Bacon's Rebellion

  • Why Can’t Richmond Be Charleston?

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    James A. Bacon

    I took a pleasant spring break trip last week, but my love-hate relationship with Richmond came roaring back to life. That gnawing emotion came back when my wife and I traveled to the Low Country of South Carolina and spent a rainy night in charming Charleston. When I left, I asked myself the usual question — why can’t Richmond ever get it together?

    I’ve been visiting Charleston off and on since the 1970s and have stayed at a number of hotels. This time it was Elliott House with our own brick entrance just a little North of Broad. Dinner was a cheap, oyster-stuffed happy hour at a local bar and the next morning, we did the usual rounds of the market, some art galleries and the Battery where the elegant homes run vertically to tap every sea breeze and some have special supports to avoid the same kind of damage wrought by an 1886 earthquake.

    As we drove off, I kept wondering why Richmond, which has arguably more history and is a bigger deal as a city, comes nowhere close to its Southern cousin as a glamorous tourist destination. True, Richmond doesn’t have the dramatic setting between two wide, tidal rivers or the mild, subtropical climate where the sticky sweet perfume scent of gardenias wafts everywhere.

    But Richmond surely has the history from Patrick Henry to the antebellum South to the War. The conflict may have started at Charleston but it was run from Richmond. Architecture is different, with Charleston having more Latin influences but Richmond’s no slouch given Church Hill’s Federalist townhouses, the stately mansions on Monument and the Victorian porches in the Fan, not to mention Jefferson’s magnificent state capitol.

    So why does Richmond give me the blahs? Why is its downtown so lackluster? Where are the tourists when its not Race Week at RIR or Folk Festival time? How come Broad Street still looks like Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn and Schockoe area has never reached its cobble stoned potential? After all, Richmond is a lot closer to major population centers and, unlike Charleston, is right next to the major north-south interstate.

    From what I know of Charleston, which isn’t that much, the city wasn’t all that big a deal until the 1970s. It was pretty much a Navy town with strip joints and lots of earmarks from Mendel Rivers, its military-crazed overseer in Congress.

    A lot of what is Charleston today is the brainchild of long time mayor Joseph P. Riley who started unlocking the city’s tourism potential when he arranged for the unusual if not unlikely Spoleto Festival back in the late 1970s. This celebration of the arts modeled after one in an Italian town immediately drew tourists — so many, in fact, that Riley urged city residents to rent out rooms in their homes because there weren’t enough hotels. Thus was born a booming Bed & Breakfast industry.

    Charlestonians managed to remake and renovate their town’s various charms. They didn’t want to turn into a tourist trap where nobody lived like Williamsburg or an out-of-control party town like New Orleans. Charleston, despite its small population of about 126,000, remains one of the top five travel spots in the U.S. and from all appearances from our pedestrian tour, it is thriving.

    Why can’t Richmond? A lot of reasons, I guess. One is that we just don’t have a Riley who is competent enough and has enough staying power to get things done. Doug Wilder had the potential, but ruined it by perpetual squabbling. The white and black city leadership never can get it together. Despite their lip service, the whites actually moved out to Innsbrook years ago. The Broad Street revival hasn’t happened yet and one wonders if a few new court buildings will be worth driving miles to see on a Friday night. True, First Friday is a hit, but it has limited appeal pretty much to teenagers like my daughters.

    The rich African-American culture just steps away in Jackson Ward was ruined back in the 1950s when white leaders dug a superhighway right through the neighborhood, moving thousands of black residents each month in the process. Eugene Trani, the empire builder and outgoing president of VCU who got his usual fawning treatment from the Times-Disgrace Sunday, hasn’t helped matters by throwing up lots of ugly, bland, boring college buildings from Oregon Hill to MCV.

    Even Norfolk, once a Navy town hell hole of unspeakable ugliness, has remade its downtown to take advantage of its watery venue, albeit the effort is now showing its age.

    So why can’t Richmond be Charleston? I just don’t have a good answer.

    Peter Galuszka

  • DISPERSAL VS FOCUS

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    James A. Bacon

    DISPERSED RENEWABLE ENERGY SUPPLIES VS FOCUSED SETTLEMENT PATTERN ENERGY DEMAND

    Time again to consider things that directly impact humans ability to achieve a sustainable trajectory for their civilization.

    First, two great items from CNN today:

    1. Time has “The Great Recession: America Becomes Thrift Nation.” A lot of great Timesqe poster material.

    2. EMR does not often quote former Speaker Hastert’s staffers but John Feehery has some good things to say about “What’s Driving the U.S. Over the Cliff?”

    BOTTOM LINE FROM BOTH: If a nation-state sets out to create a consumer driven economy, they better have a comprehensive strategy to educate the citizens in something beside Mass OverConsumption.

    Now to Energy:

    Readers of this Blog may recall EMR’s perspectives concerning the dispersed distribution of renewable energy sources and the focused energy demand of Urban civilization.

    WaPo today tees off in a good direction with “In Green Energy, an Environmental Paradox: Wind and Solar Projects May Carry Costs to Wildlife.” Well, it is not JUST wildlife…

    Those interested in the topic of spacial distribution of human activities will find the graphics on the jump page (A 14) of critical importance.

    Check the “demand for land” graphic and then recall that at MINIMUM densities that functional Urban settlement patterns for the projected 2050 population would occupy less than five percent of the Lower 48.

