The New York Times ran an article this week highlighting the "controversy" over the investments of eco-champion Al Gore.  Apparently, some perceive a conflict of interest between the Nobel Laureate’s environmental fervor and his wide-ranging financial stakes in green industry.  Conservative lawmakers have questioned Gore’s true intentions, citing his ties to Kleiner Perkins Caufield and [...]

A tough search for talent - Public Service recruitment:

I’m always half a week late on my Economist stories (the latest issue arrived late, compounding my tardiness) but this story popped out to me.

In simple numerical terms, the personnel gap opening up is vast. A report by the OECD, a rich-countries’ club, found that in 13 of the member countries surveyed, at least 30% of central-government workers were 50 years of age or older. Generous early-retirement provisions mean that many will leave their posts fairly soon.

Funny note: the story refers to public employees as mandarins.  I had to look it up:

the ultimate origin of the word is the Sanskrit root man-, meaning “to think.”

Paul Kennedy famously argued that imperial overstretch — that is devoting too much money and resources to military uses — plays a central role in the decline of great powers, including the United States. But it looks like America’s growing obesity epidemic is reducing the pool of capable recruits, according to this story in The Washington Post (via Dana Goldstein).

About 75 percent of the country’s 17- to 24-year-olds are ineligible for military service, largely because they are poorly educated, overweight and have physical ailments that make them unfit for the armed forces, according to a report to be issued Thursday.

Other factors, such as drug use, criminal records and mental problems, contribute to what military leaders say is a major problem that threatens the country’s ability to defend itself at a time when the all-volunteer force is already strained fighting two wars.

Money quote:

When you get kids who can’t do push-ups, pull-ups or run, this is a fundamental problem not just for the military but for the country,” said Curtis Gilroy, the Pentagon’s director of accessions policy. Many kids are not “taking physical education in school; they’re more interested in sedentary activities such as the computer or television. And we have a fast-food mentality in this country.”

Childhood obesity varies considerably across the fifty states and reflects some straightforward economic and demographic patterns, according to a basic correlation analysis by my colleague Charlotta Mellander. Childhood obesity, not surprisingly, reflects adult obesity (with a correlation of .54). It is also more prevalent in states with large working class populations (.4). It is less likely in states with higher income levels (-.32), greater concentrations of the creative class (-.37), and especially those with higher levels of adults with college degrees (-.64).

Photo Credit: Flickr User Seattle Municipal Archives

On Election Day, San Francisco voters soundly rejected an initiative that would have created a Mid-Market Special Sign District where new general advertising signs would be permitted. Proposition D was rejected by 53.88% of voters. In fact, it was the only proposition of five on the ballot that was defeated.

The result reaffirmed San Franciscans’ traditional aversion to billboards. In 2002, when 79.1% of voters supported an initiative that established an ordinance prohibiting new general advertising signs anywhere in the City. San Francisco’s Municipal Code also prohibits all general advertising signs on Market Street downtown.

Proposition D, which was sponsored by Market Street property owners, would have created a special sign district on and near Market Street between 5th and 7th streets where new general advertising signs would not be subject to the City-wide ban on new billboards or the ban on all general advertising signs in the Market Street Special Sign District. Had Prop D passed, just about any sort of sign would have been fair game, including roof signs, wind signs, video signs, rotating signs, wall signs, signs with moving parts, and signs with illumination.

The opposition to Prop D was led by San Francisco Beautiful, which had sponsored the 2002 proposition banning new billboards. While Mid-Market has proven remarkably resistant to revitalization, San Francisco Beautiful rightly pointed out that “We can’t fight blight with blight…the extreme presence of billboards along those two blocks could destroy prospects for fully restoring the whole of Market Street, San Francisco’s grand boulevard, to a world-class standard.”

San Francisco Beautiful also expressed concern over a copy cat effect where private interests throughout the city might attempt to circumvent existing zoning and land-use restrictions through well-funded ballot box campaigns.

– Anthony Veerkamp

Anthony Veerkamp a senior program officer at the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Western Office.

