Monday, May 24, 2004
Labor Group Supports Smart Growth
Or perhaps the headline should read, "Smart-growth group claims to support labor unions." This study, by a "progressive" group calling itself Good Jobs First, concludes that smart growth leads to more jobs for construction union workers. The study claims to show that certain types of projects are "more labor intensive" than others and therefore are supposed to be better (can everyone see the fallacy of this type of reasoning?).
The study also says that cities with high rates of labor union membership (such as Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia) tend to be more compact than cities with lower rates (such as Dallas). Duh! But does correlation equal causation? Of course not. It is likely that both the compact nature of some cities and the high rates of union membership are artifacts of the histories of those cities.
Or perhaps the headline should read, "Smart-growth group claims to support labor unions." This study, by a "progressive" group calling itself Good Jobs First, concludes that smart growth leads to more jobs for construction union workers. The study claims to show that certain types of projects are "more labor intensive" than others and therefore are supposed to be better (can everyone see the fallacy of this type of reasoning?).
The study also says that cities with high rates of labor union membership (such as Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia) tend to be more compact than cities with lower rates (such as Dallas). Duh! But does correlation equal causation? Of course not. It is likely that both the compact nature of some cities and the high rates of union membership are artifacts of the histories of those cities.
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