Archive for April, 2008
April 28th, 2008 - Joe Cortright says that higher gas prices are hurting suburbs and places without strong urban cores
…high gas prices are not only implicated in the bursting of the housing bubble, but that the higher cost of commuting has already re-shaped the landscape of real estate value between cities and suburbs. Housing values are falling fastest in distant suburban and exurban neighborhoods where affordability depended directly on cheap gas. In metro areas around the country, housing prices are down most on the fringe, while close-in neighborhoods are holding more of their value–or in several cases, still continuing to see price appreciation.
And the analysis also shows that those metropolitan areas with the strongest close-in neighborhoods–as measured by the core vitality index we developed in our 2006 City Vitals report–have weathered the housing collapse far better than other metros. House prices have performed best and foreclosures have been lower in those metropolitan areas with vibrant core neighborhoods.Far from being a short term or transitory event, our view is that this shift in real estate market valuations implies a fundamentally different path for future urban development in the years ahead. As my colleague, CEO’s for Cities President Carol Coletta puts it, “In short, vibrant cities just became a whole lot more valuable.”
There are tremendous opportunities for the nation’s cities to build on this shift in value, promoting redevelopment, mixed uses, higher densities and better transit. These strategies will also play a key role in helping reduce energy demand (and the trade deficit) as well as putting us on a path to dealing with the challenge of global warming.
The paper has lots of interesting pictures relating location to changes in house prices. But I think a key policy question is whether “strong urban cores” can be created by design, or whether they are organic phenomena.
April 27th, 2008 - Peter Gordon on Phillip Roth (Zuckerman) on George Plimpton
Philip Roth’s Exit Ghost is enjoyable for many reasons. Roth even gives us a thumbnail definition of happiness. Nathan Zuckerman had been on self-imposed exile in the Berkeshire’s and, on re-entering New York city life, is stunned to discover that George Plimpton had died.
George escaped his glamour without losing his glamour, only
further enhancing it in autobiographical books seemingly driven by
self-deprecation. Climbing into the ring with Archie Moore he is
simply practicing noblesse oblige in its most exquisite form — a form,
moreover that he had invented. When people say to themselves ‘I want to be
happy,’ they could as well be saying ‘I want to be George Plimpton’: one
achieves, one is productive, and there’s pleasure and ease in all of it. (p.
250).
I remember reading Paper Lion when I was around 10. At the time, I thought it was the best thing I had ever read.
April 27th, 2008 - (Vertical) transportation and urban from:
Nick Paumgarten in the New Yorker:
In New York City, home to fifty-eight thousand elevators, there are eleven billion elevator trips a year—thirty million every day—and yet hardly more than two dozen passengers get banged up enough to seek medical attention. The Otis Elevator Company, the world’s oldest and biggest elevator manufacturer, claims that its products carry the equivalent of the world’s population every five days. As the world urbanizes—every year, in developing countries, sixty million people move into cities—the numbers will go up, and up and down.
Two things make tall buildings possible: the steel frame and the safety elevator. The elevator, underrated and overlooked, is to the city what paper is to reading and gunpowder is to war. Without the elevator, there would be no verticality, no density, and, without these, none of the urban advantages of energy efficiency, economic productivity, and cultural ferment. The population of the earth would ooze out over its surface, like an oil slick, and we would spend even more time stuck in traffic or on trains, traversing a vast carapace of concrete. And the elevator is energy-efficient—the counterweight does a great deal of the work, and the new systems these days regenerate electricity. The elevator is a hybrid, by design.
April 27th, 2008 - Admissions Advice
This week I read Susan Coll’s Admissions, which reminded me of my time as MBA Dean at GW. We had an excellent admissions staff with fine judgment, but they would sometimes ask my opinion about close calls. I remember one mediocre candidate who began his essay with something along the lines of “when people work for me.” He then proceeded to describe what everyone would do for him–nothing about what he would do for them. He basically showed himself to be the sort of person with whom no one would wish to work.
So my advice to those writing admission essays: don’t be a putz.
