Never Pick a Fight When You're Severely Outgunned

If you've read this blog for any period of time, you know that it has some enemies: Brueggman, Wendell Cox, Joel Kotkin, and Randall O'Toole. The bone to pick isn't in the disagreement with their opinions, it is rather with the inconsistencies of logic and rhetoric to the points their making. In my estimation, this is the tell tale sign of corruption, and in this case, that means corruption of thought. They represent other interests while pretending to represent the "common man." Only if that common man happens to be the Koch Brothers, et al. If you are a common man, are you worth multiple billions? Want to know how morons get loud microphones in a supposed meritocracy? Well, there is your answer.

With that said, Randall O'Toole decided to take up the case for free parking in response to a New York Times article entitled "Free Parking Comes at a Price" by Tyler Cowen, since they're such staunch free marketeers and libertarians. Oh wait, their is the first case of logical dissonance.

Then came the response to the response, and this is by the parking guru himself, Professor Donald Shoup, who came out with all guns a'blazin':

Before I examine your misunderstanding of what I have written, I will first summarize the three basic parking reforms I recommend in The High Cost of Free Parking: (1) remove off-street parking requirements, (2) charge market prices for on-street parking to achieve about an 85-percent occupancy rate for curb spaces, and (3) return the resulting revenue to pay for public improvements in the metered neighborhoods.

I will quote ten extracts from your post, and comment on each of them.

1. “Shoup’s work is biased by his residency in Los Angeles, the nation’s densest urban area. One way L.A. copes with that density is by requiring builders of offices, shopping malls, and multi-family residences to provide parking. Shoup assumes that every municipality in the country has such parking requirements, even though many do not.” (ed. note: They do love to quote Los Angeles as the densest urban area don't they? A statistic itself that is meaningless because of where they choose to draw the boundary for where to take that measure. Is it dense at the block level? At the neighborhood level? At the City level? Not really. They go with the metropolitan area. Then they'll turn around and use LA as a model for success when that rhetoric suits their nefarious purpose.

Even Houston, which does not have zoning, has minimum parking requirements, and they resemble the parking requirements in almost every other city in the United States. Houston requires 1.25 parking spaces for each efficiency apartment in an apartment house, for example, and 1.333 parking spaces for each one-bedroom apartment. Here is the link to the minimum parking requirements in Houston’s municipal code: http://tiny.cc/iaj35

Does the Antiplanner, who is “dedicated to the sunset of government planning,” really believe that government planners know exactly how many parking spaces to require for every economic activity at every site in every city, no matter how much the required parking spaces may cost and no matter how little drivers may be willing to pay to use them? Does the Antiplanner really support Houston’s minimum parking requirement of 1.333 spaces for each one-bedroom apartment because he believes that Houston’s government planners can accurately predict the “need” for parking at every apartment to one-thousandth of a parking space?

Read the rest of his response here.

America 2050: Urban or Suburban?

Greg Lindsay of Fast Company covered a debate between Chris Leinberger (urbanist) and Joel Kotkin (suburban partisan) held by the Forum on Urban Design in Manhattan. They threw some statistics at each other, but ultimately Kotkin was reduced to his tired old crutches:

• that suburbia was actually driven by the invisible hand of the market, willfully ignorant of the invisible arm government played in pushing over-suburbia along; and
• and that delivering functional and aesthetic urbanism to a wishful pent-up market is somehow social engineering or manipulation.

What he fails to recognize is that planning today no longer represents the large-scaled version of 20th century, he so rails against. Of course, we won't allow the truth of a changing world affect his personal biases.

If suburbia was actually market-oriented, why is it the same everywhere? To answer my own rhetorical question, it is because it is not market-oriented, but built out of the same underlying genetic code of suburbia. The same parking formulae, the same single-use zoning, the same traffic impact analyses, etc. All of which constructed based on suburban models, thus producing more suburbia. Being disconnected from reality is why it has failed us.

People are different. We have different needs, wants, and preferences, and a market-responsive city would reflect those various emotional desires and the degrees to which segments of the population value them.