    See where the renewable sources are located and then recall where 85 percent of the population is – in a dozen MegaRegions. The demand is not close to the foci of the renewable resources.

    The article focuses on the impact of transmission lines on wildlife. It does not even mention the gross waste of transmission line loss carrying mega watts past Open Land.

    Nor does the story mention the need to cut energy demand, recycle waste heat and carry out the other energy conservation strategies that result in even more compact settlement patterns.

    The area per Terawatt-Hour graphic is worth the cost of the paper today.

    EMR

  • Religious “Freedom” in Virginia

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    James A. Bacon

    It’s Good Friday and thoughts turn to the resurrection. But that begs some questions about Virginia, religion, bias and other oddities, not to mention myths.

    A couple of months ago, I was driving and listened to a “Fresh Air” segment that actually ran on NPR a year before. The guest was Steven Waldman who had written a provocative book called “Founding Faith: Providence, Politics, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America.”

    It was a fascinating interview for me since I have long heard all the old saws here in Virginia about how our beloved state was a torch of religious freedom, that it was the bedrock of a “Christian” America and about how all over our founding fathers, such as the beloved Thomas Jefferson, rang the bell of Christian freedom.

    Bunk, says Waldman (I went back and listened to his interview).

    For one thing, Virginia was anything but a hotbed of religious freedom. As in most of the pre-revolutionary states, freedom involved “toleration of various Protestant sects and did not involve Jews or Catholics or atheists,” says Waldman.

    Indeed, Catholics (I was raised one, by the way) were regarded as unwholesome and dangerous “papists” and their church was a “whore” for taking money offerings. Our freedom-loving colonist forefathers prohibited Catholics from holding office in 1640 unless they took an oath of allegiance to the Church of England. “Popish” priests were to be deported. Jews likewise didn’t exactly receive a welcome mat by the so-called freedom-loving “Christians.” They were kept out of Virginia for at least a couple of generations in the 1600s. Also not welcome: Quakers and Puritans.

    Christian conservatives love to characterize Virginia and the U.S. as a “Christian” nation. Not exactly, says Waldman. With the revolution came the idea, albeit a somewhat limited one, of religious tolerance. George Washington, for instance, encouraged the rapid anti-Catholicism among his troops to end. Why? He realized they needed help from mostly-Catholic French Canadians against the British.

    Or, take Thomas Jefferson, the demigod that everyone in the Old Dominion reveres and some have named their neo-con think tanks after, even if they have no idea of what TJ was really thinking. Although deeply religious, TJ was not exactly your faith-healing, Jesus-praising evangelical that you might see on TV all bundled up in the American flag while clutching a crucifix.

    TJ had a lot of trouble with the Bible. He thought Jesus Christ was a brilliant social philosopher but he didn’t buy miracles, divinity and a lot of other stuff. Nor did he especially like Christmas or Easter.

    In fact, in later life, TJ got out a pair of scissors and started cutting up the Bible to eliminate the parts he didn’t buy. Gone were a lot of miracles. Christmas? Gone. And so was Easter. He ended his TJ Bible edition with the rock moved against the tomb on Good Friday. “It never moved again,” says Waldman.”

    The end. As Waldman says, “This guy would never be elected today.” Happy Easter!

    Peter Galuszka

  • The Economy: Weapon of the Future

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    James A. Bacon

    Consider this, a “Wait, wait, there’s more” posting. Jim Bacon just noted the interest of the Chinese and Russians in using the Internet to disrupt American infrastructure such as electrical grids and the like.

    Well, Politico reports that the Pentagon has been getting into the act in its own way. Last month, it staged a two-day exercise about how to respond to the threat of foreign nations using whatever economic means available to screw over the U.S.

    The two day event near super secret Fort Meade in Maryland worked in a Dr. Strangelove-style “War Room.” Hedge fund managers and economics professors replaced bomber jockeys and nuke theory gurus as the players. Their game: blunt attempts by China, Russia or anyone else to toast the U.S. economy through any variety of plays, such as currency manipulation or shorting stocks.

    According to Politico, various scenarios acted out included the collapse of North Korea, the Kremlin playing around with natural gas prices, flare ups between Taiwan and China and other crisis. Players assumed roles of Russia, China and the U.S. China won, since the U.S. and Russia spent so much time one-upping the other that they were diverted.

    When you think about it, economics is really the prime reason for many wars. It was behind the American Revolution (not the gleaming thoughts of Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson and other rhetoric stars). Ditto Japan’s economic ambitions in Asia. Hitler, of course, was bent on ideology.

    War games can be fun. When I was in college majoring in international relations, my dorm was near the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, a big deal foreign affairs graduate school. It was controversial because these were the Vietnam years and Fletcher hosted lots of CIA, Foreign Service and military types. I found some of them interesting because they had actually had experience in the field, unlike many of my professors who were more bent on protest alone.

    Anyway, I got to know an Air Force colonel who was doing a mid-career teaching stint at Fletcher and he invited me to participate in a game he was doing with students. It lasted two days without sleep and it was fascinating (although I can’t remember exact details).

    The point of the Ft. Meade exercise seems to be that the weapons of the future won’t be Stealth destroyers or F-22 Raptors but Sovereign Wealth Funds, Credit Default Swaps and hot money currency plays.

    Might be interesting to know where Virginia, the nation’s No. 2 defense industrial state, fits in with this.

