Bacon's Rebellion

  • BACK TO “BELTWAY BURDEN”

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    James A. Bacon

    The ULI, et. al. report BELTWAY BURDEN that Larry Gross called to everyone’s attention at

    http://commerce.uli.org/misc/BeltwayBurden.pdf

    is a very good piece of work. The Real Estate Section of the 14 February WaPo has a brief summary under the title “Factoring In the Cost of Getting Home.” By the way the entire Real Estate section (usually printed in two parts) was six pages on the 14th.

    The report is a very useful contribution to understanding EMR’s post ANATOMY OF A BAD COMMUTE.

    Upon further review a few comments:

    EMR wonders why it was call “BELTWAY BURDEN?” The burden is not the “Beltway,” it is dysfunctional location and the radial distance from the Core focused job locations.

    The data is collected on a Census Block Group basis – which is very good – but it is aggregated by municipal jurisdiction. Think how much more clear the message would be if:

    • It was noted that 85 percent (or more) of the jobs in the National Capital Subregion that are not jobs that directly support residential land uses at or below the Village scale (e.g. food and beverage, etc.) are located in the little red boxes on the maps, and

    • The data was aggregated by Radius Band and by organic component of human settlement pattern. If it is too much to ask to be aggregated by organic component of human settlement pattern, how about Radius Band and Census Designated Place?

    Equally important, it would have been much more effective it the report included all the territory that is in the National Capital Subregion. That would mean putting back in the MSA, the areas taken out for political reasons after the 2000 census such as Winchester and Frederick County VA., Culpeper and King George Counties, etc. While they were at it they should have included Rappahannock and Madison Counties in Virginia, the relevant counties in West Virginia and Maryland so that all the jurisdictions within a 70 mile radius from the Centroid of the Subregion are included. That is clearly what the 2000 Census indicated is in the commuting shed.

    A complication that comes from multi-state Subregions is indicated by the listing of Fredericksburg, VA as the jurisdiction with the lowest cost. Also if Maryland treated “cities” as independent entities as Virginia does, Frederick, Md might well rank as well as Fredericksburg, VA. Lumping Frederick, Maryland with Frederick County Md. makes it look like the Maryland city is $10,500 higher in average total cost.

    Another suggestion would be to not interchangeably use “community” and “neighborhood” and to clearly define what is meant by both terms.

    Then there are two overarching issues:

    No where is there a discussion of the need to evolve Balanced Communities in order to bring down the costs.

    Second, and related, is implicit reinforcement of the Large, Private Vehicle Mobility Myth.

    On the front page of the 14 February WaPo three is a story about the Regional impact of the latest federal stimulus package. “Regional Impact: Billions Slated For Area Schools, Transportation.” Buried six paragraphs down on the jump page is the following:

    “The more than $1.6 billion for transportation represents a fraction of what officials (sic) said is needed to unclog roads in the region beset by some to the country’s worst commutes.”

    NO, NO, NO

    There is no amount of money will “unclog” roads if the money is spent just on transport facilities. There must be a redistribution of demand (aka, functional settlement patterns). This redistribution must match the capacity of the transport facilities with the demand. Building more facilities just induces more widely scattered urban land uses that generate more per capita demand and more congestion.

    Belief that there is a way to build ones way out of congestion is the Large, Private Vehicle Mobility Myth as documented by Tony Downs cited in THE ANATOMY OF A BAD COMMUTE.

    On a related note under the THANK YOU LARRY post, Larry asked:

    “If the “right sized house in the right location” includes homes that are near “shared vehicle” facilities – would that include the use of “shared vehicles” 50 miles from work – as long as they still lived in a “right sized” home?

    “In other words – is there also a requirement that the “right location” not use shared vehicle systems for home to work commutes?”

    EMR believes Larry already knows the answer to this question but…

    Functional and intelligent application of “commuter rail” and “inter-urban” service started as a way to get a few of the residents of what was already a relatively Balanced urban enclave to a job location. By definition most of the residents of the enclave – large or small – lived, worked and secured services IN the enclave. Later day illusions that most residents can hop on the train (or on a PRT or a heavy or light rail shared-vehicle system) is just the shared-vehicle version of the Large, Private Vehicle Mobility Myth.

    That is why station-area Balance AND system wide Balance between system capacity and settlement pattern generated demand is so important. Today, most of the METRO system trains leave most of the METRO stations essentially empty most of the time due to a lack of Balance and thus the huge cost.

    Now back to Larry’s question.

    If the shared-vehicle system serves origins and destinations that are 50 miles apart and if most of the station-areas are Balanced then there is no reason A FEW of the station-area workers cannot travel 50 miles if that is what works best for their Household.

    EMR

  • Southern-Fried Management

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    James A. Bacon

    The horror story of Lynchburg’s Peanut Corporation of America only gets more gruesome. This little company that operated out of a backyard garage is involved with the deaths of nine people and illness of 637 others in 44 states and Canada from Salmonella due to egregiously unsanitary working conditions at PCAs plants in Georgia, Texas and Virginia.

    Stewart Parnell, the company chief who sold tainted peanut butter in food products used by school children, soldiers and the elderly, took the Fifth when interrogated by a Congressional committee this past week. His firm is now bankrupt, the plants are closed and Parnell faces possible criminal charges and a raft of civil suits.

    Media accounts, especially by The Washington Post and Georgia newspapers, note that Parnell’s factories operated under horrific conditions. Rat and other rodent feces were widespread, roofs leaked and allowed defecating birds to fly about inside, salmonella-tainted vats of peanut butter continued on in the production process although company officials knew it.

    And workers who complained were fired or otherwise intimidated.

    What is amazing is how such treatment of non-union labor, coupled with food processing conditions straight out of the 19th Century, are still tolerated while the Employee Free Choice Act, which would level an uneven playing field when it comes to union elections is the Big Bogeyman across boardrooms and among right wing pundits especially in the South.

    This reactionary behavior just shows how things really don’t change in the anti-union South and how workers are “simply luck to have a job, Boy,” and should have no say in how they organize, how they work or what contributions they might make to their safety and that of the company they work for and the public. I know of what I speak. My first job 38 years ago was at a rabidly-anti-union small town newspaper in North Carolina. I was a labor organizer and negotiator at The Virginian-Pilot when it was trying to force the local bargaining unit the recertify in the 1970s (it failed) and later worked twice for anti-labor Media General as a reporter and a manager.

