Bacon's Rebellion

Are City of Richmond school administrators manipulating the numbers to make it look like they’re doing a better job of running the system than they really are? That’s the conclusion of Del. Joseph D. Morrissey, D-Henrico, who yesterday charged Richmond schools of wrongfully taking credit for the SAT scores of high-performing students at the regional Maggie T. Walker Governor’s School, reports the Times-Dispatch.

Maggie Walker, which is located inside the Richmond city limits, is a highly selective school filled with some of the brightest students from across the Richmond metropolitan region. Its students get high scores on their SATs — an average of 696 for reading and 683 for math in the 2009-2010 school year.

By adding the Maggie Walker scores to the city of Richmond scores, which run 200 to 300 points lower, the school system is masking the poor performance at the city’s other eight high schools. Said Morrisey: “It’s not fair for the Richmond Public Schools to take credit for scores … that they have no influence in. They are not hiring the teachers. They are not supervising the teachers. They are not setting policy.”

Richmond school officials say they are just reporting the data as it is provided by the College Board, which administers the SATs. The College Board reports Maggie Walker’s results to Richmond because the city is the designated fiscal agent for the school.

What I find interesting about this flap, which otherwise might seem to be a tempest in a teapot, is what it says about the dynamics of school reform. Democrats have long supported the educational status quo, arguing that the only thing schools needed was mo’ money. But that attitude is changing. Morrissey belongs to a new breed of Democrats that appears to recognize that public schools also need to make deep, structural changes to the way they operate, and that school officials need to be held accountable. That’s what this is all about: accountability.

What makes this mini-controversy all the more interesting is that Morrissey, who is white, is pondering a run against Henry Marsh, who is black, in a heavily black senatorial district. Marsh, a Civil Rights-era hero, is closely associated with Richmond’s African-American political establishment. It appears that Morrissey is betting that school accountability will trump racial loyalty among African-American voters. If Morrissey does decide to run, this will be a very interesting race to watch. It could signal a sea-change in Democratic Party politics.

Update: Morrissey has announced that he will not run against Marsh.

“Always follow the Koch money,” opined my esteemed liberal colleague, the Gooze, in a recent post, “Have the Kochs Opened a Back Door for the Cooch?” Well, that’s what Rep. Jim Moran, D-8th, did in a recent rally, when he suggested that the long arm of the conservative Koch brothers extended into the cafeteria of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Wesley P. Hester with the Times-Dispatch quotes Moran as follows:

As soon as the Republicans took over the House of Representatives, they threw out all of the biodegradable utensils we were using in the cafeterias and they required us to buy styrofoam cups and plates and so on that are manufactured by Dixie, and, in fact, this is part of Koch Industries. … the CEO was one of the partners of Koch Industries that is now benefiting from what we have to buy because we’re basically a captive audience in the House of Representatives.

Interesting theory. But Hester takes a wrecking ball to it. First, House Republicans canceled the recycling program because it was costing $475,000 to run and was found to have increased the House’s energy demand — not because they are in thrall to the Koch Brothers. The change had been recommended by outgoing Administration Committee Chairman Robert A. Brady, a Pennsylvania Democrat.

Second, House Republicans did not recommend the use of Styrofoam. That decision was made by Restaurant Associates, the company that manages the cafeteria.

Third, while Dixie is a brand owned by Georgia-Pacific, which is owned by Koch Industries, the Styrofoam products are actually manufactured by WinCup, which has no affiliation with Dixie, other than the fact that its owner, George Wurtz, worked for Georgia-Pacific before Koch Industries acquired it in 2005.

The Kochs represent to the Left what George Soros does to the Right, a malign and shadowy influence whose tendrils reach everywhere. Conspiracy mongering is the American way. Admittedly, conspiracies sometimes do exist. Just insist upon solid proof before believing in them.

The Case Against the Cell Phone Tax
Mercatus Center
There is no justification for taxing cell phones more than other goods and services. Moreover, the tax runs counter to promoting access to broadband connectivity. (For what it’s worth, Virginia’s cell phone tax rate ranked among the 10 lowest in the country in 2010.)

Obamacare is a fiscal juggernaut bearing down on state government. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will expand access to the health care sector by enrolling millions of Americans in Medicaid. In Virginia, Medicaid spending will increase from 14% of General Fund expenditures in 2009 to 21% in 2012, projects the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association.

Obamacare will pay for the expansion of the program for three years but reimbursements will taper off after that to 90%, leaving states with a 10% share. As Larry Sartoris, president of the VHHA, said in a chat with me yesterday, “Even 10 percent is a big number.”

Many states are turning to managed care as a way to hold down Medicaid costs. The idea is to turn over large populations of patients to private insurers and pay a fixed rate per patient (a capitated rate). The hope is that the Managed Care Organizations (MCOs) will keep patients healthy by encouraging preventive care and contain costs by discouraging unnecessary procedures. (Read this article in Stateline for details.) Unfortunately, MCOs won’t provide much of a buffer from Obamacare in Virginia — the commonwealth has already resorted to managed care as a cost-containment strategy, which is one reason our Medicaid spending is relatively low compared to that of other states.

As Sartoris explains it, there are three main categories of Medicaid beneficiaries: (1) poor women and children, (2) the blind and disabled, and (3) impoverished elderly in nursing homes. Managed care is most easily implemented for the poor women-and-children category. And about three quarters of that population is already enrolled.

