American Dream

Now Booming, Not Burning, the Bronx Fears a Downside

By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS
Published: March 19, 2006

For decades, the area known as the Hub has been the retail heart of the South Bronx, attracting throngs of people to its small family-owned stores even as the residential blocks around it were ravaged by crime and, at times, consumed by flames.

But now, those who have kept this scrappy shopping district alive are worried, and the source of their fears is not robbers or arsonists, but development. A long-vacant lot is the planned home of a major shopping center that will include national chain stores like Staples, Forman Mills and Rite-Aid. Their impending arrival has caused as much apprehension as happiness.

"We have to watch out for the mom-and-pop stores," said George Rodriguez, chairman of the local community board, who for years has sought to bring national retailers to the area. "They did not move out, they did not capitulate. They served the clients in the area."

And the Hub is just the heart of it. A few decades after it became a national symbol of urban decay, the Bronx is home to a rash of new construction projects that are changing neighborhoods that have seen little new building in half a century. Many residents are uneasy.


Hmm. In Robert Caro's The Power Broker (a biography of Robert Moses, a man that held many New York City and State offices for over 50 years of the 20th Century), Caro strongly implied that the Bronx was forever ruined thanks to the construction of the Cross-Bronx Expressway (I-95) - a project that Moses was in charge of.

Maybe not?

Note that I even though I consider The Power Broker to be deeply flawed in many ways, it's still worth reading. Just take a lot of it (especially the chapters dealing with the post-World War II years of Moses' career) with a grain of salt.

Where Did All the Children Go?
In San Francisco and Other Big Cities, Costs Drive Out Middle-Class Families

By John Pomfret
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 19, 2006; A03

SAN FRANCISCO -- Monica Burton did not want to leave San Francisco. Born and raised in the city and a train driver for the Muni transit system for the past 16 years, she loves her home town, volunteers in its women's jail and prays weekly at her church in the Hunter's Point section along the San Francisco Bay.

But as the main breadwinner for her family, which includes a 22-year-old daughter and two granddaughters, she faced some hard choices. Stay in San Francisco and abandon the dream of owning her own home because of skyrocketing housing prices, or leave. In 2004, Burton left with her grandchildren, buying a three-bedroom house in what she calls a "Leave It to Beaver" neighborhood in Sacramento, a 158-mile round-trip commute from her job in the city of her birth.


Hmm, I seem to recall that San Francisco was pretty high on the Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey list of Unaffordable Housing Markets. By golly, Wendell Cox has put San Francisco at number 5 on this list. Might there be some connection here?

Bill McDonald is a typical Portlander, which means he is a Democrat (or so I infer), he opposes the war in Iraq, and otherwise holds opinions that would be considered left of center. But the city's recent scandal regarding the aerial tram (cost up from $15 million to $55 million and rising) has opened his eyes to what is wrong with Portland's government.

"You have a bunch of politicians making decisions about private businesses but they don’t face any business consequences," he says. "The marketplace does not apply to them, so they are free to inflict their visions, no matter how awful they turn out to be."

McDonald recognizes that this problem is not limited to the tram. "The tram budget gap is chump change compared to the rest of the budget shortfalls" involved in Portland's South Waterfront Project, says McDonald, "and guess who they’re lining up to be the chumps?"

Portlanders have learned that their government does not work. But will they learn that the problem is not with the particular people who run Portland's government but with the idea of letting politicians make important land-use and transportation decisions at all?

Back in the 1960s, highways were designed by engineers and politicians had very little say about them. The roads got safer while speeds increased. Then planners started saying, "OMG! Faster roads mean sprawl!" And they convinced the politicians to take control of transportation planning from the engineers. The result is lots of money spent on transportation, but speeds are slower, congestion is worse, and many transportation facilities are more dangerous.

I am not saying that every road built before 1970 was perfect or that every private land-use decision is perfect. But those roads and private land uses produce far more benefits than we can ever get by letting politicians and planners decide how to manage private land and where to invest transportation dollars.

Back in the 1970s Portlanders elected a "reform" mayor who turned out to be a child molester and, more important, turned out to be just as venal as the people he replaced. The problem isn't the people in charge. The problem is the idea of putting government in charge of decisions that ought to be left to the private sector.

2006.03.17
CONGESTION CHARGES
Central Stockholm toll reducing traffic 20%+, doubling peakhour speeds

Stockholm's trial toll in a ring around the downtown is reducing traffic by 20 to 25%. Travel times are dramatically improved in the peak hours when the tolls are highest. The toll is levied at 18 toll points on arterials plus motorway ramps leading in to the central business district. In the first two weeks of operation - from 3 Jan - the reduction in traffic at the ring or cordon where tolls are levied - was down 25% to 35%, but then recovered a bit to the 20% to 25% range below pre-tolling numbers. Absolute numbers are approx 300k/day with tolls vs 400k before.

Public transport trips through the cordon are 875k/day from 810k up 8% or by 65k/day. The surveyors - an independent panel - caution that the toll alone is unlikely to be the sole factor in the changes. Fuel prices are up sharply and there were major improvements in bus and rail service with increased parking places at rail stations, new buses, more seats and improved frequency of bus service. The increased transit ridership was more or less matched by the increased seats as no increase in ovedrall crowding was observed.

The surveyors say there was some increase in carpooling, but they speculate that there is also an increase in work-from-home. They report the conclusions will be stronger through the spring. The toll trial goes from Jan 3 to July 31.

Here's my take on this (and Stockholm is a city that I am very familiar with):

- Highway capacity during weekdays is valuable capacity.
- At least some Stockholm drivers are willing to pay to use that capacity.
- If the price for the capacity is set high enough, some motorists will go away.
- Long before this tolling scheme was started, Stockholm had a high percentage of transit users going to the downtown area of the region - around 70% of inbound A.M. peak period trips were by transit.
- In spite of this project, Sweden has been busy expanding and improving its highway network, including the construction of new motorways, and improvements to existing ones.