April 27th, 2008 - The New York Times is (some days) a National Treasure
Barry Bearek’s story of his imprisonment for trying to cover the elections in Zimbabwe is both harrowing and informative. The final two paragraphs:
I had left the cells with a case of scabies, an infestation of microscopic mites that swelled my hands and wrists to nearly twice their size. But I am better now, back in Johannesburg, with Celia, with our sons, Max, 17, and Sam, 12.
In the meantime, Zimbabwe is beset with paroxysms of violence. Thuggery, torture and murder are familiar implements in Robert Mugabe’s tool kit. Political opponents are being brutalized, as are everyday people whose voting defied him. The presidential election results are still unannounced.
A blogger whom I esteem often entitles his posts “New York Times Death Spiral,” and then gives examples of the paper’s shortcomings. But all journalism is compromised by tight deadlines; journalists also need to play a repeated game with sources, which means they cannot be heroic and write whatever they are thinking every day.
To me, the Times balances the need for timeliness and access against its moral obligation to be courageous as well as any newspaper. It gets the balance wrong from time-to-time. But I remain grateful for its existence.
April 26th, 2008 - A Pox on All Three (but the biggest, grossest on McCain)
All three candidates are pandering about gasoline prices. McCain is the worst, having called for a gas tax holiday in the summer, when pollution is at its worst.
Now comes a story from Businessweek that suggests that, contrary to the findings in David Austin’s work, higher gas prices are leading to less driving. It would be hard to list all the policy benefits that result from this.
We do need to be careful about the association here–people may be driving less because they are less likely to be working, or because they are not going shopping or out to eat as much. If the reduction is driving owes more to the likely recession than to the price of gasoline, the effect will not be permanent. We won’t be able to figure out which it is until and unless the economy bounces back at the same time that the price of gas remains high.
The regressive nature of high gas prices is also a problem. But this would be better solved through increases in the minimum wage and/or the earned income tax credit than a reduction in the federal gasoline tax.
April 26th, 2008 - A Pox on All Three (but the biggest, grossest on McCain)
All three candidates are pandering about gasoline prices. McCain is the worst, having called for a gas tax holiday in the summer, when pollution is at its worst.
Now comes a story from Businessweek that suggests that, contrary to the findings in David Austin’s work, higher gas prices are leading to less driving. It would be hard to list all the policy benefits that result from this.
We do need to be careful about the association here–people may be driving less because they are less likely to be working, or because they are not going shopping or out to eat as much. If the reduction is driving owes more to the likely recession than to the price of gasoline, the effect will not be permanent. We won’t be able to figure out which it is until and unless the economy bounces back at the same time that the price of gas remains high.
The regressive nature of high gas prices is also a problem. But this would be better solved through increases in the minimum wage and/or the earned income tax credit than a reduction in the federal gasoline tax.
April 26th, 2008 - A Pox on All Three (but the biggest, grossest on McCain)
All three candidates are pandering about gasoline prices. McCain is the worst, having called for a gas tax holiday in the summer, when pollution is at its worst.
Now comes a story from Businessweek that suggests that, contrary to the findings in David Austin’s work, higher gas prices are leading to less driving. It would be hard to list all the policy benefits that result from this.
We do need to be careful about the association here–people may be driving less because they are less likely to be working, or because they are not going shopping or out to eat as much. If the reduction is driving owes more to the likely recession than to the price of gasoline, the effect will not be permanent. We won’t be able to figure out which it is until and unless the economy bounces back at the same time that the price of gas remains high.
The regressive nature of high gas prices is also a problem. But this would be better solved through increases in the minimum wage and/or the earned income tax credit than a reduction in the federal gasoline tax.
April 26th, 2008 - It is going to be awhile before the economy recovers
From the Washington Post:
Sales of New Single-Family Homes at 16-Year Low
I wrote ten years ago that residential construction was THE leading indicator. And Ed Leamer says housing IS the business cycle. Yikes!
April 26th, 2008 - It is going to be awhile before the economy recovers
From the Washington Post:
Sales of New Single-Family Homes at 16-Year Low
I wrote ten years ago that residential construction was THE leading indicator. And Ed Leamer says housing IS the business cycle. Yikes!