Few people realize that the most costly piece of Medicaid consists of the blind and disabled, Sartoris says. This group accounts for 20% of the Medicaid population at present but 47% of the cost, as seen in the chart to the right. (Click on chart for more legible image.) A lot of the money is spent on dealing with mental health issues. To date, managed care has made few inroads in this group.

As Medicaid increasingly stresses state budgets, Sartoris fears that politicians will put the squeeze on hospitals, physicians and other providers. But Medicaid is already a money loser for the medical community. Providers will try to make up the shortfall by jacking up fees to privately insured patients. That will make private insurance more unaffordable, which means more people will drop out. Many of them will wind up on state-subsidized health exchanges or… on Medicaid. And the vicious cycle will spin round and round.

Falling Between the Cracks of Obamacare
Urban Institute
The Patient Protection Act will expand access to health care but some 20 million children still may fall under “complex coverage situations” that make it unclear what coverage they qualify for.

In Defense of Testing
Hoover Institute
There is a growing backlash against standardized school testing, but the tests are important: They not only measure student achievement but they allow educators to make better-informed decisions about how well schools function.

Revitalize America’s Economy through Low Carbon Innovation
Center for American Progress
One way to revitalize the United States economy would be to mobilize the public and private sectors behind the cause of low-carbon innovation, particularly in manufacturing.

EMR was very disappointed with TMT’s comment on Jim Bacon’s 30 May post “

First, let us be very clear:

Jim Bacon is absolutely right about the future direction of settlement patterns in the Core of NURs – Richmond, Tidewater, Charlotte, Atlanta, Washington- Baltimore….

At this point there can be little question about this fact.

The only question is whether a consensus can emerge soon enough to make the Fundamental Transformations that are imperative while there are still resources to achieve a sustainable trajectory.

The point TMT made on the 30th of May is the same point TMT made back on 4 April.

EMR delves into this issue to highlight a core problem with blogs.

Hopefully, it will help Jim Bacon design Bacon’s Rebellion 3.0 to be a more effective tool to achieve solutions, not just kill bytes, generate waste heat and create rock piles in formerly empty pigeonholes.

The problem is:

Uninformed commentors and commentors who refuse to inform themselves can repeatedly post comments that are unfounded. These comments contribute to citizens being unable to evolve a consensus.

The failure of citizens in a democracy to make intelligent decisions will be the difference between achieving a sustainable trajectory for civilization and Collapse as defined by Jared Diamond – failure to intelligently plan ahead and failure to reconsider traditional beliefs when conditions change.

In response to TMT’s 4 April 2011 comment on the cost of infrastructure, EMR took several days to research and prepare a one page email and attach a 14 page PDF.

THE CURRENT TRAJECTORY – THE OTHER SHOE

FIRST ROUGH DRAFT

THE TRAJECTORY OF PROPERTY VALUES AND SETTLEMENT PATTERNS INSIDE THE CLEAR EDGE AROUND THE CORE OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL SUBREGION

This first the draft of a future Perspective that addressed in detail TMT’s misconceptions concerning the future trajectory of human settlement patterns in the Core of the National Capital SubRegion and other large, formerly prosperous New Urban Regions.

It is a First Rough Draft because it will fit into SYNERGY’s work program in the future but not right now. The draft was prepared out of sequence as a service to TMT lest he make unfortunate decisions based on his misconceptions.

We also attached was a related 10 page PDF “Just the Facts: THE FACTS CITIZENS NEED TO UNDERSTAND CONCERNING SUBREGIONAL REALITY AND THE IMPACT OF SUBREGIONAL REALITY ON GREATER WARRENTON – FAUQUIER This Perspective is available on the CURRENT PERSPECTIVES page at www.emrisse.com

There are three possible reasons for TMT posting the 30 May comment:

1. TMT did not get the 18 April email and attachments.

In this case this post transforms from a critique of Blog comments to a condemnation of reliance on email as a vehicle for many types of communication. Yes, EMR is aware that 80 percent of the non-spam emails that are sent are not received, read and understood by the addressee. However, TMT had responded to emails at this address earlier. An email was use so as not to embarrass TMT.

2. TMT did not read the email. That is his prerogative but it should preclude him from further comments on the same topic. He would not file a second brief without reading the comments on his first brief.

3. TMT read the email and attachment but did not believe what it said. That is possible but not probable. In any event, some form of reply that identified what was not understood or not agreed with would have been a threshold courtesy for a regular participant in a Blog.

Just to make sure TMT understands how the 30 May comment falls short of reality, the following notes should make that clear.

TMT quoted Jim Bacon’s 30 May post: “Virginia will see more re-development and less greenfield development.”

TMT said: It cannot happen on a large scale. Tysons Corner is proving this.

Tysons is proving nothing of the sort.

In order to make Tysons from a suburban [core confusing word] …

… office park…

Tysons Corner was NEVER just a ‘office park.’ It was an Edge City as defined by Joel Garreau although it was not a ‘city’ and was not at the ‘edge.’

… into an urban center, billions of dollars in public infrastructure must be added. Neither the taxpayers nor the landowners can afford to spend this kind of money.

Wrong.

EMR pointed out strategies in many of the 131 columns at Bacon’s Rebellion 1.0 and specifically those on 4 Jan 04, 18 Oct 04, 20 Jan 05, 15 May 06, 16 Apr 07, 27 Dec 07, 28 Jan 08 and 8 Dec 08 how to design and build METRO to Tysons and have the development pay for the infrastructure. The 16 April 07 column (“All Aboard”) even has a cross section of what the Ziggurat station areas should look like to be viable additions to the Urban fabric of the SubRegion.

