GREENER THAN EVER: City dwellers tend to have smaller carbon footprints—one of the arguments for an evenhanded urban policy.
Image: Glen Wexler Gallery Stock
Not long ago New York, Chicago, Boston and Washington, D.C., were poster children for urban decay. But these cities came roaring back: they tapped deep wells of experience in finance, communications and technology to flourish in a globalized world. They illustrate perfectly the power and resilience of the city as brain trust. Although they have their problems, urban areas continue to lure new residents because of the economic, health and educational benefits that accrue from face-to-face social networking. But if cities are so beneficial, then why are U.S. policies stacked against them?
In matters of housing, education, transportation, the environment and social services, existing rules and spending priorities give cities a raw deal. Cheap gas, highway subsides, tax incentives for home ownership, complacency over urban education and the apportionment of legislators all give preferential treatment to suburbs and rural areas. Even national leaders who should be cheerleaders for an evenhanded urban policy have faltered. Barack Obama, the most urban president since Theodore Roosevelt, skewed the stimulus bill toward more dollars for rural America. The five least populated states got twice as much money per capita as the rest.
Antiurban policies hurt denizens not just of downtown urban cores but also of broader metropolitan regions—and, arguably, the nation as a whole. Cities contribute to economic growth out of proportion to their populations. When they are dragged down, everyone pays the price; when they do well, so do their hinterlands. The rebound of Boston, for example, has enriched the entire state of Massachusetts, which depends heavily for its well-being on the new ideas and technologies hatched on the banks of the Charles River.
To be fair, the dividing line between city and suburb is fuzzy, and it would be easy to make too much of the distinction between urban cores and the rest of the country. The real concern is one of imbalance. Analysts have suggested a number of ways to rectify it. First, cap the home mortgage deduction, which represents a subsidy for homeowners (mostly suburban) at the expense of renters (mostly urban). Such a move should be complemented by steps to increase the supply of middle- and low-income apartments in city centers, which have become too expensive for many Americans. Second, raise gas taxes and put in place congestion pricing in urban areas so that society no longer subsidizes driving. These revenues could enhance mass transit, which, despite being more environmentally friendly, now often costs more than driving to work. Third, consider radical steps to fix gargantuan, unwieldy urban school systems saddled with the challenge of educating tens of thousands of rich and poor within their districts. Urban economist Edward Glaeser, who has two articles in this issue, suggests that solutions to such a tall order might come from either the left or right of the political spectrum: a nationwide high-quality school system, as in France, or a serious effort to put in place a voucher system.
Ultimately, the trouble is that the U.S. political system is rigged against densely populated areas. The system of earmarking funds by Congress means that infrastructure money gets allocated based on political horse trading rather than on the demographics of where people actually live and work. Letting the people of Iowa and New Hampshire always go first in the presidential primary season has much to recommend it—the citizens of those states take their privileged role seriously—but it means that candidates have little incentive to speak to urban concerns such as housing policy or decaying infrastructure.
The basic issue is fairness. Why should government policy favor owning over renting, driving over mass transit, or kids in one school district over another? The current incentives encourage people to settle in the outskirts when they might otherwise prefer to live downtown—a bias that makes little sense even when you leave out its environmental costs. And those costs are enormous. To keep our carbon emissions in check, we will need to edge closer to our neighbors. From the perspective both of simple fairness and of rational, science-based public policy, eliminating the incentives for citizens to spread out should be our goal.
This article was originally published with the title In Fairness to Cities.
Already a Digital subscriber? Sign-in Now
If your institution has site license access, enter here.
See what we're tweeting about
20 Comments
Add CommentIn Fairness to Not Cities
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs science professionals, it's important for us to recognize our own bias. You, the editors of SciAm, work on Madison Avenue and live in New York City. From that perspective, I'm sure your editorial on "antiurban" policies didn't seem dramatically unfair, but you might have inquired a bit as to why less-populated states receive more money (aside from our apparently corrupt political system.)
Here in Montana, my friends (who make the food you eat, by the way) send their children to small schools that are more than an hour away and often perform worse than urban schools. They drive on roads that are worse than any within 100 square miles of NYC. There are no mass-transportation options. They connect to the internet with 56k modems.
This isn't a question of dollars, it's a question of the US Government providing the same services for all people no matter where they live. If it costs 50 times more money to bus a child to school in Fergus county as it does in Manhattan, we will pay 50 times more, because they are Americans and they deserve an education.
I suppose we have a choice.