    The free choice act would allow workers thinking about exercising their legal right to organize to do so more easily. They would merely have to sign a card. Right now, the local or bargaining unit must hold a formal secret ballot supervised by the government’s NLRB. Problem is, the voting gives management a major and easy target to turn up the screws and intimidate workers into rejecting the union.

    Right-wing editorial writers and pundits, putting on their funny glasses, naturally see it the other way. Here’s a gem from a December editorial in the Richmond Times-Dispatch:

    “The comically named Employee Free Choice Act, more popularly known as the card check bill, would essentially eliminate the secret ballot from union organizing elections and force companies to accept the unions’ most outlandish demands when negotiating workplace contracts. It would open workers to blatant intimidation by union partisans — forcing employees to declare publicly whether they support efforts to organize.”

    The big and secret joke here is that Media General, owner of the newspaper, forces new workers to sign a document saying they have read and condone a “corporate philosophy” that Media General wants to be union-free. This is what has been known as a “Yellow Dog” contract that tries to take away the legal rights of workers to organize. We’re back to “You lucky to have a job, Boy!” Who is intimidating whom here?

    Ditto, the pathetic Bacons Rebellion, the formerly erudite e-zine that has been taken over by a bunch of right wing public relations people, marketing salesmen, spin doctors and other hacks. Here’s an excerpt:

    ” . . . a major U.S. labor leader has already boasted that the passage of the Act will enable unions to gain 15 to 20 million new members in the next 10 years, thus essentially doubling union membership in our country. Labor union dues and revenues would increase by five billion per year resulting in increased union economic and political clout. Instead of simply leveling the playing field, the Wall Street Journal has recently opined that the EFCA would result in “union supremacy.”

    Lawdy!

    What’s needed in Virginia, especially in this downturn, is a major and sophisticated rethinking of labor relations. Unions should not be seen as a bunch of Hoffa thugs, workers can make important suggestions about safety and efficiency, and they can be partners with management.

    For an example, consider a new book called “Why GM Matters,” written by a close friend of mine, Bill Holstein, with whom I have worked on and off for 23 years. Bill is an expert, former foreign correspondent with long experience writing about business in China, Japan, and other places. He was with UPI in Kabul when the Soviets showed up and he knows a lot about American and Japanese car companies. In his timely book, he contrasts how Toyota treats its workers and how GM used to:

    “Part of the profound knowledge was based on a deceptively simple axiom. Toyota managers relied on workers to make cars, so it built a manufacturing system around their needs. For Toyota, this had led to a completely different relationship between management and labor. In the bad old ways at GM, management dictated what would be built and with what equipment. It really didn’t care how the workers made the vehicles, consequently, workers didn’t really care how good the cars were.”

    I’d like to think that at some point, the Old South can get more sophisticated. But old ways, such as union-bashing by newspapers and “think tanks” along with corporate behavior like that of the Peanut Corporation of America, die hard.

    Peter Galuszka

  • The End of our “Mall-Centric” World?

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    James A. Bacon

    I commend to your attention a brilliant essay, “Ghost Malls,” by James Quinn in The Prudent Bear on the dismal future of retail development in the United States. I then invite you to ponder the implications for (a) commercial development in Virginia, (b) the public fisc, and (c) human development patterns.

    Permit me summarize the key points.

    Retail developers have built thousands of malls and shopping centers around the country predicated on the assumption that consumer spending would continue on the same trajectory as seen over the past two decades. In light of the vast liquidation of wealth in the housing sector and the stock market — a sum measured in the multiple trillions of dollars — American consumers have been shocked to their senses. They are retrenching, restoring their collective savings rate from about zero to a figure that could approach eight percent of income, the level that prevailed before the great credit bubble commenced.

    “No amount of fiscal stimulation will reverse this trauma,” Quinn writes. “Consumer spending has accounted for 72% of GDP. It will revert to at least the long term mean of 65%.” That’s a shift of massive proportions, and the impact on the retail economy cannot be overstated. While some economists think that consumer spending eventually will rebound as consumers satiate “pent up demand,” Quinn is not so sure. “Americans have bought everything they’ve desired for the last 20 years. There is no pent-up demand if you own 20 pairs of jeans and 60 pairs of shoes. The over-spending and over-leverage will take a decade to unwind.”

    I agree with Quinn, and I would add to his argument. Consumer spending is dominated in the United States by the Baby Boomer generation. Not only do Boomers have to pay down debt, they are awakening to the fact that retirement is fast approaching. And while a majority of Boomers have resigned themselves to working a few years longer than anticipated in order to fund their retirement, they also know they have to build up their savings. Accordingly, I would not be surprised to see the national savings rate shoot past 8 percent — perhaps into the 10- to 12-percent range.

    So, what are the consequences for developers of retail property? Major retail chains are already dropping like flies — Circuit City, Linens N Things, Bombay Company, Sharper Image, Foot Locker and Pacific Sunwear, just to to mention the bigger ones. Other retailers are scaling back expansion plans. Quinn expects to see 15 percent of the nation’s retail base disappear by 2011, and for vacancy rates in new malls to shoot up to 25 percent.

    The next dominoes to fall will be the commercial real estate developers who speculated that consumer spending would increase without end. Writes Quinn:

    Most of the retailers that are closing, lease their locations from mall developers. Many of these developers borrowed heavily to finance massive mall expansion. The term of these loans were generally five to seven years. The Wall Street wiz kids and their collateralized debt obligation (CDO) machine generated the vast preponderance of such financing in the last five years. According to commercial real estate expert Andy Miller, the collapse will come more rapidly than the residential collapse.

    Billions in debt needs to be refinanced in the next two years and there is no one willing to make those loans, Quinn continues. As night follows day, we will see spectacular developer bankruptcies, and we’ll see regional banks take huge hits on their original loans. I would add one point: While all retail developers will suffer, those who have built in fast-growth counties on the metropolitan fringe in the expectation of population growth that may never materialize, will be hit the first and the hardest.

