the improvements in some measures of mobility and access that Jim noted. It is also true that, in line with the perspective of Tony Downs, congestion has forced changes in location decisions.

Actually the Los Angeles New Urban Region would work fairly well if citizens understood the importance of Balanced Communities and made more of their decisions based on an intelligent consideration of the real alternatives unvarnished by pandering politicians and philosophical nut cases. They would come to realize this in a hurry if the government subsidies were phased out and citizens and enterprises all paid the full cost of their location decisions. Many of the best “mixed use” and “new urbanist” projects in the Untied States can be found there along with some of the most successful Planned New Communities.

The WaPo version of “The LA Story” has special meaning to me because my grandfather, a builder and developer in California at the turn of the last century, gave up an option on most of Signal Hill just before oil was discovered in order to buy property in Richmond and Gridley. Readers will recognize these two places as California real estate hot spots.

Post Script: The contention that there is no evidence to tie mobility and access directly to human settlement pattern is so silly that is does not merit a response. This relationship is not clearly evident only to those who have a specific economic, social or physical objective that is rendered uneconomic, anti-social or physically impossible but admitting the existence of the relationship.

EMR

“In a perfect world, we could design it to everyone’s satisfaction,” Connolly said. “But we don’t live in that world.” –Chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, Gerry Connolly

Connolly’s quote was in response to the reported costs of the Tysons rail plan having been trimmed by 25% (see Wash. Post). As now proposed the subway will run on aerial tracks for three miles rising to as high as 45 feet through Tysons Corner. The supports for the elevated tracks are placed roughly every 100 feet and have been downgraded to simpler more commonly used piers, instead of the ones originally conceived that had “an architectural identity.”

So Connolly and the supporters of this boondoggle of a project are all elated that the estimated cost have been trimmed down from $2.4 billion to $1.8 billion–still some $300 million higher than the project’s original $1.5 billion budgeted price tag. They are confident that the additional funding required to complete the project won’t be hard to come by.

In Connolly’s imperfect world, this new price tag is as solid as a bowl of jello. Projects of this magnitude are usually plagued with significant cost overruns.

But Connolly is right about the fact that we do not live in a perfect world. You see in a perfect world sleazy politicians like Connolly who are on the payroll of developers would not be holding public office! (See “Who’s Watching Fairfax County’s Watchdogs?,” “Bad Company,” and “The Rail-to-Dulles Scam“.)

Fellow bloggers, Bacon’s Rebellion is rolling out a new feature — an adapation of the “social network” concept to the political sphere. The “Bacon’s Rebellion Political Network” is ready for testing, but not yet ready for prime time. I’m introducing it on this blog first in the hope that you bloggers, being the political junkies you are, can help me refine it — identifying quirks, problems and ideas for improvement — before I introduce it to the broader public.

The core of the “Political Network” is a database of personal profiles. Join the network, create a profile, and then invite your friends, colleagues and associates in the political arena to join the network, too, and then link their profiles to yours.

Why do this? If we can get a critical mass of people to list their political affiliations, hot-button issues, and areas of political and professional expertise, we can create a searchable database that allows you identify people with the skills, partisan affiliations and background you’re looking for — and for others to locate you. Furthermore, the database tracks up to four degrees of separation, so you can see not only “who’s who,” but “who knows who” in Virginia politics.

As a bonus, the Political Network provides cool features, like blog-like personal journals, which are automatically set up with your account, and message boards, and public bookmarks where you can alert your contacts to timely content on the Web. The Political Network also allows you to create “groups” that restrict certain types of communications (such as journals or message boards) to members of that group. If you belong to a particular citizens group or political campaign, say, you can map out your group’s network of contacts, and you can use the tools to communicate internally.

I’m still figuring out how the system works, so I may not be able to answer all questions. But if you have any questions, suggestions or comments, shoot them to me at [email protected].

The Fredericksburg Free-Lance Star offers a worthy quote of the week:

On discovering the acquisition of two trolleys (total price $320,000) instead of two buses ($120,000) would actually cost the Town of Culpeper $3,000 less because support would come from a different federal pot, Councilman Mike Olinger quipped, “If the federal government is going to waste [the money], I want them to waste it in our county.”

The U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled Wednesday that Virginia’s requirement that students recite the Pledge of Allegiance everyday in the classroom is constitutional. As reported in The Daily Press, “Virginia Attorney General Judith W. Jagdmann issued a press release Wednesday stating that the 4th Circuit ruled the pledge is not a religious exercise, “but a patriotic one,” and therefore does not violate the establishment clause.

