American Dream News

Happy Fourth of July!

We live in the greatest nation, and this is a great day!  I’ve got the smoker going (chicken and pork ribs), the kids are in the pool, the grandparents are in town, and Southern Rock sounds are wafting to the clouds along with apple-flavored smoke.

This is, of course, an exercise in liberty.  This is how my family is pursuing happiness.  I hope your exercise of freedom is equally enjoyable.  Liberty and freedom are not abstract ideals.  They’re concrete and specific.

Two hundred thirty-two years ago, our Founding Fathers declared our freedom from government authority and control.  Then they created a limited, representative system to take responsibility for a few, narrow, and specific tasks … leaving the balance to liberty so that we could enjoy the greatest degree of freedom possible in society governed by the social contract.

The American Dream Coalition may specialize in urban issues, but the foundation of what we do and what we believe in is liberty!

Steven Greenhut is a great friend of liberty (and a speaker at ADC conferences).  He has some advice for “those of us still more concerned about being free rather than coddled.”  However, I’d recommend you share his column with someone who prefers to be coddled.  I can think of no finer gift to Lady Liberty on her birthday than making a sincere attempt to share our Founding Fathers’ vision of freedom with those who are losing sight of it.

Happy Birthday, U.S.A.!

The American Dream Coalition is pleased to announce that CSPAN Radio will air a presentation on light rail transit from our recent Houston conference.  It’s scheduled for Sunday, July 6th from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 ET.

Our forum was Light Rail and Its Alternatives, featuring Alfredo Santos, Ted Richardson, and ADC Executive Committee member Tom Rubin.

Here’s CSPAN’s blurb:

A panel discussion on light rail from the 2008 Conference of the American Dream Coalition, in Houston, Texas, on May 17. The Coalition calls these projects “rail transit boondoggles,” and says they are part of “a new planning doctrine known as smart growth…(which) is one of the greatest threats to American mobility, affordable housing and freedom today.

Click here to go to the CSPAN webpage where you can listen via Windows Media Player or RealPlayer.

Additionally, we have a new factsheet up on whether rail transit is the sustainable solution to our energy problems.  It’s available here: Rails Won’t Save America

So a big, hearty THANKS to CSPAN Radio for adding to the nation’s discourse on light rail!

Governing.com has an interesting op-ed by Peter Harkness called The Metropolitan Era.  He touches on the elements of the Metropolitan Policy Program by the Brookings Institute.  Harkness highlights some useful facts; however, my concern is with the conclusions he draws.

Borrowing Neil Pierce’s definition of metro - ”central cities surrounded by cities and towns which have a shared identification, function as a single zone for trade, commerce and communication, and are characterized by social, economic and environmental interdependence” - Harkness observes that the top 100 U.S. metro areas cover just 12 percent of land mass but account for two-thirds of its population and jobs.  As economic units, these metros generate three-quarters of our nation’s GDP.  Pretty impressive!

It’s the policy recommendations I question.  “The problem is that Washington doesn’t get it,” Harkness says, meaning the federal government.  Then he prescribes Big Government solutions: “investment in education and training, particularly for new immigrants; in infrastructure to move people, goods and ideas; and in amenities — libraries, museums, public spaces — that draw people into urban centers” and ”changing the intergovernmental relationship so that it’s more holistic and flexible.”

See, the big problem with our metro areas, according to Brookings and Harkness, is ”Washington has neither set a national vision nor any standard for achievement.”

Why should there be a ’national vision’ for local communties?  Why should the federal government be in the ’visioning’ business anyway?  Are we in desperate need of a one-size-fits-all policy developed by D.C. bureaucrats?

This is a solution in search of a problem.  During this current era of salutary neglect, metro areas have accounted for 3/4 of GDP, 78 percent of patents, 75 percent of graduate degrees, and 94 percent of venture capital funding.  The New York metro region ranks 13th in the world in gross product output - ahead of the Australia, Argentina, and Russia.  Metro Los Angeles is bigger than Korea, and Metro Chicago is greater than Taiwan or Switzerland.  Sounds like metro regions are doing just fine without the regulatory intervention of the federal government!

The project by Brookings seems to be just another effort to push regional planning and impose elitist top-down policies (Smart Growth) on communities that have been built (successfully) from the ground up … and in the absence of a one-size-fits-all vision.  Markets - not governments - are responsible for this amazing productivity.

The interconnected cities, suburbs, and exurbs that make up Metropolitan America have developed organically and uniquely so that Houston is different than Orlando which is different than Boise which is different than St. Louis which is different than Charlotte.  And isn’t that desirable?