I do agree with him in one aspect however, that the future of urbanism is in cities like Dallas, but not for the reason he thinks. He believes that the future somehow lies within the current iteration of Plano:

Kotkin believes the next hundred million Americans will largely eschew “superstar” cities such as New York, Boston, San Francisco and the west side of Los Angeles because of housing costs. They'll opt instead to live in "cities of aspiration," such as Dallas, Houston, Charlotte and Atlanta. His America in 2050 looks a lot like the Dallas suburb of Plano, Texas, which has the highest household median income and the highest percentage of residents with college degrees of any American city with more than 250,000 inhabitants.

He is wrong, not with the Where, but the What and the Why. The future of American Cities lies within the Metroplex because of the disconnect between a very high potential and that very same existing format Kotkin believes is the future.

Dallas represents the future as we reconstruct a city that can keep the talent it exports and even begin importing some. It is the future because of the gap between ambition and reality. Only listening to Kotkin and his ilk is what keeps us from getting there.

His claim here illustrates his own bias. He sees the world through his frame and projects that as reality on all others. He wants market manipulation and social engineering. Whether it makes him money for consultancy or out of mere (and logically deficient) contrarianism, I don't know.

He likes suburbia so we must all live in it. We're just trying to offer choice, allow users to define their own lives, and make cities work to their utmost potential in delivering all of our emotional needs and wants, efficiently, effectively, and elegantly.

And that undermines Kotkin's precious worldview.

The Reptilian Brain

Robert Wilonsky at the Observer knows how to push my buttons with frightening economical efficiency: a two-word email and a link to a reporkulous presentation (with emphasis on the pork) by one Wendell Cox of the Institute for Intellectual Dishonesty.* Next thing I know, I'm dropping everything I'm doing to torture myself through a half hour of blanket statements that are often factually-oriented, but taken without context or deeper understanding that it undermines any credibility Cox might have, yet we accept him as credible anyway because well-heeled interests present him as such.

*Not his real organization, but is there really a difference?

On the other hand, if I have won enough credibility with you dear reader over time, you may be willing to accept my reactionary response to Wendell Cox. That being that he is a shill for the road lobby. Now this is also based in fact, as the directors of the group this presentation was given to The American Highway Users Alliance have documented tax returns representing the interests of Ford, GM, and Toyota. Users is right, but it isn't highways getting used it is all of us, the taxpayers.

Now if I haven't yet earned credibility then in this post I'll go through his presentation point by point to debunk and discredit everything he says.

First thing to know about Cox is that he is the kind of guy who claims he's for "choice" as long as all subsidy goes towards roads and cars and not to any other form of transportation whatsoever. Free marketeer, this guy.



Next, is the graphics. Pretty, in depth, nor subtle, these presentations are crafted by people lacking the least bit of intuitive sense of semiotics. All it takes is the opening picture to elucidate this point. "Boy, that sher is a purdy highway and cityscape... it's all washed out in gray and brown hues of the air, just the way I like to breathe it through my mouth hole."



My favorite part is that, well I would present the exact same picture as a "what not to do." Not only because it looks ridiculous and out of scale, but even if the point is that "highways create mobility," I'm seeing several lanes thoroughly clogged and several others completely unused. Neither, in the ideal scenario of which Cox poses to present. The rest of the presentation sprouts from there with similar shallowness of thought, understanding, and rhetoric that never leaves behind an amateurish capability to handle data, statistics, or reality.

Next, you pick up the voice intonation and the sense that this entire room is filled with crotchety, old white dudes who know only one model for reality. In other words, exactly the kind of guys that would populate such a thing as the American Highway Users Alliance or the kind of organization compelled to embolden "highway USERS" in their websites meta-tags (html geek'd) as some sort of populist cover in the event anyone gets the crazy idea from their rhetoric and positions that they might ya know, not actually represent the common person.

The nice answer to the question of who exactly these guys are is that they represent the financial interests of industries tied to the teet of the federal government, which once again reminds of the Klosterman quote about all technology eventually is bad. This is it. The technology is the car. We overbuilt comparative to its actual usefulness and it is proving difficult to extract it from our lives, not because of need or want, but because of the painful transition of certain jobs. Particularly, the jobs of these guys.

