Comments on All development rights depend on big government - Greater Greater Washington

Comment by Chuck Coleman

Tue, 25 Dec 2012 12:18:48 EDT

I run in the libertarian/conservative circles that include Heritage, at which I once interviewed, so I can offer some perspective. The virtues of the automobile are practically an article of faith. They represent freedom, so they are considered good in and of themselves. Normally, we want to eliminate subsidies and taxes that distort incentives in order to maximize national income, which, in turn, increases personal income. The idea of false prices is strong. However, false prices are ignored in the case of the automobile and arguments border on the irrational if they go fully over to it.

I provoke trouble when I point out inconvenient truths like automobile subsidies, global warming and sending armies every now and then to fight for oil. Would we have bother to fight Saddam's Iraq if it were not for the oil? Would the Iranians be developing nuclear weapons if they didn't have oil? If anything, those regimes could not survive without oil revenues because of their severe economic incompetence. Right now, Iran's mullahs have launched a hyperinflation to bankrupt their middle class and bazari opponents without understand the tremendous blowback it will cause.

My perspective is a bit different because I don't drive. Many can't or don't drive for many reasons. Who would want a blind person or epileptic behind the wheel? So, for many, automobile dependence destroys freedom by removing other means of mobility.

Finally, this is an example of anti-science on the right. Others include denying global warming and evolution. Not that the left is innocent: their scientific sins usually consist of exaggerating threats without scientific support. Scientific American recently had an article about this.

Comment by Jason

Thu, 20 Dec 2012 15:07:50 EDT

Cody,
Yes, to remain ideologically consistent, they should refrain from using public utilities or continually advocate for their immediate privatization. Advocating that public services they approve of (roads) continue to retain government financial support while arguing that those they don't must survive in the "free market" is just rank hypocrisy.

We've seen where privatization generally leads...to higher prices, reduced quality of service, and the socialization of costs for taxpayers/sequestration of profits for shareholders. No thanks. Can anyone name one country on earth with a completely privatized road system? Not Hong Kong or Singapore, that's for sure (both rank higher than the U.S. on the Heritage Foundation's economic liberty scale). Even libertarian heroes Von Mises and Hayek thought there was a place for government-run infrastructure.

Comment by Cody

Thu, 20 Dec 2012 13:43:35 EDT

Also, saying that small government people are hypocritical because they use roads is like saying that blacks in the South were hypocritical in the 1850s for wanting freedom but continuing to do as they were told.

Or maybe it's like saying that anybody who drives a car is hypocritical for advocating switching from fossil fuels.

The point being -- just because libertarians use public utility services doesn't mean that they haven't a right to advocate for making them private. What should they do -- refuse to turn on their lights until the utility is privatized? A person has to live in the society he is in before he can work to change it.

Frankly, many victorian developments included private roads. Just because a person currently lives in a society with monopolized roads doesn't mean he hasn't the right to advocate for changing that state of affairs.

Comment by Cody

Thu, 20 Dec 2012 13:33:34 EDT

You are right that local governments, depending on the constitution in their state, may have the right to zone. The federal constitution really only applies to the feds.

But your presumption that "development rights" come from big government is insulting to the idea of freedom in this country. Government doesn't give anybody any rights -- property rights are fundamental in this country. They are [or should be] protected, but they cannot be given by a government any more than free speech can be taken away by government. Government can only try to deny citizen free excercise of rights that come from their humanity.

Believe it or not, your insistence that smart growth is a product of regulation whereas that shopping center is a product of the wily "free market" is incorrect as well. Before the great depression investment in main street came from down the street. The residents built their own city. Not so anymore. The SEC's regulations against investors with under a million dollars getting in to equity investments, GI bill suburban stipulations, and FHA mortgage industry nationalization CREATED suburbs funded by massive money from across the country or the world. The FHA wouldn't insure anything in the city, much less minority areas, and it was their "standards" that created the modern tract home subdivision's form.

The suburbs are a creature of new deal paternalist regulations. You can thank FDR for using the heavy hand of the state to advance his social engineering ideas.

Comment by Daniel

Thu, 20 Dec 2012 09:48:18 EDT

HaroldH, exactly.

Comment by HaroldH

Wed, 19 Dec 2012 11:56:10 EDT

Sprawl dependent on big government? I've seen some sprawl proponents of the Heritage/Cato/Reason variety admit as much, but they support it anyway, since the end result is a built environment more in tune with their worldview.

The way they see it, cities inherently cause government dependency, collectivism, socialism, gun control, unionization, etc. and are at odds with the Jeffersonian ideal of the yeoman farmer living on his own land, minding his own affairs, and only interacting with his neighbors when absolutely necessary. Suburban sprawl to them has the advantages of urban life (even though it really doesn't) without the 'negative' aspects of it. They don't see car dependency as a problem. Cars to them represent freedom. The fact that their car is able to move thanks to government roads is not seen as an issue.

They have a self-induced blind spot when it comes to roads, highways, airports, etc. These are whitelisted as "acceptable" public investments. Trains, buses, bike paths, bike lanes, pedestrian facilities, etc. are "boondoggles" and "wastes of money". Go figure. A lot of it is just rationalization of a mid-20th century notion of American life into an ideal.

So some of them may have a moral conundrum (much as they might for government built and operated highways), but not much of one, since from a consequentialist viewpoint the end result (low-density development that allows them to pursue the fanciful notion that they're rugged individualists and self-made "success stories" who don't need government, society, or public investment) outweighs the means to achieve this ("big government").

Comment by Thayer-D

Wed, 19 Dec 2012 08:49:17 EDT

Good point Rich.

