Don't Lynch Me, I do Roads

I just read a great article (here) about how urban planners are the true evil cause of the global recession.

In brief the author states that urban growth boundaries, an invention of urban planners, artificially restrict the supply of new housing causing a boom/bust economic cycle. This combined with new securitized mortgages brought down the the whole system.

Urban growth boundaries really do limit the supply of houses. They pretty much say that no one can build anything outside of a circle that a planner draws on a map. The primary reason that planners do this is to increase density, preserve open space, preserve agricultural land, and to limit commute times.

Now all of these reasons seem like good things right? Well, maybe not density. That is usually sacred to urban planners however because density to them also means that transit systems will work, more diversity, and more lively and walkable area; in short that they did something good.

So my question is which is more important, avoiding economic collapse, or getting all of these other good things. Actually the question is: do growth management policies provide the things promised? I don't know, but I read another interesting thing (here) about how cities that generate a sense of community have better economies then other cities. Then I read this article talking about where most young people want to live. The interesting part is that it list a number of cities that have urban growth boundaries.

I admit that the best research is done in the first article, but it was also written by the Cato Institute which is a very openly libertarian think tank. If it had said anything good about government it never would have been published. I don't know the biases of the other articles, and they are not as rigorous.

Really it all comes down to who you trust to give you the right information. That is why people love Glenn Beck, NPR, Billy Graham, or Billy Idol. There is no way to know everything so if we find someone we can mostly agree with we keep listening. This is why it is important every once in a while to question the assumptions underlying what we hear. If we don't we just become that jerk it spouts off about something they obviously don't know anything about, and I am sure we have all seen that guy at least once in our lives.