    Concludes Quinn: “As Americans realize that they don’t “need” a $5 Starbucks latte, IKEA knickknacks, Jimmy Cho shoes, Rolex watches, granite counters and stainless steel appliances, our mall-centric world will end.”

    I don’t know if our mall-centric world will “end” but I do believe the United States is transitioning into a very different economy. What applies to the U.S. as a whole certainly applies to Virginia. The painful restructuring of the economy will send tidal waves ripping through state and local tax revenues. Former fast-growth counties will find themselves particularly hard hit. To avoid being inundated by the waves, Virginians need to re-examine all the old assumptions — from population growth and tax revenues to the need for and location of new road capacity and other infrastructure. Failure to re-think fundamental assumptions will only compound the inevitable misery.

  • TIME’S LIST OF 25 TO BLAME

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    James A. Bacon

    Before it goes away, you might take in Time’s list of 25 people to blame for the Global Financial Meltdown. (Time just calls it a “financial crisis.”)

    The list is fun, the voting by citizens on the rankings is very interesting.

    Note that Phil Gramm comes in number one in the “Average Rank” voting but in total votes “The American Consumer” gets the most nods (well deserved) followed by G. W. Bush and Alan Greenspan.

    All in all it is a great summary – except of course it is all about people and nothing about location, settlement pattern or Wrong Size House in the Wrong Location.

    Look forward to thoughts about who else should be on the list. Time just listed one from each “category” (circle of Hell) so the list could easily be the top 75 with more bankers and more hedge fund types on the list.

    EMR

  • Whatever happened to sustainable industries?

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    James A. Bacon

    For better or worse, here’s a story I did for Richmond’s alternative newsweekly, Style Weekly. The topic involves how lots of bets go bad when it comes to economic development.

    A few examples:

    Republican Governor George Allen went heads over heels with Motorola showed interest in two silicon chip making plants in the Richmond area back int he 1990s. One was finally built with about $80 million in public goodie money. Well, Qimonda, a German firm, is going through its death throes and just about everyone at the Henrico County facility faces job extinction.

    Democratic Governor Mark Warner went heads of heels when Wachovia Securities wanted to move after merging with Prudential Securities about a decade later. The goodie basket was opened again. Well after staying in downtown Richmond for maybe four years, the firm merged with brokerage A.G. Edwards and split for St. Louis. You know the rest of the story — Wachovia is now owned by San Francisco-based Wells Fargo after it got screwed by buying up a lot of toxic, subprime mortgages.

    There’s plenty more. Here’s the URL:

    http://www.styleweekly.com/ME2/Audiences/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=Publishing&mod=Publications::Article&mid=8F3A7027421841978F18BE895F87F791&tier=4&id=7A5BF133D55A4499A7D807A1FC72232D&AudID=AE6FBAD9A9574D429566425E856C8C66

    Let me know what you think.

    Peter Galuszka

  • THANK YOU LARRY

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    James A. Bacon

    Your citation to BELTWAY BURDEN

    http://commerce.uli.org/misc/BeltwayBurden.pdf

    is a real service.

    Since moving to a Beta Village in the Countryside in 2002 EMR’s focus has been on understanding the economic, social and physical reality outside the Clear Edge around the Cores of New Urban Regions.

    EMR was not aware of this work but it is a worthy successor to the 6th item listed in ANATOMY OF A BAD COMMUTE. In fact those little red “employment centers” are the “activity centers” that could grow to be the Cores of Balanced Communities.

    BELTWAY BURDEN is consistent with all the well founded work EMR has seen over the past three decades.

    There are a few problems:

    The great graphics make the file very large to download and print.

    The work was done just before the roof fell in vis a vis gasoline prices, so some will discount the work because gas in now “cheap.”

    Of course the data is aggregated by municipal jurisdiction and there is some use of Core Confusing Words but one cannot have everything.

    Someone needs to step up and look at these issues in light of the new reality. In the meantime all those interested in evolving functional human settlement patterns should have this in their libraries.

    EMR

  • Death to Dead Ideas!

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    James A. Bacon

    This isn’t terribly Virginia-specific but I thought I’d share it. Just heard NPR this morning talk with Matt Miller, a Fortune magazine columnist who has written a book titled “The Tyranny of Dead Ideas.”

    His thesis is that many assumptions that have been true in America for decades are no longer true. This really rngs true. A fe:

    Children will make more than their parents: For years it was assumed that as the American dream unfolded, each generation got better jobs and pay. This is no longer the case as a paradigm shift in the economy takes hold. I know it’s not true in my case but that’s my choice. I wanted to be a journalist and not a doctor. But I think our kids will not have the high-paying jobs that many of us have.

    Your company will keep paying for your welfare. Dead long ago. We are the ONLY country in the world that has employers pay for our health insurance in most cases. So, we get really expensive health care that makes our companies uncompetitive in the world markets. Universal health insurance, here we come.

    Tax are bad     This will be a tough one to swallow to dogmatic BR bloggers but it is true. The current downturn has shown that financial markets can’t regulate themselves and we can’t rely on them for our welfare. Sure we’ll lower taxes to get us out of this mess, but then watch out. All the TMTs of the world are going to have to accept a fndamental shift that will make the U.S>more like tax-happy FRance (or so Newsweek says). Government will be playing a much bigger role in our lives and will need more taxes to help pay for it. Miller says the real issue is tochange who pays the tax. Rather than have a regressive payroll tax that hurts the poor and middle class, tax polluting industries like coal-fired utilities.

    BR bloggers. It’s a Brave New World.

    Peter Galuszka

  • NOTE FOR NMM ON ECONOMIC REALITY

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    James A. Bacon

    Rather than add this note to the ANATOMY OF A BAD COMMUTE post, EMR will put it here because it is important to understand these issueS. Why is it important?

    Because NovaMiddleMan’s idea of economic reality is exactly why those who made bad location decisions are hurting now and will be hurting far more in five years. All those still alive will still be hurting in fifty years if there is not Fundamental Transformation of human settlement patterns and Fundamental Transformation of governance structure.

    NovaMiddleMan said:

    “Look dude the free market is at work.”

    Was this the ‘free market’ that was declared “dead” in Davos last week?

