Review: A poorly reasoned treatise
Rating: 1 out of 5
Date: 10 8, 2011
To attempt to refute all of the problematic points made here would, at the very least, require something the length of another large-sized Kindle Single but I want to try to hit some major points.The author consistently cites the NIMBY (not in my backyard) crowd as a source of the problem he identifies; i.e. that U.S. economic performance is being hampered by the inability of major cities to add as much housing stock as is needed to meet demand and that this is because the NIMBY crowd opposes efforts to boost urban density. NIMBY sounds like a nice, cute acronym, but in my experience, it lies at the center of some of the ugliest debates in American politics. Typically, the NIMBY label tends to be thrown around by a different crowd, the wniiYby crowd: wniiYby translates to "we need it in YOUR backyard." Think of how many times you've seen news coverage of community opposition to supposedly "undesirable" things being proposed for neighborhoods. Now, think about the ones who advocate adding those elements. Finally, try to recall how many times you saw those kinds of people protesting to demand that homeless shelters, chemical plants, prisons, etc. by brought into their own neighborhoods, preferably on the block where they live and better still, next door to their own homes. Get the message? Ryan Avent needs to stop tossing the NIMBY label around until he first demonstrates success in advocating and obtaining things under a PDIIMBYF (please do it in my backyard first).As to the work itself, I'm surprised to see that someone who works as an economics correspondent fails to understand the actual dynamics of the supply and demand phenomenon he mentions so often. Supply-and-demand is not a mechanism to assure every bit of possible demand gets satisfied. Quite to the contrary, supply-and-demand is a rationing system, the key being that here, the rationing is done by the "invisible hand" of the market rather than the will or whim of a bureaucrat. All studies of the interaction between supply and demand contemplate that there will be instances of demand that does not get satisfied. It is by far the hardest thing for the beginner economics student to grasp (how can demand for food be allowed to go unsatisfied)? Without attempting to write a full economics treatise, the very very short answer is if your demand for "X" is unsatisfied because you can't/won't pay the equilibrium price (the price at which supply and demand are in balance), then you switch gears and demand "Y" or "Z," something you can afford. Avent's apparent belief that it's bad to have any demand go unsatisfied is a nice utopia, but it's not economics. And more important, it would not make for viable political/economic policy.Avent argues that we should satisfy housing demand in productive cities by boosting density (thereby raising supply and pushing down prices to the poit where more people can afford to buy homes). But how far do we go? Land is finite. No area can take on infinite housing density (a notion Avent did sort of acknowledge in one sentence). Can we replace a block of four-story walk-ups in Manhattan with a ten story high rise? Yes. How about 20 stories? Yes, probably. How about 600 stories. No. How about 30 stories? Hard to say, maybe yes, maybe no. That's the a he needed to focus on: How can we define a maximum level of density. Similarly we can spread population out horizontally and boost density that way, but how far out. Might we expect people to commute 5 miles to work, shop or for entertainment? Yes. How about 20 miles? Yes. 30 miles? Yeah, but it may be getting dicier. How about 200 miles? Forget it -- now we're in vacation territory. Again, where is the boundary? Should such boundaries be the same for all places? What factors might influence how we decide how much is too much? That, rather than an attack on NIMBY, should have been the focus of this work.Also, we must recognize that there is more going on here (and in a lot of other things) than pure economics. For example, this sort of issue also involves the nature of property rights. It's easy to start with the notion that each property owner has an absolute right to do exactly what he/she wants with his/her property. But then, we'd have to accept that one's neighbor also has an absolute right to use his/her property exactly as he/she deems fit. What happens if A wants to use his property in such a manner as to prevent neighbor B from getting the desired use of her property? That is and element of what we refer to as civilization and brings us into the heart of the fertile legal field of nuisance which, ultimately, is the progenitor of land use law and doctrine. This, like NIMBY, is a complex area treated by Avent in a highly offhanded and quite biased manner.Again, it's not practical for me to try to refute everything in the context of an Amazon review. Among other issues vaguely acknowledged but not property analyzed are lifestyle choices that influence living choice and city character (Avent notes that in low-housing cost cities, healthcare, a field he dismisses as low-productive, tends to play a larger role -- I wonder if Avent is aware that the high-growth cities he cites tend to be among those favored by retirees who, being holder, have higher demand for healthcare services) and the influence of technology-driven lifestyle changes that diminish the need for physical proximity; etc. etc. etc.In the text, in the wrapping-up chapter, Avent describes the work as liberal; yes, it definitely is, in the worst stereotypical sense of the label. He also describes it as progressive; that strikes me as pure ego since I see absolutely nothing progressive here. He also claims his work is "above all" a "sensible" book. I respectfully disagree. Finally, in the last section of the last chapter, he opens with the sentence: "I should close with a dose of humility." I agree with that, but wish he had actually done so, and that he had allowed a bit of humility to have played a role in the rest of his approach.Finally, though, I do have to give kudos (100 stars) to Amazon for having accepted this and published it as a Kindle Single. True I hated the work. But that's life. Our current world is definitely not short of controversy, but sadly, too much of it is reduced to sound-bites and name-calling. I very much appreciate Amazon's having offered a forum to someone who wants to present a long, elaborate argument on a controversial topic, as well as an opportunity for someone like me to respond. That said, reviews aren't ideal: I understand that it is possible for others to post comments in response to reviews, but frankly, that sort of thing has been hit or miss. So, Amazon, can I propose that you set up a more conspicuous community area around idea-oriented Kindle Singles (and expand it as seems warranted).