Bacon's Rebellion

WHY IS IT SO HARD FOR CITIZENS TO UNDERSTAND THE FACTS ABOUT LOCATION-VARIABLE COSTS?

THE 10X RULE AND ITS APPLICATION TO ACHIEVE FUNCTIONAL HUMAN SETTLEMENT PATTERNS IS A KEY TO UNDERSTANDING WHY LOCATION-VARIABLE COSTS ARE SO IMPORTANT.

In a recent ‘Current Perspectives’ draft (“A Shelter Must Read” 17 May 2010) Groveton, the newest BaconsRebellion Blog Contributor and frequent commentor over the past few years, again demonstrated continuing confusion.

After spinning out details of a hypothetical (aka, ‘typical’) eastern Loudoun County Household (See End Note One) Groveton asks:

“What else do we need to know in order to estimate how much these “scoff societies” are stealing from us?”

The short answer is: “Almost everything because that ‘data’ on the hypothetical Household has no relationship to an understanding of location-variable costs or their allocation.

STIPULATIONS

1. Under current conditions, two Urban Households that:

A. Occupy the same price dwelling (technically ‘two dwellings with the same assessment’ but not necessarily the same VALUE) in the same municipal jurisdiction, and

B. Have the same income and consumption profiles

Will pay about the same amount for most location-variable goods and services REGARDLESS OF THE SETTLEMENT PATTERN IN THE DOORYARD, CLUSTER, NEIGHBORHOOD, OR VILLAGE if their respective Households.

That is THE PROBLEM, it is not an indication that there is NO PROBLEM.

2. Often Urban Households with high disposable incomes choose to live in locations where subsidy of location-variable cost make living in these location DOUBLY attractive.

First they have the privacy and exclusiveness of “the American Dream” AND second, someone else is paying much of the cost of that privilege.

Three major points to remember about this second stipulation:

A. Neither Jim Bacon nor EMR have EVER said that Urban citizens should not have the right to live in these locations – or anywhere else – SO LONG AS THEY PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE OF LOCATION-VARIABLE COSTS.

B. If Urban Households in these ‘exclusive areas’ fall INSIDE the Clear Edge around the core of a New Urban Region (or one of its large SubRegions) this area MAY have a negative impact on the evolution of functional settlement patterns at the Alpha Community or SubRegional scale.

This is due to the fact that the ‘exclusive area’ may insulate, separate or isolate two or more components of the Community or SubRegion that would otherwise have a synergistic economic, social and / or physical impact. (See literature on NIMBYism.)

However, these possible Community, SubRegional or Regional costs are NOT factors in the 10 X Rule derivation because the 10 X Rule only deals with Urban dwellings at the Dooryard, Cluster, and Neighborhood scales. There are obviously cost at larger scales but they are beyond the scope of the 10 X Rule.

C. If Urban Households in ‘exclusive’ areas fall in higher Radius Band locations (beyond the logical location of the Clear Edge as clearly illustrated with census data and air photos in “The New Urban Region Conceptual Framework” a PowerPoint found in Chapter 49 of TRILO-G), the same Radius Band will ALSO include many Households that are in the bottom 90 percent of the Ziggurat. (NB: In this context the ‘Ziggurat’ may also be known as ‘the economic spectrum.’)

It is often suggested that those Urban Households in ‘exclusive areas’ which are at the top of the Ziggurat (both inside AND outside the Clear Edge around the Core of the New Urban Region) pay MORE than their fair share of taxes and fees. In some cases that may be true but these taxes and fees almost never contribute directly to a fair allocation of location-variable costs.

The less well-to-do Urban Households in Outer Radius Band – the bottom 90 percent of the Ziggurat – fall into two categories:

First: Those distributed around the middle of the Ziggurat have fallen for the Myths behind the “drive-til-you-qualify’ ploy to “get more house for the money” and the Myth that buying a bigger dwelling than the Household ‘needs’ is a good investment. (Larry G. articulates the views of these residents in Spotsylvania County and in similar locations on a regular basis.)

The second group are those at the bottom of the Ziggurat who are seeking Affordable Housing but end up with InAccessible Housing. (See discussion of concentrations of foreclosures and underwater mortgages in “A Shelter Must Read,” 17 May 2010 and in “The Importance of Housing Location,” 18 May 2010.)

LOCATION-VARIABLE COSTS AND THE 10 X RULE

With the above stipulations and clarifications that should put Groveton on a more positive track spelled out, EMR repeats yet again:

The Shape of the Future spells out:

1. Why the ‘cost of sprawl’ studies that have been a staple of the settlement pattern debate are tragically flawed.

2. The 10 X Rule and its derivation.

Here again is a brief summary:

During the mid-90s, planning graduate students carefully examined two conditions in several jurisdictional contexts:

In each case the a 10,000 acre area was selected and in each case 1,000 dwellings were located.

In Alternative A the 1,000 dwellings were designed in a Planned Neighborhood Development. See End Note Two.

In Alternative B the 1,000 dwellings were distributed on 10 acre lots.

For both Alternative A and B 40 (+/-) location-variable costs were calculated. The number of categories varied from jurisdiction to jurisdiction depending on the way goods and Services were packaged and delivered but for most situations there were 30 plus goods and Services that were the same in every case.

