From Planetizen, Slate

Robots, Not RoadsThe Obama stimulus package should be spent on transformative investments, not bridges and buildings.

By Eliot SpitzerPosted Monday, Jan. 5, 2009, at 4:09 PM ET

The incoming Obama administration and Congress are planning a huge fiscal stimulus package. They hope that such a stimulus will catalyze an economic turnaround and be a cornerstone of a "New New Deal." If the early reports are reliable, the stimulus will include a huge tax cut and will fund projects like road-building and bridge repair, laying the infrastructure foundation for the economy of the future.

Yet two huge problems with this approach must be confronted. First, the capacity of even the U.S. government to affect the overall global economy is limited. Suppose the package is $800 billion over two years: $400 billion is less than 1 percent of the global economy and a mere 3 percent of the U.S. economy. In relative terms, $400 billion isn't all that much more than the $152 billion spent on the 2008 stimulus, which had nary an impact on the economy.

Here is where the New Deal analogies are instructive. The New Deal probably didn't pull us out of the Depression; World War II did that. What the New Deal did was redefine the social contract—perhaps just as important an outcome. The ultimate significance of the Obama package may be not its short-term demand-side impact but rather its capacity to transform our economy and, in turn, some of the fundamental underpinnings of our society. This introduces the second major problem: The "off the shelf" infrastructure projects that can be funded immediately and provide immediate demand-side stimulus are almost by definition not the transformative investments we really need. Paving roads, repairing bridges that need refurbishing, and accelerating existing projects are all good and necessary, but not transformative. These projects by and large are building or patching the same economy with the same flaws that got us where we are. Our concern should be that as we look for the next great infrastructure project to transform our economy, we might rebuild the Erie Canal and find ourselves a century behind technologically.

This moment presents the administration with what is likely to be its best—and perhaps only—opportunity to have essentially unlimited capital (both fiscal and political) to spend on a transformative economic agenda. It is a unique moment to build a new foundation. It would be wise to ensure that a significant portion of the stimulus package is spent on new investments that may not be quite as ready to go but are surely more important to our long-term economic viability. There are many such critical investments, but here are a few for consideration. These are not, of course, the only ideas, and they may not be the best ideas. But they should spur discussion of how to use the fiscal stimulus not just to put people to work but also to build the over-the-horizon projects that will set the stage for the next great American economic miracle.

In the energy arena, two investments are critical. The first is smart meters. These would permit, with a smart grid, time-of-day pricing for all consumers, with potentially double-digit reductions in peak demand, significant cost savings, and consequential remarkable energy and environmental impacts. These declines in peak demand would translate into dramatic reduction in the number of new power plants. The problem with installation of smart meters has been both the cost and, often, state-by-state regulatory hurdles. Now is the moment to sweep both aside and transform our entire electricity market into a smart market.

Second, the most significant hurdle to beginning the shift to nongasoline-based cars is the lack of an infrastructure to distribute the alternative energy, whether it is electricity—plug-in hybrids—or natural gas or even hydrogen. Once that infrastructure is there, it is said, consumers will be able to opt for the new technology. If that is so, let us build that infrastructure now: Transform existing gas stations so they can serve as distribution points for natural gas or hydrogen, build plug-in charging centers at parking lots, and design units for at-home garages. These would, indeed, be transformative investments.

In health care, everybody agrees that electronic record-keeping is a universal win: errors reduced, public health gains from the ability to know what is actually being delivered, a dramatic improvement in primary care. But again, the cost has been prohibitive, because the upfront expenditure is enormous and the benefits are long term and hard to measure. We should condition state receipt of Medicaid bailout funds on a new infrastructure of electronic medical records. No single health care step would be more transformative.

America lags the world in Internet service and access. Our Internet backbone is worse than that of competing nations. We should spend to upgrade it.

In education—just as much a part of our infrastructure as bridges and roads—here is a small investment that is one of my favorites: Provide funding for robotics teams at every school. If you ever want to see intellectual competition in the arena that matters today—technological wizardry—visit the robotics competitions that now exist in some schools. Make these competitions as universal as football. Make it cool to design the next cutting-edge video game or iPod.

These are just a few possible infrastructure investments. The list is long, and the right infrastructure could provide the basis for a redirected economy. Long term, the most important investments are not on the easy list of "off the shelf" projects. Yes, good roads and bridges are important. But investing in the necessary public goods to support a post-hydrocarbon, information-based economy is a much better choice than using the stimulus to patch up the old economy.

Planetizen Article

http://www.planetizen.com/node/36822

Urban Agriculture

As cities grow, they generally fill in all open areas with development, or leave them as park space.  Agriculture remains on the exterior in rural areas, and may provide food and other resources to that specific city.  Urban agriculture is as simple as it sounds--agricultural practices in the urbanized area.  Rather than fill all areas in with development, or as lots are vacated, agricultural practices can remain.  

What is the value of urban agriculture?

It is still debatable, and likely always will be, if urban agriculture is the most efficient and economical use of land in an urbanized area.  But it is also very logical, and 'sustainable'.  