Edward R. Myers, a 46-year-old, Mennonite software engineer from Northern Virginia, had filed the suit, objecting to schools “yoking patriotism and religion” by promoting what he described as a “God and Country civil religion.”

Fourth Circuit Appeals Court Judge Karen Williams wrote: “Undoubtedly, the pledge contains a religious phrase, and it is demeaning to persons of any faith to assert that the words `under God’ contain no religious significance. The inclusion of those two words, however, does not alter the nature of the pledge as a patriotic activity.”

I’m sorry, but I just don’t see how people get so exercised over this. If members of the mainstream culture want to recit the Pledge of Allegiance at school, with “under God” in the prayer, let them. If atheists want to skip over “under God” during the recital, let them. If Hate-America-Firsters want to skip over “with liberty and justice for all,” or sit out the entire recital, let them. Why it’s necessary to file lawsuits, with the consequence that judges issue rulings with “winners” and “losers,” is beyond me. There’s got to be a way where everyone’s point of view can be tolerated.

Before Tim Kaine formally ran for governor, he made a point of visiting every school district in Virginia — and there’s a lot of them — to learn as much as he could about Virginia’s K-12 system and how to improve it. There was a time when he seemed determined to bring fresh thinking to the problem. But those days are over. The bottom line of the Kaine education plan: Spend mo’ money. Lots mo’ money…. Just open your wallets wide.

The Kaine campaign’s latest e-mail blast lists a number of initiatives (which I would link to, but it’s not even on the website yet):

• Make “high-quality pre-K available to all Virginian four-year-olds” on the grounds that 90 percent of brain development happens before age five and 35 percent of children are not ready to learn when they enter kindergarten. Kaine says there is a 17-to-one return on investment for pre-K. Pardon my skepticism. Show me the data.
• “Fully fund” public schools. The Kaine press release alludes to the “historic $1.5 billion investment” in public schools made possible by the Warner administration’s 2004 tax increases. That was designed to meet Virginia’s Standards of Quality, but presumably, that’s not enough. Kaine doesn’t explain why it’s not enough, and he doesn’t say how much more money he’s talking about. He just makes it sound like an open-ended commitment.
• Raise $1 million in private funds for scholarships for students who want to pursue careers that serve the public good. This is a feel-good initiative that no one can argue with, but it has little more than symbolic value.
• “Implement regular and meaningful teacher evaluations” to improve children’s classroom experience. Another meaningless gesture — unless it’s backed up with the ability to reward teachers fo rexcellence or punish incompetence.
• Increase access to Governor’s Schools and AP classes. Tell me how much it’s going to cost.

Once more, folks, we have a Business As Usual approach to education that does nothing but concoct new and creative ways to throw more money at the problem. No restructuring. No re-engineering. No rethinking pedagogy. No experimentation. No extra flexibility. No holding anyone accountable. No demands on teachers or school administrators. Just demands on taxpayers. Just mo’ money.

It looks like the Virginia Education Association wrote Kaine’s education plank for him. What a disappointment…. And what a tactical mistake. Jerry Kilgore has been painting Kaine as a traditional “tax-and-spend liberal.” Yesterday, that sounded like a retread soundbite, too unoriginal to bother posting on this blog. Today, it sounds frighteningly accurate.

Jim makes some good points re the work of Philip Shucet the former VDOT commissioner who now works for a private developmer.

However, before we move to canonize Shucet let us recall that:

The role of government is to provide service, not to cut costs.

Cutting costs are fine but how about measures of performance?

During Shucet’s term VMT continued to grow faster than drivers, cars or population. Congestion got worse every year in every region of the state.

There is still not one major VDOT project that is designed to improve the pattern and density of land use.

There is also not one major project that is designed to serve the exiting land use, zoned land use and planned land use in the corridor. See “Anatomy of a Bottleneck” at db4.dev.baconsrebellion.com

That bottleneck summary was first written in 2000 and rewritten in 2003. We just looked it over and the only up date is that there is now some money now available to do some of the roadway and safety work near and east of the Gainesville Interchange on I-66. However, there is also more of the formerly “zoned and planned land uses” now under development, construction and occupied than the new capacity can accommodate.

There may be some sour grapes but there is more to what Ken Anderson says than Shucet admits in his response that Jim posted.