One bellwether was the cost of the construction of the electrical infrastructure and the cost of delivery of a kilowatt of electric service due to line loss. One of the easiest was the cost of Roadways because of the standards enforced at the time by VDOT.

The result was the 10 X Rule:

In a typical case, the same size dwelling with the same uses in configuration A would have an annualized cost of $6,700. In configuration B the cost would be $67,000, thus “10 X.”

VALIDITY OF 10 X

There has often been disbelief expressed about these results. However, no one with understanding, experience and access to actual land development data has offered a substantive critique or suggested that the 10 X Rule does not present a valid perspective on location-variable cost allocations.

Several factors makes incremental scattered Urban dwellings in the Countryside seem less expensive than they turn out to be:

One is the excess capacity in Countryside serving infrastructure that exited before 1950.

For example farm to market Roadways intended to serve NonUrban land uses can be used for this and that new dwelling and it is only when the total impact of a decades accumulation is considered that the true impact is realized.

It is widely agreed that traffic from orphan Dooryards and Clusters were dumped out on VDOT roads by county “pro-growth” land use control processes. This is the root cause of ‘congestion’ in Fairfax, eastern Loudoun and Prince William Counties.

Another ‘excess capacity’ illusion that hid the real impact of scatteration was the subsidized electrical distribution system. When Urban users are added, the rate payers in the entire service area – those with efficient patterns and densities as well as those with inefficient patterns and densities – pay for system capacity expansion.

Another major factor has been the failure to factor in externalities such as the cumulative impact uninspected and unmonitored septic tanks on ground water and the impact of over fertilizing and watering mown grass.

Perhaps most important is the stupendous power of FLAT RATES for goods and Services ranging from mail delivery to electrical service.

Flat rates were justified before computers made it possible to fairly allocate the cost on an individual Household basis.

Understanding the basis for a locational-variable cost bill would be the most powerful way to demonstrate the truth in the overarching reality illuminated by David Owen in Green Metropolis.

Exacerbating the impact of flats rates has been the use of volume discounts to reduce the cost of a good or Service if one uses more of it. This seemed like a good idea when the economy was based on burning through Natural Capital.

IN RETROSPECT

After a decade and a half there have been no substantive questions raised about the 10 X rule – or the other four Natural Laws derived from the settlement patterns that have evolved since 1950.

There are, however, several caveats:

First and most important, the 10 X Rule and the 10 Person Rule were based on settlement patterns that evolved when energy was cheap and the use of Large, Private vehicles was heavily subsidized by burning through Natural Capital.

Those days are gone. As suggested in prior work by SYNERGY, the rising cost of energy as well as the higher cost of ALL goods and Services if the current level of technological activity is to be preserved means that and ‘sweet spot’ of 10 persons per acre at Alpha Community scale will be significantly higher and thus the 10 X rule may become the 20 X Rule.

It is clear that all costs have gone up but that does not mean there has been a fundamental shift in true cost / benefit relationships.

No one has yet figured out a way to:

Transport children from scattered location to school except by bus.

Mix clean water with human waste and Household waste (that now includes a range of chemical and biological pathogens) and then treat / dispose of it in a way that is easy, cheap and has not significant externalities.

Propel Large, Private vehicles (directly via petrochemicals or indirectly via carbon generated electricity) that is cheap and free of environmental externalities.

Grow mown grass in the Mid-Atlantic MegaRegion without extensive use of fertilizer and water

Perhaps the best illustration of location-variable costs is electricity. No one has figured out how to deliver electricity without transmission lines, substations, distribution networks and transformers AND no one has figured out a cost effective way to reduce line-loss, especially at low voltages.

With these notes, it is hoped that bright folks like Groveton can articulate ways to inform citizens about the importance of fairly allocating location-variable costs. In addition this post will give Larry G. enough information so he does not ask yet again for the “list.”

EMR

……………….

END NOTES

1. From Groveton’s comment: “Oh yeah … the house is in Loudoun County, required a $40,000 proffer to build and generates 1% real estate tax on its assessed value. The working couple who live in the house have a combined income of $250,000 and are raising 2 children (ages 10 and 12) who attend public school. Their average state income tax is 5.4% and their average federal income tax is 34%. They spend @75,000 per year on various things paying an average sales tax of 5%. The husband commutes to Tyson’s – which is 17 miles away. The wife commutes just 8 miles. Hubby uses a combination of the Greenway and Dulles Toll Road. Wifey uses surface streets (i.e. no tolls).”

2. (Actually, Alternative A was more complex. The plans evolved in stages. First, the 1,000 Units were distributed in compact Dooryards, in the next iteration, the Dooryards were collected into compact Clusters and finally the Clusters were located in a single Neighborhood. The X factor was calculated for each step up toward functionality.

Regarding Virginia’s renegade attorney general, Kenneth N. Cuccinelli and his assault on science at the University of Virginia, our own beloved Groveton says there ain’t no such thing as academic freedom.

THE LOCATION AND SIZE OF DWELLINGS IS CRITICALLY IMPORTANT IF THE AFFORDABLE AND ACCESSIBLE HOUSING CRISIS IS TO BE SOLVED.