    Peter Galuszka

  • If You Liked Oil as a Strategic Weapon, You’ll Love This

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    James A. Bacon

    There are sound economic and environmental reasons to build a distributed grid system for producing and distributing electricity, as we have explored on this blog. Here’s another reason: cybersecurity. As reported today in the Wall Street Journal, Cyberspies traced to Russia and China have penetrated the U.S. electrical grid and left behind programs that “could be used to disrupt the system.”

    You like being hostage to Middle Eastern oil sheikhs? Let’s put it this way, if the oil sheikhs have a hand metaphorically clamped firmly around our privates, anyone with the power to take out our electrical grid has our privates encased in one of those Medieval “lemon squeezer” torture devices and a hand on the tourniquet. Writes the Journal:

    The espionage appeared pervasive across the U.S. … Many of the intrusions were detected no by the companies in charge of the infrastructure but by U.S. intelligence agencies, officials said. Intelligence officials worry about cyber attackers taking control of electrical facilites, a nuclear power plan or financial networks via the Internet.

    Authorities investigating the intrusions have found software tools left behind that could be used to destroy infrastructure components, [a] senior intelligence official said.

    I’m not terribly worried about going to war with Russia or China anytime soon, but you never know how geopolitical alignments might look a decade from now. Moreover, if Russian and Chinese intelligence can penetrate our electrical infrastructure, who’s to say that terrorists couldn’t as well?

    Primary responsibility for overseeing the electrical grid here in Virginia is the State Corporation Commission. The SCC needs to begin studying this problem immediately and (1) determine to what extent it is a real threat (as opposed to a threat conjured up by some high-level bureaucrat looking to scare up more funding for his program), (2) how vulnerable Virginia is to disruption, and (3) what strategies we can pursue to offset the risk. A central question: Would a decentralized, distributed grid employing more locally generated power sources (including household-level wind and solar) be less vulnerable?

  • Is Passenger Rail Finally Leaving the Station?

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    James A. Bacon

    Could it be that there is life in passenger rail in the Old Dominion after all? Such could be the good news now that the Commonwealth Transportation Board has agreed to spend $25.2 million over the next three years to add two new passenger trains from Washington — one to Richmond and the other to Lynchburg.

    The board wants to see how ridership goes. Lynchburg already has one daily train, descendant of the famed Crescent which raced from D.C. to New Orleans. The Lynchburg route starts in October and another extra will go from Richmond to D.C. in December.

    Hats off to Norfolk Southern for agreeing to put up 30 percent of the $41.5 million cost to improve both passenger and rail service in Lynchburg which is easing the deal. Now if CSX will improve its north-south artery through Richmond and clean up chronic delays at the Acca Yard, the Old Dominion could really be high-balling along.

    Suddenly, there finally seems to be movement on passenger rail. A little more than 15 months ago, I quoted Norfolk Southern CEO Charles W. Moorman as saying that the cold reality was that the the political will didn’t exist to boost passenger rail. Freight carriers like NS and CSX must tend to their principal responsibilities of improving shareholder value and they do that by providing good freight service. Only Amtrak offers national passenger routes.

    I got fried for running Moorman’s comments as BR’s intrepid readers thought I was dissing passenger rail. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Anyone who knows me well realizes that I am a “foamer” or an individual so enamoured with choo-choos that I start foaming at the mouth when I hear the mournful horn of a diesel. When I had a basement I had a sizeable HO layout and long to rebuild one.

    How to explain the turnaround on rail? Part of it comes from Barack Obama’s push for massive infrastructure improvements and the federal and state spending to pull it off. He’s got my vote on this. America’s and Virginia’s rail, port, highway, water and sewer and electrical systems badly need upgrades. The last time the U.S. launched any serious major infrastructure project was the 1950s when Dwight Eisenhower started Interstates.

    Broadband also needs to reach out to rural parts of the state since big-time carriers like Comcast tend to wire up wealthier middle class neighborhoods and suburbs first because they can bundle Net, digital TV and digital phone service into one expensive and profitable package. Poor rural and inner city folk may need broadband to start up a business, but they can’t spend upwards of $200 a month buying Starz, TMC and ESPN, too. Maybe some relief is on the way.

    The rising popularity of infrastructure improvements is based in part on getting out of the recession but it is suddenly in vogue and that is breaking some political barriers to thinking about the possibilities of rail. The shift in thinking is becoming evident as “pay as you go” and “public private partnership” ideas so popular since the 1990s with neo-cons and other conservatives suddenly seem so yesterday and so limited. They might be fine for a small stretch of superhighway or a bridge (entailing lots of patterns of human settlement issues well known on BR) but they can’t really do much to bring on rail and all of its benefits.

    And, you have to wonder just how these deals are funded and how much the foreign highway operators back in Sydney or Barcelona can raise tolls to meet their debt obligations. Unless the Australians and Spaniards who often run such public-private projects are geniuses at financial planning — and the current crisis has shown that very few are — Average Joes commuting by car to work are just going to avoid their highways and bridges if they jack up the prices too much. Then, they go bust, dashing hopes that private enterprise and not government is the salvation for everyone and everything.

    Rail is a perfect alternative to a lot of these problems. Improvements require massive amounts of money but the rail fares will be cheap and the trips less polluting. To be sure, the steps so far are tiny and they will require public funding.

