Timothy B. Lee

Libertarians & urban planning

Writer, Forbes & Ars Technica / adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, Sep 06, 11.

Tagged with urban planning, transit, sprawl, free market, government perversion

I don’t deny that governments have a tendency to pursue wasteful and unnecessary rail projects. I share the skepticism of other libertarians, such as Megan McArdle, about the viability of the various intercity rail projects now under consideration. And it’s not hard to find examples of light rail projects that come nowhere near to passing a basic cost/benefit analysis.

But it’s not obvious to me that there’s anything special about rail here. Governments have a tendency to pursue wasteful projects, period. They pursue wasteful highway projects, wasteful airport projects, wasteful stadium projects, and so forth. And there are examples of rail projects—like the expansion of the New York and DC subway systems—that seem like they’re unlikely to become boondoggles.

It’s also important to keep the big picture in mind. In the decades after World War II, urban planners across the country pursued a variety of aggressive “get people into their cars” policies. They used the power of eminent domain to push freeways through the heart of urban areas, destroying some neighborhoods outright and cutting others off from the rest of the city. They passed zoning restrictions that systematically discouraged high-density urban living. Many of these laws are still on the books to this day. In addition to restricting building heights and mixed-use development, these zoning codes almost invariably force developers to provide parking for new construction projects, whether the market demands it or not.

The results of these policies—convenient automobile access to the heart of the city, plentiful parking, inflated rents in the city compared to the suburbs, spread-out neighborhoods that are hard to traverse on foot—creates the illusion that people are freely choosing a suburban, auto-oriented lifestyle. But this is like saying the market has freely chosen to sweeten products using high fructose corn syrup while ignoring corn subsidies and sugar tariffs.

Full Story: Libertarians and the Urban Planning Social War
Source: Forbes, August 30, 2011

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