Bacon's Rebellion

The cost of infrastructure to support functional human settlement patterns.

In the comments following the 27 February MORE VOCABULARY post, Larry Gross made a very good observation:

Current methods of treating sewerage adsorbs a lot of energy and are very expensive.

Treating sewerage and other human waste is a cost of contemporary technology-driven Urban civilization. The cost of heath care, safety, education, shelter and access are also very high. Further, the real total cost is much more than is now being paid. That is why the infrastructure to supply these services is deteriorating.

All the essential services could be far more efficient if there were functional human settlement patterns but they would will still cost a lot more than is currently being invested if citizens are to have anything like the level of health, education, safety, shelter and access that is expected in a technologically advanced society.

The results of conventional sewerage treatment prove that what is now being spent is not effective. Humans are polluting the ground water, streams, estuaries and the oceans with their waste. That means a lot more has to be spent to get it right – even with functional settlement patterns, new technology and more efficient operation.

By the citation Larry posted (“Yellow is the New Green” a 27 January story about land application strategies for sewerage in China) he is suggesting there must be a better way.

This may be just another wan attempt to justify scatteration of Urban land uses by a died-in-the-wool 12.5 Percenter but EMR takes it as an attempt to make a constructive suggestion.

Inside the Clear Edge.

EMR has never been a fan of Big Pipe systems.

There are no Regional systems in the US of A but the large SubRegional systems do not have good track records for on supplying water or treating sewerage. It is also clear that the Agencies have been major contributors to dysfunctional settlement patterns.

The multi-Community water and sewer Agencies and Enterprises are rewarded (prestige, pay, etc.) for “growth.” This has led them to historically support higher per capita use and to expand their service to areas not well suited for Urban development. Like highway Agencies that have not negative feedback from dysfunctional settlement patterns, building more is “good” for the water and sewer Organizations if not for citizens or the environment. The examples of bad practice from the Fairfax Water Authority, the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission, The Washington Aqueduct, etc. fill volumes.

Like Hospitals and Colleges, every Alpha Community should have a Community Water and Sewer Agency that is directly responsible to the citizens of the Community, not Agencies that serve parts of Communities or parts of many Communities.

One overarching problem with traditional Big Pipe systems is mixing clean water with waste and in many cases adding storm water to the same pipes. There is no way to efficiently treat that flow.

When citizens get serious about rebuilding the Urban fabric, systems that recycle blue, green and grey water and use waste to generate energy can be applied at the Cluster and Neighborhood scales (MIUS) within a Community system. That is if there are still resources available to support restructuring given the current trajectory.

There are many ways to cut costs before there is fundamental change in settlement patterns. Some of them involve charging those who dispose of exotic compounds that drive up the cost of treatment – including kitchen garbage disposal units – that make the waste more complex than human waste that has already been digested.

Outside the Clear Edge

There are many excellent strategies to treat human waste in Non-Urban contexts.

The implication that these systems are “cheap” or intrinsically better than Urban solutions or that these systems are a way to justify scatteration of Urban land uses is a terrible Illusion driven by a number of Myths.

Some of Non-Urban waste system costs can be offset by “sweat equity” in both construction and operations but not many like the idea of digging ditches or carrying out pails of night soil.

When the cost of a sophisticated system – including the energy to operate the system – and the cost of inspection and maintenance is totaled up, the real cost is as high per capita as Urban systems – sometimes higher.

Why are there energy costs? Those microbes work for free but only in certain temperature ranges and only with the correct levels of oxygen.

Why must there be inspection and maintenance costs? To insure there are no off-site impacts beyond that of a well managed, state of the art Alpha Community System.

On the general topic of infrastructure, Bruce Katz of Brookings gave a very good talk at the National Governors Conference Winter Meeting in late February. “Strengthening Our Infrastructure for a Sustainable Future.” Not a thing he said was not on target. It was what Bruce he did NOT say – he never mentioned human settlement patterns and it is not possible to have functional infrastructure and dysfunctional settlement patterns.