The other side of AHUA is a group posing as libertarian that proudly opposes tolls (not libertarian) and seeks maximum subsidies for highways (not libertarian). Those subsidies mind you, come from the pockets of the average everyday man for whom they masquerade as crusaders. Poor Peter gets robbed once again to fatten the wallet of already wealthy Paul. In other words, they perfectly represent the 20th century economy; the dead skin we, the rest of the country, are busily and painfully trying to molt in favor of a new and improved, repurposed economic phenotype.

I like my hypocrisy marinated overnight with deep, rich notes if for no other reason than an aroma so rich I can taste it whilst pulling up to the valet to park the car that I don't have. How about you?

If I'm to give AHUA and Cox credit, they understand that if they ensure never-ending road construction, this inevitably disperses population so that no other form of transportation works except for private automobile. Then we're held captive to building such infrastructure, supplying inefficient bus service to the working poor, who are also scattered, and subjugated to fluctuations in oil prices based on the whims of foreign cartels. This is painting them in a good light.

They also support domestic drilling any and everywhere as the solution to dealing with foreign dictators and oil markets. Any problems with that recently? I feel like taking a cruise on the Gulf of Mexico and flicking burnt cigarettes that I don't smoke off the bow of a boat with these guys tied to the hull.

Despite its advocacy for the common man and "million of americans and businesses," AHUA has a whopping 145 twitter followers. Grass roots indeed. Fundamentally, this points to the crisis of republican governance (not the party, the form), that this group can be so influential in determination of policy directions and public spending with no popular support to speak of.


You know it leads to a bad presentation when these bullets say nothing about the actual points of discussion. In fact, I could put together a presentation with the same bullets and say the exact opposite...which, is exactly what I'm going to do here.

Also, notice the re red outline accompanied by words like "threat." These are appeals to the reptilian brain, the most basic, primal, and reactionary. It ignores logic and reasoning and skips straight to instilling fear. Why? Either their actual arguments lack merit or this is literally the way they think. Neither explanation really matters.

Within the presentation, Cox's fundamental point is that of mobility. What they either cleverly and deceitfully do (or ignorantly don't understand) is that transportation policy and funding shifted solely to cars undermines real mobility. Distance, propinquity, and diversity of choice are all elements in the equation of mobility. If someone has to drive to ten different locations scattered across suburbia, find parking in order to accomplish ten different errands and I can handle them within five blocks, who is more mobile? Which is more efficient? Which is more cost effective?

Furthermore, accessibility is another element of mobility. They expect everybody to drive and everybody to own a car. Behind closed doors, I imagine them half-jokingly suggest removing drivers test and age limitations for licensure over cigars and aged brandy. The truth is that the handicapped, elderly, those who can't or don't want to afford cars, and children under 16 have reduced freedom of mobility, and burden others because of it in car-centric environments.

Another pseudo-libertarian, Randall O'Toole suggested a good solution to disaster preparedness in the event of another hurricane Katrina is for the federal government to buy all residents of NOLA cars to evacuate when adequate rail service could have moved thousands every few minutes and avoided the logjam. And O'Toole is actually considered the more serious one!

They are "libertarians" that wanted to subsidize car ownership. This should tell you how committed they are to their principles. This is also the same logic they apply to all other solutions, regrettably.

The rest of the presentation is full of super-duper trustworthy appearing statistics and tables. All of which are little more than broad sweeping generalizations providing no declarative proof of causality between cars/highways and prosperity even though each is passed off as such. Frankly, I think the impoverished state of municipal budgets spread too thinly to the breaking point provides proof that any correlation is one of timing if not outright temporary hallucination.

Post-WW2 prosperity had far more to do with loans to rebuilding nations after WW2, not having to deal with the wake of armies in the millions colliding on our continent and the subsequent rebuilding, and growth fueled by cheap oil following the Nazi version of economic development which was to funnel tax money to highway construction and militarism defense.

I'll give them credit for one thing. They understand the hyper-rational Descartian world where statistics of any kind are roundly accepted without question. In fact, they count on it.



For example: don't ask questions. From this you are to assume that because commutes in PHX and DFW are super short in comparison to the other cities listed that PHX, DFW, and Houston are the cities dreams are made of. OMG, look at NYC. It's almost unamerican! Kill it!

