With the federal government looking for more money, a budget deficit commission has been discussing possible changes to the tax code to bring in more revenue. One option among a number of options: limiting or revoking the mortgage interest deduction.
Whatever this commission recommends, I can imagine the political fights that may ensue.
The New York Times reports that public housing repairs have fallen even more behind due to the financial crunch affecting many governmental bodies: “Public housing is falling apart around the country, as federal money has been unable to keep up with the repair needs of buildings more than half a century old.”
While the story goes on to address particular cases in Baltimore and New York City, it’s hard to know from the story about how much of an issue this is. How much worse is the issue compared to five years ago? The only figure cited about a national figure for repairs was derived from a 1998 study. In Chicago over the last few decades, public housing repairs were frequently behind and more funding was requested even when economic times were good.
Several professors have recently published books questioning accepted ideas about intellectual property. One professor illustrated his approach in a recent “reading” of his new book in front of a bookstore audience:
But they didn’t hear a single word written by Mr. Boon.
Instead, he read from a 1960s sex manual, an Italian cookbook, and Bob Dylan’s memoir, among others. He had grabbed those books, more or less at random, from the store’s shelves an hour before the event. So why not read from the book he actually wrote? “I didn’t see a need to,” says Mr. Boon, an associate professor of English at York University, in Toronto. That’s because, he says, the same concepts could be found elsewhere, albeit in slightly altered form.
Not coincidentally, that’s the case he makes in his book, In Praise of Copying (Harvard University Press). Mr. Boon argues that originality is more complicated than it seems, and that imitation may be the sincerest form of being human. He writes: “I came to recognize that many of the boundaries we have set up between activities we call ‘copying’ and those we call ‘not copying’ are false, and that, objectively, phenomena that involve copying are everywhere around us.”
He read from the cookbook because recipes aren’t protected by copyright law (unless they contain a “substantial literary expression,” according to the U.S. Copyright Office). He read from the memoir because of Dylan’s liberal borrowings from traditional folk music. And he read from the sex manual because, well, sex is all about reproduction, isn’t it?
While these are just a few academics with books on the subject, it does seem to tap into a growing movement (perhaps led by younger generations?) where originality is redefined as putting existing together in new ways, more of a mash-up than original idea. Whether this will catch on with a larger audience or pass legal muster remains to be seen.
But it does raise an interesting question: how many of our thoughts and ideas are original?
The Infrastructurist has a discussion of whether parking prices in the city should be raised in order to encourage less driving and therefore, less congestion.
While this may be an interesting argument, my research into several suburbs showed that they solved this problem without much argument back in the 1950s and 1960s. As suburban downtowns faced more competition from strip malls and large shopping centers, downtown business owners argued that city-owned parking meters were driving away customers. Why would a person go to the trouble of shopping in a suburban downtown when free parking was plentiful at shopping centers? Within a few years, these suburbs removed their parking meters in an effort to improve local business.The possible business gains far outweighed the possibility of some municipal revenues from the parking meters.
When I first encountered these debates, they seemed a bit strange – were people really avoiding suburban downtowns just because of some small parking fee? Even if downtown parking were free, it seems that suburban residents would (and did) tend to choose shopping centers anyway, for reasons that outweighed parking concerns. (Of course, there is a lot of complaining about finding close shopping spaces at the mall – but, at least those spots are free. However, one could make an argument that they are not free as the parking costs get passed along through the business rents and leases and to higher prices for consumers.)
I left reading about these debates thinking that the parking meters were a last straw that suburban downtowns tried desperately to grab at to attract shoppers. Ultimately, many suburban communities were unsuccessful and the parking meters played a limited role.
The news from Las Vegas does not seem to be improving:
The once-booming Las Vegas region has for 44 straight months led the United States in home foreclosures, and 80 percent of houses here are figuratively underwater — worth less than the debt owed on them.
A staggering 23.6 percent of Nevada mortgages are in some form of delinquency or foreclosure, significantly higher than the national average of 14 percent, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association.
It’s a confusing, devastating turn of events for a city that for two decades was the sterling example of an American boom town.
What is the future of Las Vegas? Unlike Rust Belt cities suffering from foreclosures (like Cleveland, Detroit, etc.), Las Vegas still has a large economic engine in the form of casinos. But now that the boom town era is over, I imagine city leaders and others would want to create a different kind of Las Vegas with more measured economic growth.
The hidden backbone of any community is its infrastructure: the roads, sewers, electricity lines, and more that make the basics of life possible. But it appears that there might be a perception issue among Americans: even though there are a number of experts calling for infrastructure improvements (read The Infrastructurist for more information), Americans either don’t see it is a priority or don’t want to commit extra money to projects (I’ve moved around some of the text from the article):
Infrastructure spending in the U.S. stands at 2 percent of the country’s gross domestic product – half what it was in 1960 — compared with approximately 9 percent in China and 5 percent for Europe, according to the government report.
“During recessions it is common for state and local governments to cut back on capital projects — such as building schools, roads and parks — in order to meet balanced budget requirements,” the report concluded. “However, the need for improved and expanded infrastructure is just as great during a downturn as it is during a boom.”
“My sense is things have changed,” said Andrew Goetz, a University of Denver professor and an expert on transportation policy. “People now tend to see any project as a waste of money, and that’s just wrong.”
“I call it the Bridge to Nowhere syndrome,” he added. “High-profile projects get publicized and they become a symbol for any infrastructure project that’s out there, and even the ones that are justified get tarnished by the same charge.”
So how can the negative perception of infrastructure be changed? I don’t think many people would argue that it is unnecessary (particularly if it affects their personal travel or services) but there are stories of cost overruns, delays, and projects that seem unnecessary. This should be thought of as a social problem – and the American public needs some convincing, particularly in lean economic times.