    The US of A is a democracy and a clear majority are inclined to think Behavioral Economics is now in control and that a “free market” – which according Adam Smith presumes informed buyers and sellers – has only rarely existed since 1870 outside the minds of those who perpetuated the myth to gain economic and political leverage.

    Some think the “popular” backlash against the current stimulus packages is due to belief in “free markets.” Not so, the popular backlash is driven by revolution over what happened to the money that was doled out and wasted in the last stimulus package.

    “People make decisions and face consequences.”

    But “people” had no idea what the consequences would be.

    Tell us how you feel when you are 75 and still have to work ten hours a day and have no health benefits because of the $75-Trillion in unfunded liabilities for those ahead of you in line.

    Or do you plan to be one of the few lucky ones at the top of the ziggurat? Watch out for the pitchforks, machetes and pikepoles.

    “Here is my perspective. Pardon me for not having as much context. I’m a bit younger than you folks :-p.”

    What is that about those who do not understand history having to repeat it?

    In this case there are not enough resources left support a second round of mass overconsumption with 6 billion humans all wanting and deserving a slice of the pie.

    “Its 2003 and I am one of the young people powering the new economy of Northern Virginia.”

    Lets say “overpowering” the resources upon which a market economy depends. It is not your fault NMM, it is all of our faults but some of us have been pointing out the cliff since 1973, many for longer. Nouriel Roubini has come lately to the Common.

    “Some people want to get married and have kids. In 2003-2006 there were only a couple choices.”

    Choices about getting married or choices about getting married and having children and living the American Dream as portrayed by MainStream Media advertising? (See “A Yard Where Johnny Can Run and Play,” 1 Dec 2003.)

    Even for the later there were many choices unless they relied on Autonomobile and shelter advertising and stories in MainStream Media for guidance. Millions of couples made more intelligent choices than those in Bristow and Dale City.

    Check out the story about Grace Church in Saturday’s WaPo Real Estate Section. Just for starters, if small groups of your friends got together they could have created real dooryards from the hundreds of similar buildings inside R=10.

    Too busy playing video games to understand the real world? Not smart.

    “Finding a place under 500k…”

    See above.

    “… in a good school district …”

    As noted in the 3 February WaPo story if one bought when they got married, by the time their children were ready for school the schools were over crowded.

    “… with low crime.”

    Define “low crime.” Check out the “safest” places by Prof Lucy’s calculations.

    “The only choices were the two places mentioned in the article and outer Loudoun.”

    Not in “outer” Loudoun (R=30 to R=45) and not “inner” Loudoun (R=20 to R=30 – the same Radius Band and Prince William) either. Both inner and outer Loudoun have different conditions.

    For example, dwellings in the same price range as those in Bristow and Dale City were Attached Dwellings in the eastern Loudoun Beta Communities because they were closer to Jobs and Services due to the existence or Reston and Dulles Airport. These places also did not make the Top 12 in commuting times among Census Designated Places.

    The bigger issue is this:

    In the profiled enclaves between the time they were married and the first child going to school they spent on average 3,375 hours pre Household commuting. If your cohort spent half that time creating functional Dooryards (see Grace Church for example) they could have also evolved safe Clusters and good Neighborhood schools.

    OK, no agents make a profit from sweat equity and building safe Clusters and good Neighborhood schools from the inside and so there is no advertising and no MainStream Media stories… But you get the idea.

    “This was insane.”

    NOW YOU ARE TALKING

    “There needed to be a housing correction.”

    The question is: what kind of a “correction?”

    “Now you can find a place for under 500k in many places.”

    Not a place that meets your criteria because the schools are going down and the crime is going up faster than the price is changing.

    “Problem solved all through market forces with no planning or nanny stateisims.”

    The problem is not solved, it is only now coming into focus for most citizens.

    “And I still say show me the demand for eoconoboxes right on top of each other with no cars.”

    EMR dos not advocate “econoboxes” nor does he advocate depriving Households of vehicles. See performance measures in original post.

    “Right…. Its not what the public wants”

    If the full costs were fairly allocated, the public would in fact want (and need) different settlement patterns and the dwellings need not be “econoboxes” nor “on top of each other.”

    “P.S. the people who live in the inner areas don’t want what your development plan is anyway. Unless you can provide adequate infrastructure first and show the quality of life for existing residents wont be negatively impacted.”

    Here NMM is correct.

    These NIMBY-like criteria can be (and should be) met.

    The first step is for those in your generation to understand the reality of the existing conditions and the real future options.

    EMR

  • ANATOMY OF A BAD COMMUTE

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    James A. Bacon

    On 3 February, WaPo published Eric M. Weiss’s story: “A Dubious Distinction: The Longest Ride in U.S. – Prince William Enclave Has Longest Commute In Nation; Three Others in Area [the National Capital Subregion] Make Top 12.”

    If you have not read the story, it is a classic. This story is a poster child for why citizens have debilitating Geographic Illiteracy and why far too many struggle with long commutes and sub-optimum lifestyles that spell financial disaster for Agencies, Enterprises, Institutions and Households.

    At first glance this is a story about earnest, well-intended citizens doing what they believe to be in their best interest. There are also concerned governance practitioners and sage transport experts facing an intractable problem laid out in award winning journalistic form. But look under the hood, and there is a different story.

    The featured citizens are trapped in terrible Jobs / Housing / Services juxtapositions but they believe they have done the best they can. These citizens are in this position because they inhabit dysfunctional settlement patterns but they do not yet know what those words mean.

    What citizens in these enclaves DO know, (although it is not reported) that they have rapidly deteriorating home equity but they do not yet know how their location decisions contributed to this condition.

    And the “journalism”: The primary source of information is very badly informed citizens. “Human Condition” reporting (which IS much better than “He said / She said” reporting) provides no historical context, there is no reference to an overarching strategy to achieve functional settlement patterns or less onerous living conditions. Even worse, the “experts” avoid reality and toss up their hands. The politicians spin away with what they hope will get them elected one more time.

    This review focuses on the two low-density urban enclaves that are located in the Virginia part of the National Capital Subregion. These enclaves are the “Census Designated Places” of Bristow and Dale City, Virginia. A similar story could be told about the two enclaves in Maryland noted in the story.

    IT DID NOT NEED TO TURN OUT THIS WAY

    Decades ago there were adopted Agency polices and plans that incorporated excellent strategies to guide the evolution of human settlement patterns and to match transport facility capacity with the travel demand generated by the settlement patterns.

