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Smart Wheels

By Charles Euchner

With soaring gas prices and concerns about global warming, a rickety but persistent coalition of smart growth advocates has again called for massive new investments in public transit. Build light rail, they say, and the problems of congestion and pollution and sprawl will fade away.

Sadly, they're wrong. I would love to see old-fashioned "urban villages" take root at the intersections of Main and Broad in Everytown, U.S.A. I would love dense development to arise around these transit nodes. I would love people to give up their second cars; hell, I'd be happy if they gave up their third cars.

But people drive because it remains the most affordable and convenient form of transportation. You go from point A to point B, in the comfort of a rolling living room, without having to wait 45 minutes or get squished between John Candy lookalikes and angst-ridden spike-haired kids. And with jobs, schools, churches, ballfields, pools, and most other destinations scattered all over, simply building a train line is not going to help much.

And new rail lines are expensive. Once upon a time -- before cars, before greedy unions, before sprawl, before restrictive zoning -- massive investment in trolleys and heavy rail made sense. But now it sucks out capital and operating funds that would be used better elsewhere. Too often, new rail lines actually make sprawl worse. Since localities do not want stations near the downtown -- "We don't have enough parking!" -- the stations get located on highways. So people clog the highways to get to Kiss-'n'-Ride lots.

A former Harvard colleague named David Luberoff once calculated that building and running the new commuter rails to Boston's South Shore would cost more than giving every rider taxi fare for every trip. Talk about subsidies!

But even though the knee-jerk transit dreams don't make sense, Rochester, N.Y., shows that you can run a decent bus service efficiently. You can get more bottoms on bus seats, for less money. You can even make a small profit.

How? By paying attention to what groups might want to use the bus system. By cutting out the lines that don't carry anyone. (To me, one of the ugliest sites is a bus rolling by with just one or two riders on board.) By taking a community-planning approach.

The Genesee Valley Transit Authority has negotiated deals with the Rochester public schools, local colleges, and businesses to pay for lines serving them. A local developer has agreed to subsidize a line out to a new suburban development.

To be sure, Rochester has also gotten more money from the state. Subsidies help. But everyone gets hefty subsidies. How many massachusetts residents know that one penny of sales tax on every purchase goes to Boston's transit system? The question is: Once you get your subsidies, do you manage the system efficiently and creatively?

Transit advocates usually scream when bus services change lines. The Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority still runs buses out to a shopping center in Cambridge where a supermarket was once the raison d'etre for the line. Initiatives to shift a line even a block produce howls of protest.

Like it or not, buses offer the best hope for transit. The greatest virtue of buses is their flexibility. Transit systems should actively seek the lines that produce the greater number of riders.

Here's a simple idea. Invert the build-it-and-they-will-come adage from "Eight Men Out." Found out where people are, and where they actually want buses, and move the lines there.

Emasculation

By Charles Euchner

In a moment of candor last summer, Jesse Jackson confided that he wanted to emasculate Senator Barack Obama for challenging the old-school civil rights movement. And now the Republican Party has taken up the cause of emasculating the Democratic presidential nominee.

Obama's chance to win the election depends on whether he can fight back and keep his manhood.

In her acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., Governor Palin mocked and derided Obama's masculinity. Using every available symbol —  guns, hunting and fishing, hockey goons, union members, warriors, POWs, oil drillers, terrorists —  she declared John McCain the only real man in the race. Unless, of course, you include her too.

Over the years, the Republicans have defeated Democrats by emasculating them. So John Kerry's wartime heroism was Swift Boated, and his own bike-riding and windsurfing color-coded the charge. Al Gore was obsessed with his earth-tone clothes, his Hollywood friends, and his passion for the environment. Michael Dukakis could not prevent Willie Horton from breaking into your home. Walter Mondale was a captive of "San Francisco Democrats."