If there was not enough profit from the development of the station area to pay for the METRO extension then there was no need to extend METRO.

The problem is that the solution EMR and others offered did not meet the needs of the land owners who own land that is too far from the METRO platform to directly benefit in the early stages.

That means they would oppose the plans and would withhold campaign contributions and other favors from the elected and appointed governance practitioners.

This is a problem caused by dysfunctional governance structure and lack of market, not an inerrant problem of infrastructure costs as we made clear in our first draft of The Other Shoe.

People as knowledgeable as Tony Griffin, Fairfax County Executive,…

EMR has not seen Tony in years but doubts that he knows more now about the evolution of functional settlement patterns than he did then. Tony knows one thing – how to keep his job. That entails not embarrassing the supervisors for whom he works, doing what he can to keep them in office and not upsetting a large enough cohort of citizens that they will demand his ouster.

That is not Tony’s fault, it is again a problem of dysfunctional governance structure.

EMR worked with most Fairfax County Supervisors who served between 1972 and 2002. That included working closely with many among them the past two chairs long before they were supervisors. Almost without exception, they were and are good folks who have little choice but to make the decisions they did / do given the economic, social and physical context in which they exist.

The Fairfax Supervisors are in the same boat as the Supervisors in every other County in Virginia. As we noted in the third of eleven strategies presented to the Fauquier Board of Supervisors on 10 April 2011:

…………

The Fauquier Board of Supervisors could not now implement any of the following eight Strategies because citizens do not yet understand the problems; or that there are alternatives to Business-As-Usual; or the ramifications of continuing “Business-As-Usual.” For these reasons, citizens would not now support most of the needed actions by the Board or by other Agencies, Enterprises or Institutions.

Citizens want “answers” to the Mobility and Access Crisis, the Affordable and Accessible Housing Crisis and the Helter-Skelter Crisis, BUT:

1. Citizens are not yet willing to consider rational answers because they have been led to believe there is a quick fix:

“Vote for me, and I will solve your problems with no pain. (If that did not happen the last time you voted for me, it was the other parties fault…”

“Buy this product and you will be carefree…”

“All the problems are someone else’s fault, and if they would just change…”

2. Citi
zens have no reliable source of information with which to make decisions:

In the voting booth, or in the marketplace

For proof see most “letters to the editor” or listen to most comments at “public hearings” on topics related to human settlement patterns.

The “Fourth Estate” first identified in 1837 is history. MainStream Media are now profit-advertising-consumption-driven Enterprise Media.

MainStream Media has no choice because they are Enterprises and live on ad revenue and entertainment, they are not rewarded for providing the information citizens really need by rather what generates revenue.

It is not MainStream Media’s fault, it is the fault of citizens for not evolving new sources of information over the past 50 years. Given all the tools now available, citizen ignorance and Geographic Illiteracy are self-inflicted wounds.

The future of democracies with market economies depends on informed citizens.

…………..

Back to TMT:

… has recently discussed the huge financial challenges to redevelop a brownfield area, most especially a successful area such as Tysons.

Tysons Corner is NOT a ‘brownfield area.’ The Atlantic Research site across the road from Jiffy Lub Live is a brownfield site.

Even if Tysons Corner was a brownfield there are 1,500 acres in Tysons Corner; 5,000 acres in Greater Tysons Corner. There are 244,000 acres in Fairfax County much of it in need of renewal as we pointed out in The Other Shoe.

What will help Tony keep his job and the supervisors keep their seats is for Fairfax County to continue to try to land as much ‘tax base’ as possible and force workers in the bottom 80 percent of the Ziggurat to live and seek Services outside Fairfax County.

That has ‘worked’ to date but that is why the settlement pattern is so dysfunctional.

In the current context Fairfax governance practitioners have no choice as noted above.

But times are changing. Those tax base employers will not move Fairfax in unless their employees have a place to live that they can afford to get to.

Two of the four stories on the front page of the Metro Section of WaPo today are:

“Fairfax works to get more people to call Tysons home; New affordable Housing Rules: Prices are high throughout area a rising fast.” [As noted below ‘throughout area’ means within five miles of Tysons One.] and

“Garage parking marks Urban shift in suburbs.”

Jim Bacon is right, times ARE changing.

[The third story is headlined “In VA jobs hope and prison remain empty” about a prison in Grayson County. See Yesterday’s post by EMR of Jobs in the Countryside.]

Back to TMT:

Greenfield development is likely much cheaper.

At one time it WAS cheaper. Of course, if costs were fairly allocated it would be much more expensive as we note in The Other Shoe.

But that is now a moot point.

What ever the cost there is NO MARKET, NO PROFIT, NO INTEREST IN WASTING MONEY BUILDING IN LOWER PER SQUARE FOOT COST BUILDINGS BECAUSE THERE ARE NO BUYERS.

Every new Mode-of-the-Market (MotM) Single Household Detached dwelling that is built in R=30 and beyond lowers the value of every existing MotM dwelling.

Everyone knows how long it will be easier or cheaper to build in the Countryside – even in Culpeper County – when citizens understand that reality.

See JUST THE FACTS linked above.

There is a PLUMMETING market for existing dysfunctional built environment beyond R = 30 and NO market for MORE dysfunctional settlement patterns.