    Virginia has a great tradition of railroading and some of the first ever roads went through the Old Dominion. The Confederacy was saved for a while by the old Wilmington and Weldon that ran war supplies to Richmond from blockade runners docking in the Cape Fear, N.C. area. Famous passenger trains include the Chesapeake & Ohio’s “George Washington” that ran from Newport News and D.C. to points West, Norfolk & Western’s bullet-nosed “Powhatan Arrow” and, of course, Southern Railways’ “Southern Crescent.”
    Could trains like that ever come back? One can only dream.

    Peter Galuszka

  • CALL FROM A FRIEND — WHAT DID I TELL YOU

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    James A. Bacon

    This is no time to celebrate.

    EMR got a call from a friend this week. They opened with:

    “Glad to catch you, I thought you might be on a victory tour in the Carribean or Southern Europe – too cold for Canada or Northern Europe.”

    ?Why so; What celebration?

    “Well you have a lot to celebrate. I have known you for 20 years and over that time and especially in the last eight years you have been railing against folks that are now taking their lumps”

    ?Who is that?

    “Well the list is long:

    “Auto manufacturers (and their ad agencies) who have been misleading citizens about the use cars and the Mobility and Access Crisis. Now they are headed for bankruptcy – OK the ad agencies are still raking it in but not for long.

    “The shelter industry that has been offering and financing the Wrong Size House in the Wrong Location is in deep trouble for neglecting to address the Affordable and Accessible Housing Crisis.

    “Developers that have been putting up orphan subdivisions with a 7-11 and calling it “new urbanism” are going down. How about General Growth Properties! What a name! And then there all the jack-legs building on 10 acre lots and Toll Brothers of the world who build “estates”… All major contributors to the Helter Skelter Crisis.

    “Even Wal*Mart is postponing opening stores, has rolled out a 15,000 sq foot store and is taking the advise of its green advisers and is trying to improve its image.

    “The real estate market – especially for McMansions and for ‘starter homes’ in orphan subdivisions – is in the gutter – 30 straight months of decline.

    “OK it is going down in some places but not everywhere. Citizens who followed your advice and invested in shelter near jobs and services and then went further and invested time and effort in their Dooryard and Cluster and in their schools and in “neighborhood watch” are doing OK and some are doing very well.

    “Even the new census data through June 2008 supports your views.

    “Finally, the last two federal elections have wiped out a lot of those who have been selling the environment and the Bay (and the air and the oceans) down the drain to support “growth”

    OK, I get your point.

    Back early last fall Fahmah, who had recently read and edited Volume I of The Shape of the Future said something similar. “You must feel pretty good that all the things you predicted in your book in 2000 are proving true.”

    EMR thanked Fahmah for the complement but should have amplified it by what he told the recent caller:

    THIS IS NO TIME TO CELEBRATE.

    A lot of good citizens are being hurt by the actions they thought were in their best interest but were not because they relied on bad advice and conventional wisdom.

    A lot of good Enterprises are suffering through no fault of their own.

    Some good Agencies are in trouble because they did not intelligently prepare for the future.

    A lot of good Institutions are being stretched to the limit.

    This is all because of the greed and ignorance of some “entrepreneurs,” some governance practitioners and a lot of BeliefTank shills who worship at the feet of Business-As-Usual and Politics-As-Usual.

    Citizens are attacking the symptoms and the symbols, not the root causes of the turmoil.

    The Economists Intelligence Unit (EIU) predicts a ‘global pandemic of unrest.’ Workers at a Caterpillar facility took supervisors hostage because of threatened layoffs. It was the third such incident in France. The EIU report lists 95 potential problem nation-states.

    No one warned citizens of the consequences of 35 years of burning through Natural Capital – not the Agencies, not the Institutions and not the media that is now owned by Enterprises.

    Almost no one is yet talking about Fundamental Transformation of human settlement patterns, just the result of dysfunction.

    Almost no one is yet talking about Fundamental Transformation of governance structure. As long as citizens are suck with a 1790s ideal of a three level governance structure without a rational allocation of control to the level of impact, there will be no improvement.

    Almost no one is yet talking about Fundamental Transformation of the economic system. As long as there are agents, brokers and blind investments; as long as there are secret bank accounts, tax havens and tax-free Institutions and as long as there is no fair allocation of costs there is no hope of evolving a real market economy.

    There is celebration about getting rid of plastic bags at the grocery store but what about the packaging inside the reusable bags? What about the security of the entire food supply that is dependent on cheap fuel – fertilizer, industrialized farm machinery, transport and the water that cheap fuel can pump from dwindling aquifers?

    There is celebration of curly light bulbs and of smart grids but what about the impact of a high voltage grid to bring cheap coal generated electricity to energy hogging distributions of human activity?

    There is celebration of green buildings with sod roofs but what about that vast majority of the buildings that are not only dumb but leave the lights on all night which – along with the roadways where Large, Private Vehicles drive with their own lights – light the sky not the places where citizens need to see. What about motion detectors on every light. That would light up the good guys AND the bad guys.

    There is celebration of hybrid cars but the ones that Detroit is pushing are full sized SUVs, muscle pickups and $100K battery packs. The plan is to spend most of the stimulus to build and rebuild roadways for vehicles that are not sustainable in settlement patterns that are the root cause of dysfunction.

    Conservation organizations are crowing about “saving” 20 percent of the land area in the “best” jurisdictions when the number should be 95 percent. At least some are supporting Regional and Community food chains and opposing Big Grids.

    Citizens have been abandoned by the old Fourth Estate as it is swallowed by the Second Estate. There is no Citizen Media on the horizon because no one yet understands how to make money from Citizen Media. As a result citizens do not have the information they need to make intelligent decisions in the Market Place or in the voting booth.