The general reasoning used for urban agriculture is to have food grown cl0ser to the population consuming it, thereby reducing costs for transporting the goods to the consumer.  In addition, urban agriculture has been toted as a community revitalization measure through community gardens, which can be run by local community members, which then sell their produce/goods at a local farmer's market.  Urban agriculture, if conducted sustainably, can also be good for the environment.  An agricultural area, for all intensive purposes, is a green space with a pervious surface.  Environmentally, and assuming it is done in sustainable ways, this is better than paving it with a parking lot, or building a structure that has an impervious roof.  The pervious surface allows rainwater to infiltrate into the soil, rather than be directed toward a storm sewer, which empties into the local streams.  This prevents flash flooding from occurring downstream, thereby lessening the harmful impact of flash floods on the stream cross-section.  It also prevents pollutants from rooftops or asphalt from reaching the stream ecosystem, and harming the aquatic life.  Ultimately, there is a need for more pervious surface in the urban environment.

In order to not be a successful, urban agriculture must have community support.  Its benefits must be accepted, or it will fail.  It will also likely require a land trust of sorts, or other government dedication of the land as community open space.  Otherwise, if the land is truly owned by an individual or organization, it could easily be resold for development purposes.  Urban agriculture must also use sustainable practices.  Fertilization methods should emphasize natural systems.  Plots should incorporate a variety of produce, so as to mimic the diversity of natural systems.  Crop diversity should also be practiced in rural agriculture, as monocropping is generally bad for nutrient cycles, insect issues, and competition.  

Several cities are beginning to value this concept, especially older rust-belt cities, and other industrial cities.  Detroit has experienced massive exodus of population over the past half-century, consequently leaving abundant vacant land within several miles of the city center.  The city has embraced this land, returning some of it to agriculture, while allowing other plants to regenerate as ecological systems.  Pittsburgh has also lost population and is embracing urban agriculture, and urban ecology.  

New ideas and concepts are emerging to urban agriculture as well.  That will come in another post though.

The Dark Night

As my counterpart Peanut Butter Jelly has pointed out, I have slacked in postings as of late (hence the title Dark Night).  In light of PBJ's recent posting regarding the housing crisis, I'd like to share a recent conversation with some friends of friends over the Christmas holiday.  First though, it bears mention that I have only had one economics class in college, and do not entirely understand all the lingo and current situation.  But from what I recall, when the supply exceeds demand, as it seems to now it many regions and cities of the country, then housing construction slows.  Prices on existing homes continue to drop until prices become affordable to those who were previously not demanding a new home/dwelling unit.  Then, demand begins to rise again, and new construction occurs.   

My conversation over the holidays was with a recently (within the last six months) married couple.  They had decided to build a new home in a subdivision on the outskirts of the city that, of course, requires the automobile.  The subdivision in which this couple decided to move ironically was the choice of another recently married couple, who also had a home built.  Yet, as I look in the Sunday classifieds at home foreclosures and sales and whatnot, there are many dozens of homes/dwelling units available every week, often with a new dozen joining the group each weekend.  Why build a new home?  Even more, why build a new home in a 4-6 dwelling unit/acre density subdivision with cul-de-sacs and disjointed street networks that require automobile use?  Should the laws of supply and demand at such a terrible economic time cause the prices of existing units to drop below the cost of purchasing land and constructing a new unit?  Well, logic tells me this reflects back on the governmental policies of the particular municipality.

With the above scenario, it would seem appropriate that municipalities with a desire to encourage both economic development and conservation, as this city claims to do, would create policies (short-term) that encourage those able and looking to relocate to do so into an existing dwelling unit.   This provides several benefits.  First, as has become apparent over the past 50 years in urban and regional planning theory and practice, the continual edge growth of cities causes a perpetual exodus of activity from and decline of the interior bulk of cities.  This is counterproductive to acheiving a good city.  Measuring economic success only on new construction, which primarily occurs on the outskirts of cities, is a major flaw.  To have a healthy, thriving, economically productive city, it is logical and desirable to maintain economic activity throughout an urban area, as opposed to around the edges, and possibly in the center city.  Acheiving this requires the development of policies that encourage residents to stay within the existing urban area, but also encourage businesses to remain in and anchor activity nodes throughout an urban region.  The activity nodes, over time, can form higher density pockets that support alternative transportation, have many community services, and serve a diverse population.  

A second benefit of policies that encourage both economic development and conservation through living in existing dwelling units is that it directly impacts how the exterior of the city grows onto rural or ex-urban lands.  These lands, in many instances, better serve a community by remaining farmland, and producing crops and other foods for the local economy, or by continuing to function as an ecosystem that produces animals for hunting, removes pollutants from the air and water, slows urban runoff troubles, etc.  In some instances, the land is of cultural importance, or people may move to a city because they value the beauty of the rural landscape, only to have that landscape succumb to new poorly thought out and approved residential subdivisions.  Certainly to the owner of that property, it may be much more desirable for him though to sell it to a developer.  Theoretically, this may be the root of the problem.

Ultimately, it seems counterintuitive in tough economic times to continue to encourage new home construction.  It will spread a city thin, allowing some areas to become blighted, thereby losing economic value, but also causing money to then be spent fixing those areas.  Yes, exterior growth will always continue to occur, but the internal processes must be understood, so as to prevent the continuation of poorly designed sprawl of development outward, and to keep the interior strong and intact.