For TMT and CJD here is a draft EMR is circulating for comment:

DRAFT OPEN LETTER

18 May 2010

Professor Steven S. Fuller, PhD
Director, Center for Regional Analysis
George Mason University

Dear Steve:

Our paths have not crossed in some time. Your report “The Future of the Washington Metropolitan Area Economy” released on 8 April 2010 and your ‘Commentary’ published in Capital Business on 10 May 2010 suggests that it is time to touch base.

JOBS / HOUSING IMBALANCE

A recurring theme of your academic work and consulting efforts for as long as we can remember has been the negative impact of a Jobs / Housing ImBalance in the National Capital SubRegion. This area is variously known as the Washington Metropolitan Area, the Washington dominated portion of the Washington – Baltimore Consolidated Metropolitan Area, ‘Greater Washington,’ ‘the State of Potomac,’ the Wash COG service area plus surrounding municipal jurisdictions – or as it is termed in the 10 May 2010 Capital Business ‘Commentary’ – ‘The Washington metropolitan area’ – no capitals).

The POTENTIAL of a Job / Housing ImBalance in the National Capital SubRegion that you identify in your 8 April report and cite in the 10 May ‘Commentary’ is far more important today than any previously projected Jobs / Housing ImBalance.

That is the reason for this letter.

Action to avoid the POTENTIAL of the Jobs / Housing ImBalance which you have projected is critically important to the economic well-being of every citizen, Household, Enterprise, Agency and Institution in the National Capital SubRegion. You underscore the reasons for this fact in your 10 May ‘Commentary.’

THE SHAPE OF THE FUTURE

The National Capital SubRegion – by whatever name – is today profoundly different than it was just three years ago. And it will never again be ‘the way it was’ in the periodic Boom periods during in the past five decades.

As you know the projections of growth in Jobs and residents in the Greater Washington Area (aka, The National Capital SubRegion) by you, by Wash COG and by others have been quite accurate in past decades. That ‘accuracy’ has, however, depended on the continual expansion of what might be called ‘Ever-Greater Washington.’ The pellmell radial expansion has been driven by forces examined in The Shape of the Future. The geographic expansion has resulted in dysfunctional settlement patterns and large areas of vacant and underutilized land. Much of this vacant and underutilized land lies well inside the logical location of the Clear Edge around the Core of the National Capital SubRegion.

Going forward, the critical issue will be insuring that there are functional locations for future Urban activities IF the projected Jobs – and the concomitant demand for shelter – become a reality.

A critical factor in Projected Jobs becoming reality will be Affordable and Accessible Housing Affordable near the Jobs. In addition, Affordable and Accessible Housing will be needed for those who will fill the jobs of those who retire over the next two decades. This is critical since the dwellings the retirees now occupy – if they are Accessible – are NOT yet Affordable.

The Jobs / Housing ImBalance cannot be side-stepped in the future as it has in the past by continually expanding the Urbanized area in the National Capital SubRegion.

The finite limit on global resources – reflected, for example, in rising energy costs as well as other indicators – mean that it will not be possible to work in the National Capital SubRegion (aka, Washington Metropolitan Area, etc.) and live ‘somewhere else’ even if citizens apply Telework and other tactics.

The potential Jobs / Housing ImBalance identified in your 8 April report will NOT just result in longer commutes. This has been the result over the recent decades.

In the Fundamentally Transformed SubRegional, Regional, MegaRegional, continental and global economic context, the Potential Jobs and the Potential Job Holders will locate inside the Clear Edge or they will migrate to OTHER SubRegions, New Urban Regions or MegaRegions. The alternative is that the Potential for these new Jobs will not materialize as you suggest in your 10 May ‘Commentary.’

Living outside Radius = 30 Miles from the Centroid and working in the Core of the National Capital SubRegion – much less in the Zentrum of the SubRegion – will continue to grow more and more costly. The scatteration of Households by Unit and in Dooryard-, Cluster- and Neighborhood-scale enclaves will continue to grow less attractive from many other perspectives as well. A fair allocation of all locations-variable costs will accelerate this trend. This fair allocation of costs is an inevitable result of tightening economic conditions.

‘Drive-until-you-qualify’ – including driving into ‘another’ SubRegion – is an idea that is no longer viable. In the 20 year span you examine in the 8 April report, inter-SubRegional commuting will grow to be completely out of reach of the vast majority of workers, especially those in the lower half of the Ziggurat who have been forced into long commutes in the past.

As “Same House-Same Builder-Different Location” comparisons clearly demonstrate it has been those at the bottom of the economic Ziggurat who have been relegated to dysfunctional locations from a Jobs / Housing Balance perspective.

The Housing Plus Transportation (H + T) Index by Center for Neighborhood Technology documents this reality. It is important to note that the interpretation of this data at it applies to the outer Radius Bands of the SubRegion by some is very misleading.

The high cost of energy is exacerbated by a vast over-build of ‘Wrong Size House / Wrong Location.’ This is evident from Radial Analysis of foreclosures and underwater mortgages.

WHERE NEW JOBS WILL END UP

New Jobs upon which to base economic prosperity in future decades will agglomerate in attractive and functional New Urban Regions if they are generated anywhere. Attractive Regions will be those that provide functional and sustainable human settlement patterns. As evidenced by recent economic trends, these Regions will provide locations for Jobs AND Affordable and Accessible Housing as well as Services / Recreation / Amenity. They will provide Affordable and Accessible Housing IN CLOSE PROXIMITY to Jobs for workers of all skill levels.