    Decades ago there were good examples of far better settlement patterns that were actually built in the Subregion.

    There could have been better reporting had WaPo not Lancastered those who were starting to understand human settlement patterns out of the Region.

    There could have been well informed, prosperous happy citizens living in functional human settlement patterns, but NO…

    THE TRAGEDY OF MISSED OPPORTUNITIES

    Here are just a few of the critical historical mile posts avoided by the story and by the experts:

    1. In the mid-50s the Fairfax County Comprehensive Plan called for four Balanced Communities with Clear Edges in the R=10 to R=20 Radius Band and Compact urban fabric supported by a shared-vehicle system inside a Clear Edge (near R=10) around the Core of the National Capital Subregion. (Fairfax County and the Commonwealth of Virginia would be the villains in this story if naming villains was a productive approach to evolving a sustainable future.)

    2. “The Year 2000 Plan for the National Capital Area” published in 1960 laid out in detail the basics of functional settlement pattern on the Alpha Neighborhood-, Alpha Village- and Alpha Community-scales. This plan also introduced a famous sketch that outlined the distribution of Alpha Community-scale components in what has evolve to be the Washington-Baltimore New Urban Region.

    3. In the mid-60s a composite of municipal comprehensive plans for the northern Part of Virginia – as well as a similar one for much of the National Capital Subregion – presented a functional settlement pattern for the Subregion.

    Had these plans been followed and had Balanced Communities evolved following these plans, policies, programs and strategies, then less than half the area now devoted to urban development would have been cleared and subdivided. Much of the vacant and underutilized land within 100 miles of the Centroids of the Washington-Baltimore New Urban Region would be in active nonUrban production and serve as a the green lungs of the Region. The Chesapeake Bay would not be on life support.

    4. In the late 60s the federal government committed to fund 90 percent of METRO, and over the next three decades built, a world class “heavy rail” shared-vehicle system serving the Core of the National Capital Subregion. Contrary to a written agreement with the federal Agency, municipal Agencies did not uphold their end of the bargain. They did not plan and encourage station-area development with land uses that would support the METRO system.

    To this day – over 40 years after construction on METRO started – the majority of the land in METRO station-areas is vacant and / or underutilized. There is no Balance between the METRO system capacity and the station-area travel demand. This is why most of the METRO trains leave most of the METRO stations essentially empty most of the time.

    4. In the 70s full-scale, examples of much more functional settlement patterns were planed at the Alpha Community- and Alpha Village-scales. Several of these projects were built and while there were glitches, they were and ARE far more successful from economic social and physical perspectives than the vast majority of the land developed for urban land uses since 1973 in the National Capital Subregion.

    These places proved that:

    • A far higher percentage of the residents could live “on or near the water” and / or “in or near the woods,”
    • Have better schools,
    • Have far stronger identity and social cohesiveness,
    • Serve a far wider range of housing needs,
    • Achieve a far greater Balance of J / H / S / R / A,
    • Have far more useable Openspace,
    • Achieve higher and more stable home values per square foot
    • And still take up less than one quarter of the total land at the Alpha Community-scale when compared to the land devoted to scattered subdivisions such as those in the enclaves (Census Designated Places) noted in the WaPo story

    5. In the mid 80s a 54 member citizen task force drafted a plan that took the best of the 60s and 70s ideas for evolving Balanced Communities and created a plan for Fairfax Center. Fairfax Center was planned to be 5,500 acres where 55,000 citizen could work, live and seek services. Almost immediately the plan was nickled and dimed (least common denominatored) but today it is still far more functional than the other places of similar scale and intensity of use.

    6. In the late 80s and into the 90s Wash COG carried out a process that could have guided the location of new jobs and dwellings to evolve Balanced Communities from the then existing “Activity Centers.”

    While this was going on, in October 1973 OPEC, issued a wake up call that should have gotten every citizen and every governance practitioner on the board strategies to evolve functional and sustainable settlement patterns that did not rely on importing foreign oil and did not depend on Large, Private Vehicles for Mobility and Access.

    Based on the strategies that existed from the mid 50s Agencies, Enterprises and Institutions could have leveraged the booming SubRegional economic activity that lasted from the late 50s until mid-2007 to build and rebuild functional and sustainable human settlement patterns.

    The 3 February WaPo story did not refer to any of this context. It is as if the current result was inev
    itable and no one had ever given thought to a different outcome. In fact, clear, concise arguments in favor of alternatives to the current result have been published in every decade since 1920.

    LOCATIONAL OBLIVIOUSNESS

    The 3 February WaPo story also did not establish the Subregional Context of the featured enclaves.

    These enclaves are NOT in the middle of nowhere. These enclaves are outside the location for the Clear Edges shown on the 50s and 60s plans. However, they are INSIDE the logical location for the Clear Edge around the Core of the Subregion based on the late 90 and early 00s work of Wash COG, the employer of one of the experts quoted.

    It would have been very useful to point out that each of the enclaves are served by major limited access radial roadway corridors paid for by federal government – I-66 and I-95.

    Both these corridors have HOV lanes and both have public AND private bus and van service using the HOV lanes.

    Further, both of these corridors are also served by commuter rail – the Virginia Railway Express.

    In addition both corridors are served by radial lines of the METRO system.

    And there is icing on the cake: For over four decades the I-95 corridor has had the Shirley Express Lanes. By many measures these are the most effective applications of asphalt used by Autonomobiles on the planet.

    It would have been informative for the experts cited in the story to point out that these two enclaves have access to every type of facility that federal, state and municipal jurisdictions have relied on to provide Mobility and Access to low-density, monocultures of auto-dominated settlement patterns.

    Would it have been too much to ask these experts why all these billions of dollars in public facilities obviously do not work? It turns out relying of these facilities to support dysfunctional settlement patterns will never work for reasons spelled out in THE PROBLEM WITH CARS. But that is getting ahead of the story.

    AND THEN THERE IS THE COST

    Of course the CAPACITY of the radial and circumferential roadways could be increased and more vans, busses and trains could be added to the shared-vehicle services.

