Crimony.

Ken Orski is more mature about this nonsense than I am over at the Infra Blog. He writes:

The President’s FY 2013 budget submission offered the Administration a rare opportunity to rise above partisanship and influence the ongoing transportation reauthorization debate in a positive way.

But, alas, it didn’t turn out that way.

Go read Mr. Oski’s piece because he, unlike me, is capable of talking about it without a) ranting and b) running to the liquor cabinet to see if there’s any Grey Goose to put in my orange juice (locally grown, organic, fresh-squeezed.)

I quit.

Man, can they eat! They are chewing through the milkweeds like crazy.

Second, Congress can expand the definitions of Real Estate Investment Trusts (Reits) and Master Limited Partnerships to include investments in assets such as roads, water, ports, airports, transmission lines, waste water and bridges.

Applying the Reit/MLP model to infrastructure assets would attract investment from the deep US retail and institutional investor market, dramatically increasing funding support for new projects. Projects that were once unable to attract support could become financially viable, and more infrastructure projects could be supported.

Ok, now this is a really interesting idea that I hadn’t thought of. Since I don’t know much about Reits, I’d need to think more about this. I already have the opinion that way too much commercial property gets sweetheart deals at tax time, through TIFs and things like Prop 13, so I am not sure why, exactly, we need to have a tax incentive for infrastructure investment. I think there is *plenty* of existing demand for infrastructure bonds without sweetening the pot in this way. Maybe I’m wrong, though–I’m basing my comments on impressions rather than considered reflection on the data.

What are your thoughts? What have Reits done for commercial real estate that needs to happen for infrastructure?

Why I can’t talk to conservatives by Diana Wagman

Summary: A bunch of self-referential, tepid anecdotes about how people disagree and other rampagingly obvious platitudes. If you start thinking “YTF am I reading this?” halfway through, you’re not alone. Zzzzzzzzzzz

Why I can’t talk to liberals by Charlotte Allen

Summary: A bunch of self-indulgent whining about how she loathes her liberal family, despite numerous disingenuous asides to the contrary to salve her family-values conscience (since nobody else freaking cares) because her liberal family has the nerve to expect her to use reasoned arguments other than “my opinions are fact” and “my values are supreme because they are mine” in debates. Yet, nobody will debate with poor Charlotte because they are intolerant jerky poopyheads, unlike her, a paragon of open-mindedness.

GARGH!! YOU WILL GET DUMBER JUST READING THIS NONSENSE.

Personal experiences are not interesting unless you, you know, actually have interesting personal experiences. Arguing with relatives and neighbors? Nope. Not interesting. Or useful.

To get smarter, go over and read Max Stephenson’s contribution to discussion democratic theory here.

These are unfortunately paid links, but you might be able to find drafts if you look on Google. Please let me know in the comments if you do find a link to a free pdf.

KOLENDA, R. and YANG LIU, C. (2012), ARE CENTRAL CITIES MORE CREATIVE? THE INTRAMETROPOLITAN GEOGRAPHY OF CREATIVE INDUSTRIES. Journal of Urban Affairs. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9906.2011.00593.x

ABSTRACT: This paper examines the location and growth of creative industries within metropolitan areas. In recent years, the creative industries have been increasingly sought after as potential engines of metropolitan economic growth. Although some research has been done on the location decisions by such firms and workers, it has primarily focused on interregional and intermetropolitan disparities. We use establishment-level data to investigate intrametropolitan (central city versus suburban) location and growth for creative industry establishments in 40 of the top 101 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs). We compared the number of employees and total annual payroll in each location, and categorize them by region, population size, and creative employment growth. Findings suggest that although creative industries are more centralized, they are decentralizing faster than other industries in general, but this rate, and even the direction, varies widely across MSAs.