In the future, Affordable and Accessible housing in the National Capital SubRegion MUST exist in close proximity to Jobs / Services / Recreation / Amenity. Otherwise the most desirable Jobs and the most qualified potential Job holders will relocate to Regions that provide functional settlement patterns. Central to attracting a qualified work force will require attention to the parameters for meeting the needs of ‘the creative class.’

The alternative is that the Potential to create new economic activity will evaporate. The Potential for new Jobs will evaporate just as relatively inexpensive and comfortable air travel has evaporated. That was then, this is now.

The shape of the future will be a result of physics and economics, not of policy or political ideology.

COMPLICATING FACTORS

There are a number of factors that will complicate the evolution of effective SubRegional and Regional strategies.

Some question the scale of the Job growth Potential in the current nation-state, continental and global context but that is NOT the critical issue. In order for the Projected Jobs to evolve in the National Capital SubRegion there must be places for those Jobs to locate AND places for Affordable and Accessible Housing as well as Services / Recreation and Amenity to support those workers.

Using the term ‘worker’ in the last paragraph underscores the importance of ‘workforce’ housing as opposed to the past emphasis on ‘home ownership’ and promoting a Household’s primary residence as an ‘investment.’

There will be a need for a place for workers to live AND that place must be Affordable and Accessible. In most cases, that means the Housing must be closer to the Jobs than is now the case for the current Job holders. This also applies to those who are attracted Potential new Jobs and for those who will replace retirees but who cannot afford the housing that is now available.

Increasing pressure to limit immigration will focus pressure on housing for those in the lower half of the Ziggurat. This housing must be near Jobs rather than relying on distant cheap labor enclaves. The cheap labor enclaves have moved farther and farther from the Centroid in past decades. The location of these enclaves can be identified by mapping the locations of low-end foreclosures in the past three years.

In your 8 April report you identified two million workers who will retire over the next 20 years. This cohort poses both an opportunity and a challenge. Recent surveys indicate many would like to stay in the Region after they retire. The majority would prefer to ‘retire in place.’ However, they may not be able to do that for a range of economic reasons.

There is a vast over build of Single Household Detached Dwellings. Many of over-sized dwellings are the product of the Wrong Size House / Wrong Location epidemic that resulted from the 90s and 00s booms and the myth that buying more house than one needs was a ‘good investment.’

Many of the Wrong Size / Wrong Location dwellings are owned by near-future retirees. Finding ways to more efficiently exchange dwellings and transfer equity in dwellings could help move those who believe they need a larger house to meet their Household demands without building more too-big dwellings. Accessory dwellings, granny flats and granny pods could also help meet the need for flexible shelter for older citizens.

Many have more house than they ‘need’ but often those houses are NOT in the right place to meet the needs of future Job holders. Subdivision recycling, parcel consolidation and equity transfer strategies will be needed to implement flexible strategies.

One of the underlying barriers to achieving a Jobs / Housing Balance strategy has been the result of not clearly identifying the parameters of the ‘real Region’ and its components. Even more important is the failure to quantify the land necessary to provide dwellings of a size that the workforce can afford.

That is why SYNERGY has worked for 20 years to articulate the parameters and boundaries of the New Urban Region as well as the SubRegions, Communities, Community components and most recently MegaRegions. This work has resulted in the evolution of a robust Vocabulary and the articulation of a comprehensive Conceptual Framework with which to understand human settlement patterns. In addition, SYNERGY has developed Regional Metrics and applied Radial Analysis to quantify land requirements in a way which citizens can understand.

Finally, differences between your projections and those of Wash COG need to be reconciled. The self-employed, part-time and contract workers need to be factored into the Regional and SubRegional Strategies.

THE CRITICAL REALITY

The overarching concern your study raises is that if SubRegional and Regional cooperation and coordination does not make a rapid 180 degree reversal to provide the opportunity for a Jobs / Housing BALANCE in the Core of the SubRegion, many Jobs will NEVER be created.

The employment base will atrophy and contribute to SubRegional and Regional deflation. If Jobs and potential Job holders cannot migrate to other Regions it will contribute to MegaRegional, continental and global deflation and depression.

A SILVER LINING

There is a potential ‘win-win’ scenario for the National Capital SubRegion as well as the Washington-Baltimore New Urban Region and its residents IF enough citizens grasp reality very soon.

There is more than enough vacant and underutilized land within the Clear Edge around the Core of the National Capital SubRegion to meet the demand for all the Jobs and Houses you project as well as space for the Services, Recreation and Amenity to serve these new Urban activities.

If the OPPORTUNITY for evolving functional patterns and densities of Urban land uses exists, then the POTENTIAL for substantial economic activity will exist. Without locational opportunities, there will be no chance for achieving the SubRegion’s Potential and evolving Balance in the Communities that make up the National Capital SubRegion.

FACTS

The availability of vacant and underutilized land for new Jobs / Houses / Services / Recreation / and Amenity was made crystal clear nearly a decade ago in “Blueprint for a Better Region.” This reality and the centrality of the vast majority of key jobs can be confirmed through Radial Analysis of the June 2002 Wash COG study “Metropolitan Washington Regional Activity Centers.” This very important, broad-based initiative was sidetracked by political pressure and dog-in-the-manger municipalism (sometimes called anti-Regionalism).