This includes:

-- The Southern Link highway, a short but critical section of road in the close-in suburbs of Stockholm, mostly built in tunnels - completed in 2004:
Södra Länken – a new traffic route in Stockholm (Adobe Acrobat .pdf, 3.2 MB)
Safety concept in Södra Länken (Adobe Acrobat .pdf, 193 KB)
-- The Øresund Bridge [really a bridge-tunnel] between Sweden and Denmark - completed in 2000
-- 78 kilometers of new motorway north of the town of Uppsala are under construction
-- Several new motorway segments are under study, including a new western bypass of Stockholm, Northern and Eastern Links to bypass the downtown area of Stockholm

You can read more about the Stockholm Congestion Taxes (in Swedish legal terms, these congestion charges are taxes and not tolls) in English on this link (official site - run by the Swedish National Roads Administration, the Municipality of Stockholm, and SL (Stockholm Transit Authority)).

Demographia United States Metropolitan Areas 2005
(Adobe Acrobat .pdf, 575 KB)

Yesterday the US Census Bureau released population estimates for all US counties. The product above provides 2005, 2004 and 2000 population estimates for US county based metropolitan areas.

Wendell Cox Consultancy : Demographia
+1.618.632.8507 +33.6.10.59.59.92

WTOP Radio: BRAC Predicted to Bring Boom to Md.'s Population

And in the Richmond (Virginia) metropolitan area, the Times-Dispatch reports that Growth shifts; redefines metro area.

Note - all changes discussed below deal with estimated changes in resident population as determined by the U.S. Census Bureau, and are for the period July 1, 2004 to July 1, 2005.

Italic type denotes quotes these stories.

BRAC means Base Realignment and Closure.

(1) Virginia, which has much less Smart Growth in its laws than adjoining Maryland does, has grown much more rapidly (some of this is due to the Commonwealth having a vastly larger land area):

Virginia, which had three of the country's top 10 fastest-growing counties last year, outpaced Maryland with a growth rate of 1.15 percent to Maryland's 0.7 percent. Numerically, Virginia gained more than twice the number of residents as Maryland -- 86,133 to 39,056 -- according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

(2) The counties with the largest percentage gains are not the ones where Smart Growth envisioned that the growth should go (all four of these counties are, by tradition, "rural" counties):

The biggest gainers were Caroline County, 2.4 percent, Cecil County, 2.4 percent, Charles County, 2.3 percent, and Wicomico County, 2.0 percent.

Caroline County - on the Eastern Shore, far from the metropolitan areas of Baltimore, Washington and Annapolis - and any commute from Caroline County to Metropolitan Maryland must cross the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.

Cecil County - in the northeast corner of Maryland, many Interstate miles from Baltimore (though a reasonable commute to many employment opportunities in Delaware).

Charles County - in "Southern" Maryland, south of Prince George's County. Charles is firmly in the orbit of Washington, D.C., and there's plenty of vacant land for development there.

Wicomico County - also on Maryland's Eastern Shore (the county seat is Salisbury), but even further away from Washington and Baltimore than Caroline County.

(3) Now for two of the Maryland counties that have long practiced Smart Growth (even before it was called that):

Maryland's largest counties, Montgomery and Prince George's, have seen slowing population growth for the last two years. Montgomery grew by 5,952 people in 2005 and 5,558 in 2004, after gaining an average of 12,509 the previous three years. Prince George's added 4,481 in 2005 and 6,483 in 2004, after averaging 10,793 from 2001 to 2003.

Now in absolute terms, these two counties were estimated to have enjoyed relatively large populaton gains, but the percentages were small.

See also the Web site of the The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC), which is the land use planning agency and local parks department for most of both counties.

Frederick County, Maryland is not part of M-NCPPC, but it is part of the Washington, D.C. region, and it is estimated to have gained over 3,200 residents.

(4) The story reported by WTOP did not even mention the Maryland county that led all the others in population loss - that would be Baltimore City (which is a county for most purposes - it's not part of any other Maryland county). The Census Bureau estimates that Baltimore City lost more population than any one Maryland county gained.

(5) And while we're at it, let's consider the District of Columbia and Arlington County, Virginia (Arlington is home to the famous (among Smart Growth advocates) Ballston corridor).

D.C. is estimated to have lost over 3,700 in population.
Arlington County is estimated to have lost nearly 2,000 in population.

(6) Other Virginia jurisdictions near D.C.:

City of Alexadria: Lost over 1,000.
County of Fairfax: Added over 4,000 (this is the biggest jurisdiction in the Washington region by population)
City of Fairfax: Almost no change
City of Falls Church: Almost no change
County of Loudoun: Added over 16,000
Prince William County: Added over 12,000
City of Manassas: Almost no change
City of Manassas Park: Small increase

(7) Returning to the Times-Dispatch article mentioned above, a few quotes are interesting and relevant:

The Richmond area was once thought of only in terms of the city, Chesterfield and Henrico. But shifting growth rates have redefined the area to include counties such as Goochland, Powhatan, Hanover, Charles City and New Kent, said John V. Moeser, visiting fellow at the University of Richmond's Center for Civic Engagement.

"Our consciousness is going to have to be considerably broadened," Moeser said. "The growth rates clearly reveal now that the greater Richmond area is encompassing counties that before were viewed as largely agricultural, outside the orbit of metropolitan areas. Not so. They're now within the orbit."

Moeser said there is no question that growth from Washington is creeping southward from Northern Virginia into the Richmond area, despite increasing property values here.

"Compared to Washington, and now even compared to Fredericksburg, we still have a very favorable housing market," Moeser said. "As people escape really high prices to the north of us, they are moving into these areas. But once that happens, that is going to continue to increase property values here in Richmond."

In New Kent [County], the number of building permits issued in the county every month has continued to set records for the past two years, community development director George Homewood said.

Located along Interstate 64, New Kent is convenient for people who commute to the Richmond or the Williamsburg/Hampton Roads metropolitan areas. But the county's attractive, rural features may be an even bigger draw.

(8) You can look up population changes from 2004 to 2005 for your own state or county on the Census Bureau's web site here.

To ease congestion, increase safety, and reduce air pollution, New York City is converting some streets in the Bronx from two-way to one-way operation. This is going against the trend favored by urban planners in many places who are converting one-way street to two way in order to increase congestion and reduce safety -- based on the counterintuitive notion that more dangerous streets will encourage people to drive more safely.

For more information about the relative benefits of one-way streets, see No Two Ways About It: One-Way Streets Are Safer.

Oregon voters are learning how politicians use tax-increment financing (which in Oregon is called "urban-renewal money") to fund political favorites and steal money from schools, libraries, and other services. The politicians know that voters are much more likely to vote for more money for schools and libraries than for ridiculous pork-barrel projects, so they divert funds from the former to the latter and expect voters to make up the difference.