Of course, none of these are sourced. Furthermore, each is an empty statistic taken in a bubble with no context. There is nothing to be said of 1) quality of that trip, 2) productivity of that trip, and 3) externalities of each trip.

For example, if it takes you an hour to commute in Osaka, Paris, or NY but that trip is spent on a comfortable train ride where you can sip an espresso, read the paper, and read/respond to emails, bookended by short, safe, pleasant walks, while millions of others are making similar journeys that don't pollute, kill tens of thousands on the commute (as highways do), and aren't choked up routinely by said accidents creating traffic jams undermining mobility and time savings, which is really better? Cox claims one way is better strictly by the most simple of metrics.

One point I've made over and over again is the fallibility of neo-classical economics which attempts to objectively assess values and work strictly within a system where everything is priced by the market. But, if you ignore the majority of the elements in the equation, those things that either can't be priced aka invaluable or you ignore them, you are being either disingenuous or outright stupid.


How many schools or textbooks could be afforded with the cost of this? Or, what could you buy or save with what wouldn't have had to be taxed out of your paycheck?

Threat to Prosperity: "There are some who wish to slow if not stop completely the expansion of highways which would increase traffic congestion."

In a way he is right. If we stopped building more highways (which we can't afford or maintain by the way), we would create congestion. Except it would be pedestrian congestion and bicycle congestion, the kind that doesn't have negative externalities like with the automobile version of congestion where you are trapped in a suffocated metal box, with noxious fumes all around you, on a field of concrete and can't go anywhere because you're blocked in by your mortal enemies, every single other person on the road.


Positive Congestion

The good kind of congestion only has positive externalities, such as healthy populous that is less of a burden on a healthcare system, increased commerce based on foot traffic, better localization and synergies of real estate clustering, less money spent per capita on infrastructure construction and maintenance, less money shipped overseas in support of our oil habit, and the other people providing that congestion aren't your enemy in a competitive situation, but a cooperative one where the presence of each of you makes the other more safe and their experience more enjoyable. Nobody goes to the highway to people watch.

Legitimate studies, unlike those that Cox uses, show that increased road and highway capacity only temporarily reduces congestion, but ultimately worsens all of the negative outcomes as listed above.



He also likes to play up the big red ghostbusters circle with a line through it, suggesting that we are trying to ban things or control the way people live. It's like they craft these presentations for children...or at least those with the minds of children. In the spirit that we project our own thought processes onto others, it doesn't speak highly for people that treat others as if they have the mind of children does it?



"Contempt for the American Way of Life..."

This also is not a new playbook really. They're anti-american hippy commies!!!! Tired. Yes, the Urban Land Institute, made up predominantly of conservative, buttoned-up real estate developers is really a radical left-wing socialist front group. Next ULI meeting I'm checking for little red books in breast pockets and Che Guevara t-shirts under those black and gray suits.

Actually, any legitimate city planner is perfectly happy to allow any of those things as long as they pay their full cost in a properly competitive environment. We wish to end subsidies which create an unfair competitive balance, particularly to those products and industries with significant negative external byproducts, such as car traffic congestion, obesity, asthma, pollution, runoff/flooding, etc.

These subsidies began in the early 20th century as a response to the squalor industrial cities had become. The are not appropriate for what cities are today and they don't respond to the way cities exist in the prideful hearts and minds of their inhabitants. We want to care for our cities. We want to showcase them. We want them to be great.


Frankly, the rest of this is retreads of similar cherry-picked data that I find it a waste of time to go point by point once the fundamental logic is undermined, obviously every single point is as well. O'Toole, Cox, etc.? They are all dinosaurs fearing extinction. Unfortunately for them, time is cruel to those without useful ideas.

They're hanging around only as the apparatus of the industries entrenched by massive federal subsidy. They like to play pretend libertarian, but they are really only fighting to maintain the free hand outs for their industry. Cox, O'Toole, et al are more than happy to unscrupulously sell their integrity for a cut of that cash money.

They are afraid of change and are backed into a corner by the kind of dramatic sweeping change that only happens because of the calcification of their industries. Evolution happens in two ways: radical and gradual. Gradual is painless. Radical occurs only through collapse. The world they've entrenched crumbled rather than accept and encourage gradual, free- and fair-market adaptation...

