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,…
Free Markets
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…
Free Markets
Libertarians and Earth Day
by JOHN ADAMS •
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, 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…