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The Pen is Mightier than the Storm Surge
ByjbpThis was originally posted on Live Oaks on September 20, 2008. Comments have not been migrated. If you have seen photos of the Texas coast after Hurricane Ike, you are aware of the the destruction caused by the storm. Thousands of homes were seriously damaged or destroyed, and many will be prohibited from rebuilding. And…
Principles, Politics, and Planning, Part 2
In the last post, we saw that Austin’s attempt to rewrite it’s land-use regulations (called CodeNext) has resulted in great controversy and divisiveness. That divisiveness is not the result of the process that was used, but instead, the cause was the principle that underlies CodeNext. By their very nature, land-use regulations are an attempt to…
Givings vs. Takings
It is rare that an opinion piece provides me with three distinct issues to address in separate posts. A piece at Capegazette.com, which “covers Delaware’s Cape Region” does just that. The first issue is “givings” vs. takings. The article claims that those who object to government regulations as a “taking” ignore the fact that they…
The War on Uber
Each time it enters a new market, Uber meets with vehement protests. But those protests do not come from consumers. They come from taxi companies and their employees. Why? The answer is cronyism. Nearly every city in the world with a population greater than 50,000 heavily regulates the taxi industry. Typically, those regulations limit the…
Friday Roundup 9-10-21
In April, Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez unveiled the Green New Deal for Public Housing Act. The bill would “invest” $172 billion over 10 years to upgrade over 950,000 public housing units. When the bill was announced, Sanders said, “It is unacceptable that our nation’s public housing is in a state of chronic disrepair and…
Winning the Battle but Losing the War
ByjbpThe following talk was delivered at a luncheon hosted by the Houston Property Rights Association on May 14, 1993. The warning was not heeded. During the debate over zoning, its proponents have made many claims about zoning: it will encourage economic growth, it will improve our “quality of life,” it will prevent “undesirable” land…