Hi, this is Kim M.   Ok, now I am going to go deep and talk about how BAP has affected my life. This past summer I went to Washington DC for the National Youth Leadership Forum for Law and Forensics. I attended this because I want to study political science and continue to law school when I go to college, and this forum allowed me to see firsthand what it is like in the profession.  So this forum took place in the heart of DC and we got to tour a lot of the sites including Capitol Hill, the Supreme Court, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Washington Monument. As I was going on these tours a lot of things that I saw on the buildings stood out profoundly. I was literally amazed with everything that was there; the decorations, the design, the sculptures, and the magnificent columns.

Supreme Court Building

The Supreme Court was my favorite. It was so beautiful and there was a lot for me to take in. I love columns in buildings and the Supreme Court is covered with them. The tops of the columns are covered with beautiful, detailed designs. The motto of the Supreme Court beautifully saying, “Equal Justice Under Law.” The front steps are marble and marvelous. The sculpture at the top of the building is so well detailed and amazing. The sculptures on both sides at the bottom of the stairs are huge, one man and one women, which is weird because at the time it was built it was all men that took office. Anyway, the sculptures are so detailed and beautifully depict the government.

I also loved the Lincoln Memorial. The whole outside and inside are amazing. All the states that were states under his presidency, surrounds the monument and again the columns are so neat. Also, the geometrics of the building are fascinating.

Even, though all these buildings are cool and amazing I am so glad for BAP. I would not have fully appreciated and understood the significance of these buildings if it weren’t for AP History and BAP. I would be lost and just see them as cool instead of the historical icons that they are! Without BAP I would be callous towards those glorious columns that I love so much. The great history behind these buildings is remarkable. I was talking to Nate V. who has blogged before and he went when he was a small child and didn’t know anything about the significance of the place. He told me that he wished he could go again so that he could experience it like I did. I’m so appreciative of BAP and of Mr. StanWiens, because without them I would not be the same.

Kim M. is a student at Boise’s Timberline High School and is participating in the Boise Architecture Project. You can follow the students here on the PreservationNation blog and on their Flickr photostream. Also, get daily updates from their teacher, Doug StanWiens, on Twitter.

Last night on the Charlie Rose show, Gore speaking on the challenge of climate change:

Never before have we faced a challenge that brings the potential for ending human civilization as know it.  And the time frame within which we have to act is shockingly short. 

If we were to decide in the present generation to take all of the sacrifices and labours of the generations before us and exploit them fully for ourselves and give the back of our hand to the generations coming after us, it would be the most immoral act of any generation of humans in history.

It is a challenge to our moral imagination to recognize the magnitude of this challenge and the urgency with which we have to act.  It is not a political issue; it is a moral issue ….

Transcript here.

NCI is proud to announce that we have been awarded a Federal Transit Authority (FTA) grant. NCI and Reconnecting America will partner to create the NCI Charrette System Guide for Transit Oriented Development (TOD). TODs are complex and challenging projects to plan and implement. Although much has been written on TOD case studies, as [...]

Want to compare urban employment across all major North American cities? and with historical perspective?

Here:’s a graph that allows you to see, on a monthly basis since 2002, the year-over-year job gains or losses.

If you look at the most recent month, across North America, what a “tale of two countries.”

Tournaments feature a skewed payoff distribution. Tiger Woods wins much more cash than the runner up. This creates strong incentives to devote effort. Academic economics can be viewed as such a tournament. Our superstars do the profession a service by opening up their homes and showing what a good life they really have. This signals to the rest of us (especially young people) what the best of the next generation may be able to achieve with some hard work and perhaps a little luck.

In my planning job-project, I am interacting a fair amount with various representatives from the Maryland State Highway Administration. On the way to a field meeting yesterday, we were discussing monies for road improvements, transit, public participation, and the like.

he mentioned that earlier in the year there was a design-build conference in Baltimore, and these numbers were pronounced:

2 cents / mile = the average amount of money generated by gasoline excise taxes to support preservation and maintenance of the current road system

11 cents / mile = the amount needed to support preservation and maintenance of the current road system at high levels

20 cents - 30 cents / mile = the amount needed to support expansion programs, including the accommodation of bicyclists and pedestrians, placemaking improvements, transit, etc.

