Does your town have shortages of parking spaces for customers, residents, and visitors? Many towns have these challenges, and free parking (which isn’t ever free) is no answer compared with free market parking. Over at the blog Pedshed.net, dedicated to “Walkable Urban Design and Sustainable Placemaking,” there’s a post on how Redwood City, California and…
Free Markets
Free Markets
Congressional Earmarks — 17 Billion Dollars Down the Drain
by JOHN ADAMS •
Free Markets
The Only Fair Trade is Free Trade
by JOHN ADAMS •
Over at the Christian Science Monitor, Gene Callahan of the excellent Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) has a article describing how fair trade schemes actually hurt third world residents. Fair trade props up inefficient producers and pulls resources in people and land from their most efficient, productive uses. The article, excerpted from FEE’s own publication,…
Free Markets, School District
Bureaucratic Objections to School Choice: Yes, Prime Minister
by JOHN ADAMS •
Here’s a video clip from the British television series, Yes, Prime Minister. The comedy series is from the 1980s, and offers how civil servants try to manage and guide policy in Britain. In this clip, the British Prime Minister, James Hacker, suggests private school choice, and his status-quo-defending, don’t-make-changes cabinet secretary, Sir Humphrey Appleby, argues…
Economy, Free Markets, Libertarians, Planning
A Libertarian Perspective on Energy Costs
by JOHN ADAMS •
City, Free Markets, Planning
Randal O’Toole on the Inefficiency of Mass Transit
by JOHN ADAMS •
In a post from July 28th, I questioned the idea of a mass transit proposal for the Janesville-Milton-Whitewater area. Over at the Cato Institute, there’s a link to a daily podcast featuring scholars from that think tank. The always interesting Randal O’Toole, author of The Best Laid Plans, speaks on the inefficiency of mass transit.…
Free Markets
Free Market Beats Los Angeles City Council (Of Course!)
by JOHN ADAMS •
The Orange County Register, via the VV Daily Press, offers an editorial explaining how the free market is working faster than the Los Angeles City Council to address environmental worries about plastic grocery bags. Both Los Angeles and the state of California are considering bans on supposedly wasteful plastic bags. (As it turns out, paper…
Free Markets
Go-Go: What Lake Geneva, WI Banned, Kodak Embraced
by JOHN ADAMS •
Yesterday, in a morning post, I mentioned that in 1967 Lake Geneva, Wisconsin’s “city government passed an ordinance banning go-go girls, dancers in bikinis, and swimsuit-clad waitresses from working in establishments that served alcohol.” It was local government deciding for you. Like most people, I would prefer a restaurant where the emphasis was on the…
Free Markets, School District
Public Schools as Old, Expensive Chevy Impalas, Part 2
by JOHN ADAMS •
Yesterday, I posted on the observation of Andrew Coulson at Cato who contends that public schools were like old, expensive Chevy Impalas. Here’s why he makes that analogy: U.S. student achievement at the end of high school has stagnated (reading and math) or declined (science) since nationally-representative NAEP tests were first administered around 1970. Meanwhile,…
Development, Free Markets
Where are all the Marauding Drunks?
by JOHN ADAMS •
Free Markets
America’s Dairyland
by JOHN ADAMS •
Wisconsin touts itself as America’s Dairyland, and our production of milk is impressive. The Green Bay Press Gazette reports that Wisconsin’s milk production has been rising, with over two billion pounds of milk produced in March, from over 1.25 million cows. That’s a lot of milk, and one might imagine that it would bring the…
City, Free Markets
Update on Housing
by JOHN ADAMS •
I received an email on my last post that pointed out an option I did not address – a few privately owned, multi-unit, larger apartments close to campus. These new units would require modifications to zoning in some specific parts of the city. They would have a large number of units, in a smaller area,…
City, Free Markets
Common Council Meeting from 5/6: Housing Task Force Recommendations
by JOHN ADAMS •
Whitewater’s Housing Task Force produced a set of eight recommendations for the Whitewater Common Council. These recommendations were part of the discussion on May 6th. They would require necessary Council action or city planning and drafting. 1. Whitewater and the Community Development Authority should establish a first time buyers’ program to encourage single family home…
City, Development, Free Markets, University
The Campaign Against Cars Campus
by JOHN ADAMS •
We’re a university town. There are a few who want desperately for us to be something else, but those wants scarcely matter. The University of Wisconsin-Whitewater is a vital part of Whitewater. Our campus – yes, our campus – improves life for all of us. Thousand of students receive an education that’s part of the…