A few minutes ago EMR’s beautiful wife brought down to our studio an item she downloaded from CNN Money:

“Home prices: ‘Double Dip’ confirmed based on Case-Shiller data.

If ones looks at the area outside R=30 (“the Piedmont) on Zillow they will see that it has never been a break from the first dip and now everything from R=20 (the Fairfax County line) is headed south along with a lot inside R = 20.

Pave the Piedmont!

Asphalt prices are going up too.

Give it up TMT.

There is no basis for the dream of Fairfax to continuing Business-As-Usual.

EMR

JOB CREATION IN THE COUNTRYSIDE AND MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT ‘RURAL.’

In a recent comment Larry Gross observed:

“I’d point out one more thing about Germany’s small rural company approach.

“It can’t work without a national health care system because small businesses cannot offer affordable health care to employees.”

Larry is right about the need for a comprehensive solution to health care for ‘everyone’ be it continental, ‘national’, MegaRegional or Regional.

But that is only one aspect of Germany’s success at Job creation in the Countryside.

Before proceeding two points:

First, there is a word which Larry uses that needs to be avoided. In the first sentence Larry uses the word ‘rural.’ There are unfortunate neural linguistic connotations generated by that word. These linguistic frameworks obscure the path to creating Jobs in the Countryside. The reasons will be clear from the following notes on German success in Countryside Job creation.

Second, In spite of the favorable view of German policies in this post, EMR does NOT believe Germany has ALL the answers to Job creation in the Countryside – or in the Urbanside – but they are far ahead of the US. Germany’s strategies have positioned the nation-state – and the EU – far better than the US for Job creation in the Post ENOUGH Era. That is another story for anther time.

JOBS IN THE GERMAN COUNTRYSIDE

Jobs in the German Countryside is a topic upon which SYNERGY has first hand knowledge based on field work from the early 90s to early 00s.

The task was to understand how the State of Bavaria was encouraging employment in the Countryside and see if there was a way to transfer these strategies to the Washington-Baltimore New Urban Region.

Because of the historical forces that shaped it, the State of Bavaria has borders that largely reflect what SYNERGY would term a New Urban Region (NUR). Munchen (Munich) the capital of Bavaria, is always among the most admired and amenable places on any list of best large Urban enclaves in the world. The Bavarian Countryside is among the most amenable and most visited on the planet.

The focus of SYNERGY’s inquiry was Telework. The project started with a visit to IBM Germany. Employees of IBM as well as Enterprises and Institutions using IBM consulting services, software and hardware had extensive experience with Telework.

The next step was interviews with the staff at the University of Munchen and with Enterprises and Institutions in traditional offices (and in garages) inside The Clear Edge around the Core of the Munchen New Urban Region.

The next SYNERGY visited Teleworkers employed by the Enterprises and Institutions in Alpha Communities in the Countryside near Munchen. These Communities are large, relatively Balanced Urban enclaves outside The Clear Edge around the Core of Munchen. They have frequent shared vehicle service providing Mobility and Access to the Core. Some work places were shared (Telework ‘centers’ and satellite offices), some were free standing. All were within the Clear Edges surrounding these Communities.

In person or via air photos available on line, it is very clear that there is Countryside between the Clear Edge around the Core of the NUR and The Clear Edge around these Communities. Think Greater Reston with only farms and hamlets between the Beltway and Wiehle Ave.

EVOLUTION OF FUNCTIONAL URBAN ENCLAVES IN THE COUNTRYSIDE

The final step was to visit Teleworkers in small hamlets (places of Alpha Cluster and Alpha Neighborhood scale) and Alpha Villages in the Bavarian Countryside.

The experience was enlightening and inspirational. Roswitha was typical of the workers interviewed. She had very good computer graphic skills and wanted to live in a hamlet where her husband had grown up in a farm family. We were impressed with the level of sophistication of Roswitha’s work and her hardware. We did not see hardware like hers in front hook engineering and architecture offices in the US until half-a-dozen years later. From prior conversations we knew her employer in Munchen was impressed with her work and her contribution to their bottom line.

There were other Teleworkers in Hauslingen but they were not the only Urban job holders. As we recall Roswitha’s husband and others from the hamlet had taken advantage of German electronic component recycling initiatives and started a high-tech recycling Enterprise in a barn that was no longer needed for agricultural purposes. There were also several processing, manufacturing and remanufacturing Enterprises INSIDE The Clear Edge around Hauslingen and nearby hamlets. In the Vocabulary used in Greater Warrenton-Fauquier these Urban work places would be “INSIDE the Service District.” (NB: The Service Districts in Greater Warrenton-Fauquier are far larger and have a capacity of far more citizens and activities than hamlets like Hauslingen.)

The land around Hauslingen is fertile and part of a viable agricultural SubRegion, however the mechanization (NOT factory farms) required less labor than in times past. One benefit of the Urban workers living in the hamlet is that they can turn to and help in planting, harvesting and in emergencies. In addition, workers can trade off between agriculture and forestry (NonUrban) and Urban jobs as demand ebbs and flows. There are also part-time Jobs for those in school.

To meet the needs of Urban workers and their Households, Urban Services evolved. A farm family starts a bakery and another gets a licence to sell meat at retail. These activities enrich the tradition of ‘farmers markets’ found in most hamlets and all Villages. Yes, a picnic grove became a beer garden. Over the years a Resilient, Balanced Urban enclave had evolved from the historic agricultural support hamlet.