The Economist is out with a report on the nation’s “crumbling” infrastructure.  Our roads, levees, bridges, etc. all seem to be in critical condition.  The magazine calls for a massive public investment in line with the bold national projects of yesteryear.

I agree that our infrastructure is in bad shape.  I do not agree that the answer is additional taxes to foot the bill.  One of the many problems with the political process is how “dedicated” revenues are often diverted to other uses.

In my city of Gainesville, Florida, our roadway infrastructure is in pitiful shape.  Is it because we haven’t taxed our citizens enough?  Some would like to believe that.  The reality, however, is that a policy more than 10 years old has diverted 80% of the city’s local gas tax away from road resurfacing, reconstruction, and general maintenance to subsidize the bus service.

Transit is politically popular in Gainesville as it is in many self-styled “progressive” communities.  Advocates argue that transit spending is worth every penny to keep those excess cars off the road.  But whether or not that argument has merit, one fact remains: With 80-cents of every dollar going somewhere else, the condition of the roads inevitably declined.  The problem is not lack of revenue but rather misplaced spending of existing revenue.

Gainesville is not alone in its historic neglect of basic infrastructure.  Metropolitan areas all around the country are guilty of such poor decision-making.

Readers of this blog will know my title is deliberately hyperbolic, making fun of the exaggerated tone of Smart Growth rhetoric.  With rising gasoline prices, many “experts” are making predictions about the death of suburbia.  The theory goes that people who are spending more and more money to fuel their daily commute will finally “wake up,” sell the McMansion, and move into a cosy townhouse in a downtown district where they can walk or take the bus to work instead of driving the gas-guzzler.

Indeed, out of the millions of people living in suburbia, there are a few contemplating such a move.  But is this the exception to the rule or is it a new rule?

I’d wager on exception.  Most will not move back into downtowns.  The most obvious reason, of course, is that downtowns, or central cities, have only a small share of jobs.  Most jobs have sprawled outward toward the people, and many commutes these days are between suburban communities.

Instead, most people who are feeling the pinch will adopt more efficient means of commuting and/or self-impose fewer non-communting trips.  This is far less expensive and frustrating than

1. selling the current house
2. finding a new school district for the kids
3. buying a new house or apartment in that particular school district
4. loading the moving van
5. unloading the moving van
6. arranging the furniture
7. re-arranging the furniture (after the wife corrects your first stab at interior design)
8. acclimating to a new urban environment

Nah.  Most people will just buy a more fuel-efficient vehicle.  Both Edmunds.com and Consumer Reports have Top Ten lists of the most economical cars.  The LA Times reports that Edmunds.com ranks the Chevy Aveo (pictured above) as Number One.  The article also has a useful comparison between Edmunds.com and Consumer Reports.

If government officials can muster the courage to just stay out of the way, market competition will bring the prices of these vehicles down to levels that are affordable to Everyday Americans.  My prediction is we’ll see fewer sales of SUVs and greater sales of more fuel-efficient vehicles.  Obituaries about suburbia are premature.

Of course, that’s not much of a prediction.  It’s already happening.

Smart Growthers ususally take offense when we point out how arrogant and condescending they are.  Of course, calling your movement “Smart” is a very smug way of saying-without-saying those who disagree with you are dumb.  It’s also an effective way to avoid debating ideas because who would want to represent the dumb position?

Still, most Smart Growth apostles try to mask their smugness.  Not Earl Blumenauer of Portland, Oregon.  He lets us know it - You are stupid!

Grist Magazine covered a recent House Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming meeting where they quoted Rep. Blumenauer.  Using the the passive voice - a common rhetorical device for those people lacking spines - Blumenauer says, “Unfortunately, dumb growth is alive and well across the country.”

To the extent that growth patterns across the country reflect the will of the people, it’s quite clear that Rep. Blumenauer is saying most Americans are pretty stupid.  See, in a representative system of government (especially at local and regional levels), political decisions are the people’s decisions . . . so land use and transportation decisions tend to reflect the desire of our citizens, which Rep. Blumenauer and his acolytes call “dumb.”

Some are not into the sissified approach.  One reader, posting anonymously (natch), says, “humans are arrogant and stupid as a species.”

That’s a risky approach for a politician.  Hence the passive voice.  ‘No, no, no.  We’re not saying people (i.e., voters) are stupid.  Dumb growth just happens!’