    However if the COST of these facilities were allocated to those who would use them in the target enclaves, most of these citizens could not afford the fares / tolls / taxes to pay for the new facilities.

    It is also clear that the bottom line result adding very expensive new capacity would be to shave a few minutes off of the record setting AVERAGE commute times but it would not “solve” the problem.

    AND WHILE WE ARE TALKING ABOUT A FAIR ALLOCATION OF COSTS:

    If all the current costs of the location decisions that resulted in putting these dwellings in these enclaves were fairly allocated many, if not most, of the present residents could not afford the FULL cost of living there.

    What drives up the cost? The mix of dwelling types and the Regional and Subregional location of Jobs and Services result in settlement patterns that do not function. These patterns violate the basic laws of economics and physics. It is not a matter of policy or preference.

    THE ROLE OF EXPERTS

    In addition to not mentioning – or not mentioning forcefully enough to make it into the story – any of the history or context of the enclaves, the experts did not provide any insight on a path to sustainability.

    They did not point out the necessity of evolving Balanced Communities in sustainable New Urban Regions – using what ever Vocabulary they might choose.

    They did not point out that the Beta Communities in the municipal jurisdictions inside R=5 (primarily Alexandria and Arlington) have job to dwelling ratios on the order of 5 to 1. They did not point out that while one of the largest municipalities in the US of A occupies most of the territory within the R=5 to R=20 Radius Band (Fairfax County) has a ratio closer to 1 to 1, there is a gigantic imBalance of housing affordability to wages for the jobs in the jurisdiction due to exclusionary zoning.

    Only two of the nine Beta Communities that fall all or part in Fairfax County have achieved anything like a Balance of Jobs / Housing / Services / Recreation / Amenity.

    In explaining the difference between Fairfax County and Prince William County where the two enclaves are located, one of the experts demonstrated a complete lack of knowledge of the physical relationships that control human settlement patterns. By suggesting that Fairfax County once had “the same situation” he demonstrated ignorance of A= pi R sq. He further implied that Fairfax County is OK because there are now more jobs in the municipality than in past decades without regard to location or Balance.

    It would have been useful to point out that the two Virginia enclaves (Bristow /Linton Hall in Greater West Prince William and Dale City in East Greater Prince William) were low-density, imbalanced enclaves in badly unbalanced Beta Communities.

    Road scholar and congestion guru, Tony Downs famously pointed out that congestion is not the problem, it is the solution. Tony correctly noted that when congestion gets bad enough, citizens, Households, Agencies, Enterprises and Institutions make different location and settlement pattern decisions.

    Tony correctly identified the political (SMALL “p”) and the unenlightened citizen self-interest that has prevented intelligent changes that have been advocated for 90 years.

    Downs had two solutions:

    First: Buy a big comfortable car (Large, Private Vehicle) with a great sound system to enjoy the ride. Addiction to this formula is EXACTLY why the Autonomobile Enterprises, supported by Agencies and “freedom” oriented Institutions have driven to the brink of Collapse.

    Second: Drive to work with someone you REALLY like (wink, wink). According to domestic and divorce court records that “solution” is a major cause of divorce and social instability in the Household and at all other scales of human settlement.

    Tragically, Tony did not take into consideration was that at some point, the total cost of Regional-scale settlement pattern dysfunction would leave citizens and their Organizations without the resources necessary to change the settlement patterns to more functional and less congestion generating configurations.

    To his credit, Tony was first an economist and had no way to know that the incredible BOOM of the 80s, 90s and 00s would exterminate “rational man” / “wisdom of the crowd” / invisible hand economics and replace it with “behavioral economics.” See Column # 124 “Riding the Tiger,” 2 June 2008 and the two recent post on the Tragedy of Trickle Down.

    THE ROLE OF THE MEDIA

    For reasons spelled out in THE ESTATES MATRIX, MainStream Media has abandoned its responsibility to create informed citizens. Sadly, citizens are left to sort out advertisements for Autonomobiles and Wrong Size Houses in the Wrong locations that promise the American Dream without the facts or an overarching conceptual framework with which to organize their thinking. They believe the decisions they make are in their best interest and once made they defend them in the face of 46.3 minute AVERAGE commutes.

    To his credit, WaPo reporter, Weiss only used one Core Confusing Word (suburban / suburb) and only used it three times. The use of “enclave” is very effective in this context and is a good choice. However, he used interchangeably two generic settlement pattern descriptors (neighborhood and community with no capital) seven times. Of course, it would have been helpful to point out that “political subdivisions” of the Commonwealth and “Census Designated Places” do not reflect the organic components of human settlement patterns.

    THE BOTTOM LINE

    Now, with a deepening recession,
    citizens and their elected representatives will support throwing more money at ‘infrastructure’ to remove fundamental drivers of dysfunction that cannot be solved except by evolving Balanced Communities.

    There is no way to help commuters except to help them become noncommuters by building Balanced Communities.

    See Column # 41“The Commuting Problem,” 17 January 2005, Column # 65 “Balanced Communities,” 23 August 2005 and Column # 92 “Solving the Commuter Problem,” 5 February 2007.

    EMR

  • Bons Secours Extends “Good Help” to Land Use

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Here’s a twist on real estate development: A medical complex could provide the nucleus for urban-style growth in Chesterfield County. The St. Francis Medical Center complex, which is part of the Bons Secours Richmond Health System, has unveiled a New Urbanist vision of mixed uses, pedestrian boulevards and grid streets in a 130-acre tract just off the Powhite Parkway.

    The 10-year plan calls for creating an island of urbanity in the untamed sprawl of disconnected, low-density, single-use development of Chesterfield County. The grid streets, walkable streetscapes, mixed use and ground-level retail are all part of what we’d expect from functional, urban-style development. Here’s what’s unique about the project: Housing, which encompasses a quarter of the site, would be first reserved for medical center employees.

    There’s a novel concept: Employers providing housing so employees could live close to where they work!

    Not only that, but this employer plans to build an entire community around the employment center at the medical center includes many of the critical elements of daily life.

    What the plan doesn’t discuss — at least the article by Wesley P. Hester in the Times-Dispatch doesn’t discuss it — is how to integrate the 130-acre community into the regional transportation system. Insofar as people live, work and play in the development, they will generate less traffic on stressed-out Chesterfield County roads. That’s a good thing. The article did note that a number of changes to the county road plan would have to be implemented, but wasn’t clear what they are.