And that sudden repurposing shift is proving traumatic to their industries. We would be so kind as to let them die in peace.

Dallas Sewer Rats

I once joked that the only things that could live in downtown Dallas were rats, pigeons, and cockroaches. It didn't say much for their human neighbors, of which I became one...and paid much higher rent than I have anywhere else in the City. But more on that in a moment.

It turns out the City's real sewer rats mostly only find their light of day in comments sections of the nearest thing to a pure democracy, the web, making a strong case for the Hamiltonian Federalists of time immemorial. And as a Jeffersonian myself, it kills me to say that.

So in the extremely harmless, limited article about me in the Dallas Morning News turns up this comment*:

Non-conformist nut cases like these need a full cranial exam. Grow up, get a job, and drop this frivolous sustainability fad while you are still young.

*Acknowledgement - If it was done ironically it is brilliant.

Since I have no other avenue or recourse and refuse to ignore blatant ignorance this may not jive with the Southern passive aggression-passing-as-hospitality for which too many have preyed upon and you may be used to, but that isn't the way I was raised. I learned long ago to call out ignorance.

I believe in shining the flashlight on the rats because only fungus thrives in the dark anonymity of the internet. Or similarly, giving them a wider audience in which to make themselves a fool. Here is your audience, anonymous one. You're famous. And cast aside. No one cares. But, we should all live exactly like you right? How very Texan of you.

I could talk about studying overseas or being on the fast track at an international corporation. But that is the past. Or currently having quit said architecture firm to focus on local DFW issues, own my own company, and generate multiple revenue streams because I foresaw the end of the 20th century economy to which you cling.

But this isn't about me. This is about you. You, anonymous internet person. You represent the City. You have earned it. You represent the City of Fear. The one behind the locked doors, behind the gated community, afraid of "the other," xenophobe.

You are everything that holds this City back. Nothing inhibits the search engine of progress like ignorance and intolerance. And lucky for us, those that want this City to succeed, you are dying.

You are a coward, Linus. The kind of person who requires the comforting blanky of the status quo. Knowing you are not different, seeking the acceptance of others. But what is different is changing every day. And it is changing without you Sisyphus.

You are the same guy who yells "get a car, faggot" at cyclists and drives away comfortably knowing everybody else, just like you is in a car and a comfortable distance away to ensure your anonymity and self-assured cowardice. And no I won't censor myself. You said it, anonymous ignorant fool. Why should I help to hide you?

So lithely you reach deep into your quiver of cleverness and utilize your one and only tool to perpetuate ignorance as you fearfully watch others surpass you. Afraid of the changing world, you denigrate those that dare live as they choose. Shun them. Please tell me if you are Atlas and can stop the world from spinning. That would be truly newsworthy.

I moved here because I saw opportunity. I saw a City falsely built and doomed to impending rapid change with little leadership, understanding, or direction. I saw a City built by and for people like you. And yes, I want to capitalize on that. I want to make a career of building a better place. How dare I. How very communist of me.

As for the "fad" of sustainability, how about we let the market decide, no? Moneyed investors pay me money and follow my ideas for reducing the cost of inputs and increased the value of outputs in the economic equation and how that relates to cities. Surely that idea sounds ephemeral if only contradicted by the perpetuation of deep and thorough understanding of cities.

If there is any meaning in life, it is the desire to be eternal. Through body impossible, positive ideas can live forever. The tragedy of the Conformity Enforcer mirrors the role you play. You slow progress enough for the dullards to keep up, but then ultimately negativity is pushed aside in favor of problem solving and positivity. You die and accomplished nothing. An ephemeral city is made of ephemeral people.

You are not smart enough to see the future economy. And that is the burden for the rest of us, to drag the ignorant into the future.

Here's your mirror and microphone to begin burying yourself, 20th century City.

If we want to build a great city, we need more of the timeless and less of you.

New Urbanism is Terrorism!!!!111111ONE!!!!1

Wow.

"Sometimes life just gives you a moment." ~ Lester Freeman. What? I've use that quote before? Shut it.