This is their preferred rhetorical strategy.  Another approach is to play the conspiracy card, which - when you think about it - is another way of saying people are stupid, too.  Dumb growth happens . . . but against the will of the people.  It’s evil developers and anti-transit interests that are forcing people to live in suburban homes and drive automobiles.

Thus, people aren’t stupid.  They’re just helpless.  I don’t know which one I find more offensive.  Both are arrogant and condescending - the former questions our intelligence while the latter casts doubt on our liberty.  Either way, Smart Growth is about infantilizing the American people.

Enemy of the environment?  That’s quite a stinging indictment coming from its hometown newspaper - the Lexington Herald-Leader.  But in a recent article, that’s the claim: “Lexington tops list of enemies to environment.”

I imagine most sensible people would respond to this with a two-word phrase that begins with ‘horse.’  But these are not sensible times, so expect hysteria to follow - by that I mean the predictable calls for politicians to “DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!”  And by that I mean policy prescriptions that are heavy on regulation and light on freedom.

See, the Brookings Institute has produced a report on carbon footprints in major metropolitan areas.  It found that Lexington-Fayette, Kentucky, has the largest carbon footprint of the 100 largest metropolitan areas it surveyed.

And how does a city reduce it’s carbon footprint?  By increasing its government footprint, of course!

It should be noted that the Brookings study is flawed.  As the Antiplanner (and founder of ADC) observes:

The study compared per-capita carbon emissions from transit systems with a crude estimate of carbon emissions from driving. But it failed to note that per passenger mile carbon emissions from transit tend to be more than from driving. The study also looked at residential carbon emissions, but not emissions from other sources. The study used so many shortcuts — for example, estimating carbon emissions based on miles driven rather than using actual fuel consumption data — that it is likely rife with errors.

He also points to more responsible and cost-effective ways to reduce carbon emissions.  One of the many problems with Smart Growth is its fundamental assumption that we can regulate our way to prosperity.  When politicians and planners propose regulatory “solutions,” they’re essentially saying that unregulated activity (i.e., freedom) is the problem.

• People have too much freedom of choice, so they choose suburbia over downtowns.
• People have too much freedom of mobility, so they choose automobiles over buses.
• People have too much freedom of work, so they seek out better paying jobs instead of grabbing the first employment opportunity that opens up just down the street.

So we get houses here and jobs there with cars bridging the gap.  As I’ve said elsewhere, “Cars are mobility machines designed for personalized decision-making.”  This violates the collectivist impulse among Smart Growthers.  That’s why they want to correct this lifestyle pattern - a pattern, I’d point out, that has led to tremendous economic growth and stability over time.

I think Joe Hacker sums up this mentality better than I, as he puts it in his recent op-ed in the Herald-Leader, “A collective of educated elites, politicians and radical environmentalists consider most of us an unattractive herd of animals ravaging the Earth in our SUVs as we run aimlessly thither and yon about our suburban homes, too selfish to stop and too stupid to know better.”

Well said, Joe!  Much better than the two-word phrase that first sprung to my mind.

The International Herald Tribune - the overseas arm of the New York Times - has surveyed the landscape and weighed the impacts of high gasoline prices and the impact of the downturn in housing and concluded that the suburbs are dying - “Life on the fringes of U.S. suburbia becomes untenable.”

We’ve heard it all before, and I’ve commented on it here and here.  The IHT did, in fact, find some nervous suburban families that were thinking about moving closer to the center of town.  Given the tens of millions of families living in suburbia, I would say there are quite a few re-thinking where they live.  In a free society, this happens.

But does this spell the end of Suburban Nation?  I doubt it.  More fuel-efficient vehicles and the dramatic growth of telework/telecommute will begin to offset the impacts of high gas prices.  Most jobs are still dispersed away from central cities.  And the housing crisis is lowering the price of homes in many suburban areas, which will become attractive to first time home buyers once the housing sector begins to bounce back.

. . . but WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!!!!!!

Okay, maybe I’m reacting a little too harshly to this silly article by the Associated Press: Everything seemingly is spinning out of control.

Yep - times are tough.  There’s flooding in the midwest, health care is expensive, gas prices are too high, home values are dropping, California is burning, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are still being fought, terrorism is still a threat, air fares are rising, the earth is melting, etc., etc., etc.  Oh yeah, and George Carlin is no longer around to put it all in perspective.

Because there is economic uncertainty, which has triggered other anxieties, stories like this are predictable.  Also predictable are policy prescriptions promising to “solve” our problems as well as calls to depart from our normal way of living.  Shelve the car - take mass transit!