Photo by Bill Cunningham

This is an image OX sent me from France. It's of him and friends being arrested for posting their artwork in Central Park in January of 1985. Who even wheat pasted in 1985? Awesome!

Photo by Masto

Before I had a chance to post on the arrest photo above, OX sent me this image of him and Closky from around the same time period. This gives you a better idea of what kind of wheat paste imagery they were putting up. Check the jackets, also by Closky.

I didn’t have much time in Toronto, but I spent much of it in Kensington Market, a tangle of small streets and mismatched buildings just past Spadina Avenue. It isn’t a very big neighbourhoods, but it does a lot with what it’s got.

AN BORD Pleanála has said it will reopen the oral hearing into the Corrib gas onshore pipeline if Shell EP Ireland responds within three months to its requests issued this week.

Shell EP Ireland told The Irish Times yesterday it was “confident” it could meet the February 5th deadline set by the appeals board, following this week’s deferral of a final decision on the strategic infrastructure application.

The board told the developers earlier this week that up to half of the proposed new onshore pipeline route was “unacceptable” on safety grounds, due to proximity to housing in Rossport and between Glengad and Aughoose.

In a four-page letter, the appeals board said the application did “not present a complete, transparent and adequate demonstration” that the high pressure pipeline “does not pose an unacceptable risk to the public”.

The board noted that part of the pipeline route onshore was omitted from the application. A section close to the Glengad landfall had been ruled as exempted development by the Department of Environment.

The appeals board suggested a review of a route up the Sruwaddacon estuary – a route rejected on environmental and technical grounds by Shell’s consultants, RPS. It could “provisionally” approve the proposed onshore pipeline development, “should alterations be made”. The board has given such an assurance once before, in relation to the recent east-west gas interconnector.

Former Bord Gáis engineering manager Leo Corcoran, who was an appellant at the oral hearing last May-June in Belmullet, said yesterday it would be virtually impossible for the Corrib gas partners to meet all the demands set by An Bord Pleanála, particularly in relation to the Glengad landfall.

“This landfall is highly inappropriate and would not have been selected in the first place if the developer had followed the code of practice. Retrofitting a failed design to the planning application won’t be acceptable to the community at Glengad either.”

A Shell EP Ireland spokesman said it could not comment on “speculation”.

The Department of Transport has also confirmed that a fishing vessel, the John Michelle, owned by Pat O’Donnell, was inspected by its marine survey office as an “overriding priority” on July 1st last. A “guard vessel” for the Corrib project was also inspected under these terms in August.

Irish Times

www.buckplanning.ie

I am not surprised that the Denver rail's FasTracks is vastly over budget. I am often "railed" against the rising total cost of such public works projects. Voters do have a right to know the final cost of a project before they vote on it. Unfortunately, this type of thing does not help in generating "trust in government". In the middle of this NY Times article , there is a quote from Arthur Nelson who optimistically says that all else equal that if a home is closer to rail transit that its probability of going into foreclosure is lower. So, he is positing that new urbanist homes are less risky investments. Is this true?

Arthur, have you read my 2007 Real Estate Economics paper on community gentrification near new rail transit lines? The largest home price gains are near new "Walk and Ride" stations. Think of Davis Square on the Boston Red Line.

My question for Dr. Nelson is what is his control group? To tease out a causal effect of proximity , he needs to answer what would these homes' foreclosure rates have been if they had not been close to rail transit. Is he simply looking at homes equi-distant to the city center that are not near rail transit (so looking at a common radius around a city's center)?

When we make causal claims to the media, I'd ask us to be clear about what is the comparison group. How do we know that what we are telling the reporters is "true" versus is wishful thinking?

Nelson has made an interesting claim that merits further research.

IRELAND’S LARGEST waste management companies have told the operators of the planned Poolbeg incinerator in Dublin that the project is “ill conceived” and they are unlikely to supply waste to it.