I just came across this literally, extraordinarily, not-from-this-planet-are-you-Vincent articles. You know you have found the death rattle of suburban sprawl when its voice boxes have resorted to shrill hysterics such as "Obama is going to take your house and your car, run you, your kids, and your dog over with said car and then light the house on fire." Just think, if we had a pure libertarian system, we could even then watch a fire engine drive right on by, because you subscribed to the wrong private emergency/fire department. What a world.

Okay. First of all, is the Tulsa Beacon a legitimate newspaper? Probably not, since the real news source in Tulsa is the Tulsa World. Their website looks to be straight out of the quality reminiscent of white supremacist, militia groups...aka militants, aka terrorists.

So it isn't a surprise that one of the "leading" morons in stupidity, I mean, defense of highway construction, "growth" for the sake of growth like cancer type of development, Randall O'Toole is striking out to thorny rose bush branch to a similar demographic that might take up arms against such horrifying things, like children being able to walk to school, city schools having enough tax base and density to support themselves, LOWER TAXES because of reduced infrastructure per capita, etc etc.

First, a warning. I despise these people. Not because I disagree with them. I'm happy to engage in debate with intellectually honest people with whom I may disagree. People like O'Toole are absolute scum and prepare yourself for an article filled with scorn and complete lack of respect. Furthermore, since we know that the Tulsa Beacon is a rag unworthy of serious response, this will not be terribly serious.

Let's go through the article shall we, because OH MAN is it a doozy:

PlaniTulsa threatens American freedoms

EEEEEK! Take up arms!!! My career is threatened!!!

Randal O’Toole, a scholar from the CATO Institute, said PlaniTulsa looks a lot like what Portland, Oregon did beginning 20 years ago when it embraced New Urbanism.

And that should worry people in Tulsa.

Get out the pitchforks!!!

O’Toole spoke Saturday in Tulsa as part of a forum sponsored by OK-SAFE. A former professor at Yale University, O’Toole has written several books, including Gridlock: Why We’re Stuck in Traffic and What to Do About It.

Why what else? More Highways!!!! That is the proven solution, amiright? /High fives self. Winks at well-heeled representatives of the highway construction industry.

“I want to talk about the American dream,” O’Toole said. “To own a home, start a business, to have mobility and own property. ‘Smart growth’ is a threat to the American Dream. That’s what PlaniTulsa is all about.”

Yes. That is the American Dream you rubes. George Washington didn't lead his band of Oompa Loompas across the chocolate river Styx so people could have the right to live without a car or without a home mortgage. How dare we want actual choice in our lives. OBEY. REMAIN MISERABLY STUCK IN TRAFFIC BECAUSE MY WALLET DEPENDS ON IT WHILE I MISREPRESENT CONCEPTS LIKE MOBILITY.

The average person in American (sic) travels 19,000 miles a year and 85 percent of that is by automobile, O’Toole said. “They (the Obama Administration) are trying to coerce people out of their cars.”

Well. Point proven Randy. Everybody is in cars. That's clear choice in the market place right? That doesn't have anything to do with a bloated Federal Transportation Budget that allocates $40 billion to highway funding, would it? You see any of that loot per chance, Randy? Keep fooling everyone that this is "market forces" at work.

Let's look at it another way. If every American drives 19,000 miles per year, that equates to cool (approximated) $855 billion dollars spent by Americans every year for gasoline, let alone oil, general maintenance, car payments, insurance, various other losses due to collisions, taxes dedicated to road construction and maintenance, as well as various externalized long-term costs such as pollution. That's $855 billion we could have in our savings accounts to put towards college educations or all those new houses you want us to buy. See any of that money, Randy?

O’Toole said Obama wants to raise gasoline taxes to fund light rail systems all over the country. Through extensive study, O’Toole showed that city after city that has invested in light rail has lost millions if not billions in inefficiency.

That's clearly inefficiency. Fixed alignment public transit that has been proven throughout the country to leverage around a billion $ in private investment in and around transit lines for every $100 million spent. By the way, that is private investment seeking profit. Public builds infrastructure. Public spending on infrastructure guides the private market. Invisible hand, invisible arm, Randy. Learn how cities work. Or maybe you don't want to and simply want to rabble rouse.

At this point, o'TOOLe might as well just say, "did I mention to you that the President is black?"

In January, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood ended cost-effectiveness rules for federal transit grants - in essence saying he was willing to fund rail projects no matter how much money they waste.