Because young adults could find an Urban job close to where they grew up, it was an attractive place to raise a family. That meant that the school had a Critical Mass of children to justify a first rate educational experiences at the preschool, elementary and secondary levels within the SubRegion (district or ‘kreis’ in German). A big bonus was that there were well educated hamlet residents who did not have to spend two hours a day driving to work and so they could volunteer in the schools and keep the cost of education down. They could see the future of technology first hand in Roswitha’s studio.

The citizens of the hamlet (aka, Cluster), of the Community (gemeinde) and of the SubRegion ( kreis) took advantage of nation-state, state (Regional) and SubRegional programs and incentives to evolve the Balance and Critical Mass necessary to achieve economic, social and physical Resilience.

The majority of the work in the hamlet was by 1992 Urban. The work places were NOT scattered across the Countryside or isolated in ‘industrial parks’ surrounded by parking lots.

It goes without saying that in no way was or is Hauslingen (and similar hamlets) ‘rural.’

THE SETTLEMENT PATTERN

For those unfamiliar with the settlement patterns of Bavaria, historically the church, market, craftspersons as well as the farm homes and out buildings are all located IN the hamlet. Farmers ‘commuted’ to their fields, orchards woodlots. They still do. The same in true in parts of France, Italy and Spain. Even in SubRegions with individual farmsteads, The Clear Edge around Urban activities and thus a functional settlement pattern are the norm.

As current air photos that one can access on line document, there are a few individual farmsteads in the Countryside near Hauslingen. However, as Larry Gross pointed out some months ago vis a vis Waterloo, Iowa, The Clear Edge is very easy to see in areas that are primarily devoted to productive agriculture – and in the case of Germany – to forestry.

In fact, exc
ept for the location of farmsteads, the pattern in Bavaria is not that different from the pattern that existed in the US in 1945 and still exists in many parts of eastern Canada. The big difference is of course scattered Urban land uses – especially scattered Urban dwellings.

Larry is right that without a comprehensive heath care system these Jobs could not have evolved. But there are many other ingredients – especially functional settlement patterns and intelligent Agency programs, projects and incentives.

Our visit to Hauslingen and other places in Bavaria took place almost 19 years ago. The process of creating functional and Balanced Urban enclaves to support Urban Jobs in the Countryside had been going on for about 20 years by 1992.

The settlement pattern we saw in 1992, and that still exists today, is very similar to the one laid out in plans for the Washington-Baltimore New Urban Region in the late 50s and early 60s.

What had the US, Virginia and most Regions in the US done about Jobs in the Countryside up to 1992? And what have they done since?

Primarily build roadways for commuters and provide incentives for Multinational Enterprises to locate ‘distribution centers’ and relocate Jobs to snare subsidies. As the Era of ENOUGH comes to an end this anti-strategy will no longer be possible. As always, THE question is:

Will there be time and resources left to make the Fundamental Transformations before it is too late?

When SYNERGY returned from work in Bavaria (and from similar efforts in Scandinavia, Great Britain, France and Italy) articles on the findings appeared in national publications and were the focus of professional and university lectures. Some listened, most did not. In 2000 THE SHAPE OF THE FUTURE was published to place these and other experiences in a comprehensive context.

Having articulated what needed to evolve in the Urbanside and in the Countryside for citizens to secure a safe and happy future, SYNERGY moved outside The Clear Edge around the Core of the National Capital to a place inside The Clear Edge around a Village scale component of a Beta Balanced But Disaggregated Community in the Countryside.

In 2002 and 2003 SYNERGY outlined strategies to create a sustainable economic, social and physical trajectory. A few listened, most did not. On 10 April 2008 SYNERGY was invited the Fauquier Board of Supervisors to outline eleven strategies to achieve and sustainable and functional future. Apparently no one listened. Also see “The Obliviousness of Leaders Compounds the Ignorance of Citizens” at http://www.emrisse.com/index.cfm?action=perspectives

THAT WORD ‘RURAL’

Most of the things one thinks of when they hear the word ‘rural’ have NOTHING to do with the economic, social and physical heath of Urban enclaves in the Countryside. They have nothing to do with the Disaggregated Village of which that enclave is a component, or the District (Balanced But Disaggregated Alpha Community) in which the Village is located and or with the Region / state.

SYNERGY suggests that the number of Households involved in NonUrban economic activity will rise in coming decades from around 5 percent in 2010 to around 20 percent. That will be accompanied by a rise in the cost of food and fiber due to the end of the Era of Mass OverConsumption and the dawn of the Not ENOUGH Era.

That leaves 80 percent of the adult citizens and the vast majority of the Households dependent upon Urban activities.

An observation from the Bavarian roadside reflects on the need for Fundamental Transformation of governance structure in the US and in Virginia.

When you approach hamlet ‘A’ there is a sign with a variation on the following theme:

Welcome to ‘A!’, We are proud to be a part of the Village (or Community) of ‘B’, and to be an important component of District ‘C’, which is in the State of Bavaria, Deutschland, a founding member of the EU. Many display the flags / crests of some or all of these components.

Humans exist in an organic economic, social and physical system. The governance structure that made sense when 5 percent of the Households were Urban and 95 percent of the Households were NonUrban does not make sense when 95 percent of the Households are Urban and 5 percent are NonUrban.

When you arrived at Hauslingen the sign reads not just “Hauslingen” but “Hauslingen, gemeinde (German for Community) Wieseth, kreis (German for district or SubRegion) Ansbach. (If you look up Hauslingen on Google Maps your may be confused by the fact that there are at least two Hauslingen’s in Deutschland. References in this post are to the one near the Balanced But Disaggregated Community of Wieseth.)