We could deliver fewer services to people who live in rural places. We could stop delivering their mail and bussing their children to schools. We could close down their fire departments and over-tax their gasoline and their land. And if they don't like it, we could say "Get with the times, this isn't how America works anymore." And I guess, if we succeeded in pushing them off their land, we could buy all our food and coal and natural gas from other countries.
Or we could continue to endeavor to provide the same services to all of the people who live in this country regardless of where or how they live. Your editorial seems to argue for the former options. I hope you will reconsider your position.
Scientific American continues to dwell in the dark ages of economics, not recognizing that the entire science changed in August, 1971, when we went off the gold standard. Consider your recommendations in this article:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this--First, cap the home mortgage deduction, which represents a subsidy for homeowners (mostly suburban) at the expense of renters (mostly urban).
--Second, raise gas taxes and put in place congestion pricing in urban areas so that society no longer subsidizes driving.
What do these suggestions have in common? Tax increases. Always, tax increases. You could have said:
--Offer a rent deduction on taxes
--Pay for public transportation
Instead, like economists of yore, you do not understand that in a Monetarily Sovereign nation, taxes continually should be reduced. Come to think of it, I don't recall ever seeing Monetary Sovereignty mentioned in Scientific America.
It's as though you never progressed beyond Newton in your articles about physics.
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
I am intrigued that this subject matter would suddenly appear. Just this week I learned of a United Nations measure from 1992 called "Agenda 21", wherein all of our population is to be eventually grouped in cities with all other areas off limits to human encroachment.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAre you (Scientific American) advocating compliance with this radical alteration of society? I can see mass revolution occurring should this concept be applied universally, or rapidly.
One solution to the human blight is to move underground. Hopefully there is still room underground. Rumor has it that the underground is occupied by advanced civilizations. Moving underground would require advances in rock cutting technology.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYep, nothing like sound, science-based policy recommendations to get the crazy teabaggers to come out of the woodwork! Wow, it's like you guys are moths, attracted to, and compelled to oppose, any policy that will help someone BESIDES millionaires.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAren't you free market fundamentalists always clamoring on about fairness? Well, subsidizing the purchase of McMansions out in the hinterlands sounds like an inefficient market decision, right? Ignoring these cities, the engines of economic growth in this country, just because the Congress is heavily biased towards rural states is an affront to Saint Ayn Rand, am I correct?
I thought this drivel would slow down once Glenn Beck was kicked off the air, but you "OMG, the UN's Agenda 21 is going to make us a bunch of French-speaking socialists" and "we need to go back to the gold standard because...well...because Beck says gold is awesome or something" people keep making more of this junk up!
Look, it's a fact that the coastal, or "blue", states send more money to the Federal Government than they take in, while the internal, mostly "red" states get more money from the feds than they pay out. The coasts have been subsidizing the inefficient lifestyles of people that want houses WAY bigger than they need or people who plant thousands of acres of crops that are fertilizer and pesticide-hungry or the oil companies that don't want to properly seal the wellhead on their offshore drilling platforms.
Let's face it, the absolute hatred of taxes that has completely taken hold of the Right in this country is completely irrational. In fact, if you look up ACTUAL data, economic growth actually INCREASES with higher top marginal tax rates. Look it up; I'm sure you'll be surprised. We've tried this "trickle down" canard for the last 30 years now. The bottom 90% of income earners have seen zero or even NEGATIVE real income growth while the top 1% have run away with the vast majority of GDP growth.
When tax rates are so low, they have more incentive to keep their wealth cycling around the financial sector instead of investing it in hiring people and making things. And with the bottom 90% of America still struggling, there's no demand from them to justify new hiring. We've tried it your way and it didn't work. You didn't even let the President try it his way and then you complain that the problems created by 30 years of horrible policy wasn't solved in 3. No wonder you guys hate good policy...
The reason more money goes to rural areas is because there are more people there than in the city. That being said I also would like the mortgage rate deduction removed and I design homes for a living of course I think all deductions should be eliminated except for health because thats the one thing you can't plan but with reduced deductions you have to lower the tax rate and presently the tax rate is at it's lowest and so are the deductions. Heres a little mentioned fact the rich are paying more in taxes then ever, how is that possible, lets do a little math. if I make $100.00 and I'm taxed 20% you get $20.00 but if I make a $1000.00 and I'm taxed 10% you get $100.00 and since there are more millionairs now then in history they are paying more in taxes then ever before even at a lower rate. BTW if there is zero growth how come there are more millionairs then ever before. Also sault if the rich people quit putting their money in the financial sector where is the money going to come from to support the manufactures that provide jobs or the money for people to get loans to buy homes. Go ahead and tax them and see how much money is left for you and me to use.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The reason more money goes to rural areas is because there are more people there than in the city."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDude, if you're going to get simple facts like this one wrong, I don't see how we can even have a coherent discussion. This is showing ignorance of the first order, my friend.