Here are just a few items in today's news:

• Oregon Health Sciences University proposes to use urban-renewal money to fund the huge cost overruns for its aerial tram. OHSU wanted the tram when it was expected to cost $15 million; now the cost is up to $55 million and it expects taxpayers to fund at least some of the overrun. No one at city hall made any effort to montor the tram's costs. For more on the tram, see Jack Bog's Blog.
• Clackamas County is using TIF to help pay for a light-rail line, and by an amazing coincidence says that many of its libraries are out of money and may close unless voters cough up some extra taxes.
• Multnomah County schools are running out of money, so the county council proposed to give the schools $10 million it doesn't have because it spent all its available cash on other pork barrel projects.
• Meanwhile, in southern Oregon, the city of Medford wants to spend $25 million in TIF money to attract Lithia Motors' business offices away from land the auto dealer owns near the airport to Medford's downtown. I wonder when Medford's libraries will run out of money?

For those who don't know, tax-increment financing means that all property taxes on development after the urban-renewal district is started are dedicated to subsidies to developers (or light rail or whatever) rather than to the schools, fire, police, and other services needed to support the development. Colorado also has something called a "property improvement fee" (PIF), in which sales taxes on retail shops in the development are dedicated to development rather than to whatever sales taxes are normally used for. For more information, see my two-page paper on TIF and PIF.

Mexico discovers 'huge' oil field
Mr Fox's government wants Mexico to maintain its current output

Mexican President Vicente Fox has announced the discovery of a new deep-water oil field, which is believed to contain 10bn barrels of crude.

The field is in the Gulf of Mexico, and Mexico says it could be bigger than its largest oil field, Cantarell.


What ever happened to "peak oil?"

3 Virginia Exurbs Near Top of U.S. in Growth
Home Prices Extend Frontier of D.C. Area

By D'Vera Cohn and Amy Gardner
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, March 16, 2006; Page A01

Some quotes:

The exurbs produced most of the region's growth last year, when the Washington area's population increased to nearly 6 million.

Those new residents are seeking lower-priced housing, bigger lots and less congested roads than established neighborhoods offer. Some are bypassing other fast-growing counties that imposed development restraints.

Many new residents commute through Washington area gridlock. Portia Cobb, 37, leaves home in Caroline County at 4 a.m. each day to drive her van pool 70 miles to the District, where she is a manager at a printing company. She used to live in the city, and now she takes about an hour to get there in the morning.

"This is the only way I could live comfortably and have some space and privacy," said Cobb, who paid $224,000 last year for her four-bedroom, three-bath, split-foyer rambler. "I went there to get away from the hustle and bustle and to get to easy living."

Meanwhile, the District [of Columbia] continues to lose population, according to previously released numbers.


For many years now, citizens of the Washington region have been lectured by advocates of dense urban living - that people in this part of the nation need to live in "compact" developments, preferably on top of rail stations, and that all new growth must be channeled to places such as the District of Columbia. These desired growth patterns are used to justify large and continued investment in rail transit lines, but a large majority of people that make their own private decisions about where to live are making choices that don't include D.C. and other close-in places.

More than 200 Portlanders turned out to a meeting last night, most of them upset about the rising costs of an aerial tram that is already under construction between the "So What" (South Waterfront) District and "Pill Hill" (a group of hospitals in Portland's West Hills).

And more than 200 Eugeneans turned out to a meeting last night, most of them upset about plans to subsidize a Whole Foods in downtown Eugene. The city has tentatively agreed to build a parking garage that would serve Whole Foods and other stores.

In Portland, the issue is that the cost of the tram has increased from an original estimate of $15 million to a current estimate of $55 million. Though the Oregon Health Sciences University (whose director is the highest-paid public official in Oregon) is picking up most of the tab, it has asked the city to cover part of the cost overrun. Residents of the neighborhood that will be overflown by the tram hate the tram and the entire So What development, much of which is being built in the form of high rises as extensions of the hospital facilities.

In Eugene, the issue is that several existing stores already serve the organic foods market. Whole Foods would not only get a prime downtown location, but plenty of free parking in a city that claims to be trying to reduce auto driving.

In both cases, what people are really mad at -- even if they don't all know it -- is government planners cutting secret deals and expecting taxpayers to pay for them. These are not examples of bad planning. They are the inevitable results of giving public agencies the power to plan our lives.

While The North Carolina Home Builders Association is trying to keep housing prices affordable, Public Policy Polling has come out with a poll suggesting that voters want Smart Growth sky rocketing house prices instead.
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com./pdf/webPPP%20Survey%20031006.pdf

Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) is Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will decide the fate of the Property Rights Protection Act, (S.1313).
Mayors and the League of Cities are terrified that their days of abusing property rights are coming to and end so they have turned to the age-old tactic that has worked in this day of sound-bite politics and emotion-driven policy - DELAY. Let it all calm down, then sneak it pass the unsuspecting public.
So, coming out strong in opposition to property rights, Senator Specter has made sure that no action has taken place on his committee since S.1313 was introduced (by Sen. John Cornyn, R-TX) back in June 2005.
http://www.newswithviews.com/DeWeese/tom47.htm

Lots of Glass, Capital Views

Design of New Stadium for Washington Nationals Reflects Elements of Convention Center and Monuments In Departure From Red-Brick Retro Ballparks

Architects from Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum Sport of Kansas City, Mo., and Devrouax & Purnell of the District broke sharply from the red-brick throwback design popularized by Baltimore's Oriole Park at Camden Yards.

Instead, the Nationals' future home will be defined by a straight, knife-edge building along South Capitol Street, intersected by the sweeping curve of the stadium bowl.

The city has agreed to invest a total of $611 million in the project, including $320 million for the ballpark, which will be constructed by Clark Construction Group of Bethesda, along with partners Smoot and Hunt construction companies. Major League Baseball has promised to chip in $20 million, and the federal government has budgeted $20 million to renovate the Navy Yard Metro station.


OK, I'll admit it - I am a baseball fan - really more of a Baltimore Orioles fan, though I am rather tired of the bungling incompetence of the owner of the Baltimore American League franchise. I am closer (as the crow flies) to the current site of the baseball park in the District of Columbia, RFK Stadium, where the Nationals play than I am to Camden Yards in Baltimore (though because of the way that the D.C.-area highway network has been built (or actually, not built), I can get to Baltimore much more quickly than I can to the old or new venues for the Washington Nationals).

