One of the great gifts of being in Wisconsin is being surrounded by natural beauty that matches anything in America. This beauty is worth conserving. Today is Earth Day. On Earth Day, there’s much talk about conservation, and — often falsely — much talk about how growth must be stopped, or slowed, to save the…
Free Markets
Free Markets, Planning
Planning and Weather Forecasting
by JOHN ADAMS •
I’ve included two weather forecasts with most Daily Bread posts: one from the National Weather Service, and one from the Farmers’ Almanac. As I noted previously, there is a way to look at the two as a contrast between government and private sector planning. Reader Amy wrote me in early April, and asked me if…
Beautiful Whitewater, City, Development, Free Markets
Best Whitewater Project of 2007: Stone Stable
by JOHN ADAMS •
Over at Downtown Whitewater, Inc., there was a recent awards ceremony. The Stone Stable restoration project won, if I understand the award correctly, for the best public-private partnership. I am pleased that the Stable Stable won an award, but a worthier designation would be to stay that the restoration was the best Whitewater project of…
Free Markets
The Motorcycle for Sale
by JOHN ADAMS •
Free Markets
American Ingenuity: HP Calculators!
by JOHN ADAMS •
Longtime readers know that I believe in the promise and possibility of the American free market. We are a clever, innovative people. You may not know, however, that like many others, I am a great admirer of Hewlett Packard (now called HP) calculators. I am not alone — many who first used an HP calculator…
Free Markets
Planning Challenges Small and Big
by JOHN ADAMS •
Government planning is susceptible to two interesting of challenges, one for small projects, one for big ones. In small efforts, there is the tendency to expect a role or say in the modest, readily comprehensible effort. For example, suppose a restaurant wanted to put a sign up. It’s not hard to understand a project like…
City, Development, Economy, Free Markets
Zoning and Housing Prices
by JOHN ADAMS •
Readers may recall that I have criticized politician-dentist Roy Nosek for his advocacy of limitations on student housing. Here are some of my posts on the subject: On Nosek on Student Housing, Part 1 (Economics) On Nosek on Student Housing, Part 2 (Culture) Student Housing in Whitewater One of the points that I have made…
Development, Free Markets
Planning: Legislating Aesthetics
by JOHN ADAMS •
One of the challenges of government planning is how quickly it slips from mere rules to compete, to seeking to engineer a quantitative outcome, to seeking to engineer intangible preferences of aesthetics. So one goes from paperwork to start a business, to the number of business types a community may have, to what colors the…
City, Development, Free Markets
Planning: On a Moratorium
by JOHN ADAMS •
I am opposed to a moratorium on first floor residential housing in our downtown, and that would include a moratorium of any length. I think it’s clear, though, if one considers the arguments in favor of a moratorium, that different advocates have had different goals in mind. Some want a moratorium to give time to…
City, Development, Free Markets
Planning: Walkable Urbanity
by JOHN ADAMS •
Here’s a post on ‘walkable urbanity,’ or ‘walkable urbanism,’ Christopher Leinberger’s term for those characteristics that set successful downtowns apart from unsuccessful ones, or from suburbs, etc. During the Planning Commission meeting in November, when I heard the term raised, I was surprised that it was used in connection with Whitewater. I briefly mentioned the…
City, Free Markets
Planning: Overview
by JOHN ADAMS •
I promised a few posts about planning, and here is the first of them. The basic objections to planning are well-known. The power of these objections does not lie in a general recitation; it is in specific application, showing how planning falls short of alternative, market solutions, that these objections are most interesting. Here are…
City, Development, Economy, Free Markets
The Planning/Architectural Board Meeting for January 7th
by JOHN ADAMS •
This was a long meeting, with two principal topics: a request for a conditional use for a property downtown, and discussion of a moratorium on approval of first floor residential space in our downtown. The second topic was more interesting, being broader and more general, than the first. I’ll come back to that meeting as…
City, Development, Economy, Free Markets
Student Housing in Whitewater
by JOHN ADAMS •
Readers of FREE WHITEWATER know that I have been opposed to a restrictive, anti-market approach to student housing. Whitewater’s leading critic of student-rental housing is dentist-politician Dr. Roy Nosek. Nosek has mentioned, more than once, that student housing is a ‘death-knell’ for a neighborhood. Recently, I offered three posts critiquing Nosek’s understanding of basic market…
City, Development, Free Markets
Planning Commission Meeting for December 10, 2007 (Part 2)
by JOHN ADAMS •
This post is part two of my coverage of the December 10th Planning Commission meeting. I posted Part 1 earlier. Residential Space on the First Floor of a Downtown Building. A prior Planning Commission session debated, and the Commission rejected, two residential units for the first floor of the old Hallmark store building on Main…