The understanding of the organic structure of Urban enclaves in the Bavarian Countryside and parameters for building a viable economic, social and physical Urban enclave based on that understanding may be a refection of the work Walter Christaller did in Bavaria in the 20s and 30s. (Full disclosure: The work of Christaller influenced Constantinos Doxiadis in developing his Ekistics – the science of human settlement patterns – and is reflected in the New Urban Region Conceptual framework articulated in THE SHAPE OF THE FUTURE.)

CLOSE TO HOME

Bavaria is not unique. SYNERGY has visited and photographed similar Countrysides with similar Urban enclaves in France (Alsace and Provence), England (The Cotswolds and Yorkshire), Italy (Tuscany and Umbria), Spain and Sweden. All these places have much in common with the northern Piedmont of Virginia – except for the scattered Urban land uses found in the northern Piedmont.

The misuse of ‘rural’ and the need for citizens to understand the ingredients of functional settlement patterns in the Countryside was placed in sharp focus by two recent stories in the primary Enterprise Media outlet in Greater Warrenton-Fauquier: The Fauquier Times Democrat.

Recognition of the value of understanding the organic structure of human settlement was is illustrated by a story in the 27 May edition of The Fauquier Times Democrat: “Calverton post office is on the chopping block: Rural community may lose identity.”

Calverton may well lose what little ‘identity’ it has left if citizens and governance practitioners continue fail to provide ‘service’ in the Service District and continue to ignore the role of organic components of human settlement including the need for Balance and Critical Mass at all scales of those components. (See the eleven strategy program presented to the Fauquier Board of Supervisors on 10 April 2008 noted above.)

Scattering Urban activities across the Countryside is the fastest way to dissipate Critical Mass. At least 80 percent of citizens within the service area of the Calverton post office derive their Household income from Urban sources. Those who would live within a functional settlement in the Calverton Service District would almost all derive their Household income from Urban activities.

Urban economic, social and physical activities are far more costly and far less rewarding – based on market data over the past 30 years – when they are scattered across the countryside.

An event reported in the 25 May edition of the Fauquier Times Democrat provides a second perspective on the importance of understanding existing settlement pattern dysfunctions and the dangers of misuse of the word ‘rural.’

In a front page story, a candidate for the open seat in the 18th district of the Virginia House of Delegates was quoted as believing he was the right person at the right time to represent this district because he understands the district. The story went on to quote him as saying “When you look at the map of Virginia’s House of Delegates’ 18th District, it is immediately clear that this is a ‘rural district.”

Most of the 18th IS
in the Countryside. The district is outside the Clear Edge around the Core of the Washington-Baltimore New Urban Region (in Virginia it is The Clear Edge around the National Capital SubRegion) and the Clear Edge around the Core of the Richmond New Urban Region. A much smaller area is occupied by a number of Urbansides that lie within the Countryside.

It should be clear to all that a member of the House of Delegates (HoD) represents citizens not acres.

The vast majority of the 79,500 plus or minus citizen who live in the new 18th HoD District – as is the case with the Calverton postal service area – are in Households that derive the majority of their income and almost all of their culture / lifestyle attributes from Urban sources.

The delegate from the 18th HoD District will not have a ‘rural’ constituency. Many of the citizens of the 18th enjoy the ‘freedom’ they believe is due to separation and scatteration of Urban land uses – especially dwellings occupied by Urban Households.

However, the rising costs for energy, food and fiber means that this separation will come at an ever increasing cost in the Post ENOUGH Era. Even now the majority cannot afford a dwelling near their Job and many cannot afford to buy or maintain a Large, Private Vehicle to get to Jobs and Services that is BOTH fuel efficient AND safe to drive on the Interstate highway. Those problems will continue to escalate in the Post ENOUGH Era and they will impact every resident of HoD District 18.

It has long been the policy of Fauquier County – and should be the policy of Rappahannock and Culpeper Counties – that it is everyone’s best interest to have Urban activities take place inside Service Districts.

How does one help Urban citizens scattered across the Countryside? To date this has been seen as finding ways to ‘help commuters.’ The only help that can be provided to ‘commuters’ is to help them become NonCommuters.

Germans love cars too but the futility of trying to support commuting as an alternative to functional settlement patterns was known to thoughtful leadership in Germany 38 years ago and they did something about reality. The futility of trying to support commuting as an alternative to functional settlement patterns was known to thoughtful planners in the US and in the Washington-Baltimore New Urban Region 61 years ago and almost nothing has been done to prepare for the Post ENOUGH Era.

A delegate from the 18th district that is trapped in ‘rural’ thinking will have a problem similar to the one that recently elected congresspersons now face at the federal scale. The “small government / starve the beast” politics sounded great last November and in January but by May citizens have started to understand what implementation would really mean to them. See “GOP Freshmen Encountering Obstacles” in 29 May 2011 WaPo.

Understanding where citizens actually live and what they actually need to survive and prosper will be key to winning any election and all reelections.

The smart choice will be to help voters abandon their illusion that they live in a ‘rural’ area. Encouraging them continue to drown themselves in the fog of Ruralaphilia is not a winning formula.

In the face of rising costs of energy, food and fiber, if there is to be any hope of Job creation and of evolving the Balance and Critical Mass required for Resiliency in the Countryside there must be a better understanding of the true needs of Urban citizens and of a sustainable Countryside.

