1)Policy Focus: Smart Growth: California Dreamin' meets Minnesota Reality
2) The David Strom Show
3) New Pocket Constitution Promotion
4) In case you missed it: Recent commentary from the Minnesota Free Market Institute
5) Help a good cause and get a tax deduction at the same time when you donate your laptop to the Free Market Institute!
1) Policy Focus: Smart Growth: California Dreamin' meets Minnesota Reality
In today's Wall Street Journal, there is an extensive write-up of Sacramento, CA's embrace of urban density, (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121538754733231043.html Subscription required) driven by consumer demand for housing that is closer to work, retail and that has smaller lot sizes. California commutes are notorious, as is air pollution and now with high gas prices, the article suggests that home buyers are ready for what urban planners have wanted all along, namely, the end to urban sprawl. They see people biking to work, to the grocery store, socializing with neighbors, etc. Compare the vision with the reality in the Twin Cities, where in today's Star Tribune, (http://www.startribune.com/local/south/23999324.html ) there is a story about how the Met Council and suburban city governments are rolling back plans to build "urban villages" -a code word for exactly this kind of development. Bottom line: it's not working here.
If consumers are actually demanding urban density (and by demand, we mean seeking it out and actually BUYING IT not simply wishing out loud for it on an NPR call in show) then the market will respond. All too often cries for density are made by a cabal of activists and self-interested developers who get the ear of a few municipal leaders and citizens. The plans happen because governments decree them and subsidize them. They take taxpayers' hard earned dollars and turn them over by the millions for projects that ultimately fail, have to be scaled back or are significantly altered in ways that the community never imagined--all because they were not built to respond to consumers choices. Instead, they were built because of planners' desire for social engineering; telling people where they should live, work and shop and how they ought to get around. The Star Tribune documents a few of these recent failures in a list of projects that were funded by the Met Council but which were ultimately proven unworkable as originally planned:
"APPLE VALLEY asked the Met Council for another year to build underground parking in the city's 65-acre Central Village. Setbacks led the developer to revise plans, leasing units originally planned as owner-occupied condos and moving about 100 more parking spaces from the garage to street level."
Translation: Apple Valley, instead of attracting new homeowners to your community with private, covered parking, you will be attracting a more transient population with rented units where the residents will be fighting over street parking, digging their cars out in the snow and fearing the next hail storm just like they do in the city.
"MINNEAPOLIS got the thumbs-up to hang onto more than $1 million in grants after it eliminated condos, added more rentals and made other changes to redevelopment plans for Longfellow Station, a mixed-use project near the 38th Street light-rail station on Hiawatha Avenue."
Translation: Remember how light rail was supposed to spur development? How everyone would want to live near it? Turns out that that they don't want to live THAT close.
"ST. PAUL got a thumbs up from the Met Council, when a developer decided to build affordable housing instead of 75 condos in a historic Art Deco office building on 4th Street. The council also allowed the city keep $380,000 in grant money to remove asbestos and lead-based paint."
Translation: Nobody wants to live in this building unless we PAY them to. So we will by subsidizing it even more.
"CHASKA leaders have long wanted to spruce up a downtown corner at Hwys. 212 and 41. But a developer backed out when the market went south, and the city had to abandon plans for an apartment building with ground-floor storefronts. Now, a new developer plans a one-story retail building with no housing, and the city got permission to keep about $150,000 in grant money for environmental cleanup."
Translation: Some commercial real estate guy or gal is probably getting a great deal on the back of this failed project. Don't blame him or her, blame the city government officials and whoever talked them into this idea in the first place.
Also notice how even though these projects have a giant FAIL stamped on them, the cities get to KEEP the money?
2) The David Strom Show
The David Strom Show sponsored by the Minnesota Free Market Institute is broadcast weekly on AM 1280 The Patriot Saturdays 9-11 A.M. Podcasts of the show are available at Townhall.com and also directly via iTunes. (See our radio show page for details). The show is now downloaded over 11,000 times a month!
Over the fourth of July weekend The David Strom Show featured 2 hours of previous shows:
Hour 1: Guest: M. David Stirling, Vice President of the Pacific Legal Foundation and author of Green Gone Wild on how environmentalism has become extremism.