I am certain that the new stadium for the Nationals will be very nice. But it's still bad public policy for these private entities to get very expensive homes built at taxpayer expense. Nor does it matter much to me how good of an "investment" it might be. Major League Baseball franchises are private businesses, and ought to be expected to pay their own way when it comes to stadiums, but most do not.

One sports team that came pretty close was the massive venue where the NFL Washington Redskins play, in Landover, Maryland. The late Jack Kent Cooke paid for the construction of the stadium out of his own pocket (though even in the case of the Redskins stadium, Maryland taxpayers picked up the tab for millions in road and highway improvements, including a brand-new interchange on the Capital Beltway (I-95/I-495)).

D.C. Citypaper
COVER STORY
March 10, 2006

Slum Pickin’s

Man buys former crack house. Crackhead stops by, bakes chicken.

By Ryan Grim

About a decade ago, the U.S. Attorney’s Office (USAO) for the District of Columbia took aim at what law-enforcement officials call “nuisance properties”—crack houses or boarded-up buildings that attract crime. Ever since, it has teamed up with D.C. agencies—the police department and the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, for starters—to oust the tenants/squatters who have made such properties neighborhood eyesores. The USAO now feels sufficiently confident in the program to post a list of “Nuisance Property Success Stories” on its Web site, an inventory that now features 28 properties. The distinction comes with a vague blurb describing what the nuisance was, how the USAO got rid of it, and how much better off the neighborhood is now. Interviews with the actual people involved—the tenants, the addicts, the cops, the landlords—reveal that there is much
more to the stories. Or sometimes much less.

1423 Parkwood Place NW
Columbia Heights

U.S. Attorney Says: Crack house was shut down.

Neighbors Say: Crackheads are still around.

At 1423 Parkwood Place, a disabled elderly man allowed his grandchildren to sell drugs from the property, says the USAO. A nearby resident of 33 years says that she often saw young men hanging out in the front yard and that the property was known as a crack house. In order to clear the house out, the city found the elderly man a new home and “ensure[d] that he had proper care.”

Property records show that the place sold for $35,000 in February 2002. Two-and-a-half years later—after it had been flipped through a chain of speculators—27-year-old Seth Whitaker, a San Francisco Bay area native and 2001 Georgetown grad, bought it for $395,000. Whitaker says the investment was worth it and that he values the spirit that comes with buying a former crack house. He was told by a neighbor that as many as 40 people were living in the property at one point; there was no stove, so tenants used an indoor barrel grill instead.

The indoor grilling continued after Whitaker moved in. Early one morning in mid-2005, he awoke to a sharp burning smell and went downstairs to check it out. Through the smoke, he made out a figure in his living room. “There’s a dude right where I’m sitting now,” recalls Whitaker from his plush couch. “He was black, had on nice pants, a nice shirt, and I thought, Dammit, this must be one of Victor’s friends,” thinking that his roommate had let somebody sleep over without telling him first. Whitaker walked past the sleeping man to the oven and found the source of the smoke. “He was cooking one of my chickens from the freezer,” he says. Whitaker turned off the oven and went back to bed.

When he came down again at 9:30 a.m. to leave for his job at National Public Radio, the man was still there. He woke him up, got him a glass of water, and asked him if he knew Victor. The man mumbled a few different names, and that’s when it dawned on Whitaker: The man was part of the house’s history. “This guy was just high and thought his friends still lived here. So he came in, helped himself to some chicken, and passed out,” Whitaker says. “In a way, it makes me think, Wow, this is a nice place. It made me proud to live here. This is a real community.”

[Click heading for more stories of "troubled" properties in D.C.]

NEW RENTAL CAR TOURS

Katowice-Gliwice-Tichy: Waiting to be Discovered
(Adobe Acrobat .pdf, 842 KB)

Nowa Huta: Ideal City, with a Side Trip to Krakow
(Adobe Acrobat .pdf, 946 KB)


REVISED RENTAL CAR TOUR

Warsaw: Rising as a Phoenix from Planning
12 new pictures
(Adobe Acrobat .pdf, 1.33 MB)

Neighbors Square Off Over McMansions
Mar 14th - 2:45pm

Kate Ryan, WTOP Radio

BETHESDA, Md. - When your neighbor's dream home becomes your nightmare, what can you do? If you live in one Bethesda neighborhood, you look to change the zoning laws.

Greenwich Forest Community Association President Stephen Burks is fighting what he sees as a growing trend in his neighborhood: the tearing down of older houses to build gigantic "McMansions."

"We're not trying to keep people from expanding their homes or renovating their homes or even tearing down their homes," Burks says.

But they are trying to prevent Philip Leibovitz, with Sandy Spring Builders, from going ahead with his dream home.

The community association wants a a six-month moratorium on tear-downs while they lobby local officials to prevent the Mansionization of their neighborhood.

Leibowitz says he's going ahead with his plan, which is within current zoning laws.

"I'm just trying to protect my rights as a property owner and do what I'm entitled to do," Leibowitz says.

Burks says he has nothing against the McMansions, they just love their compact homes -- which another resident calls "American Classics."

"[The homes] are quite large, and I must say, quite nice," Burks says.

Both sides say they want to work together, even as they work toward different goals.

(Copyright 2006 by WTOP. All Rights Reserved)

A few comments about this:

- The Bethesda area is a rather expensive and exclusive suburb of Washington, D.C.

- Because it is in Montgomery County, all such proposals must pass scrutiny through an elaborate, expensive and slow approval process.

- If Mr. Leibowitz is able to show compliance with the Montgomery County Zoning Ordinance, and its extensive setback and height requirements, then I don't think his prospective neighbors should be involving themselves in this - after all, it's his private property!

LEARNING MORE & TAKING ACTION
The News & Observer Publishing Company

The following Web sites tell about Sunshine Week, open government, and how to use the law to get information:

www.sunshineweek.org This is the Web site for Sunshine Week, designed to call attention to the importance of protecting open access to government.

http://www.ncopengov.org/ The N.C. Open Government Coalition educates people about the public's right to access government activity and records. Go to this site to read the state laws on public records and open meetings and get information on how to use them.

http://www.nfoic.org/ The National Freedom of Information Coalition is an alliance of First Amendment and open-government organizations. Go to this site and click on "resources."

http://www.ncdoj.com/ The state Attorney General's Office site has information on understanding laws on open government. Click on "Victims and Citizens Services."