"Heres a little mentioned fact the rich are paying more in taxes then[sic] ever."
Here's another factFAIL on your part. Top marginal tax rates are the lowest since the Great Depression. See a correlation there? Probably not, given your hopelessly broken fact recognition ability. Also, government revenues as a percentage of GDP are the lowest they've been since the 1950s.
"BTW if there is zero growth how come there are more millionairs[sic] then[sic] ever before"
Add a reading comprehensionFAIL to your resume. What part of "The bottom 90% of income earners have seen zero or even NEGATIVE real income growth while the top 1% have run away with the vast majority of GDP growth." could even be misunderstood as stating there has been ZERO growth?
"Also sault if the rich people quit putting their money in the financial sector where is the money going to come from to support the manufactures that provide jobs or the money for people to get loans to buy homes. Go ahead and tax them and see how much money is left for you and me to use."
It's not just that the top marginal tax rates are low, it's that the tax rates on capital gains are so much lower. If I was one of those mythical John Gaults you seem to idolize, would I either build a factory to make widgets, probably employing a bunch of morons from my point of view, or would I seek higher returns and lower taxes in the financial sector like the vast majority of our "producer" class has done for the last few decades. And just look at how well the financial sector has managed all that wealth over the last decade.
You still haven't challenged the fact that GDP growth AND income equality are positively correlated with higher top marginal tax rates while low marginal tax rates seem to magically line up with recessions and growing income inequality.
Wow, those who are in their little fantasy land and want us to go back on the Gold Standard have been chugging some powerful koolaid for a while. You make no sense, so go get some more Reynolds Wrap for your tinfoil hat.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMe? Want to go back to the gold standard?? That's a laugh.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf ever you want to understand the science of economics, learn Monetary Sovereignty. Find it on Google, read it, then send me your message of apology.
Monetary Sovereignty is the basis of all modern economics, and if you don't understand it, you are like a guy talking about calculus, but doesn't know arithmetic.
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
"In a Monetarily Sovereign nation, taxes have no funding purpose."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHey, tax money gets me paid, so I consider that a BIG purpose.
"...the federal government has not spent, needed, saved or used tax money for any purpose."
Ummmm...this doesn't even make sense.
I think you found your little magic buzzword somewhere and lord it over everybody else just because it's impossible to understand your definition. The top search results were YOUR comments in anothr SA article spouting off Monetary Whatever nonsense. Yeah, sure, the U.S. government prints the Dollar and has a somewhat prevailing control over its value. That DOESN'T mean that taxes and spending amount to nothing. Thanks for derailing the conversation here.
Sault, you really need to stop drinking the socialist Kool aid and perhaps learn about about capitalist economics that works and socialist economics that have done nothing except create destitution.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe main problem with this idiotic article is the government government government. The last thing needed is the government doing more. I am unsure of the fantasy planet you live on where government confiscation of all money and property, government control of every aspect of a persons life and government control of everything else actually works? Your claims that the "rich" horde money when taxes are low, is ridiculous. The only hording going on is when communist governments confiscate everything and then keep it or Obama and his 1 billion in campaign hording.
The fact is when the government does not remove too much from the economy, it does well, everyone has jobs, everyone makes more and there is even enough money to pay for saving the environment. When the government takes more money than can be sustained economies fail. You do realize your US socialist government is spending 7 Trillion a year(yeah states count) that is as much as the GNP of China and Japan. You tell me which rich people have 7Trillion? I don't care if a man is rich, middle or poor, he is not here to pay for the life of others. Nor are we here to pay for the incompetence and corruption of the politician. Sorry, you can insult all you want about teabaggers and etc... the fact is your socialism is a total failure.
The author states that a person keeping his own money because he has a mortgage deduction is a subsidy. Sorry, it is not because money is owned by the person, not the collective. Instead he should have suggested rent become deductible for the same reason as mortgages, it is part of the cost of living.
The next is raising taxes and fees to stop "subsidizing" automobile use. Talk about totally off here. It is public transport that is subsidized. Also, just how will a suburbanite or a farmer live without a car? Run the subway to each farm house? Increasing taxes in a city, will only drive people into the suburbs.
You do realize the constitution has 10 amendments that guarantees protection for rights that are defined by the individual? It is not the 10 planks of communism.