Hour 2: David and Margaret talk to the author of John McCain: An American Odyssey, former Baltimore Sun Editor and Navy veteran Robert C. Timberg about the events which shaped the Republican Presidential candidate's character.
Program Notes: Larry Solomon, author of The Deniers has been re-scheduled for the July 19. Next week, our monthly check on the Economy with St. Cloud State Professor King Banaian.
Audio highlights of the show are available here. For commercial-free show podcast downloads visit the show page at townhall.com or subscribe via iTunes. To find out ahead of time who the guests on the show will be, sign up for our action eList and check the RADIO box. (one email per week).
3) New Pocket Constitution Promotion
Our Pocket Constitution/Declaration of Independence giveaway proved so popular, we're ordering more! If you sign up on our website with your mailing address, we'll send you a free copy. If you donate $25, we'll send a copy to your favorite liberal.
If you sign up, you can join one of our email lists:
- Updates: Get the weekly update on what's going on with new publications and events sponsored by the Institute. If you receive this email directly, you are already on this list.
- Columns: Get columns and essays from MNFMI fellows and President David Strom in your email box.
- Radio:Find out ahead of time who will be a guest on the David Strom Show this weekend.
- Media:Get the latest MNFMI press releases.
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4) In Case you Missed it: Recent Commentary from the Minnesota Free Market Institute
There is no aspect of our lives-none-that today's liberals concede is off limits to the meddling use of government power. In their vision there is no dividing line between the public sphere and the private sphere. Limited government is a concept that makes no sense to them.
A great example of this phenomenon is Time magazine's columnist Joe Kline's recent proposal. Kline just recently called for-get this-a reduction or elimination of the use of air conditioning in America. (This is a measure that would be wildly popular in Arizona, Texas, and Florida I'm sure).
Air conditioning, you see, consumes 4% of the energy used in this country, and thus by his lights has become a serious threat to national security. Wars may soon be fought over air conditioning-or at least the energy we use to power it-so we must reduce or eliminate its use.
Air conditioning also adds to global warming, makes us more dependent upon foreign oil, and not coincidentally annoys the heck out of Joe Kline, who happens to like it warm or even hot and muggy.
Kline's proposal is a perfect example of how liberals think: turn a personal goal or pet peeve into a matter of public concern, and then advocate the use of government power to achieve the desired result.
Read more of "What Liberals Dream Of" at Townhall.com
Also of note: Policy Fellow King Banaian weighs in on the debate between Craig Westover and Dane Smith of the liberal think tank Growth and Justice on the General Welfare Clause of the Constitution.
5) Help a good cause and get a tax deduction at the same time when you donate your laptop to the Free Market Institute!
In our never-ending quest to pinch pennies and make your donations go as far as possible here at the Minnesota Free Market Institute we have decided to forego purchasing one or two laptops and ask our loyal supporters for help in getting the hardware that we need. Any in-kind donations to the Institute can be written off your taxes at fair market value (stick it to the IRS and the Mn Dept. of Revenue!), and your donation will help us do our work more efficiently as we travel to meetings or the occasional conference.
What we need: a fairly late-model laptop (two, if possible) designed more for convenient travel than high-tech multimedia applications. Small, light, and capable of running the latest versions of Microsoft Office are the most important criteria. We are a Microsoft shop (running XP on our computers right now), but we are open to Apple products or Vista as long as we can edit our files in a cross-platform manner. We love working on widescreen, but these laptops will really just be workhorse computers for on-the-go editing and web usage, so we aren't picky.
Again, lightweight and capable of running the latest versions of Office are the most important criteria.
Any chance you can help us out and get a tax deduction at the same time? Lovers of liberty everywhere will owe you a debt of gratitude.
Previous issues of the weekly update are archived at the Minnesota Free Market Institute website here.
The Minnesota Free Market Institute conducts research and advocates for policy that limits government involvement in individual affairs and promotes competition and consumer choice. By analyzing the actions of the past and applying the enduring lessons of the free market, the Minnesota Free Market Institute creates policy options for the future. The Minnesota Free Market Institute accepts PayPal! To donate click here. Contributions are Tax Deductible!
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