EMR

Wrong Size House in the Wrong Location

There is a lot of loose talk by 12.5 Percenters about how the ‘housing crisis’ is all about California and Nevada.

Today’s numbers: Virginia underwater mortgage rate is 19.6 percent. That is about one in five.

As luck would have it, Virginians are Over-housed. There is plenty of room for second and third dwellings in well located structures.

And there is plenty of room for chickens and goats in the walk-out basements of McMansions on one, two, five and ten acre lots that the 12.5 Percenters love.

The data shows a pattern: the more dysfunctional the settlement pattern, the higher the rate of underwater mortgages.

Good locations are still holding their own because even if the borrower is “subprime,” the dwelling is not and ‘someone’ always needs a dwelling in a good location.

If Agencies and Enterprises had started to allocate the fair, equitable cost of location-variable expenses when the problem was first articulated and the data was first available (BEFORE the 2000’s bubble) then the Affordable and Accessible Housing Crisis would not have become the ‘housing crisis’ that led to the Global Financial Meltdown.

You could have read all about it on the Original Bacon’s Rebellion.

EMR

A Phrase for Larry’s Lexicon and a Cure for Major Mortgage Bail Out Defect

1) We are a bit late on this but here is a phrase for Larry’s Lexicon: “Green Sprawl:” An energy efficient industrial, commercial or residential building in a dysfunctional location. It is now in the lexicon of MainStream Media. A recycled Wal*Mart with ground effects heating / cooling and a solar array on the roof (See “Big Box Reuse”) or a LEED McMansion on a five acre lot or a 10 acre horse farm.

We have to sort out if the use of a Core Confusing Word (“sprawl”) in a phrase that is clearly defined is a Core Confusing Phrase.

2) Use of “Location Efficient Mortgage” criteria for any residential mortgage bailout would cure a major problem with giving money to those who made bad decisions. The phrase is defined, there are criteria. Implementation of a location efficient mortgage criteria would solve a major problem with the criteria-less mortgages consumed by Fanny and Freddie.

Location efficient mortgage criteria and prosecution for fraud at every stage of the development process from the original raw land sale to the final loan signing including all participating agents would save the public $ billions.

EMR

On Jim Bacons post “The Coming Green Boom – and Bubble” EMR noted something like the following (with corrected spelling and clarified intent):

Green Technology and the investment in Green Technology will just be another Bubble and Bust too without:

Fundamental Transformation in human settlement patterns;

Fundamental Transformation in governance structure, and;

Fundamental Transformation in the economic system.

And THAT means there must be a Fundamentally new way to get citizens the information they need to make INTELLIGENT decisions in the marketplace and in the voting booth. See THE ESTATES MATRIX

There are a number of good observations following Jim Bacon’s post and they caused EMR to give further thought to the topic:

There MAY be a Green Technology Boom.

There MAY be great future benefits from Green Technology “Breakthroughs” that are not now even imagined.

There is no evidence at this point that there will be any “Breakthroughs” with more substance than cold fusion – or is it fission? Anyway, cold.

What IS known is that whatever form Green Technology takes, is will cost a lot of money, especially in the area of energy generation, transmission and distribution. There is NOTHING as cheap as digging up (and burning up) natural capital – unless nation-states and Regions have to fight wars to get it.

What is also known is that there are already a lot of expensive ways to replace cheap energy and there are millions of things to sell that will consume resources and occupy time – if citizens had time or money.

(For the record: Those things will not solve the Helter Skelter Crisis or the Affordable and Accessible Housing Crisis and even FREE energy for Large, Private Vehicles will not solve the Mobility and Access Crisis.)

The bottom line is that after 35 years of widening the Wealth Gap and the inevitable Global Financial Meltdown (Bust of the Household, Enterprise and Agency deficit spending bubble) there are not a lot of folks who can afford expensive energy or expensive Green Technology.

That means it will not be attractive to invest in Green Technology because the market will be small.

Those at the top of the Ziggurat – those who could afford expensive Green Technology – have demonstrated over and over that they would rather continue to ride on the Tiger because they make more money faster that way.