Let us keep in mind that it is easier to cut back when you are building less. We have not noted Virginia getting any awards for the quality of maintenance which is what a lot of those District office staff do. In the Culpeper and “Northern Virginia” Districts we have seen few sign so improvement. Is not the terrible condition of the existing system one of the reasons we need to raise Billions?

When VDOT’s own forces took months to lengthen the left turn lane at the US Route 29/US Route 15 Intersection we were reminded of Ada Louise Huxtable’s famous The New Yorker story “Will They Ever Complete Bruckner Boulevard?”

The lowball contract for widening of I-66 west of 234 does not provide for adequate maintenance of capacity. This has resulted in years of cumulative delay time (we call it “person slaughter” in The Shape of the Future). Now the contractor plans to shut down first the eastbound lanes and then the westbound lanes every evening for a month each for “repaving.” That is a way to cut costs of construction but not a good way to provide access and mobility.

Did not George Allen already get the all time prize for reducing VDOT staff? That sure helped mobility and access.

When he left office Shucet sent a memo out that, according to a member of the Commonwealth Transportation Board, said in part: “There is no indication that automobile use will decline in coming generations–even considering the increased cost of gasoline”

That statement alone should condemn him to the opposite alternative of canonization. “Generations” is 50 years. What was he thinking?

Perhaps about his next job. A lot of people who do a good job in the public sector have been hired by the private sector. They are hired not because the job they did looking out for the public interest but because of their contacts or their abilities that will make money for the private enterprise. That is the way the competitive environment works but it is not the basis for sainthood nor, apparently, the path to mobility and access.

EMR

NYT columnist Thomas Friedman has been beating the drums for an energy policy that seriously reduces our appetite for foreign oil. The unquenchable American consumption of oil is one of the key factors, along with increasing demand from China, India and the developing world, driving up the price of oil and buttressing fundamentalist regimes that are overtly hostile to our interests, like Iran, or covertly hostile, like Saudi Arabia.

As noted in a post in today’s Road to Ruin blog, Friedman notes that we are funding both sides of the war on terror. “It is a war against open societies mounted by Islamo-fascists, who are nurtured by mosques, charities and madrasas preaching an intolerant brand of Islam and financed by medieval regimes sustained by our oil purchases.”

So, why am I raising an issue like this in a blog about Virginia politics and policy? Because so much of our demand for oil is the direct outgrowth of our driving habits. And our driving habits are largely the result of our sprawling pattern of development. Increasing the fuel efficiency of the cars we drive is one good place to start. But that’s not enough. Individual Virginia drivers are driving, on average, 70 percent more today than they were 25 years ago (as measured by Vehicle Miles Traveled).

How can we change that, while respecting the principles of market economics and shunning social engineering? By restructuring Virginia’s tax base. We should enact a “carbon” tax on all forms of petroleum consumption — gasoline, home heating oil, diesel fuel, aviation fuel, whatever — and apply that revenue to reducing our other taxes. By taxing petroleum, we encourage petroleum conservation and shift demand to other fuels, such as coal, nuclear and green fuels. We then could apply several billion dollars to reduce corporate income taxes and personal income taxes, thus making Virginia more attractive in the competition for corporate and human capital. Or, if social equity is our concern, we could apply the revenue to eliminating the sales tax on commodities consumed disproportionately by the poor.

Here’s the sublime beauty of the petroleum tax: It indirectly taxes the mullahs and sheikhs who are so hostile to our way of life. By enacting a petroleum tax, Virginians can take a huge step towards energy independence while thumbing their noses at the radical Islamic fundamentalists who threaten our way of life.

Soaring housing prices in Northern Virginia, Suburban Maryland and the District of Columbia may not be a “housing bubble”, says Raymond E. Owens, an economist with the 5th district Federal Reserve Bank. Rising household incomes in the Washington area, strong demand and restricted supply helps explain high housing prices in the Washington metro area, he told the Greater Washington Initiative earlier this week.

“Demand has been high in the Washington area partly because housing creation has not kept pace with job creation in recent years,” Owens said. “A ‘bubble’ is created when prices go up without any underlying economic reasons. But that’s not entirely the case in the Washington area, though we will only know the future path of area housing prices with the benefit of hindsight.”

“Residential building lots apparently aren’t being created fast enough to meet the demand,” Owens said. “Land developers say that the need to comply with environmental requirements, zoning laws, and delays in putting the necessary infrastructure in place – roads, water, electricity and sewer lines – limits residential lot development and thus the number of area houses being built. They tell us that it can take upwards of three years or more to take a housing project from start to finish.” (For details click here.)