No mention that those "cost effectiveness" rules were specifically designed to undercut the legs from transit as they intentionally ignored all the spinoff benefits of transit. Those rules basically asked, "does it immediately reduce traffic?" To which the answer is always and only that highway capacity and only road supply was the way to alleviate congestion. Of course, as we know that only is true in the short-term and that transit is far more (and only) effective in the long-term when the city can adapt to its new "bones."

Who sounds more logical AND truly conservative, o'TOOLe or Lewis Mumford:

"The purpose of transportation is to bring people and goods to places where they are needed, and to concentrate the greatest variety of goods and people within that limited area, in order to widen the possibility of choice without making it necessary to travel. A good transportation system minimizes unnecessary transportation; and in any event, it offers change of speed and mode to fit a diversity of human purposes."

Dallas invested $550 million in light rail and the cost per year per passenger is $12,250 - enough to buy every passenger a car of their own and eliminate light rail, O’Toole said. In Austin, Texas, the bus system was operating in the black and had $200 million in the bank when it started a commuter train system.

“Then they went broke, using up the entire reserve,” O’Toole said. “The director resigned in disgrace.”

Yes, DOTs aren't broke are they? Nor are cities and suburbs because they have spread the tax base too thin across an overextended infrastructure.

Proponents, like Tulsa City Councilor Rick Westcott, argue that they just want to offer people a choice.

O’Toole said flying costs 14 cents a passenger mile. A bus costs 15 cents a passenger mile and a car costs 15 cents a mile. Amtrak, the heavily subsidized passenger rail service, costs 60 cents a mile and high-speed rail costs more than 75 cents a mile.

More intentionally ignoring the spinoff or externalized costs. So you are saying, people shouldn't have a choice? American Dream at work. Airlines are all profitable as well right, Randy?

A ticket from Orlando to Tampa in Florida (86 miles) costs $50 on high-speed rail but $20 on a Greyhound bus.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH. Lemme hop on a greyhound bus. Those are pleasant trips. You know what, let's get rid of first class on planes as well because no one should pay for comfort or quality of experience. American Dream. Or Dreaming Americana.

If high-speed rail is offered between Tulsa and Oklahoma City, the ticket would cost four times the price of a bus ticket and save only about 20 minutes.

The chance of high speed rail linking Tulsa and OKC any time soon is remote. Why even bring it up. Well, he's rabble rousing. THEY TOOK ARE JOBS!!!! (sic) High speed rail is intended to link regional economies in a way that regional airlines have proven incapable, ie Dallas/Houston/Austin. San Fran to LA.

O’Toole said American freedoms are already dwindling in terms of property rights.

Comin' to get ya'. Boogie man. Boogity boogity boo.

And he wants to take away choice, freedom of mobility, housing options, living arrangements, etc. Buckle in kids, you ain't leavin' that car.

Urban planners in Oregon place restrictions on building new homes in rural areas, including: the site had to have at least 80 acres and it had to be a farm that earns at least $40,000-80,000 a year. Only 100 homes were built in the first year of those restrictions.

That was a conservative Republican Governor who implemented that AND the people of Oregon support it. That's called representative democracy. Do these people sit around and worry about a domino effect? Are they going to call Mayor Bloomberg, Ho Chi Minh now?

O’Toole said the new urbanists want people to build up, not out.

No. We want to diversify markets. We want people real choice. We want those who like walkable urbanism to have the opportunity to live in places like that. We want efficient, lovable, and sustainable cities. We want markets that don't impinge on the rights of others. We want lower taxes and less infrastructure and implicit waste.

“If my house burned down, I wouldn’t be allowed to rebuild it,” O’Toole said. “I would have to build an apartment.

First of all that is a lie dependent only upon local building/zoning codes. Now you know how all urban projects feel with antiquated zoning that, oh by the way creates nothing but the homogeneity of sprawl. Zoning. That's all choice right? I thought everybody chose to live in sprawl, right Randy?

“Most Americans want to live in a single family home. Smart Growth will make housing unaffordable.”

Wrong. Unless most Americans is about 30-40%. 3% currently live in walkable urbanism and 30% desire it. That looks like pent up demand the market would like to meet if only it weren't for the barriers of zoning, highways, tax incentives in favor of sprawl.