Over the past 35 years the US of A could have lead the World in creating a lean, educated, happy human population with an ever smaller ecological footprint and thus a sustainable trajectory for civilization.

The US of A has “prospered” by creating an obese, opinionated, antagonistic, human population with huge Mass OverConsumption driven ecological footprints. The growth in consumption, the growth in population and the growth in the Wealth Gap are not sustainable.

The net result of attempting to “enjoy” consumption based “prosperity” within dysfunctional human settlement patterns:

Over half the population is losing ground – economically and socially.

Most of the rest are Running As Hard As They Can and have no time or energy to understand why most of the benefit of increased productivity of the 95 percent is going to the top 5 percent of the Ziggurat.

The US of A ranks at the top in consumption and in an also ran in education, equity, health and happiness.

The Elephant Clan and the Donkey Clan have broken “politics” and gamed the governance structure so that one or the other – but not someone with new ideas – gets 50.5 percent of the vote.

They have done this by promising that a vote for their “principles” will allow everyone to continue to live a life based on Myth – forever.

Both the Clans try to out promise one another. It is all about short-term benefit / immediate gratification and nothing about cost long-term / cumulative cost or a Balance of rights with responsibilities.

Add to this the facts that:

The NRA (aka, gun lobby) and the individual rights advocates have armed and primed the “Deer Hunting with Jesus” crowd.

The alcohol lobby, the NRA and conflict generating agitators have armed and primed bros in the hood.

Let us not spend time creating another bubble to bust over Green Technology. Green Technology would be nice but what has surfaced so far is Green Greed. Even pure Green Technology is not what is needed.

How about creating a sustainable trajectory which requires:

Fundamental Transformation in human settlement patterns;

Fundamental Transformation in governance structure, and;

Fundamental Transformation in the economic system.

And, of course a Fundamentally new way to get citizens the information they need to make INTELLIGENT decisions in the marketplace and in the voting booth.

EMR

EVEN MORE ON INTERSTATE CRIME

On the INTERSTATE CRIME string Charlie said:

“EMR: Regarding your first point, a lot of people would argue that this is what happened in Washington, and that is the source of traffic problems.”

Not really. The InterRegional strategy for roadways stops major limited access corridors at the Clear Edge, not the Zentrum (aka, the “downtown.”)

“Only two highways run downtown (66 and 395) — maybe 295 if you are stretching downtown a bit.”

True, some of the penetrations were blunted but that just left the Core inside the Clear Edge neither fish nor fowl. Stockholm and Paris are fish, Houston is fowl, or rather foul.

“Granted, since the Beltway was built, massive development has occurred outside.”

The InterRegional strategy has “beltways” but they are designed to serve far different land uses at the Clear Edge. You can still have “parkways” into the Zentrum as well. As noted below the issue is Balance.

“I’d argue the real beneficiary of that is not DC but the inside-Beltway suburbs.”

If anyone was a “beneficiary,” you are right, it was the Greater North Arlingtons, etc. but compared to a similar area in Stockholm or even Toronto it is not that great.

“Curious to hear your thoughts on the 66 expansion.”

I presume since it is on the front burner right now that you mean I-66 inside the Beltway. So here is my take:

“Anytime Agencies (fed, state, municipal) that control transport take actions to “expand” the capacity of a roadway without this expansion being part of a COMPREHENSIVE, Regionally endorsed and broadly understood strategy to BALANCE TRANSPORT SYSTEM CAPACITY WITH SETTLEMENT PATTERN TRAVEL DEMAND this action only postpones the day that the majority of citizens understand that Business-As-Usual will lead to Collapse.

In our Vocabulary this “enhancement” just reinforces the Large, Private Vehicle Mobility Myth (L,PVMM) spelled out for NMM below.

NMM said:

“I would suspect then that LA has poor settlement patterns OR poorly designed road system which would explain the traffic issues.”

NMM, you just cannot wing it on human settlement patterns. There are facts and there are Natural Laws that control the function of settlement patterns.

