Reason Magazine Gets Reasonable

Reason Magazine has an article about how communities that espouse the principles of "economic freedom" can be grim places to live and that people prefer cities and other places, despite the presence of more regulations and higher costs, because they are more interesting and satisfying places to live. (This story is counter to the unreasonable Reason Magazine story, "Crime-Friendly Neighborhoods," that used faulty logic and analysis to link new urbanism design to crime.)

Richard Layman: "When I ran for city council in Ann Arbor, the County Homebuilders had a questionnaire, and one of the questions commented on the big differential in property taxes between the surrounding townships and the city. I commented, well, 'the city has libraries, parks, etc. and the townships don't...'"

Ken Obel: "All that is true -- in general, you get what you pay for. The big exception is schools. If cities can overcome their educational problems, that would profoundly alter the city-suburban balance."

Richard Layman: The three primary issues of concern for the stabilization and improvement of the center cities are schools, public safety, and the provision of municipal services generally--based of course on a foundation of a strong employment core and an excellent public transportation network.

When you're younger and/or you don't have children, you may let the schools slide, because it doesn't directly concern you. Obviously, as your situation changes, so do your priorities.

Unfortunately, it appears that schools bureaucracies are amongst the most resistant to change of all municipal institutions. This is discussed somewhat in _The Future Once Happened Here_ by Fred Siegel. This is why the charter school movement has legs. I prefer that resources would go into the traditional public school system. Yet, it's hard to hold students hostage to that viewpoint/ideology and I am interested in creating a charter school myself (as has been discussed in other posts to the list: it would be on architecture, urban design, planning, and historic preservation and history).

In Washington DC, charter schools are supplanting the regular school system in a significant way. I'm not sure that's a good thing, but it's amazing to me that the school system is so insulated, that they have no impetus to be competitive or to respond. I.e., there was a story in the Post about an elementary school that now has less than 200 students, because of the success of a nearby charter school. Yet the budget for that school has remain unchanged from when it had 150% more students... (See this report from the Manhattan Institute, "Does Charter School Competition Improve Traditional Public Schools?".)

Some of my colleagues think that as these families have children, the parents will become more advocacy-oriented, and help to foment significant change. I, on the other hand, am not too hopeful that advocacy will have much impact.

Although, I will say, I have proposed an arts (visual, language, performing, writing, foreign language and culture, media) cluster for the elementary schools in a large swath of the northeast quadrant of the city. But other people haven't picked up this idea and started to run with it (and my plate is overfull with ideas and projects, and I don't have children besides).

One of these days I am going to write it up as a formal document, and see where the idea goes.

Kevin Klinkenberg: Approximately 2/3 of American households do not have children, and thenumber is growing.

It would be nice if big cities had better schools, but it's certainly not a necessary component of revitalization. Focusing on who the market is, and building a great place for them (as well as your comments on public safety and municipal services) are the critical elements.

Richard Layman: One of the key demographic levers of center city revitalization is immigrants and neighborhoods of immigrants achieving critical mass-cluster impacts. These populations usually are comprised of multiple family members including many children.

The only point I am trying to make is that while you're right, we don't really revitalize a city as a whole so much as we do it neighborhood by neighborhood, and each neighborhood has different characteristics and points to address.

Having good schools helps retain families, and that is an important component of population diversity. It's certainly not important in downtown DC or in the Warehouse or Flats districts of Cleveland, etc., but it does matter in other neighborhoods or communities.

Steven Bodzin: My Econ professor, Brad DeLong, claims that in California, a town's willingness to tax itself unusually much in order to pay for better schools (through routine Prop 13 overrides) add about $250,000 to the market value of each home in the town. I can't comment on his methods because I haven't seen them but it's an interesting avenue of research.

[And] Now isn't this timely. As a resident of "nearly childless" San Francisco, I have seen this in action. People who are rich enough to escape but not rich enough to afford a fancy private school all go to the burbs. Which is to say, most of my friends. Tim Egan always hits the right note [and he does in this article in the New York Times] Vibrant Cities Find One Thing Missing: Children.

Mary Madden: If people are interested in the schools issue, they may want to look into the Gates Foundation Small Schools effort as well as an interesting group called the Public Education Network which advocates the local business community getting involved with the local public schoolsbecause it makes good business sense (among other things).

David Goldberg: What I love about this story is that it does NOT say that urban environments are inappropriate for children. It mostly laments that, as these environments grow in popularity, it becomes harder for people to afford them. I do think that kids are an indicator species for places being out of balance, and that there are policies and practices that can counter them. Not easy, but much to be preferred over trying to convince people it's OK to live in cities. As someone who is raising four kids in an urban setting (a fifth isalready grown) I thank my favorite deity every day that I was able to get in here from my suburban exile before it got too expensive.

Richard Layman: Finally, this article from Thursday's Washington Post, "Jump Shot: At Hine Junior High, A Rookie Coach Teaches Her Players to Believe in Themselves," makes clear how tough some of the issues are in teaching in the inner city, particularly with low-income students. It is amazing that this junior high school, in an area that is about 55% white, has no white students.