Capitalism is the best form of economics. Liberty and individual rights are the only thing a government must protect. Your socialism is not an economy and as a government, socialism is authoritarian, it does not work.
Wow Sault, you do realize socialism is a failure? You have heard of the soviet union or Maoist China? Cuba?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour liberal word game on "marginal" tax rates is flatly stupid.
The fact is 46% of the population pays ZERO taxes or at most their payroll tax. Some of that 46% also gets more money than they put in. This total line of BS you libs put out making it seem like the rich got their money on the backs of the poor and the poor pay all taxes shows how incapable your intellect is.
The Rich are paying more of the taxes paid in dollars than anyone else. It is a fact. If you trace any tax dollar back to its source, 75% of that will trace back to the rich and upper middle class, 20% will be traced back to the middle class and a measly 5% can be traced to the lower middle class. The poor get subsidized and pay Zero.
If you cant even get this simple stuff correct, I am not sure how we can have a discussion. Again, spare me crap about marginal tax rates. If I pay 100k in taxes and you pay Zero, I dont care if my rate was 5%, 25% or 50%, I still paid 100k and you paid Zero.
The bottom 90% have had negative growth and the rich have run away with the GDP? Sorry, first, the damn government has taken the GDP to the tune of 7 Trillion a year. Sorry, the math might be too simple for you. Tax or borrowing amounts to the same effect on the GDP, lost money for the economy. Also, Feds and States both count.
That leaves 6.5T dollars left for everyone else. Since 10% of the population does not actually have any where near 6.5 Trillion dollars, your statement is completely false.
You do realize that capitalism requires people to invest into it? You can't have "the rich" hording money and not investing into the economy or it fails. The rich must make sure money flows to workers and consumers otherwise they would lose their wealth. This is not hard to figure out, especially by comparing it to the failed socialist governments you think are so wonderful.
You want growth, you want everyone to prosper then get your socialism the hell out of the way.
"you really need to stop drinking the socialist Kool aid"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGreat use of that dog whistle, prid.
"The main problem with this idiotic article is the government government government."
What in the world are you trying to say here? If you are going to lay out your main argument, at least turn down the volume on your right wing radio program first so you can differentiate between your canned talking points first.
"The fact is when the government does not remove too much from the economy, it does well"
Uh, why did the 90s have the greatest GDP and job growth while the 80s and the 2000s has much lower GDP and job growth? The funny thing about reality is that there's only one version of it, so you either accept reality or live in your own fantasy land at your own peril.
"You do realize your US socialist government is spending..." blah blah blah. Um, how come even the LIBERALS in this country, who are still to the right of the Socialists parties of Europe, PISSED that Obama is way too conservative for a Democrat? (this is the real definition of Socialist you should use, because all those Soviet-tinged boogeymen you conjure up weren't really Socialists, they were just Totalitarians that used Marx to justify their power)
"...the fact is your socialism is a total failure."
Wow, it's mine now? Oh man, I've always wanted to own a political ideology. I think I'll take it out for a walk twice a day and get it a studded collar. Grammar errors aside, how come Western Europeans live longer, have lower infant mortality, better FREE education and countries like France and Germany have bounced back WAY better from the Great Recession than the good ol' capitalist USA?
You make excellent points about the need for equity in our society. I myself grew up in a struggling rural community where people often lacked access to institutions and services that could have benefitted them tremendously. The fact that such dramatic disparities exist in America is sad, and unfair.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHowever, this obscures the larger point that I think the article is addressing: the half-century old and massive subsidization of suburbia, by American government on both state and federal levels. For several generations we have been subsidizing home ownership, new home construction, driving at the expense of mass transit, and living in places that are neither urban nor rural. We have encouraged the building of an entire way of life that revolves around cars and cheap oil, a life that may become harder and harder to sustain. There is a venerated and ancient anti-urban bias built into American culture; we love to think of ourselves as a nation of rugged cowboys and hardy sons of the pioneers. We want to believe we live in the countryside. But this is just not who most of us are.
Most Americans live in suburbia, shop in strip malls, drive everywhere, don’t get enough exercise, and are more than a few pounds overweight. And suburbia is incredibly expensive in terms of both money and energy - two things America seems to have less and less of. Suburban life is, very probably, the most wasteful form of built environment humanity has thus far conceived of. It is very expensive to maintain all those lawns and roads, and infrastructure that stretches out so far to reach such a low density of people. Bus lines don’t even work at the density most suburbs are built at. Take away the under-five-dollars-a-gallon gasoline and all the cars, and the whole thing grinds to a halt.