The Los Angles NUR does not have bad settlement patterns on a Regional scale based on the intensity of land uses inside the Clear Edge. And there IS a Clear Edge for most of the Urbanized area – ocean, steep topography – much of it in public ownership e.g US Forest Service.

The Los Angles NUR roadway system is not that bad either except that the interchanges take up huge amounts of land in areas that should be part of the Urban fabric and the “freeways” are impenetrable barriers between what are the logical components of Villages, Communities and SubRegions.

The traffic congestion problem in the Los Angles NUR is caused by the failure to evolve Balance at the Village, Community and Subregional scales. Period. Too many people trying to go too many places at the same time.

For the record the Los Angles NUR has the second highest AVERAGE density within the urbanized areas in the US of A. The New York NUR has the highest AVERAGE due to several very dense areas (but not ALL of “Manhattan”…).

The New York NUR is still half the AVERAGE intensity of the Toronto NUR and one quarter of that of the Paris, Stockholm, Wien NURs and other large NURs with far more functional distribution of Urban uses and Openspaces within the Clear Edge. Ever notice all those big forested areas from the Eiffel Tower?

“… The ultimate problem in this region may not be settlement patterns but road design and geographic problems (i.e. river crossing issues) Think about it of course there are going to be bottlenecks when the only way to get from Maryland suburbs to VA suburbs is over the American Legion Bridge due to the Potomac river.”

NO, NO, NO. The problem is Balance. It is not possible for everyone to live where they want, work where they want, seek Services, Recreation and Amenity where they want and then be able to create a roadway (or shared-vehicle system) so everyone can go where the want, when they want and arrive in a timely manner. (L,PVMM) IT IS NOT POSSIBLE. It is not just the settlement patterns, it is not just the River, it is IMPOSSIBLE to design or build a system to accomplish that in a large NUR.

By the way check out what TMT said about 83-million sq feet in the Zentrum of Greater Tysons Corner at 9:42 on the THANK YOU GROVETON string that started out dealing with school governance. You hear more an more planners these days admitting the L,PVMM is just that, a Myth.

EMR

Some may recall the story about the Howard County Exec who won an upset campaign against the ruling party establishment in the 70s and then spent the next four years proving to those who voted against him that he would NOT do what those who voted for him were counting on him to do.

Looks like a similar scenario is evolving because the new administration has a Secretary of Transportation that was chosen for ‘bipartisanship’ (NOT antiPartisanship) and who has little transport credibility. See “LaHood Talks of Mileage-Based Tax: White House Dismisses Controversial Idea to Fund Transportation Projects. WaPo 21 Feb 2009.

In an attempt to not rock too many boats at once the White House has apparently nixed one of the most important opportunities to improve Mobility and Access now available. They could also reverse one of the three catastrophic mistakes in implementation of an InterRegional roadway system. See “Interstate Crime” 28 Feb 2005

In summary the three problems are:

1. Running the Interstate roadways inside the Clear Edge (or the logical location for the Clear Edge) instead of stopping at the Clear Edge as called for by the earlier InterRegional Highway plans. Stopping at the Clear Edge is the normal practice for limited access roadways linking New Urban Regions in Europa.

2. Artificially holding down the true cost of the Interstate system by limiting the damages paid to Urban citizens in severance damages due to isolating land owners and citizens from the components of settlement that supported their quality of life and their property values. The Urban landscape is littered with orphaned Clusters, Neighborhoods and Villages. NonUrban land owners WERE compensated. This is one of the prime drivers of both Abandonment and Scatteration discussed in the first two chapters of ROOTS OF THE HELTER SKELTER CRISIS.

3. Failing to develop a fair allocation of the cost of use of the Interstate System and Federal Aid Highways by failing to instituting a equitable weight distance levy on roadway use.

Now for some reason correcting the only error that is still correctagle without massive expense is viewed as “controversial.”

How can it be more “controversial” than Lexus Lanes or raising the gas tax enough to make a difference?

Footnote: This post was drafted on 22 February. On 23 February WaPo carried a lead editorial that said about the same thing about the usefulness of considering at least a step toward fair and equitable weight / distance levies. Credit where credit is due.