PFEIFFER, D. (2012), HAS EXURBAN GROWTH ENABLED GREATER RACIAL EQUITY IN NEIGHBORHOOD QUALITY? EVIDENCE FROM THE LOS ANGELES REGION. Journal of Urban Affairs. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9906.2011.00596.x

ABSTRACT:  A wealth of data drawn from cities and their nearby suburbs show that, consistent with place stratification theory, African Americans live in poorer quality communities than similarly affluent members of other racial groups. Yet, few have examined whether these trends are playing out in the rapidly growing exurbs, places that emerged in the post-Civil Rights era. Through a case study of African American migration to Los Angeles’s exurban Inland Empire, this article tests the applicability of place stratification theory by triangulating evidence from interviews with 70 movers with U.S. Census and American Community Survey data. Both sources reveal that the gap in neighborhood conditions among similar income racial groups is much narrower in the exurbs than inner city Los Angeles or its nearby suburbs, an outcome that participants attributed to the region’s rapid housing construction, relative lack of a history of who lives where, and resulting neighborhood diversity.

DE-FEDERALIZE TRANSPORT SPENDING: Most forms of transport infrastructure overwhelmingly serve the residents of a single state. Yet the federal government has played an outsized role in funding transportation for 50 years. Whenever the person paying isn’t the person who benefits, there will always be a push for more largesse and little check on spending efficiency. Would Detroit’s People Mover have ever been built if the people of Detroit had to pay for it? We should move toward a system in which states and localities take more responsibility for the infrastructure that serves their citizens.

See, people? It’s not just me and bunch of wild-eyed Tea Partiers.

What we’ve seen over the last 30 years is a war on the human imagination.

(Via www.bostonreview.net)

There are two parts of the interview. Reading both is a nice way to start. He’s clearly a very original thinker whether you agree with the Occupy movement or not.

Remember, though, they had a week to develop the proposals, and this is the first time most of them have done either web development or marketing. That said, some of them had really great ideas and presented them really well.

The poll has hot links to all the cities: it is found here.

Here are the cities in no order, if you want to browse outside the poll.

Isla Macao
Vulgaria
El Paraiso Habitable
Costa Verde
The Perfect City

I really appreciate it if you can take the time.

The NYT has this story about Jefferson County Alabama going bankrupt.

Reading through, I like this story a great deal, and I’m not generally a fan of the New York Times. Unlike the standard WSJ take on government bankruptcies, which creates a narrative that screams about mismanagement, this story actually helps us understand the ways in which state laws can cripple municipal budgeting practice. It also doesn’t sugarcoat the contributions from the mismanagement and local tax aversion. Honestly, who can’t afford $18 a month for sewers. (You should see what we pay in in LA County, folks). However, the average resident of Birmingham isn’t affluent, and rising fees for rising capital costs understandably hurt.

Go take a look and see what you think.

Transit is good for urban development. It’s a civil rights issue in US regions.

We are committed to it the same way we are committed to schools and natural areas.

The end. No blather about how cities are more important than everybody else, or big environmental promises made for trains that will be half full for the next 15 years (where we still might want the investment, but are fooling nobody on the environmental benefits.)

Here’s how you set it up to stop driving the anti-federalist Republicans crazy:

a) Move the FTA over to housing and urban development. Where, you know, urban development is, and where you might be able assemble big joint development projects via b, next:

b) Reassemble it as an transit-focused TIFIA (revolving loan) type program or infrastructure banking program (remember how much Obama wanted one of those) that provides federal guarantees for bond issues on proposals from states and regions alike, paid off with some percentage of the state’s own-source federal gas tax revenues and/or any other state/local/regional revenues committed to the bonds.

c) Whatever percentage of federal funding had been going into the Highway Trust Fund via dedicated transit funds, move that back to the states–revenue neutral. The ones that want it for their own highway projects, fine. The ones that want to use that to commit to paying off guaranteed transit bonds via b can do that.

d) Require that joint development proposals have their local approvals done before one dollar of loan goes forward.

Unlike with capital grants awards programs, where you are rewarded for persistence, competitive proposals for loan programs have their own due diligence attached, which increases accountability. Cost over-runs are penalized. Tying new money to the approvals process will get places to knock it off with making developers miserable.

Think about that. I’m not in favor of transit being lumped in with other projects in infrastructure banks, but set up like this means federal transit support can get stretched way, way past what is dribbled out of capital grants programs or programs tied to gas tax receipts.