He said the new urban planners think big residential yards are “a waste of land.” They want people to live in apartments on small lots.

Jumpin Jeezus on a Dinosaur, his schtick is monotonous. I don't want anything. But I KNOW that land always finds its true value. Hence, the precipitous drop in housing values in suburban and exurban areas resulting in everyone owing more than what their house is worth. American Nightmare.

O’Toole said people who already own a home should be okay but their children will be forced by economics to live in high-density housing in overcrowded downtowns.

And they will be forced to wear outward insignias signifying their race and religion. Or is that only Arizona. As a liberaltarian, there was once a time when I foolishly thought Cato was a worthwhile conservative thinktank to balance out my own opinions and thought processes. Until I started reading them. I love how they use Thomas Jefferson as their poster boy. You'd think they might actually read him, however.

In Portland, the population is loaded with couples without children. Families with children live all around Portland where the land use restrictions don’t exist. The City of Portland told one church that wanted to expand that it must be closed on Saturdays, it could have only five weddings or funerals a year and its parking would be limited, O’Toole said.

They're probably all gay too!!!!1111!!!!ONE!!!!!

The Portland light rail system cost $3 billion - more than 30 times the original forecast.

Interesting to take initial projections from the 70's and apply costs for expansion in the 90's and 2000's. Inflation is a funny thing. Too complex for anybody in this audience to question I feel certain.

O’Toole said cities are using TIF districts to subsidize light rail systems. Under a TIF, a private company is forgiven taxes to encourage development.

They're they go. Just givin' away yer money. Even though, that has nothing to do with TIFs whatsoever.

“TIF district fees are just subsidies for contractors,” O’Toole said. “The main winners are downtown property owners.”

He said light rail is “good for some ‘businesses.’”

“Light rail sends crime everywhere it goes,” O’Toole said.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Yep. The old Highland Park, "I don't want no stinkin' light rail, them people will steal my TV on ride home on the DART with it." Where do we mention that the FBI file on per $/Crime maps point directly to Highland Park??? Of course, leaching off the primary "host" city is also not yet a crime.

Another argument against densification is that America is filled with open spaces, O’Toole said. Ninety-six percent of Oklahoma is open space.

Wow. This is the kind of twisted logic and meaningless nonsense I don't think I good dream up in the most chemically altered of states.

“We have a tremendous amount of open rural space,” O’Toole said.

And every inch of it should be paved and dotted with with two-car garages.

Rail service is “1930s’ technology” in the 21st Century, O’Toole said.

The cities in 1930s were full of high speed bullet trains that traveled at 350 mph and modern streetcar that could load the physically disabled and ride whisper quiet and without a hint of pollution.

“The rail networks are all big losers,” he said.

You know what else is, the auto industry.

Randy Bright, a Tulsa architect

and another opportunist...

who specializes in churches, said, “New Urbanism is a movement that is sweeping the nation.”

Like communism. Red Scare, everybody under your desks!!!!!

Bright, who writes a weekly column for the Tulsa Beacon, warned that New Urbanism brings “dire consequences for churches.”

The gay, black, nazis are coming to get you.

New Urbanism, which was born out of environmentalism,

Oh noes. Hippies too! Those people we hated back in the 70s. And perhaps they're witches too. Do they float?

has form-based codes whose goal is to “densify populations and confine growth.”

And turn you all into food. Soilent Green is people.

This strategy inevitably leads to land shortages, higher land costs and limiting of the growth of churches, Bright said. In fact, where New Urbanism has been tried, parking for churches has been curtailed and the search for land to expand has resulted in a bidding war.

Lulz. Higher land costs has nothing to do with desirability does it. Those certainly aren't market forces at work. Everybody in New York City, San Francisco, Paris, London, Copenhagen, etc. is FORCED to live there. Who in their right mind would actually get up and move to one of those cities where you could make fame and fortune?

Bright said he has a series of discussions with a national proponent of New Urbanism who finally admitted she was “opposed to mega churches” and called big churches “profoundly anti-civic.”

How dare they.

“Our churches don’t understand the problems,” Bright said.

Cuz the gay, black, nazi, hippies are gonna burn down yer churches!!!