Now if WaPo could just focus on settlement pattern dysfunction…

EMR

Groveton:

Thank you for the data on school performance on the DISSAPOINTMENT CUBED string.

I wonder what the scores are for Dale City and Bristow profiled in ANATOMY OF A BAD COMMUTE where citizens have the highest average commutes so their children have the benefit of “good” schools?

Think how much better South Lakes SATs would be if it were one of two high schools managed by a Reston Community Board of Education instead of the educational administrator dominated “consolidated” Fairfax County Board serving over 1,000,000 citizens. (EMR’s father was an elected school board member of a small pyramid in the 40s and fought consolidation…)

Think how great it would be if all highschool pyramids were coterminous with a Beta Village and every Neighborhood had its own school and every Cluster had a preschool program to match its needs. That was advocated by many in the 60s and quashed by the educational “professionals” in the name of “efficiency” and big travel budgets – See today’s WaPo.

Think how great it would be if every Zip Code was coterminous with a Beta Neighborhood so that there was data to guide citizens in their decisions concerning Balance and moving components from Beta to Alpha status.

Think how great it would be if every Cluster was a Census Block (and every Neighborhood as Block Group) so there would be data to guide citizens in their decisions….

Small is Beautiful and in the long term sustainable.

EMR wonders if Adolfo Carrion Jr.(new director of White House Office of Urban Affairs), or Derek Douglas or anyone else Carrion hires to help him or to whom he listens would understand how great it would be…

EMR is also concerned that there will ever again be the resources to implement this evolution — Yes, the Resources that have been burned up to create the Wealth Gap.

EMR

On 29 January 2009 PewResearchCenter (sic) published a social and demographic trends report “Denver Tops List of Favorite Cities (sic): For Nearly Half of America, Grass Is Greener Somewhere Else.”

The report was picked up by CNN and other media outlets. EMR downloaded it and read it with interest and disbelief.

In Chapter 32 – The Land Resource concerning the problems with “best places” listings EMR said:

“A recent survey by the Pew Research Center finds that nearly half of the citizens of the US of A believe that the grass is greener somewhere else and would like to move there if they could. See End Note Six

6. The January 2009 report by the Pew Research Center titled “For nearly half of America, Grass Is Greener Somewhere Else” is at once an important land mark and an encyclopedia of bad Vocabulary with extensive use of Core Confusing Words and aggregation of data that obscures the importance of the work.”

THE FIRST DISAPPOINTMENT is that a lot of money was wasted asking important questions using a Vocabulary that was not defined. This Vocabulary was guaranteed to generate a wide array of conflicting Neural Linguistic Frameworks – a topic discussed in Columns #s 71, 72, 73 and 75 and in TRILO-G Chapter 26. – Gibberish: The Vocabulary of Babel.

For starters, the title is deceptive. The study focused on the 30 largest MSA’s, not “cities.” Boston (pop 590,000) is included by Charlotte (pop 611,000) is not. That makes a huge difference when one gets to DISAPPOINTMENT SQUARED. David Brooks, demonstrating typical journalistic Geographic Illiteracy, missed this point completely.

Beyond the fact that nearly half of the citizens polled see the grass greener where they are not now living (See TRILO-G Chapter 1. – Wild Abandonment) most of the data is corrupted by poor Vocabulary and superficial analysis. One has to read the questions and the data aggregated to plumb the depth of the silliness but here is a peek:

What do “city,” “suburb,” “small town” and “rural” mean to each of the participants?

Lets take some examples from the northern part of Virginia:

Is Clifton, VA (a Town under Virginia law) that exists in the middle of Fairfax County one of the largest municipalities in the US of A (Fairfax County CONTROLS most of the municipal level services and governance provided to citizens of the Town of Clifton and each of the “local” County Supervisors represents over 100,000 citizens) a “small town”?

How about the Town of Vienna that is one of the Village-scale components of Greater Tysons Corner, the 8th largest commercial center in the US of A?

