Blighted

I am actually quite conflicted on the subject of the use of eminent domain for private purposes. (That's from an urban-planning perspective; morally, the whole thing is insane.)

There's an interesting article in Mother Jones of all places that seems to have a good perspective on the issue. You need to be a subscriber to read the whole thing.

Urban Parasite

An interesting idea for solving the 'homeless problem': put 'em in little plastic tents that are inflated and heated by exhaust grates on urban buildings. Except that, were society to accept people living in these, the 'homeless problem' would be magically transformed into a 'people living in plastic tents problem' that everyone would be wringing their hands over.

Re-Using The Big Box

The site is a bit over-mannered, but it's interesting to see some of these renovations of big-box stores. We're going to need a lot more of these re-uses in the future, I think.

Flash: Washington Housing Not Affordable

Washington Post:
The region’s home prices are rising faster than its wages, worsening the affordable housing crunch, especially for low- and moderate-income workers such as parking attendants and firefighters, according to a report released yesterday by the Fannie Mae Foundation and the Urban Institute. […]

Parking attendants? Interesting choice of sample occupation, that. Perhaps if your job could be done more than adequately by a robot, you shouldn’t expect to get along all that well.

The report goes on to recommend that more ‘affordable’ housing be built. I wonder how much they got paid to come up with that suggestion. Never mind that Fannie Mae is itself a big part of the problem (see here). See also here and here and here.

Outlawing Poverty
hatless.com:
It's great when landlords and business owners and sometimes local government get together and pitch in to make a street look better and make it more walkable and appealing. It's good for business and good for the community and can create a virtuous cycle. Using zoning changes to force out existing businesses and make way for new ones -- the "radical transformation" officials and developers are looking for -- is something else; it's using government as a lever to help one group of citizens gain an advantage over another.

(Posted: August 12, 2004 10:53 PM)

Trade Deficits

A short explanation, yet again, of why a 'trade deficit' with a particular country is largely meaningless.

Social Conservatism

Conservatism has acquired a bad image, social conservatism even more so, to the point that social conservatism has become, for many people, synonymous with bigotry and mean-spiritedness.

Jane Galt offers the best explanation of social conservatism -- not the self-righteous religiosity that often masquerades as conservatism -- that I've ever seen. Along the way, she articulates my own ambiguous feelings about gay marriage better than I have been able to do.

Risk

The popular notion that early adopters are risk tolerant is wrong.

The point is, risk has to take needs into account. The ‘safest’ approach that cannot meet your needs is more risky than alternatives, however unlikely to succeed, that can meet them.

Martha Will Rise Again

It should be readily apparent to you all by now that I really only read one newspaper. This is from this morning’s Washington Post:

Jeff Zucker, president of NBC Universal Television Group, announced yesterday that reality TV impresario Mark Burnett will create for the company “the most exciting offering to come along in daytime television” — development of which will get underway just as soon as the star gets out of the slammer.

I find Martha Stewart endlessly fascinating.

You Can't Hide Your Revolutionary Eyes

Washington Post:

Lithe, petite Sofia Kirichuk, wrapped in a thin leather overcoat, spotted tall, angular Vasili Folosov across the rows of pup tents and right away saw something she liked.
"It was his revolutionary eyes," she says.