© Copyright 2006

By Eric Pryne
Seattle Times
February 22, 2006

Ruling against a lower court, the Oregon Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld a sweeping, voter-approved measure that could allow many Oregon landowners to develop their property more intensively than current land-use regulations allow.
Measure 37, passed by Oregon voters in 2004, allows property owners to seek compensation from local or state agencies if land-use laws and rules reduce the value of their land. If governments can't afford to pay — and none in Oregon says it can — those regulations would be waived.
Measure 37's approval inspired the Washington State Farm Bureau to file a similar property-rights measure, Initiative 933, in this state earlier this month. But supporters and opponents of the initiative said the Oregon Supreme Court's decision won't affect their plans much, if at all.
"It's good news for property owners in Oregon," said Dan Wood, the Farm Bureau's government-affairs director, "but we didn't take the language in Measure 37 as the model for ours."
Environmentalists and other opponents hope to persuade Washington voters to defeat I-933 if it is on the ballot this fall, which would mean its constitutionality would never need to be tested in court, said Aisling Kerins of the Community Protection Coalition.
"It's basically a big win for big developers," she said of the Oregon ruling.
To qualify I-933 for the November ballot, backers must collect signatures of at least 224,880 registered voters by July 7.
Supporters and opponents are fighting over the wording of the ballot title, but Wood said petitions should be available by the second week of March.
Measure 37's approval in Oregon sent ripples across the nation. The state adopted land-use policies in 1973 that are often regarded as a national model for protecting farmland and open space and encouraging compact growth.
Those policies sparked a property-rights revolt that eventually produced Measure 37.
More than 2,000 claims for compensation or waivers were filed after the measure took effect in December 2004. Many landowners simply sought permission to build a home, but some wanted to put large subdivisions or shopping centers on farmland.
The law has been in a legal limbo since October, when Marion County Circuit Judge Mary James said it violated the state and federal constitutions. The state's highest court ruled otherwise Tuesday, saying James' arguments were not persuasive.
The ruling means people whose claims were bottled up after James' decision can go ahead and try to get local and state agencies to approve their development plans.
While Oregon's high court said the measure was constitutional, that is not the last word. There are still a raft of legal disputes involving such issues as whether a landowner can transfer a Measure 37 right to develop property through a sale or a bequest.
"Without some action by the Legislature, it may be years before additional court cases begin to clarify all of the uncertainties about the law," Gov. Ted Kulongoski said in his response to the Tuesday ruling.
"In the process, those cases will entail substantial costs and frustrations for state and local governments and private-property owners throughout Oregon."
Washington's I-933 differs from Measure 37 in several respects.
The Oregon law, for instance, allows landowners to seek compensation for regulations adopted any time after they acquired their property — in some cases, decades ago. James cited that provision in finding the measure unconstitutional.
The Washington initiative contains no similar clause. Instead, it allows all landowners to seek waivers or compensation for regulations adopted any time after 1995.
Wood said the Farm Bureau would not try to rewrite I-933 in light of the Oregon Supreme Court ruling.
He also said the ruling would undercut an argument of the initiative's opponents; some had said after James' ruling that it would be difficult for the Farm Bureau to craft a law that passed constitutional muster.
"They've been saying Measure 37 is unconstitutional and our initiative is like Measure 37," he said. "Now they're caught in a lie twice."
But Kerins said that, while the Oregon Supreme Court ruled Measure 37 was legal, "they didn't say it was fair. ... It creates loopholes for big developers at the expense of the little guy."
Andrew Cook, a lawyer in the pro-property-rights Pacific Legal Foundation's Bellevue office, said the Oregon court ruling could help I-933 if it passes and is challenged.
"Courts do look to other states," he said. "This sets a good precedent for Washington state."
Associated Press reporter Brad Cain contributed to this story, reporting from Salem, Ore. Seattle Times staff reporter Eric Pryne reported from Seattle. Eric Pryne: 206-464-2231 or

By ROBERT TANNER
Associated Press
February 5, 2006

LONG BRANCH, N.J. (AP) - The city wants Anna DeFaria's home, and if she doesn't sell willingly, officials are going to take it from the 80-year-old retired pre-school teacher.
In place of her "tiny slip of a bungalow" - and two dozen other weathered, working-class beachfront homes - city officials want private developers to build upscale townhouses.
Is this the work of a cruel government? Or the best hope for resurrecting an ocean resort town that is finally showing signs of reviving after decades of hard times?
Echoes of the debate are happening across the country, after a U.S. Supreme Court decision brought new attention to governments' ability to seize property through the tool of eminent domain. Some 40 states are re-examining their laws - with action in Congress, too - after the court's unpopular ruling.
"We thought this was going to be our home forever," said DeFaria, sitting in a kitchen cozy with photos of children and grandchildren, quotes from the Bible and a game of Scrabble that she plays against herself. "Now they want to take it away. It's unfair, it's criminal, it's unconstitutional."
Not according to the Supreme Court. In a 5-4 ruling last June that was greeted with widespread criticism, the court found that New London, Conn., had the authority to take homes for a private development project.
The Constitution says governments cannot take private property for public use without "just compensation." Governments have traditionally used eminent domain to build public projects such as roads, reservoirs and parks. But for decades, the court has been expanding the definition of public use, allowing cities to employ eminent domain to eliminate blight.
The high court, in its ruling, also noted that states are free to ban that practice - and legislators around the country are thinking about whether they should do just that.
New Jersey state Sen. Diane Allen, with bipartisan support, is pushing for a two-year ban on all eminent domain actions and for a bipartisan study group to re-examine its use in New Jersey.
"Right now government, I think, is using eminent domain to take people's private properties and hand it over to another owner," said Allen, a Republican. "It's really putting a hole in the American dream. Ownership of private property plays such a large role in that dream."
After the court ruling, four states passed laws reining in eminent domain. Roughly another 40 are considering legislation. In Congress, the House voted to deny federal funds to any project that used eminent domain to benefit a private development, and a federal study aims to examine how widely it is used.
The Washington-based Institute for Justice, a libertarian advocacy group that worked for homeowners in the New London case and in Long Branch, argues that state laws should be changed so property can only be seized for public uses like a park or a school - not urban redevelopment that benefits private developers.
Redevelopment usually depends on defining an area as "blighted" or a "slum," though definitions are vague, said Bert Gall, an attorney with the institute. Criteria can include a building's age, lack of compliance with building codes, even the size of a yard.
Abuses are widespread, Gall said, claiming that over a five-year period ending in 2002, more than 10,000 properties were threatened by eminent domain.
Municipal leaders across the country are pushing back, arguing that it's false to claim eminent domain is widely abused and warning that an emotional backlash to the court ruling is putting at risk an important tool that has helped turn around neighborhoods including Baltimore's Inner Harbor and New York's Times Square.
Elected officials have difficult decisions to make, and often must balance a community's needs with a few individuals, said Don Borut, executive director of the National League of Cities.
The plight of homeowners is hard to ignore, he said. "But at the same time ... there are hundreds if not a couple of thousand faces of people you don't see, of people of all levels of income who as a result of the economic development will get jobs," he added.
In Long Branch, there's no doubt the city needed to do something - a comeback wasn't happening on its own, Mayor Adam Schneider said.
"Most people wouldn't walk down those streets anymore. The worst neighborhood in our city was along our oceanfront. And that's been reversed," he said. Since the redevelopment effort began in earnest in 2002 after a decade of planning, new shops and homeowners have moved in, and new sidewalks have been installed - along with a new boardwalk, parks and an ice-skating rink, he said.
"What you do is you've improved your city, you've gotten rid of decrepit housing, you've created jobs," Schneider said. "It's easy to play it out as the city is cruel and government is stealing your property. I'm used to it. ... But this has reversed the decline that's been going on in Long Branch for more than 50 years."
Already, people are coming to new shops along the central waterfront, where the old pier burned down back in 1987. Rows and rows of new, sand-colored condominiums shadow DeFaria's one-story home when the afternoon sun sinks low.
DeFaria said she was offered $325,000 for the home she and her late husband bought in 1960 for $6,400. Where could anyone buy a waterfront view on the Jersey coast for that amount of money now?
But it's not the money, she said: $1 million wouldn't convince her. "They're taking my home away - not my house. My home. My life."