The Red Line El stop at North and Clybourn may soon be the Apple Red Line stop. It is not named that yet but there is plenty of Apple already in the station:
???There’s reason to be grateful to Apple for the metamorphosis of this patch of Chicago. Apple has not only built a store more stylish than anything nearby, it has invested close to $4 million in the North/Clybourn station.
It’s the equivalent of mowing the neighbor’s weedy lawn — and paying the neighbor to let you.
Outside, the station has clean new brick, big new windows and a sleek new look, partly 1940s and entirely 2010.
The inside isn’t stylish, but it’s improved. Someone has scrubbed the red concrete floors, brushed red paint on the old railings, tried to wipe the grime from the escalator stairs.
And the Apple name is everywhere, except out front.
From the moment you push through the turnstile, Apple ads as bright as searchlights beam at you. Down in the tunnel, all the other ads are gone.
Apple expressed interest in calling it the Apple Red Line stop. The CTA, which is exploring the possibility of selling naming rights to its stations, said Apple would get the right of first refusal for this one.
A further sign that corporate America is taking over or a clever revenue generating trick from the city of Chicago?
A new study in Nature examines which cities are the best for scientific research. The article cites some different measures to get at things like output and quality. Here are some of the findings:
-The top cities for number of articles produced: “Tokyo, London, Beijing, the San Francisco Bay Area, Paris and New York.”
-The top cities based on quality of research (measured as average citations of articles): “Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts, come out on top — attracting more than twice as many citations per paper as the global average. US cities dominate the quality table, with only Cambridge, UK, breaking into the top 10. Cities with the most improved relative quality in the past decade include Austin, Texas, and Singapore City — which has moved from 15% below average to 22% above it. Beijing, however, is below par in the quality stakes: its papers in the five-year period ending 2008 attracted 63% of the global average-citation rate.”
-According to a sociologist, the three factors that lead to more research: “freedom, funding, and lifestyle.”
Several of the experts also caution that cities shouldn’t just throw money at research in the expectation that this will lead to significant wealth generated for the city.
I wonder how much of a role historical factors play in this. Once a city acquires a reputation for prestigious universities and research (think: Boston), how quickly could it lose its status if drastic things started to take place (such as the bankruptcy of Harvard and MIT)? It seems like certain cities gain a reputation or character and that character becomes an inertia that continues to attract new research facilities and scientists.
The Wall Street Journal suggests that one particular lawsuit, begun in 2004, helped bring to light the most recent issue in the American foreclosure saga: the use of “robo-signers” by lending firms. Because of these practices, a number of banks have had to suspend foreclosure proceedings to examine the paperwork more closely:
Lillian and Robert Jackson stopped paying on their home in Jacksonville, Fla., in 2004 when business dropped off at their cleaning company. Eviction might have seemed inevitable when they faced a foreclosure hearing two years later.
But their lawyer, James Kowalksi, had the idea of taking a deposition from the signer of the mortgage papers. When a document processor for GMAC Mortgage admitted she routinely signed such papers without being familiar with details of the loans, she was tagged as one of a species now known as robo-signers.
It was a first step in the growth of a legal sub-specialty called foreclosure defense that has sown confusion and turmoil in the housing market. Lawyers in the field now commonly use a technique more identified with corporate litigation: probing depositions, designed to uncover any lapses in judgment, flaws in a process or wrongdoing. In the 23 states where foreclosures entail a court hearing, the bank may be ordered to pay the homeowner’s legal bill if a lawyer can convince a judge that the bank has submitted false documents, such as affidavits saying employees personally reviewed the details of loans when they didn’t.
Ultimately, lenders argue that this sort of legal proceeding doesn’t keep the resident in their home; they still should be evicted from their homes for failing to pay because this is just a paperwork issue. What remains to be seen is if there is some sort of “smoking gun” case where the bank proceeded with foreclosure when it should not have.
But in the mean time, it appears that there are a number of lawyers who see an opportunity here. And in the court of public opinion, revelations like this don’t help the public image of the lenders.
Megan McArdle discusses gentrification and whether “hip” (my term) or diverse urban neighborhoods can remain that way.
In reality, most neighborhoods (urban or suburban) change over time. This can happen quite rapidly in urban neighborhoods: new people move and businesses move in or out and places can be transformed in a decade or two. Gentrifying neighborhoods are always teetering on an edge where they recently were poorer but are now hip but soon could be more stodgy middle- to upper-class enclaves. It is probably rare that neighborhoods can stay in a perpetual state of gentrification because there are numerous forces pushing a neighborhood one way or another.
I wonder if arguments about wanting to preserve diverse urban neighborhoods are not that different from suburban NIMBY arguments. In each case, people who have moved into the neighborhood see something they like: perhaps good schools in the suburbs, a “hip” and diverse scene in the urban neighborhood. But then the goal can become to freeze that neighborhood in time, to resist outside forces, to try to keep the neighborhood in the state in which it was originally found. The mindset can be “I found this neighborhood and I don’t want anyone else to come in and change it from what I fell in love with.” In both contexts, this is difficult to do: time passes, the people in the neighborhood change, outside forces influence the neighborhood, and so on.
Perhaps one way to get around these sort of arguments is to suggest that the act of moving into a neighborhood (by a resident or a business) is an act with consequences: moving in necessarily contributes to changing the neighborhood. By living in a neighborhood and interacting with residents and others, the new member of the community helps push the neighborhood in a new direction. Whether this new direction is good or bad, moral or immoral, is another issue.
h/t Instapundit