After surveying the grim future, the AP authors conclude: “maybe this is what the 21st century will be about - a great unraveling of some things long taken for granted.” 

Is homeownership one of those things set to unravel?

Probably not, but liberal New York Times columnist Paul Krugman calls into question the very value of homeownership.  In his recent op-ed - “Home Not-So-Sweet Home” - Krugman asks: “Why should ever-increasing homeownership be a policy goal? How many people should own homes, anyway?”

Among the disadvantages, he says, there is…

a) increased financial risk as evidenced in the mortgage crisis

b) getting tied down to a specific place, which makes it difficult to ”follow the money,” i.e., jobs

c) the cost of commuting, which is getting prohibitively expensive

I can accept these as legitimate concerns, and Krugman - as a trained economist - is right to identify the costs of something and not just the benefits.  (Policymakers - take note!)

But do these costs really outweigh the benefits of homeownership?  I would answer ‘no,’ and I’m sure most Americans would agree.  The benefits of homeownership have been enumerated many times, so I won’t restate them here.  Instead, I’ll ask a history-oriented question: Were we better off when we were a nation of renters?

In pre-WWII America, most people did not own their own homes.  There was tremendous economic instability, which created boom-and-bust cycles in the national economy and financial anxiety and high rates of poverty at the individual level.  Homeownership has been a major reason for the unprecedented growth in the United States since WWII.

And the opportunity to own a home has been one of the main reasons immigrants from every corner of the planet desire to come to the United States.  We call it the American Dream!

I think most reasonable people would agree that homeownership is not for everyone, and our country allows people to choose if they want to rent or own.  Some people define the American Dream differently, and here at the ADC we think that is A-Okay!

Still, in terms of national aspirations a nation of homeowners is far more compelling than a nation of renters.  We’ll endure these uncertain times and - by fastening to our principles and not abandoning them - we’ll make it through just fine and leave something better for the next generation.

As the price of energy continues to rise, I’ve noticed a lot of people taking pleasure in the pocket pain experienced by others.  There’s a ”See, I told you so!” smugness to them.  With it comes the predictable condemnations of our American way of life and the lectures about how we all must change and retreat into the 19th century (at least as it relates to energy consumption).

Al Gore is Mr. Smug.   We know about his movie, his awards, his bitterness, etc.  We know he once labeled the internal combustion engine (which powers automobiles) as one of the greatest threats to civilization.  And we all know he is stroking his inner child these days by jetting around the world lecturing everyone on global warming and is particularly critical of Americans and our automobile-oriented, suburban lifestyle.

So how is Mr. Smug’s lifestyle?

Well, our good friends at the Tennessee Center for Policy Research have given us a peek.  According to their press release, last year ”Gore’s home burned through 213,210 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity, enough to power 232 average American households for a month.”  They further point out that his energy consumption has increased by 10 percent over the previous year.

Is the point of this post simply to say “Ah-ha! You’re a hypocrite”?  Absolutely not!  Well, okay, maybe just a little.

The serious points, however, are these:

• Mr. Smug lives in a single family, detached home that represents a preferred lifestyle choice for him and his family.  Good for me, but not for thee?
• Although Mr. Smug’s home is not in a typcial subdivision, it’s clearly not in a high density, mixed use central city with immediate access to transit routes.  Nor is it within walking or bicycling distance of his everyday needs.  Good for me, but not for thee?
• Despite his rhetoric about the need for personal sacrifice and lifestyle changes, Mr. Smug’s actions show he is not serious enough about global warming to warrant a personal change (i.e., less consumption) in his own lifestyle.  Good for me, but not for thee?
• Mr. Smug drives a hybrid vechicle these days.  Yippee!  Regardless of its energy efficiency, it is nonetheless a single occupancy vehicle, yet we are told “automobile dependency” is the problem and mass transit is the solution.  Good for me, but not for thee?

We here at the American Dream Coalition are not going to browbeat the ex-Veep and demand he change his lifestyle and move his family into a cramped apartment in a noisy downtown and take light rail wherever he goes.  Instead, we hope he’s enjoying his pursuit of happiness - ya know, the American Dream!  We just hope his smug activism doesn’t stop other Americans from pursuing theirs.

The American Dream Coalition wants every citizen to have the same living opportunities as Mr. Smug, whether it’s in a mansion (like Gore’s) or merely a McMansion (as New Urbanists call them).  We hope the opportunities of Everyday Citizens to pursue the American Dream are not constrained by Smug, Progressive, Elitist, Wannabes . . . or, SPEWers (as I like to call them).

Way to go, TCPR!