    The planning profession is still mired in support of Business-As-Usual and Politics-As-Usual.

    No, this is no time to celebrate. But thanks for the call, EMR appreciates those who at least read what he has been writing for two decades.

    EMR

  • MORE ON CUL de SACs

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    James A. Bacon

    Cul de Sacs Really Are Important

    As an intro to his comment on China on IN THE NEWS – VOL I, Groveton said that the China problem “was slightly more important” than Cul de Sacs in Virginia. Well, China is important as the comments on IN THE NEWS – CHINA attest but so is the topic of Cul de Sacs.

    The annals of Paleontology, Archeology, Zoology, Anthropology and Architecture are replete with evidence that animals, including Homo sapiens and their ancestors, favor cul de sacs – nests, borrows, caves, huts, pueblos – for many activities related to reproduction, eating, sleeping, safety and loafing.

    Every human dwelling Unit is a combination of halls and cul de sacs. All Urban human settlement patterns – including scattered Urban dwellings in the Countryside – are combinations of cul de sacs and halls and Streets and Roads.

    Almost every high value place of human activity of Cluster, Neighborhood or Village scale is a network of Streets with Cul de Sacs for people to live work and seek recreation. See Lewenz “How to Build a Village.”

    On the other hand a GRID of Roads with a monoculture of Cul de Sac Units is little better than a “subdivision” of Cul de Sac mini-Roads for most economic, social and physical activities.

    (NB: There is an important difference between Streets and Roads. These differences impact human activity at all scales of settlement form the Unit to the Planet. See GLOSSARY)

    The PROBLEM with “sub”urban Cul de Sacs mini-Roads is that humans bring home their Large, Private Vehicles (aka, Autonomobiles).

    Bringing home the Autonomobile results in three toxic conditions:

    1. Disaggregation of human settlement patterns at both ends of the Autonomobile trip. Widespread use of Autonomobiles results in dysfunction at all scales of settlement patterns.

    2. Having a Large, Private Vehicle gives humans the mistaken impression they need to share NOTHING with the adjacent Households or Enterprises. Social isolation and lack of critical mass to create economic prosperity are the cumulative results.

    3. A large number of citizens having to rely on Large, Private Vehicles for Mobility and Access results in Regional transport dysfunction – The Mobility and Access Crisis.

    The reliance on Large, Private Vehicles is made very clear in THE PROBLEM WITH CARS.

    Virginia Cul de Sacs are a prime driver of The Mobility and Access Crisis, The Affordable and Accessible Housing Crisis and The Helter Skelter Crisis – dysfunctional human settlement patterns. Virginia must evolve functional human settlement patterns soon because that is the most important and fastest step to shrink humans ecological footprint. For starters, functional settlement patterns allows citizens to drastically reduce importing and burning through Natural Capital. If citizens do not shrink their ecological footprint Collapse is on the horizon. So the Cul de Sac issue IS important.

    There is no way to overestimate the impact of Cul de Sacs on the economic, social and physical disaggregation of society for the simple reason that lack of understanding of the impact of Cul de Sacs leads to activities that drive settlement pattern dysfunction.

    EMR

  • ZIP CODES AS DATA SOURCES

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    James A. Bacon

    Months ago EMR promised Larry Gross a response on the issue of Zip Codes as a source of information. Here is an excerpt from Chapter 35 in PART TEN of TRILO-G:

    …………………

    Data from Postal Zip Codes provides an excellent example of what is wrong with current data resources. This post might be labeled “More on the Problems of Zip Cones.” Readers can find 21 references in The Shape of the Future to the problems caused by Zip Cones when one is trying to understand human settlement pattern.

    Zip Code data is “interesting” BUT…

    Recently a person who comments often on the Bacons Rebellion Blog emailed the author information on a web site that he assumed would help answer settlement pattern questions: ZipWho.com.

    The site is a useful one. However, just one example – that was typical of several trial comparisons by the author – documents the pitfalls of Zip Code data.

    …….. the example is included as the first comment on this post ………

    If one understands human settlement patterns and has other sources of information as well as accurate maps, the ZipWho.com data can be useful. Without this understanding and additional information, the data is at best deceptive.

    As noted in The Shape of the Future, Zip Codes are NOT organic components of human settlement. They vary widely in size and the configurations reflect the distribution of power among appointed Postmasters when Zip Codes were established and when they are revised.

    EMR

  • IN THE NEWS — CHINA

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    James A. Bacon

    At 3/23/09 6:21 PM On IN THE NEWS: VOLUME ONE, Groveton said…

    “…….. there is a slightly more important story in play:

    “http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7851925a-17a2-11de-8c9d-0000779fd2ac.html

    “From the article:

    “This is a clear sign that China, as the largest holder of US dollar financial assets, is concerned about the potential inflationary risk of the US Federal Reserve printing money,” said Qu Hongbin, chief China economist for HSBC.

    “I never thought I’d live in a world where the only people making economic sense are the Communist Chinese.”

    …………….

    Groveton is right to be concerned.

    The Chinese have been using their trade surplus to buy up US Treasury Bonds. Now they are threatening to sell them and / or not buy any more unless they have “assurances”…. In effect controlling the US of A economy.

    There are, however, other problems:

    China is using the excess profits from burning through its own Natural (and social) Capital and the Mass OverConsumption of its trading ‘partners’ to buy up resources on the cheap.

