* living near work
Topics: Resources, Regulation
13 Jul 1994
From: ervan
I originally started writing this piece for the debate on
rice.general about the new EPA rules that force Rice to
achieve 1.47 riders/car, among other arbitrary dictates.
That debate has died down, this piece is not finished, and
would probably be too extreme for that forum anyway. So,
I'm abusing you (all) with it ;-)
------------------------
I find it ironic that the liberals are upset that people do not live
near work when it is liberal programs that are in large part
responsible for this situation.
School integration was to be this beautiful piece of social
engineering. While it may have had some positive benefit for racial
attitudes, it lowered educational quality for middle & upper income
people and caused them to flee the city to find better schools outside
of the integration zone (in part contributing to the very segregation
it intended to cure) and certainly aggravating pollution because of the
extra miles driven.
The city is fundamentally the wrong level to practice welfare. People
can flee higher taxes by moving out of the city.
Even basic things like police protection implicitly redistribute wealth
with people at the upper end paying for more than they are getting
(since protection is to a certain extent equalizied across persons).
While it might be nice to force the rich to protect the poor, the
effect is simply to drive the rich away (or into tax enclaves like West
U. Taxes are high there too, but so are services).
A trivial but egregious example is art subsidy. Though it's a small
part of the budget, Houston squanders money on 'art', like subsidizing
the rich by helping the theater, or rehabilitating old row houses as a
PC gesture. People don't want to pay for art they don't like and never
see.
All of these good ideas are paid for by property and sales taxes (and
some federal grants), both of the first two regressive. Thus the poor
are impoverished even further and as a marginal effect the
neighborhoods that people want to flee are created by government
programs to help the city.
---Ervan
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