Debra J. Saunders
Sunday, February 5, 2006
San Francisco Cronicle

CONAWAY RANCH is a 17,300-acre spread north of Davis. On property that sidles up to I-5 and provides a fine view of the Sacramento skyline, owners grow rice and alfalfa, boast rights to 50,000 acre-feet of water and extract natural gas. The gray sky and Sierra runoff are home to countless birds -- ducks, egrets and hawks -- some of which the owners hunt.
Yolo County wants the land. In 2004, county supervisors voted to seize the ranch by eminent domain. "We want to keep it from being developed," explained Supervisor Mike McGowan.
The owners are fighting back, and they're media savvy.
In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its infamous Kelo decision -- which supported the seizure by New London, Conn., of taxpayers' waterfront homes so that the properties could be handed over to private development. Americans on the left and right were outraged at this expansive definition of a "public use" taking.
Then-Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote in her dissent, "The specter of condemnation hangs over all property. Nothing is to prevent the state from replacing any Motel 6 with a Ritz-Carlton, any home with a shopping mall, or any farm with a factory."
Now the owners -- a group of developers that calls itself the Conaway Preservation Group and bought the property after Yolo commenced the eminent-domain action -- are arguing that what Yolo wants to do is worse than Kelo.
Spokesman Tovey Giezentanner argues that while Kelo was outrageous -- for it allowed local governments to seize homes and hand them over to private developers -- if Yolo wins, it will be the first time the "government got into the business of trying to run an existing business." There will be nothing to stop the governments from seizing other profitable businesses -- parking garages, farms, hotels -- and run them themselves.
"I've got some news for you," countered McGowan, "after going through this, it is highly unlikely I will ever do this again." The political fallout has been no picnic.
McGowan bristles at the notion that Yolo wants to go beyond Kelo. A county buying land to preserve it is "pretty old stuff." I have to agree on that point.
That doesn't make the seizure of the ranch a good thing. Steven Anderson, an attorney with the Institute for Justice, which has been a key player in fighting eminent-domain abuses, said of this case, "There may not be a constitutional claim," and the preservation may be considered a public use, but "that does not mean it is right."
Oh, and there's another wrinkle. Yolo doesn't plan on using county money to buy the property. Later this year, a jury will set the value of the ranch. The owners purchased the ranch for a reported $60 million, but it may be worth much more. So who pays for it?
The Rumsey Band of Wintun Indians will put up the front money. The Yolo supes call this a "handshake deal" -- with no quid-pro-quo for the tribe. I should note that the Rumsey tribe owns Cache Creek Casino.
It all comes does to: Whom do you trust?
The developer owners, who at this point can't build on any of the land but might be able to build on small portions in the future, if Yolo politics change?
Or the county, with McGowan's word that "we have not made any concessions with the tribe?''
McGowan argues that while the Conaway Conservation Group may act as good stewards now, the minute conservation is not profitable; the owners will try to build where they can. (Not that I think that's necessarily a bad thing, but McGowan thinks it is bad.)
Giezentanner argues that voters would be foolish to believe this land grab is a "stringless deal." While the casino grows as a political force in the county, it will be able to build on some of the land -- and this is a hot location, not far from the airport and easy access to I-5. That is, not a bad spot for another casino.

This story is from the Times-Tribune of Scranton, Penna.

Rail panel OKs joint authority

BY BORYS KRAWCZENIUK STAFF WRITER
03/09/2006

Anything that involves federal money usually involves red tape, and the proposal to build a passenger train route to New York City is no different.

The Lackawanna County Railroad Authority board ripped away some red tape and boosted efforts at regionalization Wednesday by voting 3-0 to join the Monroe County Railroad Authority in forming a joint authority.

Chairman Dominic J. Keating and board members Andy Wallace and Harry Duckworth voted for what Mr. Wallace termed “a giant step for Northeastern Pennsylvania.” Member Dick Kane was absent.

The Northeast Pennsylvania Regional Railroad Authority will handle the Pennsylvania end of the estimated $350 million Scranton-to-Hoboken, N.J., passenger train, accepting the federal and state money needed to build the project and overseeing its combined 94 miles of track. The track is currently used only for shipping freight.

Much red tape remains before New Jersey Transit, the proposed operator, has passenger trains rolling.


See more about the Northeast Pennsylvania Railroad Authority on the Keystone Politics Web site here.

From the Los Angeles Times

Seeing Factories as Essential Parts

The shape of modern American cities may be changing as urban planners weigh the conflicting merits of housing versus industry.