    “China Gains Key Assets In Spate of Purchases: Oil, Mineral Are Among Acquisitions Worldwide” 17 May 2009 WaPo

    China is also suggesting that nation-states importing its manufactures provide China with carbon off-sets so they can continue Business-As-Usual.

    “China Seeks Export Carbon Relief: China has proposed the importers of Chinese-made good should be responsible for the carbon dioxide emitted during their manufacture.” 17 March 2009 BBC

    EMR would amplify Grovetons observation (“I never thought I’d live in a world where the only people making economic sense are the Communist Chinese.”) with this:

    “China governance structure is far more effective than the nation-states that purport to have democracies with market economies when it comes to managing what might be called “Libertarian Capitalism” or “Top of the Ziggurat Capital Selfishness” that characterizes Supercapitalism and widens the Wealth Gap.

    As EMR spelled out in The Shape of the Future:

    In the quest to find a sustainable trajectory for civilization, THERE ARE NO VILLAINS.

    However:

    The vast majority of humans on the planet do not yet have governance structures or the information that would allow them to seek their individual and collective best interest.

    Much worse, the vast majority of citizens in US of A and other quasi-democracies with quasi-market economies are badly informed and thus do not understand the cumulative impact of their actions and do not take actions to further their individual / Household enlightened self-interest.

    Will China give other trading blocks, nation-states and Regions the incentive to undertake Fundamental Transformations?

    Or will China control because others fail to make Fundamental Transformations?

    The answer may be in the hands of the 20,000,000 who have lost their jobs recently in China. Will they understand the need for Fundamental Transformation in China?

    As Louise Omundson of Great Falls (Montana) said some time back:

    “Want Change (Fundamental Transformation)?
    “Keep it in your pocket.
    “Your dollar is your vote.
    “Oppose the empire: Buy Local (Regional, “local” is a Core Confusing Word)”

    NB: This issue is key to the future of the Commonwealth and thus a candidate for discussion on this Blog. For those interested in the settlement pattern issue, the prior post has generated several useful perspectives.

    EMR

  • IN THE NEWS: VOLUME ONE

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    James A. Bacon

    Topics that have been the focus of past Bacon’s Rebellion Columns and Posts:

    Item One:

    The Wealth Gap was still getting wider in 2007 – the latest numbers from Federal Reserve.

    Fundamental Transformation of the economic system (as well as Fundamental Transformation of the settlement pattern and Fundamental Transformation of the governance structure) or Collapse.

    Item Two:

    Working at home seems to lead to layoffs for Teleworkers.

    Too bad that Telework was not more intelligently positioned as a strategy to support the evolution of Balanced Communities instead of a crutch for long commutes.

    Item Three:

    US Census says migration to “the Outer Suburbs nearly halts” in the National Capital Subregion

    Eat your heart out NVTA and the 12.5 Percenters.

    Item Four:

    Commonwealth Transportation Board has set new regs that will discourage cul-de-sad subdivisions. A favorite topic of Jim Bacon’s

    Only 35 years too late. EMR testified against them and in favor of inter-Cluster connections in 1973. Wake us when municipalities and the Commonwealth agree to retrofit / interconnect Orphan Subdivisions to create interconnected Clusters, Neighborhoods and Villages.

    Item Five:

    CNN has to updating it’s running tab of newspaper closings hourly.

    Another Jim Bacon favorite: Who WILL gather and report the news? See THE ESTATES MATRIX

    EMR

  • Marlboro Countries

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    When I worked in Moscow for a total of six years in the 1980s and 1990s, my office was a converted, two bedroom apartment with a small bathroom with a bathtub and a balcony that titled precipitously towards the nine-story drop. We crammed at least five people at any time in the news bureau of BusinessWeek where I was chief. My newspaper-reader and office manager was a KGB informant named Tanya with bobbed hair and penetrating Gypsy eyes. She smoked coarse, foul Russian cigarettes like a chimney. It made me sick, but to be honest, the work was so stressful that I resumed my habit, too.

    Russians like Tanya are perfect market material for Philip Morris International. Russia is a hot market for the Swiss-based firm that until last year, was part of the now-Richmond-based Altria family. PMI has introduced new products to get more people around the world to smoke, such as “Marlboro Intense,” a shortie cigarette that you can puff through in fewer drags while you take a break outside from your non-smoking restaurant, “Marlboro Wides” which are Marlboro fatties, and “Marlboro Mix 9” a higher potency Marlboro. The product have been test marketed in Turkey, Portugal and Indonesia, respectively.

    In Russia, 40 percent of all kids smoke by the time they are 18 and more than half of all men smoke. Smoking is one reason why Russia’s population has dropped by 6 million since the mid 1990s.

    PMI is now free to pursue its global marketing initiatives without behind held back by the kinds of health lawsuits that have shackled its sister, Philip Morris USA, back in Richmond, which until this December made billions of cigarettes for the overseas market at the huge factory off I-95.

    Neatly separated by new articles of incorporation, the two firms have different approaches. PM USA urges you not to use their products. PMI isn’t as supposedly health conscious and promotes like crazy. It does very well and an analyst calls PMI “recession resistant.” Its biggest markets are places like Russia and Ukraine and perhaps soon China through a JV with a Chinese firm.