Comment by Rich

Wed, 19 Dec 2012 05:58:00 EDT

Indeed, even the concept of "property" itself is entirely a product of government action. Without government explicit protection of "property," no such thing exists. It would just be land to be seized and held by force. No one would build or buy because the investment would always be in constant jeopardy of dispossession by force.

Comment by R. Rich

Wed, 19 Dec 2012 00:36:47 EDT

Thanks for the article. For info on people using voluntary Libertarian tools on similar and other issues worldwide, please see the non-partisan Libertarian International Organization @ http://www.Libertarian-International.org ....

Comment by Paul

Tue, 18 Dec 2012 23:30:51 EDT

The title and the sarcastic egads in the second paragraph are big turn offs for me. The problem is not that there isn't enough government or that government is pushing the wrong things - it's that government is trying to engineer everything for everyone.

The market can be a very good thing. Since it's over-regulation that got us into the current unsustainable mess, I don't see that even more government is the right solution. Maybe less government and corrected pricing signals is a better approach.

Comment by Ms. D

Tue, 18 Dec 2012 18:38:35 EDT

SJE, I think most of us agree that regulations could be relaxed. That's part of what the zoning update is about: relaxing regulations to allow land to be put to its best use, where it is likely to be most efficient/least disruptive (areas where many residents will choose to live without a personal auto can have fewer or no mandated parking spots, very small businesses can open up in certain neighborhoods to provide the services that benefit the residents of that neighborhood conveniently - like many other neighborhoods already enjoy - good design can trump boring boxes, etc.).

It's the authors of and believers in "studies" like these that really like regulation, while claiming they do not. It's a blatant lie to say that parking and lot size minimums, lot coverage maximums, and other outdated, suburban-style regulations "increase freedom" for landowners to do as they please with their property. The only thing having regulations like these WITHIN THE CITY and urbanized suburbs does is artificially buoy housing values further from the city.

Comment by SJE

Tue, 18 Dec 2012 18:29:55 EDT

In partial defense of the Heritage White paper, there is an awful lot of regulation, and it impedes business. You can remove regulations and subsidies in a way that promotes smart growth: e.g. stop demanding minimum parking, remove mandatory subsidies, etc.

I would also take Heritage more seriously if it acted as a think tank, rather than a branch of the GOP.

Comment by Marc

Tue, 18 Dec 2012 17:22:39 EDT

Turns out one of the contributing authors to the white paper was Wendell Cox. So you can just throw the paper in the trash: it'll contain nothing other than ideological distortions.

Comment by SJE

Tue, 18 Dec 2012 15:57:25 EDT

There was FAR less regulation prior to the 1930s, and those cities and towns were more dense and walkable. The growth of sprawl has been driven in part by subsidies for everything from cars, gas, highways to telephone and other infrastructure. I say we let the rural and exurbs live according to their professed libertarian principles and pay market rate for their infrastructure. No agricultural, highway, telephone etc subsidies.

Comment by Payton

Tue, 18 Dec 2012 15:48:06 EDT

I like to say "government already tells you where NOT to live, so in effect it's already telling you where to live."

Landover is a marginally better site from a land-use perspective since it was already paved over -- unlike Woodmore across the way, developing it would not require new roads, new sewer pipes, or cutting down acres of forests.

Comment by Michael Hamilton

Tue, 18 Dec 2012 14:38:07 EDT

Conservatives, like liberals, are driven by outcomes when it comes to land-use regulation. Neither are concerned with whether or not the process through which their preferred outcomes are accomplished conforms to first principles about rule of law, or limited government.

When it comes down to it, conservatives just have different preferences. They won't be convinced to change those preferences by pointing out that they, too, rely on government intervention.

Comment by drumz

Tue, 18 Dec 2012 14:36:00 EDT

Well geesh, from reading this you would think the author doesn't actually live in PGC. This is beginning to sound too much like, "everybody did it wrong and now that I'm 5 years in, I'm gonna tell you how wrong it actually was."

Would you say that PGC has been particularly innovative in the way it's approached land use and zoning?

Mr. Heard never said that woodmore was smart growth and in fact outlined its several problems. The issue at hand though is that it could have only been built with explicit particpation and decisions by the PG county government. It could have easily been built by a metro or replaced landover mall if the county council decided that it was a priority. It wasn't and now the county is stuck with that much more sprawl in an area with a finite amount of land.

Comment by WRD

Tue, 18 Dec 2012 14:25:37 EDT

Shout out to Megan McArdle (and her guest writer Timothy Lee) who wrote a similar article in The Atlantic in March.

Affordable Housing and Social Engineering in New Jersey.

Comment by HogWash

Tue, 18 Dec 2012 14:18:18 EDT

I don't get what makes the Landover Mall spot any more "smart growth" than in Woodmore. Neither are w/in walking distance of transit nor are particularly "walkable." Further, how do you plan a Town Center but break it up in parcels? A couple of big box stores here, residential buildings over there..and commercial around the corner, down the beltway, and across the street?

Could the Landover site accomodate bix box, residential and commercial? The Metro Stations? Is it really the lazy approach of city officials that has left Landover Mall languishing?

Yes, areas around metro should be developed. But which one could accommodate the Woodmore Town Centre as planned?

Proverbs? Really? Development decisions in PGC elicits proverbs?

Comment by Ms. D

Tue, 18 Dec 2012 13:48:50 EDT

Are you guys moderating the comments/first-time comments for this one? My popcorn is all ready to go and there's not a SINGLE crazy rant yet!

Do I need to start them by pointing out that it's far more of an intrusion into personal property rights to be told exactly how many parking spots one must/can have or how far their home must be set back from both the street and the rear property line than for the government to say "we're flexible - got a few basic rules, but we can make exceptions - show us what you got..."