By Maria L. La Ganga and Roger Vincent
Times Staff Writers

March 13, 2006

OAKLAND - One after another, they stepped to the lectern, pleading. Don't take the land, they told City Council members. Don't put houses on it. If we lose it, it's gone forever.

This wasn't a scene from some Central Valley agricultural town, with fecund acres being gobbled up at a rapid pace. This was a
bustling urban enclave in late January, and the appeals came from anxious residents and business owners demanding that city officials protect factories, not farms.

"Many businesses, even small businesses like mine on a half an acre, give you 40 good jobs," Bob Tuck, owner of Atlas Heating and Air Conditioning Co., insisted at the packed hearing on Oakland's land-use policies. "If you pave over our business land, it's never going to give you another economic crop. Let's make sure that it doesn't become a residential zone."

Large tracts of land are increasingly hard to find in California's crowded cities. Freeways are more congested than ever. Elected officials and environmentalists are clamoring for developers to build new houses within existing urban boundaries instead of fostering more traffic and sprawl.

At the same time, California lost nearly 340,000 manufacturing jobs in the last five years, making some industrial zones look like remnants of a more vibrant age.

So what's a canny developer to do? Put new homes in old manufacturing zones, of course.

But as a flood of houses and condominiums has been proposed over the last several years where smokestacks once belched, Oakland, San Francisco, Los Angeles and other cities in California and throughout the country have been pressed to protect the ugly ducklings of urban land use - industrial neighborhoods.

Zoning Laws Are Looser for Some Family Ties
Suburbs to Scrutinize Loopholes That Allow Dense Building

By Nikita Stewart and Nancy Trejos
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, March 13, 2006; B01

On the outskirts of the Washington region, where local officials have tried to protect farms and rural vistas from encroaching suburbia, more and more landowners are turning to a loophole that allows them to carve up their land for new houses.

The measure -- often referred to as a family subdivision -- allows property owners to skirt zoning laws in rural areas and subdivide land for the use of their relatives. In Prince William and Montgomery counties, it has become a common practice, and officials in both localities are beginning to scrutinize it.

Critics say that as the area's real estate market continues to thrive, family subdivisions are easily abused. Homes meant for property owners' relatives can easily end up on the open market.

But many families say the allowance -- created decades ago to encourage family farming -- is the only way many relatives stand a chance of owning a home in this expensive area.

"In my mind, it was a great blessing while I was still alive to give my children a leg up," said Shari Jacobs, who along with her husband, Jerry, turned their eight-acre lot in western Prince William into lots for themselves and each of their three children.

"The original purpose was to allow farming families to provide homes for the next generation of farmers," said Derick P. Berlage, chairman of the Montgomery Planning Board. "It was not intended as an avenue to create new market lots or an avenue to increase the investment value of farmland."

In 1981, Montgomery set aside about 145 square miles, one-third of the county, for farmland and open space and limited housing to one unit per 25 acres. Prince William created its Rural Crescent of 120 square miles in 1998 and set the minimum lot size at 10 acres.

But under a 55-year-old Virginia law, Rural Crescent landowners can subdivide property into lots as small as one acre and distribute them to offspring. In 2001, the county extended the exemption -- over the objections of its Planning Commission -- to nephews, nieces, uncles and aunts.

The Bi-State Development Agency, which operates light rail and buses in St. Louis and its suburbs, surveyed its light-rail riders and found that 71 percent of them are "new" transit riders, meaning they previously were driving or at least not riding the bus. This is supposed to suggest that rail attracts many people out of their cars.

The only problem with this survey is that it didn't ask the former bus riders whether they now ride rail or drive. St. Louis had a seventeen-mile light-rail line in 2000, which it doubled to more than 34 miles in 2001. Then in 2003 it added 3.5 more miles. Below are the ridership numbers.

St. Louis Bus/Rail Ridership in Millions of Trips Per Year

      Bus    LRT   Total
1998  41.1   14.6   55.6
1999  39.9   15.0   54.9
2000  39.3   14.2   53.5
2001  38.0   14.3   52.3
2002  34.1   14.7   48.8
2003  32.4   14.8   47.2
2004  32.1   14.5   46.7

Source: Federal Transit Administration

So if rail attracted so many new riders, where are they? The answer is that rail also turned off as many if not more bus riders. Perhaps Bi-State cancelled buses that competed with the light rail but which were more convenient to many people. Perhaps rail cost overruns forced Bi-State to reduce frequencies on buses. Either way, just claiming that 71 percent of rail riders are not former bus riders does not prove that you got any cars off the road.

In 1996, rail advocates promised voters that a commuter rail line from Everett to Seattle would cost $89 million and carry 357,000 riders in 2002, increasing to at least 600,000 by 2010.

In fact, it cost $385 million and carried less than 150,000 riders last year. Including both operating and amortized capital costs, taxpayers are spending more than $250 for each one-way trip.

The commuter train takes two trips a day each way. To boost ridership, transit officials might want to cancel the 30 express bus trips made each day between the two cities. The express buses are just as fast as the trains, take riders closer to their destinations, and cost far less. Obviously there is something wrong with that.

Do you have a disability that causes your speech to be slightly slurred? If so, then be prepared to be yanked off the bus and carted off in handcuffs.

Portland resident Gil Whitfield is a boxer whose speech is impaired from years of being hit in the head. He got on a Portland bus one day and, after showing the driver his ticket, the driver asked to see it again. When he asked why, the driver called 9-1-1. The police showed up, asked him to step off the bus, handcuffed him, and arrested him.

The police admitted they thought he was drunk and only later realized that he was merely disabled. They claimed he resisted arrest, but when the city tried to prosecute, the district attorney dropped the case for lack of evidence.

If I were Whitfield, I would go out and buy a car. Portland's buses are festooned with bumper stickers falsely claiming that each bus takes hundreds of cars off the road. But at the rate they are going, they are putting more cars back on the road than they are taking off.

From the Los Angeles Times

Traffic Detoured as City Touts Its New Traffic Czar

A block of Main Street is closed briefly as L.A. officials announce the recruitment of a Michigan official as transportation chief.

By Steve Hymon
Times Staff Writer

March 10, 2006

Motorists looking for irony in downtown Los Angeles on Thursday didn't have to drive far: Officials closed a block of Main Street at the end of a news conference by four elected officeholders, including Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, to announce the hiring of a transportation chief to ease traffic congestion.