    That may be great for shareholders, but not so world health. The World Health Organization reports that a staggering one billion people may die of smoking-related illness inthe 21st century. That’s far more than the Bubonic Plague and World Wars I and II put together. The ill effects will be forced upon poorer nations not capable of meeting their existing health demands.

    But hey, it’s profit and we Virginians love tobacco. Built the Commonwealth. Governments near and far shouldn’t be allowed to tell people what to do. Nossir. And, the very first act of our beloved General Assembly was to adopt price supports for tobacco back in the 17th century. Fighting malaria or dealing with Native Americans were second-fiddle to the Golden Leaf we all so worship.

    For details on the global crisis, consult my story in Style Weekly: styleweekly.com

    Peter Galuszka

  • Big Sister Is Watching You!

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    It’s always amazed me how people tend to fall back to religion when they face confounding times.

    So it is with conservatives and free-marketers who have become unscrewed by the free-falling economy, the failure of laissez faire theories and the profound sense of apprehension and bewilderment as Barack Obama, an entirely unknown entity, gropes for solutions.

    It’s back to basics time and for many of this genre that means back to Big Sister. Ayn Rand is the secret St. Christopher’s medal for many who have lost their intellectual bearings. Want reassurance that the market is always right? Want to be patted on the head that government is always the enemy? Want to be told soothingly that “greed is good” and the ego is OK? Join the “Back to Rand” movement.

    Rand has had a lot of followers, including former Fed Chief Alan Greenspan, former SEC head Christopher Cox and Ronald Reagan. In Reagan’s case it was unrequited love. Rand despised him. Whatever. In Virginia, too, lots of members of the crazy, mixed-up Republican Party are turning Back to Rand for a reaffirmation of their ideas. It could be that in this regard, Rand is an even more potent elixir than the familiar Thomas Jefferson, even though Jefferson, like the Bible, is widely misinterpreted and his reality was far different from what is presumed.

    Rand was a victim of her times. As a Jewish girl in newly Bolshevik Russia, she came to loath the Communists since they shut down her father’s drug business in St. Petersburg. She jinked to the states on a temporary visitor’s visa and ended up writing screenplays in Hollywood. She despised all that was statist and regulatory seeing them as a form of theft. Individual freedom and responsibility are key. Altruism is nonsense. The ego is what matters. People serve themselves and society much better by adopting a selfish self-interest. Only free market capitalism can unlock true creativity and efficient production.

    In leftie Hollywood, Rand took being a reactionary to a new level and made it an art form. She fought against soft-headed actors, producers and screenwriters being sops for Jolly Joe Stalin and other Commies. Indeed, she was a rare “friendly” witness during the House UnAmerican Activities Committee which pursed its Red Baiting witch hunts in the late 1940s and 1950s. When called the testify, Miss Rand did so gladly. Afterwards, a snarky reporter asked her if she had any regrets about testifying. Her answer: “Yes, they didn’t give me enough time.”

    Her two best books are the “Fountainhead” and “Atlas Shrugged.” Both make heroes out of average guys who beat government regulation and other snake nests of evil. (I confess that I have never read the latter. I found the 1,100 pages too daunting).

    In her personal life, Rand had some interesting quirks. Though conservative, she was liberal on race and love. In fact, she often would try to re-mate members of her little salons with other people, concluding that their marriages had been mistakes. She, of course, knew better than the men and women involved.

    She embraced philosophy that she called “Objectivism” although many mainstream philosophers never quite saw it as distinct enough to be regarded as a separate school of thinking.

    After she died in the 1980s, her followers created shrines to her, including an institute near Los Angeles. Its advertising material shows lots of 1930s style skyscrapers like Rockefeller Center. The grandeur of capitalism, I suppose.

    Anyway, read any op-ed page. Ayn Rand is hot now and it is a sign of the times.

    Peter Galuszka

  • A Visit to Valladolid

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Pardon my lengthy absence from the blog — I’ve just returned from vacation in Cancun. I didn’t spend much time studying human settlement patterns — I was happy to spend most of my time in the Club Med compound, and there was nothing about Cancun, which was first developed only 30 years ago, that struck me as worth seeing. However, we did take one day trip to Chitzen Itza, the magnificent Maya ruins, and stopped briefly in the charming colonial town of Valladolid on the way back to Cancun.

    Valladolid is a “third world” urban area in terms of living standards. But the center city, serving a municipality of about 70,000, has a charm that I have found lacking in the cities of most developing nations that I’ve visited. Borrowing its city plan from the city of the same name in Spain, Valladolid has a large public square in the city center, which is flanked by the obligatory Cathedral as well as banks, shops, restaurants and small hotels — many of which are open to the air. Other than a cell tower emplanted in the square, the entire area was well kept, well maintained and attractive.

    The town center is so delightful that it has become a frequent stop for excursions from Cancun into the interior of the Yucatan peninsula. We stopped for the obligatory Margarita.
    What’s the lesson of the story? My takeaway is this: A community need not be wealthy to create quality places where people enjoy spending time. There was nothing arresting about any of the buildings, or even the park, in Valladolid. The building fronts were plain, and the Cathedral was not especially impressive in size or ornamentation. But the elements of the town center were laid out in a way that engendered pride among the people who live there and made it a place worth visiting.

  • UNDERSTANDING LOCATION VARIABLE COST

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    WHY IS IT SO HARD TO UNDERSTAND LOCATION VARIABLE COSTS?

    EMR is awaiting Groveton’s examples of same house, same builder prices to support his assertions on THE ANATOMY OF AN ILLUSION post.