It is fortunate that the concept of Activity Centers was rescued and there is an ongoing effort to coordinate these the evolution of these Activity Centers with the Potential growth of Jobs and Housing in the next round of COG projections and the 2010 Census. To achieve this Potential there must be reality-based Quantification of Activity Center capacity and a rational allocation of economic activity to achieve Balance.

THE WAY FORWARD

What is missing from the tool box necessary to evolve functional human settlement patterns that will accommodate Potential Job growth and support prosperous, happy and safe residents?

1. A robust Vocabulary with which to articulate >

2. A comprehensive Conceptual Framework which will allow citizens and their leaders to >

3. Apply science based metrics to Quantify settlement patterns so that it is possible to evolve >

4. A broad based citizen consensus which supports >

5. A Balance of Jobs / Housing / Services / Recreation / Amenity in every Community in the National Capital SubRegion.

There a number of specific tools such as “Next Higher Component RePlanning / ReZoning” that can implement a SubRegional Sketch Plan base on the METRO armature and the Activity Centers.

Some decentralization of Jobs will be desirable. However, decentralization will ONLY be useful if the new relocations contribute to creation of Balance at the Alpha Village- and Alpha Community-scales. This is true for BOTH Balanced Communities inside the Clear Edges around the Cores of SubRegions and for Disaggregated-But-Balanced Communities outside the Clear Edges around the SubRegional Cores. This process is the exact opposite of the BRAC relocation process which lacked the five tools listed above.

It will be possible for a small number of workers to live within walking distance of an intra-Regional (inter-SubRegional) shared-vehicle system (e.g. commuter rail) station. But an ImBalance of ‘commuters’ will result in dysfunction in the ‘residence Communities.’

The ONLY REAL HELP that can be provided to ‘commuters’ from OUTSIDE the Core of New Urban Regions (and the Cores of major SubRegions such as the National Capital SubRegion) is to help them become non-commuters.

A PLACE TO START

The vacant and underutilized land that must be made ready for Urban land uses in order to void a Jobs / Housing ImBalance includes land within 0.5 miles of existing and planned METRO station platforms.

Some Business-As-Usual supporters and geographic expansion advocates like to pretend that there is not enough capacity in the METRO system to serve functional station-area settlement patterns. That is because of the failure to evolve Balanced settlement patterns in the METRO station areas. This lack of Balance is why most of the METRO trains leave most of the METRO stations most of the time ESSENTIALLY EMPTY while at the same time there is peak hour / peak direction crowding and congestion on the METRO system.

There has also been a failure to evolve shared-vehicle systems to supplement and support the METRO system. SYNERGY has advocated Transformations to achieve system-wide Balance since the mid 80s as documented in the earliest versions of “It is Time to Fundamentally Rethink METRO and Mobility in the National Capital SubRegion” recently updated in TRILO-G.

The bottom line is that there must be system-wide Balance of shared-vehicle system capacity with the travel demand generated by the settlement pattern – especially the settlement pattern in the station-areas.

BEYOND AUTONOMOBILES

Perhaps most important, citizens must come to understand that in the future, Large, Private vehicles cannot be the MAIN or even the MOST IMPORTANT component of the Mobility and Access system serving ANY large New Urban Region for the reasons spelled out in PART FOUR of TRILO-G.

Every large Urban agglomeration on the planet has gotten MORE congested when new facilities are built to bring additional Large, Private vehicles inside Clear Edges. In every case the Mobility and Access of the average and the median traveler (based on income / cost, time and distance) has gotten worse. In the US of A, the Core of every large New Urban Region has brown more congested as documented by the Texas Transportation Institutes Annual Mobility Analysis. Those Regions that built more lane miles of Roadway to accommodate Large, Private vehicles grew more congested than those that relied on more sustainable strategies.

Those who suffer the most loss of Mobility and Access by increasing the use of Large, Private vehicles (aka, Autonomobiles) are those in the bottom half of the Ziggurat.

In addition, the per square foot values of built environment document that more functional settlement patterns not dominated by Autonomobiles are heavily favored by the market.

It is especially tragic that many try to perpetuate the Myth of Automobility in a Region where federal Agencies have already provided most of the basic infrastructure needed for a functional alternative.

AN OVERARCHING REALITY

The first three decades of EMRs professional career our work focused on the interests of Enterprises. During the last two decades the efforts have been dedicated to developing the Vocabulary, Conceptual Frameworks, metrics to Quantify settlement patterns.

In working with Institutions and with governance practitioners it is clear that, no matter how much the ‘leaders’ agree with the need for Fundamental Transformations based on these tools, it requires a Critical Mass of citizens who support them.

In a democracy, the only way to achieve a sustainable trajectory is to build a consensus among a Critical Mass of citizens. The key to evolving that consensus is citizen education that makes it clear that the individual and collective best interest of citizens is Fundamental Transformations of settlement pattern, governance structure and economic systems.

Among the leaders of the group that sponsored your 8 April report are the leaders of the National Capital SubRegions premier educational Institutions. They must articulate an educational process to achieve a Critical Mass of citizen support.

SUMMARY

A Business-As-Usual expansion of what is called ‘Greater Washington’ that relies on Autonomobiles for Mobility and Access will not accommodate Affordable and Accessible Housing near Jobs. Thus it will not support the Potential of Job growth.