    However the details shake out, the trend toward the urbanization and rationalization of human settlement patterns in dysfunctional Chesterfield County is to be applauded.

  • Class Warfare Always Gets Worse

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Take a look at this graph of income distribution. When I was leading the Army 21 futures study for 2005-2015, this is precisely what the economists from the Library of Congress (under our contract) predicted. No surprise to me that there is a “wage gap.”

    The reason for the gap today – again predicted in 1990-92 – is the changes the transformation to the Information Era would make. This includes the growth of the global economy.

    The graph indicates the “Have Nots” – as we characterized them in our study – would not gain much. The pressures on wages in a global economy suppress wages for the lower skills earners.

    The Haves have a lot more. That is why you see the McMansions, etc. around Virginia. There is more demand and opportunity for folks to earn more if they have key skills or talents. I can add another graphic that shows that most of the wealth of top earners comes more than ever from wages – not dividends or interest.

    So, what, if anything, should be done about the wage gap?

    In the early 90s I wrote (for myself) thoughts about a “greed cap.” The greed cap would be the ratio of highest to lowest earnings (from all sources and perks) in a business. It should be set by collective bargaining (Yes, this Republican means unions) at whatever they see as fit – and doesn’t kill the golden goose that creates capital. It could be 7:1 or 12:1 or whatever.

    More dollars could be paid above that ‘cap’. But for every dollar that is paid to the executive above the cap another dollar is paid into a common pot that supports everyone’s retirement, health, legal, etc benefits.

    The principle behind the idea is this: The profit of a company is directly attributable to the management and the workers. Much profit can be traced to management decisions, but all profit comes from everyone doing their jobs. Hence, separating workers from the profit sharing and letting it all go to the top of the organization is fundamentally an inequitable distribution of gain. Workers know the risk if the company goes down or under. They share in risk and should share in profit.

    Except, I don’t want the damn government dictating this to anyone. I see it as a future strength of the unions – a meaningful purpose, if they can clean up their own management to gain some integrity back.

    Where government can help with the wage gap is to use the forced savings of wage earners to create the INDIVIDUAL savings accounts FDR promised. If the Feds won’t do it, then Virginia should move ahead (see my pieces on Virginia Trust Accounts). The lower 505, Have Nots, get by and will get by. But, their retirement, health and

    Fast forward to 2009. The government bailing out any business and taking ownership – and dictating wages is feel good class warfare in its earliest phases. It is awful for what it does to the economy. It is worse for what it does to our Constitutional Republic.

    It portends worse if it is allowed to go further.

    When you read Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” you see the same language today about fairness, greed, etc. Actually, you are reading the fictionalized version of what she saw after the Bolsheviks took over in Russia. Now, you see the same signs of class warfare, dressed up in Obama’s rhetoric, in America.

    Class warfare always gets worse. Consider the French Revolution and the successor Russian, Chinese Communist and Cuba revolutions, Communist takeovers in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Nicaruaga, and the Nazi takeover in Germany. Everytime the Human Secularists engage in class warfare – whether their preceding adjective is Communist, Nazi, Socialist or Liberal – it goes badly sooner or later for liberty. For individual rights.

    Search the U.S. Constitution for the power of the federal government to do what it did this fall under Bush and now seeks to do under Obama. Not there.

    Search the economic data for proof that government spending and taxing and regulationg wages improves the economy. Not there.

    Search the history of class warfare since the French Revolution. Awful things happen.

  • Feb. 2, 2009 Edition of Bacon’s Rebellion E-zine

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Like Asking for a Show of Hands
    The Employee Free Choice Act does far more than “merely level the playing field” as Mr. Lawrence Frame’s editorial suggests; in fact, it tips the scales in favor of unions. This is especially bad news for Virginia as our largely union free workforce is a primary reason that we are annually ranked as a top state in which to do business.
    by Clinton S. Morse

    Don’t Mess with Virginia’s Biennial Budget System
    Legislation being proposed by Delegates Pollard and Saxman to adopt an annual rather than a biennial budget process needs to be rejected. Under the current format a more realistic budgetary picture is presented to the public and longer range planning is encouraged, two things that go a long way in making Virginia the best-managed state in the union.
    by Patrick McSweeney

    Time for Non-Partisan Redistricting
    With the process of redistricting just around the corner, the time for passing legislation that reforms the system is now. Virginia can’t afford another round of partisan redistricting that results in incumbents going unchallenged.
    by Olga Hernandez

    Fairfax County – a Case Study on Government Excess Spending
    Growth in government spending and new programs play a larger role in the financial hardships faced by Virginia and its localities than many our elected officials are letting on. To combat this we need to increase budget transparency by getting the checkbooks online and look towards competitive bidding and privatization to save money and increase efficiencies.
    by Mike Thompson

    In Defense of Private Enterprise
    The increasingly frequent calls for community service are not bad, and a national focus on that front is probably desirable. However, our attention and support really needs to be focused on free enterprise and capitalism, specifically the ethical and responsible applications thereof.
    by John Palatiello

    Fix Virginia First – What to do after an economic bubble bursts
    With the Democrats in Congress set on doing the exact wrong things to turn out ailing national economy around we must focus our attention on fortifying the Virginia economy. That means tax cuts, spending cuts and entitlement reform.
    by James Atticus Bowden

  • MORE BAD REPORTING

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    On 24 March 2008 BaconsRebellion published EMR’s column # 118 titled “Good News, Bad Reporting.” That column was about:

    Good news: The Regional, nation-state and Global economic slowdown provided a chance, with intelligent management, to achieve a sustainable trajectory without a crash.

    Bad reporting: MainStream Media scaring citizens into thinking that carefully backing away from decades of Mass OverConsumption fueled by public and private debt, international borrowing and burning through natural capital was a bad thing and would lead to a crash.

    On 3 February 2009, GM reported vehicle sales at 1982 levels.

    The way the MainStream Media spun that you would think this was bad news.

    There were quite a few vehicles sold in 1982. Citizens do not NEED a lot of new cars. What they NEED are functional human settlement patterns with Accessible and Affordable housing so that citizens of the US of A can be happy and safe and not NEED a lot of new Large, Private Vehicles.