Today a Saudi Prince re-articulated his sheikdom’s strategy to keep the US dependent upon Saudi oil and Germany announced it would close down all its nuclear electrical generation facilities by 2022. And yes, 300 people got sick on German produce. Was not from Hauslingen :>)

Happy Memorial Day

EMR

Note: Comments and suggestions are welcome. Since this post focuses on human settlement patterns – the patterns and densities of land use inside and outside The Clear Edge, this post is subject to The Litmus Test found in Chapter 5 of CITIZEN MEDIA, THE NEXT STEP. http://www.boomergeddon.us/Risse/citizenmedia3.pdf

Crime in the United States has receded to the lowest ebb in 40 years, according to the latest Federal Bureau of Investigation uniform crime reports. In a world where everything seems to be falling apart, it’s reassuring to know that one of the country’s great social scourges is relenting.

The decline in crime is occurring across the board, from the largest metropolitan areas to the smallest towns, and it is occurring across all categories, including murder, rape, assault, robbery, burglary, theft and arson. Most remarkably, the downturn has gained momentum in the past two years. Violent crime fell 5.5% nationally in 2010, following a 5.3% decline the year before, 1.9% in 2008 and 0.7% the year before that. (Major crime tumbled 6.2% in the Richmond region, reports the Times-Dispatch.)

The drop in crime during the most severe, most prolonged economic downturn since the Great Depression demolishes the conventional wisdom that crime is a response to high unemployment and economic hardship, or as the Jets in West Side Story mocked Officer Krupke, “We’re depraved because we’re deprived.”

The incredible plummeting crime rate has baffled social scientists, none of whose theories stand up very well. James Q. Wilson argued recently in the Wall Street Journal that the increase in the incarceration rate can explain only one quarter of the decline. Putting criminals in jail takes them off the streets where they commit crimes. Others have pointed to the aging of the population: A person’s proclivity to commit a crime, especially a violent one, peaks in the 15-to-25 age range and then declines steadily with age. That idea has some appeal but it can’t begin to explain the dramatic fall-off in the past two years.

Better policing — hot spot policing, in particular — has held down crime rates by breaking up criminal hot spots before crime becomes rampant. Other analysts point to the declining use of crack cocaine, which induces violent behavior. Others, noting that that children with high levels of lead in their blood are more likely to be aggressive and violent, cite the banning of lead in gasoline and paint years ago.

Whatever the reason, we can all be thankful. And we can infer that significant social and economic consequences will follow — just as decades of rising crime had social and economic implications. Since World War II, three main conditions drove the middle class out of America’s core urban areas: poor schools, high taxes and high crime rates. Fearing crime, Americans sought the tranquility of what they called the “suburbs,” or, more precisely, the ring of counties outside the core urban jurisdiction. While poor schools and high taxes will continue to deter some families from urban living, the decreased prevalence of crime will encourage empty nesters to move closer to the urban core where they can avail themselves of cultural attractions and other amenities.

Declining crime constitutes one more reason, along with rising energy prices, traffic congestion and the popping of the housing-finance bubble, to believe that population growth and development in Virginia’s metropolitan areas will stop pushing inexorably outward. Developers’ attention will shift from building auto-centric subdivisions, shopping centers and office parks in the middle of nowhere to creating walkable, mixed-use communities closer to the urban core.

If, as I suspect, Virginia will see more re-development and less greenfield development, state transportation policy should reflect this reality, and so should the comprehensive plans of Virginia’s fast-growth counties. We’re not in the 2000s anymore. It’s time to update our thinking.

Abuse and Neglect in Programs for Troubled Youth
Government Accountability Office
There have been thousands of allegations of abuse and neglect in residential treatment programs over the past two decades, including many deaths. Ineffective management and staff training typically played a role.

Fraud and Abuse in the Head Start Program? Who Would Have Thought?
Government Accountability Office
In 15 undercover operations, staff with Head Start programs frequently misreported income-eligibility information for the families of applicants, with the result that qualifying, low-income children were put on waiting lists.

Joseph E. Gagnon and Marc Hinterschweiger have gone where no man has gone before. Well, maybe not no man, but very few… I went there in my book “Boomergeddon,” but I’m not a trained economist so in the parlors of power I don’t count.

In a new book, “The Global Outlook for Government Debt over the Next 25 Years,” Gagnon and Hinterschweiger do three things: (1) project the global debt outlook to 2035, (2) ask whether the combination of debts and deficits among a large number of countries at the same time produces a different impact from the traditional crisis affecting only a handful of countries, and (3) analyze the impact on global interest rates and growth rates.

The analysis concludes that the public debt profiles in most advanced economies will grow to dangerous and unsustainable levels over the next couple of decades unless major changes are made in projected spending and revenue levels. The United States and Japan, in particular, need to start planning now for significant future budget cuts to minimize the risk of a crisis. Acting soon will enable the adjustment to be phased in over an extended period, which will cushion the inevitable adjustment costs.

If government debt continues to follow current trend lines, interest rates eventually will rise, “crowding out productive investments and slowing down the rate of economic growth,” the authors write. High levels of debt will make it impossible for governments to respond forcefully to future economic downturns.

In other words, the duo sees Boomergeddon on the horizon. But they’re economists, and they write like economists, so they don’t have a memorable name to call it. But the message is the same.