As noted in OUT OF THE OILY SLIME, the leadership of the National Capital SubRegions has wasted a decade since a consensus was reached on a promising path to a sustainable future.

The same powerful economic, social and physical forces that cause dysfunctional human settlement patterns work to perpetuate those settlement patterns.

As noted above, in a democracy, the only way to achieve a sustainable trajectory is to build a consensus among a Critical Mass of citizens. The leaders of the National Capital SubRegions premier educational Institutions must articulate an educational process to achieve a Critical Mass of citizen support.

One element is to evolve functional Regional governance as called for by “Regional Leadership and Governance for the National Capital Region” which was also presented on 8 April.

The chief obstacle to achieving a sustainable strategy is to convince a working majority of the citizens of all the municipal jurisdictions in the National Capital SubRegion that they need to support Fundamental Transformation to a functional SubRegional and Regional governance structure.

Good luck in that important work.

E M Risse
SYNERGY

THE AFFORDABLE AND ACCESSIBLE HOUSING CRISIS MARCHES ON.

THE 17 MAY WaPo HAS A ‘MUST READ’ FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NOT BEEN PAYING ATTENTION.

THIS AND OTHER ENTERPRISE MEDIA STORIES ON THE HOUSING MARKET ARE IMPORTANT FOR WHAT THEY SAY AND EVEN MORE IMPORTANT FOR WHAT THE DO NOT SAY OR SAY IN CONFUSING WAYS.

On the front page of WaPo for 17 May there is an important story on Housing. Read it from end to end and one finds the headline “Healthy signs in the area’s housing market” is VERY misleading.

The story, when one takes into account the sources of the ‘he said / she said’ quotes, is ‘correct’ AND it disproves the headline.

For a more complete picture see CNN Money’s 13 May story “Foreclosures plateau – finally. Repossessions soar” and their 17 May story “Housing market diagnosis: Bipolar.” Also see the 15 May story in the New York Times “Building Is Booming in a City (sic) of Empty Houses.” As the colleague who called this article to our attention said: “… for ridiculous, unsustainable, wishful thinking that is oblivious to too many realities to count… this is actually scary.”

Back to the 17 May WaPo story:

As EMR’s beautiful wife said: “We did not learn a thing for that story.” True, but most citizens do not even know that much about what is happening in the shelter industry and the prospects for ending the Affordable and Accessible Housing Crisis.

If you have been distracted by the oily slime you might find the story useful. If you read the story or do not bother, here is a short list of the problems:

Vocabulary:

What territory are they taking about? They refer to:

“the Washington area”
“the region”
“the area” (several times)
“the Washington metropolitan area” (no capital ‘M’ or ‘A.’)

From the context, it is clear that most of the references are to DIFFERENT geographies.

Data:

Almost every sources of data has a different reference geography and most of the specifics are about county “A” or county “B” without regard to the relative location of that municipality vis a vis the Centroid of the SubRegion.

The most significant omission and source of confusion in the WaPo story is the complete lack of attention to the variation of Housing market conditions by Radius Band.

If one understands that Prince William County is a major part of the R=20 to R=30 Radius Band in Virginia (the rest of the R=20 to R=30 Radius Band is the eastern part of Loudoun County) one starts to get some sense of what is happening.

Read the story with this in mind and new insights come to the surface.

NB: Arlington, Alexandria the Federal District are inside R=10. Note what Gregory Leisch of Delta Associates says is the reason that there has not been a big drop in house prices in those jurisdictions. He and John McClain of GMU’s Center for Regional Analysis both make good points in response to the questions they were asked.

The most important fact that is obscured by the WaPo story is that the biggest problems are in the R=30 Plus territory of the National Capital Subregion. The story does not even mention a municipality in this geography except for Frederick County, MD and Frederick has a separate set of parameters.

The territory outside R=30 from the Centroid of the National Capital Regions is where the house values have fallen the most. It is also where the most concentrated pockets of foreclosures and underwater mortgages are located.

This is where the lower half of the economic Ziggurat has been pushed to find Affordable (but not Accessible) housing.

This is also where many of the Wrong Size House / Wrong Location dwellings are located. These dwellings were sold to those who should have known better and could have qualified for house that met their shelter needs – as opposed to their real estate speculation fantasies – closer to their Jobs and Services.

One can get a glimpse of what is going on because Fauquier County makes up part a substantial part of the R=30 to R=50 Radius band in Virginia. (Most of the rest of this Radius Band is the western part of Loudoun County as well as parts of the Greater Fredericksburg SubRegion which has its own set to circumstances due to the Jobs and Services in the I-95 Corridor and inside the Clear Edge around the Core of that SubRegion. As noted above, the same is true for Greater Frederick, MD.)

In Fauquier County the newspaper of record publishes real estate closings each week. Over the past month, the listings of foreclosures have continued to be at near record levels with the listed sales are primarily short sales and bank sales. Essentially nothing has sold for more than 70 percent of its 2007 value for reasons outlined in the stories quoted above.

In the meantime, the same paper ran a story on 12 May titled “Housing shows signs of strength” which can be characterized as “builders and real estate agents whistling past the grave yard” if one understands what the WaPo story and other coverage documents. It fact it is almost as bad as the New York Times story about Los Vegas, but not nearly as funny.