The mayor has said repeatedly that one of his major goals is to address the city's often-wicked traffic. Accordingly, he announced at Thursday's news conference his recruitment of Gloria Jeff as the new general manager of the city's Transportation Department.

Jeff resigned earlier this month as director of the Michigan Department of Transportation to move to Los Angeles. She called Lansing, Mich., home in her last job and also has lived in Detroit and Atlanta, two cities known for bad traffic. Jeff, 53, begins her new job March 20.

"As you all know, traffic congestion is one of my key priorities," the mayor said. "It is 11 o'clock, and we purposely had this press conference today at 11 o'clock because we wanted to demonstrate that in fact the traffic congestion in this city — whether it's 11 o'clock in the morning, 5 o'clock in the afternoon or 11 o'clock at night — is affecting everything. Traffic is a major issue in this city, a major issue for me as mayor."

The event was scheduled to be held at City Hall but was moved to the Main Street bridge over the 101 Freeway to provide better visuals for television cameras, according to a mayoral press deputy.

The lectern for the mayor and other city officials was placed in the street, a few feet from the curb. The change in venue also allowed several dozen members of the engineer and architects union to stand on the nearby sidewalk and to try to drown out Villaraigosa and the others by chanting "equal pay for equal work" as several members of the police watched them. The union has been campaigning for better pay for its city workers.

As the news conference ended, white-gloved traffic officers closed Main Street and diverted northbound traffic onto an eastbound access road paralleling the freeway.

Mayoral press secretary Joe Ramallo blamed the 10-minute street closure on the demonstrators, who he said were "overflowing into the street" — and not the city officials who were already in the street. He said officials closed it to protect public safety.

That allowed Councilman Tom LaBonge, a photography enthusiast, to corral most of the contingent behind the podium to the other side of the bridge for a five-minute photo session with Jeff. LaBonge was joined by Villaraigosa and council colleague Wendy Greuel.

As for fixing traffic in the city, Villaraigosa and Jeff offered few details. Villaraigosa reiterated his desire to build a subway to the ocean and a downtown connecting line for the area's light-rail routes and to continue synchronizing traffic lights.

Baltimore Sun:
Need for affordable rentals grows critical nationwide
and
To many, house buy is impossible dream (see more from this article below)

Urban Institute:
The Forgotten Story in Baltimore's Housing Boom

Washington Post:
D.C.: Tenants' Fortunes Rest With Convicted Swindler

NAHB via HGTVPro:
Local Regs Hammer Affordable Housing, Study Finds
Thanks to C.M. Heath for this one!

I do not agree with the cause-and-effect concerning "sprawl" in the report below, nor with some of the other conclusions, but the data in it seem to be accurate, and I include it below for that reason.
Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University:
America's Rental Housing: Homes for a Diverse Nation
(Adobe Acrobat .pdf, 2.44 MB)

And last but certainly not least, 2nd Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey: 2006 (Data for 3rd Quarter 2005)
(Adobe Acrobat .pdf, 620 KB)

EDWARD L. GLAESER
A smaller New Orleans

By Edward L. Glaeser | February 1, 2006

MUCH OF the discussion of the planned rebuilding of New Orleans has been mired in nostalgia and unrealistic expectations, and we are in danger of doing a far worse job rebuilding New Orleans than rebuilding Baghdad. The final report released by the Bring New Orleans Back Commission -- the closest thing there is to an official reconstruction organization -- provides us with a blueprint for a rebuilding process that is both wasteful and unfair.

[snipped]

The weakest elements of the report are its actual spending recommendations. The largest line item in the report is $12 billion for buying housing in New Orleans. Since the report strongly supports the Baker bill, I assume that this money is to be used along the lines suggested by that bill, which advocates federal spending that could top $50 billion in a poorly conceived scheme involving buying and rebuilding homes in the region.

[snipped]

Finally, and bizarrely, the report spends as much space on a light rail system as it does on levees. One could easily get the idea that the best protection against future hurricanes for the federal government to spend $5 billion on light rail in New Orleans. Light rail systems almost never cover their costs, and they are almost always dominated by high speed buses on dedicated lanes.

Given the uncertainty in New Orleans's future, it seems foolish to lay down fixed rail lines, when speedy buses are readily available. After all, in the 2000 Census, 76 percent of New Orleans residents drove to work, more than 12 percent took a bus, and less than 1 percent had anything to do with streetcars or rail. The proposed spending on rail could provide more than $15,000 per adult on schooling or healthcare, which would surely help the disadvantaged of New Orleans far more than light rail.

March 12, 2006
Survey of M.T.A. Properties Finds Many Ill Maintained
By DAMIEN CAVE

Many of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's outdoor properties are poorly lighted and rarely cleaned, making them magnets for "litterers, dumpers and graffiti vandals," according to a City Council survey of outdoor train tracks, bridges and subway stations maintained by the agency.

The report, to be released today by the Council's Policy and Investigations Division, calls the the authority a "a bad neighbor" that would have already been punished for violating city health codes were it not a public agency.

"New Yorkers know that they would be fined if they left large household items — such as sofas — on their sidewalks for extended periods of time," the report said. "The M.T.A. must also know this, yet it allows persisting conditions that create the appearance of abandonment and blight, while shirking all responsibility to clean it up."

From the Baltimore Sun
To many, house buy is impossible dream
Purchasing a home in Maryland has become so expensive that it is beyond the buying power of the average earner

By Jamie Smith Hopkins
Sun reporter

March 12, 2006

Housing prices have risen so much faster than wages in Maryland that the average home is out of reach of the average worker -- and, in many cases, even two-earner families.

In an analysis, The Sun found that a first-time home buyer would have to spend 71 percent of his or her income to cover the monthly payments, based on statewide averages. A two-worker household with average salaries would spend 35 percent -- still more than the 30 percent maximum traditionally recommended by the financial industry.

The numbers suggest that affordable housing has become a pressing problem for typical middle-class Marylanders -- not just the firefighters and police officers often cited by policymakers. As a result, people unwilling to stretch their finances beyond safe limits are finding themselves stuck as long-term renters.

The problem isn't confined to the most expensive counties, though it's more pronounced there. Even homes in Baltimore City, where prices are among the lowest, are too expensive for average workers in every Maryland county but Montgomery, the highest-wage jurisdiction in the state.