In a letter yesterday to the companies contracted to build and run the incinerator on behalf of Dublin City Council, the Irish Waste Management Association (IWMA) said the facility as planned was “grossly oversized”.

In its letter, seen by The Irish Times , the association said the capacity of the facility as envisaged would be completely out of line with the projections for residual waste available in the Dublin region.

“As such, the vast majority of IWMA members are unlikely to make use of the facility if constructed especially as our members have indicated that they have sufficient capacity within their own facilities to treat current and future arisings,” the letter said.

A spokesman for Minister for the Environment John Gormley, who was sent a copy of the letter, said the Minister shared the association’s conclusions.

Mr Gormley has campaigned against the 600,000-tonne capacity incinerator, which is in his constituency and is due to open in 2012.

The Minister is to publish his international review of waste management policy in two weeks, and this is expected to recommend limits on waste going to landfill or incineration.

In its letter to incinerator consortium companies Covanta and Dong, the IWMA mentions a legal action it said is likely to result in local authorities losing their control of household waste collection.

This refers to a High Court case taken by Greenstar and Panda against a decision by Dublin City Council to change the existing waste permit system to designate a specific contractor to collect all household waste in the city, rather than allow a number of operators to do the work. A decision in the case is pending.

Assistant city manger Séamus Lyons yesterday said the incinerator would go ahead and suggested that the IWMA wanted to continue taking waste to landfill.

“Dublin City Council is satisfied that the Dublin Waste to Energy plant is needed to achieve maximum recycling and minimum landfill in the Dublin region. The IWMA members appear to be wedded to landfill, which is environmentally the least sustainable option for Dublin’s waste,” he said in a statement.

The London-based spokespeople for the contractors could not be contacted yesterday.

The plant, which would be one of the largest municipal waste incinerators in Europe, was granted a licence from the Environmental Protection Agency last December following the receipt of planning permission from An Bord Pleanála in November 2007.

Irish Times

www.buckplanning.ie

An open question in urban economics is whether information technology is a complement or substitute for living in a big city? Does the Internet and the fax machine increase or decrease the demand for living in New York City or Los Angeles? In a well known paper, Glaeser and Gaspar 1998 argue that it increases the demand for big city living.

So if Lebron James is a $ maximizer, will he move to New York City?

The NY Times says no. A famous agent says that 20 years ago it would have been a wise move to go from small Cleveland to big NYC. But now with the Internet 24 hour news feeds his fame will not be magnified in NYC. In fact, he will just be one of 100s of celebrities. If he has relative preferences and prefers to be the King of a Small Pond then Cleveland may offer him the same nominal salary, lower home prices and more fame!

The King should not forget Moretti's paper on real wage inequality that the high home prices in NYC will eat into his real pay. Cleveland's very low home prices offer some real consumption benefits.

A final point: the King's income = price per unit of skill*quantity of skill.

Unlike a software writer, a NBA player's skill is not augmented by being in a big city. There are no learning effects a la Jane Jacobs or Marshall. This article's point is that the Internet is creating a law of one price per unit of skill. In the past before the Internet, Skilled players earned more from Advertising and fame when the played in major cities because of the PR and fame amplication effect. But, the Internet can generate equal buzz regardless of where you play.

The King should talk to us urban economists! LeBron; call me.

The big question here is whether the King is a special case or whether this example foreshadows that the Big City premium will soon fade because of the Internet. In this case, the only reason to pay the big city real estate price premium is "Consumer City".

VIA Wooster Collective

This NYC phonebooth takeover was found by Wooster Collective readers. It's always a pleasure to see people out on the streets making fantastic work. Considering a good portion of phonebooths in NY don't have working phones and are really just advertising frames, it is about time someone put them to use for something better.

This post was written by Trisha Riggs, vice president of communications for ULI. Washington, D.C. ranks as the top market in the United States for real estate investment and development, which, in the current economic environment, means it is the... ULI

This post was written by Trisha Riggs, vice president of communications for ULI. Washington, D.C. ranks as the top market in the United States for real estate investment and development, which, in the current economic environment, means it is the... ULI