Cities are inherently more vibrant, and sustainable. They are a much better use of land, as well as our increasingly expensive energy resources. We all know that oil is not forever; many claim that we have already reached peak production, or passed it. We spend millions every day on the war in Iraq, which we all know – somehow – is inextricably tied to our incredible dependence on oil. We need to start thinking about how we can collectively live in ways that make more sense, that don’t revolve around constant driving. Walkable urban communities make a lot of sense. In fact, they are how urban-dwelling humans have been living for millennia, and for good reasons. Car-centered living and ubiquitous tract housing, on the other hand, look more and more absurd.
Editors, you failed to make a factual argument for the claim that U.S. policies are over-all stacked against cities. The idea that the home mortgage deduction is anti-city is just silly. For example, all real estate is subsidized, but urban real estate is much more expensive. Urban dwellers get huge deductions for condominiums, and landlords receive depreciation and other business deductions. If you think that isn't a subsidy to renters, imagine what would happen to your rent if your landlord's business deductions were denied. The reality is some people like to live in cities, but depend on suburban commuters for affordable labor and rural areas for resources, brought in via expensive bridges and tunnels, rails and roads. Other people prefer to live in suburbs for their affordability and a different quality of life, along with reasonable access to work, entertainment and educational opportunities provided by nearby cities, but they too depend on rural areas for resources, whether in this country or another. Cities can afford to be inefficient because of the high prices, or perhaps the high prices are a measure of their relative inefficiency. The economically optimum city size surely depends on technology, and appears to currently be a few hundred thousand, say the size of Omaha or Raleigh. Even if you alter the economy to factor in carbon emissions, the economically optimum city size is likely to drop to reduce transportation costs.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere's nothing like a little bit of conservatism to bring out the vicious side of communists. Nothing like a little bit of nuance (John Kerry loves that word) to expose ignorance. Sault apparently has trouble with the distinction between tax RATES and tax REVENUE. He's stuck in the era where ignoramuses believed that the only one person became more wealthy was to decrease the wealth of somebody else. Instead of whining about tax RATES, look up the tax REVENUE provided by each percentile of American taxpayers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI can't figure out where the editors stand on cities, by reading "In Fairness to Cities."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey start out by lauding New York, Chicago, Boston and Washington because "they tapped deep wells of experience...."
The rest of the piece says cities can't do what New York, Chicago, Boston and Washington did. They must have help from the government.
Which way is it?
The basic issue is not fairness. The basic issue is reality. In reality people want to have their own cars. In reality people enjoy having their own yards. In reality people work hard so they can leave the city and go live in the Suburbs. It isn't anyone's place to decide what is best for everyone. It is each individual's responsibility to decide what is best for him/her self. Since when is science fair? Do atoms share electrons based on fairness? Do the planets orbit the Sun based on an order of fairness? Due to our inherent flaws mankind will never know widespread fairness.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRe: In Fairness to Cities
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would disagree with the entire premise of this article. And your statements are not backed by any facts at all, just your opinion. Cities received more than their fair share for decades, as evidenced by the billions and billions of dollars allocated for mass transit systems. And cities still get more than their fair share. Your logic is flawed.
So let's pick apart your statements, starting in paragraph 2.
Cheap gas: In relation to what? Europe? Consider the cost of trucking all of the neccessities to your city. Raising gas taxes would hurt those in the cities as much as others. Think how much the price of food would go up. People in cities produce next to nothing, from food to household items to gas. Everything has to be delivered. That's a burden on everyone else.
Highway subsidies: Have you traveled on the interstates and main highways between large cities lately. I doubt if you ever get out of the city. Let's I-40 for example. During the day it's probably 40% trucks but at night it's 90%. You absolutely can not believe the amount of truck trafiic - all delivering goods to your precious cities. So think again about getting rid of highway subsidies.
Tax incentives for home ownership: Do people in cities not own their houses or condos? I bet they do and I bet they use the same tax breaks. If people there cannot afford to buy, well that's another problem entirely.
I
Re: In Fairness to Cities
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't want to comment any more on your laughable statements. However this was a wasted "issue" as far as I am concerned. I tried reading the articles but quit once your bias and unsubstantiated "facts" appeared. Was there no other scientific news throughout the world last month?
It seems to me as if you wasted a month's worth of money expousing an agenda not shared by everyone. A waste of my subscription cost. I thought you were supposed to report on scientific news, not try to push your own agenda.
You owe me a refund for the price of this issue. And I will think long and hard about renewing my subscription. Right now, I say no way until you get rid of the management that allowed this BS to be published. It's a waste of my money. There are other scientific magazines.