The bottom line is that builders nation-wide will try to build ‘cheap’ houses in scattered locations. That will continue to sour the market for resales as suggested in the New York Times story. Dysfunctional settlement patterns will continue to propagate.

The result will be an overbuild of Too Big Houses AND an overbuild of Too Cheap Houses – ALL in the Wrong Locations. For those who came in late, that means Housing that is NOT near Jobs / Services / Recreation / Amenity.

This will be due to the fact that citizens do not have the information they need to make intelligent decisions in the market – or intelligent decisions in the voting booth. Check out the primary results tomorrow night.

EMR’s next Current Perspective item will address those attempting to create SubRegional ‘economic growth’ by finding ways to expand the Urbanized area of the National Capital SubRegion.

Geographic Illiteracy is a terrible thing.

EMR

This is a story of regulation run amok. It’s been said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Never is that thought more germane than when applied to government regulation. In today’s episode of “Regulation Run Amok” we’ll examine the unintended consequences of some well meaning regulation on community banks. For an excellent account of this phenomenon, please read the op-ed piece, “Main Street Lenders Choked by Regulators.”.

There has been a great deal of talk about government regulation lately. Liberals believe that all manner of problems would be solved if the government just regulated more of our lives.

Conservatives note that the government is already too big (based, at least, on the size of the deficit). However, liberals ignore the simple fact that heavy regulation has often failed despite America’s 100+ year long experiment with “big government”. Conservatives turn intellectually blind when reminded that it was often their conservative heroes (Reagan, GW Bush) who grew the size of government and the size of the related deficits the most.

Given the obvious issues with both liberal and conservative dogma, I am today adopting the Realist political philosophy. This philosophy will espouse the recognition of simple truths. One of those truths is that government is not sufficiently competent to play as large a role in our lives as the liberals would like it to play. The regulatory pummeling of community banks while those “too big to fail” only get bigger is but one example of this reality.

I graduated from Groveton High School in the 1970s. In 1986 Fairfax County combined Groveton High School with Ft Hunt High School and named the new school West Potomac High School. West Potomac still occupies the same buildings on Quander Rd where I once attended class. It still sits just down the street from the seedy Rt 1 corridor. It is still just around the corner from my old home on Huntington Ave. It is still a mix of poor and middle class people. It is still a racially diverse area. And the kids who attend the school are still a source of inspiration and pride to me. This is one of their stories.

Maryam Ali is not your typical crew team member. She would not have fit in at the Lilly white, toffy prep schools where some of the contributors to BaconsRebellion came of age. She is poor, lives in subsidized housing and is an African American. She lives with her hard working widowed mother. Sometimes her family has to decide between spending $2 for a bus ride or having lunch. If Maryam can’t afford to pay the costs of being on the crew club the parents of the other young people in the club will make up the difference. The good people of the Rt 1 corridor do not run to Richmond with their hats in hand like so many of their fellow Virginians from downstate.

For the edification of many of the ill-informed contributors and commenters on BaconsRebellion – Maryam lives in Fairfax County. She hardly fits the misconceived and ignorant stereotype of a Fairfax County resident. She is from one of the many working class families in that part of Fairfax County. When the weak kneed members of the General Assembly steal from Fairfax County they steal from kids like Maryam.

However, none of the limousine liberals so prevalent on this blog need worry about Maryam. She has more moxie and determination than all of the Democrats in Congress added together. She also has the benefit of good hearted neighbors in Fairfax County. When she can’t afford the costs of a trip with the crew team an anonymous donor pays for her to go.

My bet is that Maryam will grow up to be a well educated, well adjusted successful taxpaying citizen. She will probably resent the “goodie two shoes” liberals who want to take her hard earned money so it can be given to those unwilling to claw their way up the economic ladder.

My bet is that the life experiences of growing up poor in Fairfax County will lead Mayam to a conservative world view. You see, people who earn everything they have resent big government trying to take it away. This is especially true when you start with very little.

Mr. Groveton should know.

Read the full article here – http://bit.ly/dBJhH0

The Daily Beast has crunched some interesting data sets — convictions of elected officials, racketering & extortion, forgery & counterfeiting, fraud and embezzlement — to rank the 50 states and District of Columbia by corruption.

Another New Right From The Left.

Liberals love inventing new rights. For the past 18 months I have heard the liberals chirping about the “right to health care”. Now the imaginary liberal rights machine has manufactured a “right to academic freedom”. Yet another pseudo-right extended only to liberals after having been manufactured in the liberals’ invisible rights factory.

There has never been a right to academic freedom. There is no right to academic freedom. And, God Bless, there will never be a right to academic freedom. So, any criticism of Ken Cuccinelli’s Civil Investigative Demand against Michael Mann as violating the right of academic freedom is null and void.

But did Cuccinelli do the right thing? Was there smoke sufficient to indicate a possible fire?

There was already a review of Prof. Mann’s work by a crack team of fellow professors at Penn State, where Mr. Mann now works.

Why did Penn State see the need for a warm and cozy review by fellow academics?

From the final report, “Begining on and about November 22, 2009 The Pennsylvania State University began to receive numerous communications (e-mails, phone calls and letters) having accused Dr. Michael E. Mann of acts which included manipulating data, destroying records and colluding in order to hamper the progress of scientific discourse around the issue of anthpogenic global warming from approximately 1998.”.