    If cheap money is pumped into the economy so citizens can buy lots of new cars, the cost of imported energy would go back up and then there would be a real crash.

    EMR

  • Fix Virginia First

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    What to do after an economic bubble bursts.

    The economic crisis is an economic bubble. It’s a very big bubble. But, it isn’t an economic meltdown or the end-of-capitalism-as-we-know-it, hysterical hyperbole. Even if politicians, the news people, and losing special business interests bleat that it is so. Yet, a 24 month adjustment – tops – can become a disaster if the politicians use the statist and socialist tools which made the Great Depression worse – and longer. Since it appears that President Obama and Democrat majority in Congress will do, precisely, what is wrong economically and right politically – then we need to fix Virginia first. Cut taxes, cut spending, reform entitlements to build individual savings.

    This isn’t rocket science. Nor, is it the inscrutable intricacies of high finance. It is Economics 10. Niall Ferguson nails the past, present and makes interesting suggestions about the future in his “The Ascent of Money.” He calls today’s crisis as it was unfolding in 2007. His book is a tour de force about economic history that is readable, understandable, and incredibly prescient. It’s history at its best – the past providing prologue for the present.

    The guidance is simple. The best way forward is painful in the short term, but rewarding as soon as possible. Obey the laws of economics like following the laws of physics. Don’t jump off a building in physics = no financial institution is too big NOT to fail in economics. Oops, since it’s too late to let the losers on Wall Street and in Detroit fail, we, The People, are out at least $1 trillion. Or, rather, the debt load on the next generation has increased by more big bricks. So, what’s Virginia to do when the Federal government mangles the market and bungles the economy?

    Follow the laws of economics in this market of 7 million persons.

    Our Commonwealth exists in our unique economy that has evolved since civilizations started in 4000 BC. Virginia is an evolving place in time with a traceable history. The economy is constantly changing – and will into the future. The basis of this economy is capital. Money.

    Capital is to a family what the farm, the fishing boat, or hunting party was to our ancestors. It’s the basis of our survival. It’s the means to whatever materialism we pursue. Available capital is the measure of individual economic opportunity that has become essential and intertwined, like a helical of DNA, with individual freedom.

    Yes, America was for the most part poor and free for much of its history. But, the dislocation of labor from the farm with industrialization era and urbanization – and the fragility of employment with the information era and globalization – makes individual capital = the family farm.

    Farmers can provide for their family and make some profit based on the certainty of what their labor produces – and subject to the uncertainty of weather. Most Virginians have a job and a savings account instead of 40 acres. The security of the soil must be replaced by more security in savings. Growing capital as a crop is essential to provide for the Good People of Virginia. Every Virginian can, and must, have personal savings.

    Government can’t create capital or jobs. Virginia must protect the free functioning of the marketplace just as it is supposed to protect individual freedoms. This is limited government, not laissez-faire, in action. It serves the individual sovereign of the state – while defending the working person from abuse and the environment from damage. It turns government from serving special interests as Virginia does now.

    We must fix Virginia, first, for more, better economic opportunity – to enable, expand and enhance personal freedom for the individual to chose where and how he works, lives, plays and raises a family.

    Cut taxes. Cut personal and corporate taxes.

    Cut spending. Stop un-Constitutional spending.

    Cut market interference in the production of energy – without sacrificing the environment.

    Reform entitlements, like Virginia’s formula for Medicaid.

    Reform mandates, like Virginia’s Standards of Quality for education. The SOQs have been updated, but they need to be reformed.

    Encourage individual savings. Provide the tax incentives. Take the ’04 half percent sales tax sham and convert it into Commonwealth Trust Accounts for each Virginian. Focus the accounts as health savings accounts now. Expand their uses later as they grow.

    Elect the politicians who can tell Virginia – before the ’09 election – what taxes and spending they will cut, how they will reform entitlements and grow individual savings.

    Finally, know that an ‘economic adjustment’ = hard personal hardship for families. Their pain is real. The healing medicine includes incentives for charity and tough love, not government handouts. Government generosity makes matters worse – slows the recovery of the economy – and, sooner or later, punishes every family getting back on their feet.

    Let’s fix Virginia first. Now.

  • Fasten Your Seatbelts, It’s Going to Be a Bumpy Ride

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Military spending propelled economic growth in Virginia during the past decade. Now that rocket fuel has run out. Fox News reports that the Obama administration “has asked the military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff to cut the Pentagon’s budget request for the fiscal year 2010 by more than 10 percent — about $55 billion.”

    It’s not clear how much of that will come of Virginia, but we can make an educated guess. Last year, the Department of Defense spent $56 billion here. If we absorb our “fair share,” we stand to lose $5.6 billion yearly.

    Meanwhile, the Times-Dispatch notes that Virginia could receive as much as $5.8 billion in the Obama administration’s proposed “economic stimulus” package — about as much as we lose from the defense cutbacks. That pinata of pork would provide a one-time injection of some $750 million in transportation funding, $550 million for Medicaid, and $1.58 billion over two years as part of a fiscal stabilization fund. Then the money dries up and we’re back to Business As Usual.

    Bacon’s bottom line: Virginia is hosed. Defense cutbacks will be long-term, while the “stimulus” package will provide only a short-term palliative. We will encounter real hardship.

    We can deal with this bad news in a chronic crisis-driven mode, taking a series of stop-gap measures, or we can start dedicate ourselves to fundamentally reinventing our economy, our human settlement patterns and our governance system to make us more competitive over the long-haul.

    Crisis-driven thinking, or long-term thinking? Which do you think will prevail? Hah! What a foolish question.

    Update: Fox News might have gotten the story wrong. According to CQ Politics, the “cuts” are cuts only in the sense that they are reductions from some astronomical number some DoD bureaucrats had lobbied for. In actual dollars, measured against actual dollars spent last year, the Obama administration would match what the Bush administration recommended, which would be an actual increase.
    So, before any one panics, we should make a point of ascertaining who’s got the story straight.

Now Available

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.
For sale on Amazon.com

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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Bacon’s Rebellion is Virginia’s leading politically non-aligned portal for news, opinions and analysis about state, regional and local public policy. Read more about us here.

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