“Although we have time to act,” write Gagnon and Hinterschweiger, “time is not on our side.” They argue that spending cuts and tax increases should not be implemented in the next two years so as to avoid derailing the economic recovery. But policy makers need to begin planning now to make major adjustments very soon thereafter. “In the most advanced economies and some developing economies,” they conclude, “failure to act probably will result in a fiscal crisis of some form in the next 25 years.”

Here in Virginia, we can hope that Congress will get its act together and do the responsible thing. Yeah, right. And we can hope that fairies will sprinkle pixie dust on us so we have physiques like Brad Pitt’s. Alternatively, we can trust in ourselves by fiscally fortifying the Old Dominion to survive Boomergeddon.

Let’s weigh the options: Trust Congress to do the right thing… Trust Congress to follow the path of least resistance and put off the hard choices. You decide.

In an article republished in today’s Bacon’s Rebellion newsletter (a product of the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy), the Reason Foundation’s Bob Poole discusses the bankruptcy of two public-private partnership toll projects, one in Brisbane, Australia, and the other in San Diego. In both cases, taxpayers emerged whole.

The bottom line here is that start-up toll projects are inherently risky. They are not for the faint-hearted nor for well-meaning amateurs. The best way to deal with that riskiness is to shift it from general taxpayers to sophisticated investors who are prepared to balance the occasional loss in exchange for solid, long-term returns in other cases.

There’s a lesson for Virginia as the McDonnell administration ramps up plans to finance more highway construction by means of public-private partnerships: Watch the risk!

As an aside, TJI soon will be moving its newsletter from the db4.dev.baconsrebellion.com domain, where it has resided since the days I published it, to TJI’s own website and will rename it the Thomas Jefferson Journal. At that point, I will move this blog to the dev.baconsrebellion.com domain. So, brace yourselves for a change in address… and design.

JARC Programs Making More Use of Federal Funds
Government Accountability Office
The Job Access and Reverse Commute program helps low-income people get to work. The number of local grantees who let their funding lapse has shrunk in recent years, the GAO reports. Phew! For a while, I was really worried people might find their own rides.

Same Day Voting Increases Voter Turnout
Demos
It turns out that letting voters register on election day increases voter turnout. No word on whether it also increases voter fraud.

Always follow the Koch money.

A two-year-old conservative outfit coyly named the “American Tradition Institute” has forced the University of Virginia to “cough up” thousands of emails through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit focusing on Michael Mann, a former U.Va. climatologist who has been hounded for more than a year for his research and positions on global warming.

The charge has been led by Virginia’s ultra-right-wing Atty. Gen. Kenneth Cuccinelli who has hit Mr. Jefferson’s University with “investigative demands’ for the emails of some 39 scientists around the world who may have communicated with Dr. Mann, who left U.Va. for Penn State several years ago. Cuccinelli, you see, doesn’t believe that humans have anything to do with global warming.

Never mind that Mann has been cleared repeatedly by his peers of any wrongdoing. U.Va. has tried to support academic freedom by blocking Cuccinelli’s politically motivated fishing trip.

Now comes the so-called “American Tradition Institute” with Prince William Del. Robert G. Marshall cheering them, to set up a lawsuit to get more than 34,000 emails also related to Michael Mann. A circuit court judge in Prince William County, a hotbed of conservatism, has gone along with the lawsuit and U.Va. has begun releasing the emails, some of which have to do with such weighty matters relating to the integrity of the scientific process as personal plans for Halloween parties.

So, who is the “American Tradition Institute” anyway? One place to look is who its “executive director” is. He is Paul Chesser, a journalist originally from Rhode Island who edited some community newspapers in North Carolina and is a conservative blogger and columnist.

Chesser is listed on the John Locke Foundation website as being a “special correspondent” for the Heartland Institute as well. The Intitute, a right-wing, Chicago-based think tank and advocacy group, has been massively funded by Koch brothers Charles and David who run a Wichita-based firm that is the second-largest privately held conglomerate in the U.S.

The ultra-conservative Kochs have bankrolled everything from Lincoln Center in New York to a host of far-right organizations. In a revealing article, The New Yorker outlined last year the Kochs’ well- organized plans to discredit President Barack Obama.

It isn’t certain if Chesser is funded directly by the Kochs or if the American Tradition Institute is. Contributions to non-profits like it are supposed to be available on demand to the public and often they are available online through guidestar.org. I somehow couldn’t find them online and haven’t had time yet to drive to downtown Washington to their offices and ask to see them.

There is enough, however, to wonder who this two-year-old outfit is. Plus, one wonders what Chesser’s qualifications are to play expert in climatology. He seems like a journalist such as myself.

So, before you read any more breathless blog postings about U.Va. having to “cough up” damning documents about climate change or Halloween parties, consider who is making the request and consider how much the university is going to have to pay to comply with these right-wing fishing trips.

Peter Galuszka

The California School-Aid Deregulation Experiment
Rand Corporation
In 2008, California’s legislature combined 50 K-12 school programs totaling $4.5 billion in spending, cut 20% and gave school districts more flexibility on how to spend what remained. Lesson learned: Set clearer goals.

Spurring Growth through Innovation
Brookings Institution
Want to spur innovation in the U.S.? Stabilize the federal budget, support research and intellectual property, promote exports and green energy and get government to go digital.

Adopt More Foster Children, Reduce Support Costs
Brookings Institution
Governments spend more than $9 billion yearly on foster care, not including supplemental support through poverty programs. Making it easier for foster children to be adopted could improve their lives — and save taxpayer dollars.