Cuccinelli doesn’t need to go looking for a smoking gun, Mann’s collegeues already think they found it.

What did Penn State find?

There were four avenues of inquiry. Dr. Mann was cleared of three allegations by a group of his academic friends perhaps wearing cardigans with leather elbow patches while alighting in the blue curls of pipe smoke wafting around their beards during this “trial”. However, even “cleared” leaves some room to question – “While a perception has been created in the weeks after the CRU e-mails were made public that Dr. Mann had engaged in the suppression or falsification of data there is no credible evidence that he ever did so and certainly not while at Penn State.”.

“…certainly not while at Penn State.”

Unfortunately, Dr. Mann taught at the University of Virginia (not Penn State) from 1999 – 2005.

In the minds of liberals, our elected attorney general should outsource investigations of potential malfeasance to cabals of academics from Pennsylvania. The fact that the investigation involved actions taken in Virginia, at a state university with public funds should be ignored. Ignored, presumably, because of the Right to Academic Freedom written in invisible ink in the liberals’ version of the US Constitution.

Overview: Controversial Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has gas. Or, more accurately, he has a problem caused by the gas which is trapped in the coal seams under large swaths of Southwest Virginia. In 1990 Ken Cuccinelli was walking down “the lawn” at UVa to pick up his BS in Mechanical Engineering. That same year the Virginia General Assembly passed the Virginia Gas and Oil Act. For the next 20 years Ken Cuccinelli would prove to be an ambitious and successful politician while the Oil and Gas Act would prove to be yet another almost totally incompetent piece of legislation passed by an inept state legislature. On April 19 of this year the paths of Ken Cuccinelli and the Virginia Oil and Gas Act intersected. On that day, a landowner and his attorney met with one of Cuccinelli’s top deputies to discuss a new law signed by Bob McDonnell on April 13. The landowner hopes the new law will resolve a number of the more idiotic aspects of the original law. Mr. Cuccinelli seems less convinced that the new law is much better than the old law. He has complained that the new law is “too gentle”. Mr. Cuccinelli is willing to sue the federal government, he is willing to subpoena records from the University of Virginia. Let’s hope he doesn’t “chicken out” now. I’d hate to have to admit that Mr. Cuccinelli’s legal courage wanes when the targets are big companies instead of academics and the feds. How Mr. Cuccinelli handles this situation will speak volumes about his real philosophy.

Timeline: I’ve often thought that one could win a Pulitzer Prize for reporting on the buffoonery of the Virginia General Assembly. I no longer think that to be true. I know it to be true. I know it because Daniel Gilbert of the Bristol Herald has done just that. While Mr. Gilbert might not agree that the prize was awarded for reporting on buffoonery, I think he would characterize the overall situation as sad. His excellent series of articles on the matter can be found here – http://bit.ly/9XBrBo. For those without the time required to read Mr. Gilbert’s compelling prose, let me summarize:

There is a lot of natural gas trapped along with coal underneath Virginia. The mineral rights to the natural gas belong to the landowners. In 1990, the General Assembly passed a law forcing the landowners to sell their gas rights on a pre-defined pricing schedule. Some coal companies claimed that their long ago purchase of coal rights gave them the gas rights too. In 2004, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled against the coal companies saying that the sale of coal rights did not include the sale of gas rights. This required the energy companies to negotiate with the landowners. Disputes arose. Some of the disputes are widely seen as contrived. The state of Virginia has consistently refused to use its regulatory power to adjudicate these disputes. Royalty payments from disputed gas ownership claims are put into an almost unaudited escrow fund. In 2010, Terry Kilgore patroned legislation to allow the state to adjudicate gas royalty disputes. However, there is some ambiguity in the new law (surprise, surprise). Mr. Cuccinelli has been asked for an opinion as to whether the state really has the legal position to adjudicate these disputes. While his opinion is pending, Mr. Cuccinelli has stated that he thinks the 2010 law is “too gentle” – perhaps indicating that he will opine that the state still cannot adjudicate the disputes. If the state can’t or won’t adjudicate the disputes then the landowners will have to retain counsel and sue the energy companies in court. Since many landowners are of limited means, the legal action may be prohibitively expensive. Therefore, the landowners may settle for less than the disputed amount rather than go to court.

Legislation and Regulation: Some commenters on BaconsRebellion routinely call for more government regulation as something of a cure-all for many of today’s problems. I am not among those commenters. I fundamentally believe that our government, at both the federal and state level, is too dysfunctional to be given any more power. The sad situation regarding gas rights in Virginia is just one more example of an inept government in action. Twenty years after the state passed a law forcing landowners to sell their mineral rights on a pre-ordained pricing schedule the state is still unable to get many of the landowners their money. Disputes are often invented. The escrow accounts are essentially unaudited. Recent legislation is “too gentle”. However, there may be an answer. Our newly elected Attorney General has shown he has the courage to take on the status quo. Will he do the same here? Mr. Cuccinelli, we eagerly await your opinion.

Grabbing onto a popular, bi-partisan trend, Gov. Bob McDonnell is set to “streamline” Virginia government. He has named a 31-member panel headed by the man who led President George H.W. Bush’s unsuccessful reelection campaign in 1992.