    In the meantime, Groveton has forgotten that EMR has outlined homework for Groveton to use to prove to himself the validity of location-variable cost calculations.

    Before we start lets be sure everyone understands that it is not Groveton’s fault that he does not pay his location-variable costs. No one does for reasons spelled out in The Shape of the Future. The same is true for the full cost of air travel – greatly subsidized by all tax payers and by all citizens but that is another story.

    First EMR is glad that he did not say that Groveton could not afford to live where he does if he had to pay the location-variable costs. EMR said Groveton would not have made the location decision if he knew the true costs and thought he would have to pay that cost. EMR stands with that.

    Based on his 8:30 AM comment of 14 March, Groveton probably could afford the true cost but he does not pay that cost and neither do his Clustermates and they may or may not be able to afford those costs.

    In the 8:30 AM post Groveton said:

    “OK –

    “It’s tax time in the Old Dominion. I pay about $225,000 in state and local taxes. Not federal and I’m not even counting sales taxes, etc. Just plain old income and real estate taxes. I live on a 7 acre lot. I drive about 10,000 miles per year – total (commute and errands). My street is owned by me and the neighbors. We pay to pave it, plow it, repair it, etc. I have my own septic system and well water. I have five sons – one is in college (out of state), three go to private schools and one is in the Fairfax County system.”

    “Now … just one more time … please explain how I am not covering my full costs.”

    It is clear that Groveton would pay the same state and municipal taxes if lived in a dwelling that was taxed the same amount REGARDLESS OF WHERE he lived in the Commonwealth and the municipal jurisdiction. So by definition, not much of the information provided gives a hint of total location-variable costs.

    In general taxes one pays DO NOT go to support location-variable costs. If one could reallocate payments to the location-variable cost categories Groveton, who pays $225,000 might come close,but on average those in his Cluster, Neighborhood and Village do not come close.

    There is further information from Groveton’s past posts that provide additional insights:

    Groveton says he “lives Great Falls.” By that we suspect he means that he lives in the 22066 Zip Code. (More on Zip Code data problems in a future post.)

    Groveton also implied that he is in the Difficult Run watershed and that this stream is close to where he lives. That means he lives in the far southeast (most Urban) corner of Zip 22066. His total location-variable costs will be lower here than in “Great Falls Proper” which is north and west of the Walker Road / Georgetown Pike Cross Roads (Village Centre). Places such as Richland Forest, Tally Ho or Beach Mill Downs to pick three names at random off the map

    Now about those costs:

    The first thing to do is to pick a nice house on Lake Audubon or Lake Thoreau that has about the same market value as his house.

    The following will remind Groveton that EMR suggested an exercise to get a grip on location variable costs.

    Start with electricity. How much is the cost of generation, transmission and distribution of a kilowatt to Groveton’s vis the alternative (capital cost and monthly delivery). Be sure to figure in line loss for low voltage transmission, the singe most clear demonstration of location-variable costs.

    There are 40 plus or minus services that vary in cost by location that are, by-in-large now charged on a flat fee basis.

    The original calculations were based on 1,000, 4 bedroom, two car garage Single Household Detached Dwelling Units (a nominal Neighborhood) located on 10,000 acres in four different patterns:

    10 acre lots

    functional but scattered Dooryards

    functional but scattered Clusters

    A functional Neighborhood.

    It was assumed this Neighborhood was adjacent to another Neighborhood but the location- variable cost savings at the Village, Community, Subregion and Region were NOT calculated.

    The best available cost were used and yes there were changes for water and sewer licencing, monitoring, and testing and off site impacts based on charges made in other Regions.

    There were assumptions about the cost of bussing children, the cost of mail delivery, parcel delivery, telephone service, etc.

    The data was collected and refined over a four year period. Two years after The Shape of the Future was published, and no one who bothered to take the time to understand the calculations challenged the assumptions or the numbers the data was recycled when EMR moved to from Inside the Clear Edge around the Core of the Subregion to a location inside the Clear Edge around a potentially Balanced but Disaggregated Village.

    In 2008, some of the costs will be higher, some will change completely – cell phones use for example — but overall the 10 X Rule would stand up quite well.

    Groveton said: “This is BS. The facts don’t support the conjecture.”

    This is not BS, it may appear to be inconsistent with the experience of those who do not bother to take the time to understanding human settlement patterns and location-variable costs.

    In the same string of comments, TMT said that “Not EMR” was smoking something AND inhaling.

    Actually “Not EMR” really does understand, he / she just can not bring themselves to admit it, and so they work to obscure and obfuscate reality.

    TMT also said: “A semi-rural Great Falls is the best friend of county residents.”

    It would be it the residents paid their fair share of the location-variable costs.

    There is no reason for scattered Urban land uses outside the logical location of the Clear Edge around the Core of the Subregion – UNLESS THEY ARE IN COMPONENT OF A BALANCED COMMUNITY, in which case they would be within a Clear Edge of that Alpha Community.

    EMR

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Book cover of 'Dust Mites: A Second American Revolution' by James A. Bacon, featuring astronauts planting a flag with a blue and white emblem on a lunar landscape, with Earth visible in the background.
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The year: 2075. The American colonies on the Moon are getting restless under Washington’s tyrannical rule….

This second edition of “Dust Mites” has a snazzy new cover, includes helpful lunar maps, and is 5,000 words tighter than the original. The sequel, “Trogs,” is scheduled for publication this summer.

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