The only recent Democrat to avoid getting femmed was Bill Clinton. Everything the GOP used against Clinton —  the rumors about drug dealing in Arkansas, ugly rumors about Vince Foster's death, his philandering —  actually reinforced his Bubba image. The more Clinton's enemies charged him with thuggery, the more mulligans he got.

If you're a man, you win. If you're a pansy, you lose.

When Sarah Barracuda took the stage in St. Paul, she took her stiletto and knifed Obama again and again. Her charges:

• He's an appeaser in Iraq —  a man who "can give an entire speech about the wars America is fighting, and never use the word victory."
• He can write his sissy memoirs —  chick lit, really —  but can't write a piece of legislation.
• He works as a community organizer in Chicago —  whatever that is!
• Not only that, he worked in Chicago, that den of sin run by the infamous rogue Richard Daley--objectionable because softies like Obama can never win against that crowd.
• He mocks god-fearing people in San Francisco.
• "He gives big airy speeches" but "when the stadium lights go out, and those Styrofoam Greek columns are hauled back to some studio lot—what exactly is our opponent's plan?"
• His campaign for president is nothing more than effeminate "journey of personal discovery."
• In fact, the only thing that Barack Obama gets tough on, in this account, is his zeal to raise taxes —  to build up the already-meddlesome nanny state.

When she first introduced herself to the American public, she called herself a "hockey mom." At the time, it sounded like a modest reference. But last night, she clarified. "What's the difference between a pit bull and a hockey mom?" she asked. "Lipstick." No kidding.

Until now, the GOP has tried to win by building up John McCain's manhood. The campaign reminds voters on every issue, domestic and foreign, that he was a POW in 'Nam. Every St. Paul speaker emphasized his refusal to give in to his captors' demands at the Hanoi Hilton.

In fact, McCain's identity was forged in that hellish world of captivity. He stood by his fellow soldiers and resolved to battle tyrants. In his best moments, McCain also learned how to leave the past in the past. He and Senator Kerry worked hard to end the unending domestic war over Vietnam and establish diplomatic and economic ties with the old foe.

Palin's acceptance speech was the most scorching address by a new vice presidential candidate in at least a generation. Previous addresses targeted the opponents' policies, not their character and manhood. Spiro Agnew was ruthless in his attacks on liberals, antiwar activists, media, and bureaucrats. But he usually focused on policies and did not begin his assault until after the 1968 convention.

Now Palin has Democrats in a bind. When Democrats attacked her for her inexperience and questioned her command of basic issues, Palin and her allies took refuge in the claim of sexism. "How dare they?" Rudy Giuliani roared. Wearing the armor of feminism, Palin attacks Obama's masculinity.

Obama's only response is to hit hard —  every day —  on the visceral issues of the day. He needs not to cower and complain about unfairness, but stand up and demand fairness. He needs to channel union leaders fighting for fair wages, minorities denied basic civil rights, internationalists who refused to buckle to the Soviet threat. He cannot whine, and he cannot back down.

The best model for Obama might come from the 1963 March on Washington, which took place 45 years to the day before the Democrat delivered his acceptance speech.

Democrats commemorating that day usually refer to Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream"oratory. But Obama needs to tap into the real passion of that day —  not dreams of brotherhood, but impatient demands for basic fairness.

"We want our freedom, and we want it now!" marchers said on that brilliant day. They did not complain or whine. They demanded change.

On a whole raft of issues —  tax fairness, pay equity, school choice, health care, terrorism —  Obama needs to show he won't get pushed around by McCain's pitbull. In a sense, Obama has to say he's the real mensch, that he's not going to let McPalin push middle-class Americans around, that he's going to be there to protest ordinary people's interests. 

That's a message tough enough to work —  and decent enough to build something new starting next January.

Simple Electoral College Reform

By Charles Euchner

In yet another season of political discontent, how we pick presidents has once again become a topic of anguish. The primary process disenfranchised voters from Michigan and Florida. States continue to have problems with voting machines. And looking ahead to the fall election, reformers worry that we will elect a president who does not enjoy a popular mandate.