Is the City of Fairfax City a “city” a “suburb” or a “small town?”

Some who live in each of these three locations would give all four answers as to where they are and what they prefer, given their personal experience.

Similar examples are endless, especially in the R=20 Miles to R=70 Miles Radius band from the Centroid of the National Capital Subregion.

The study reinforced what has been said about Creative Class preferences and provided work for former WaPo staff (some of whom did similarly flawed work when working for the paper) but other than that, the study is largely a waste of time and a waste of a wonderful opportunity.

DISAPPOINTMENT SQUARED

On 16 February, David Brooks wrote an Op Ed for the NY Times. (Posted as a comment by an “Anon 8:15 AM” in BACK TO “BELTWAY BURDEN.”

David Brooks, like many “journalists” likes to think of himself as a free thinker and is sometime viewed as an iconoclast. He is a “story teller” as defined in The Shape of The Future. Brooks gets paid because he is an entertaining writer. Most important to The New York Times, they can sell Autonomobile advertisements because Brooks along with John Tierney, Joel Kotkin and others appear in the paper. See THE ESTATES MATRIX.

There is not much in the Brooks Op Ed that is “wrong” but it leaves a profoundly distorted impression with anyone who does not understand more that Brooks about Amsterdam and Denver and far more about human settlement patterns than Brooks.

Is Brooks talking about the Zentrum of Amsterdam or the Amsterdam New Urban Region? They are different places and in fact some settlement patterns in the later would appeal to a wide spectrum of those seeking greener pastures.

The places Brooks says people are attracted to are places where “the boundary between “suburb” and “city” is hard to detect.” Like that is not the case elsewhere? The BIG difference is most of the places Brooks lists – and not just Portland – have a Clear Edge around the Core of the New Urban Region unlike the Washington-Baltimore and Houston New Urban Regions.

Brooks does not mention that ALL the places he lists as being attractive have had a explosion of share-vehicle system construction over the last two decades. And an explosion of transit related development. They are LESS auto dependent than many places in the National Capital Subregion – for example Dale City and Bristow.

Denver is known for its Light Rail system and station area development and the BRT system in the Zentrum. There is the Lower Downtown / Coors Field, Invesco at Mile High, redevelopment of Stapleton and other urbane living and working environments. Some are approaching Balance.

Sure there are critics of non-autocentric settlement patterns. Many paid directly or indirectly by Autonomobile Enterprises. The market makes clear that those who believe what the pro-Autonomobile shills spout make up about 20 percent of the population. Those who actually put their money where their mouth is and buy urban dwellings is the pattern and density that Wendell Cox, Joel Kotkin, John Tierney, the American Dream Foundation, Reason et. al. – and relish the David Brooks snarkyness – make up about 12.5 percent of the population.

You would think from their writing that they are standing up for the oppressed masses who are being deprived of the American Dream by demon socialist forces.

But go ahead and write this fun stuff. It sells papers and makes for “balanced journalism” just like Peanut Corp of America represents good old American competition.

DISAPPOINTMENT CUBED

Rather than try to use the Brooks Op Ed to understand how to change the unsustainable trajectory of civilization, the Brooks item is used by Bloggers to club EMR. They have not bothered to read the Pew report or consider what Brooks is really saying.

NMM why are you so ready to abandon the market? Why are you so delighted to hop on yet another ideological hobby horse?

The responses to ANATOMY OF A BAD COMMUTE and to BACK TO “BELTWAY BURDEN” show again how ineffective the Blog format is to help citizens understand how to evolve away from dysfunctional human settlement patterns.

If citizens want challenging work, the most interesting companions and access to a sustainable Countryside they need to figure out how to evolve functional Urban settlement patterns. The alternative is places like Dale City and Bristow and in the end, Collapse.

Ok, there are will be places where one can make a living by “taking in one another’s laundry,” over winter by eating root vegetables and driving to 20 year old cars – Cuba in the Heartland.

A sustainable trajectory for civilization that is anything like the current level of amenity depends on real research and real journalism, not story telling.

EMR

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