The problem is the Electoral College system. States get electoral votes according to their representation in Congress. All but two states allocate their electoral votes on a winner-take-all basis. And so, in a close election, the winner of the popular vote might not win the electoral vote. That's subversive of the national will.

Now, after the electoral debacle of 2000, the near-debacle of 2004, and the reports of machine breakdown in 2008, reformers are calling for a simple popular vote to determine the president.

But only a constitutional amendment can abolish the Electoral College and replace it with a popular vote. That's not going to happen, absent a constitutional crisis even greater than the Bush v. Gore debacle of 2004.

So what can be done to insure a popularly elected president?

The answer is the National Popular Vote Plan. Under the NPV, states would agree to support the winner of the national popular vote, no matter what happened in their states. The NPV would require only state legislation, in only enough states to produce an Electoral College majority of 270 electoral votes.

But more on that in a minute. First, let's look at the Electoral College and its manifest virtues and flaws.

BACKGROUND ON THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE

The Framers of the Constitution adopted the Electoral College as a compromise between popular selection of the president and the parliamentary approach, in which the legislature selects the executive. The conferees in Philadelphia in 1787 feared mob rule if the people selected the president directly. But they also feared that the president would be a captive of the petty demands of legislators if the decision were left in the hands of the House of Representatives or the Senate.

So they established the Electoral College, which was supposed to be a deliberative body of wise men. The people would vote in a presidential election in November, but they would not vote for the candidate -- they'd vote for electors, and the winning electors would assemble after the election to pick a president.

Each state elected a number of electors equal to its representation in Congress -- the number of Senators (two) and House members (dependent on population). That formula gave big states more power based on their population, but also more power to the collection of small states than their population would warrant.

Many assumed that the Electoral College would deadlock on a regular basis, sending the presidential race into the House and the vice presidential contest into the Senate. Thus, the U.S. would use a quasi-parliamentary approach for presidential selection. And that, in fact, happened in 1800 (when Thomas Jefferson and his runningmate, Aaron Burr, had the same number of electoral votes) and 1824 (when neither John Quincy Adams nor Andrew Jackson could muster a majority of electoral votes in a four-man contest). But both of those experiences -- as well as the disputed election of 1876, which was resolved by a special commission -- were marred by dirty dealmaking. (Russell Baker wrote a dystopian fantasy about the 1968 election being deadlocked in the House, while the Senate picks the VP -- who becomes president on January 20 when no one else can make a constitutional claim on the White House.)

Almost always, the Electoral College has produced clear winners. But on a few occasions, the process has elected a president who did not win the popular vote. Al Gore beat George Bush in the popular tally in 2000 and lost the electoral vote. Had John Kerry won Ohio in 2004 (which some say he did, but that's another story), he would have won the electoral vote while losing the popular vote.

CALLS FOR SELECTING PRESIDENT BY POPULAR VOTE

So an increasing number of critics -- a group joined, most recently, by Senator Bill Nelson of Florida -- is calling for the abolition of the Electoral College.

The problem is that it will never happen. Abolishing the Electoral College would require a constitutional amendment, which would never be supported by small-population states. It takes only 13 states to block a constitutional amendment, meaning a tiny minority of the nation's population could block reform. Remember the Equal Rights Amendment, which in the 1970s boasted vast popular support but could not make it through the obstacle course of constitutional revision? That's what would happen with attempts to abolish the Electoral College.

The reform not only can't happen, it probably shouldn't. The competition for electoral votes helps to preserve the two-party system, which moderates American politics and prevent a splintering of uncompromising factions. The system also encourages candidates to pay attention to smaller states. And when there are problems with voting -- like in Florida in 2004 -- it's easier to focus on one state than the whole nation.

A REAL CHANCE FOR REFORM

But if you want candidates with majority support to win the election, there;s another reform that would make you happy. And it has the virtue of being a real possibility.

The National Popular Vote plan would be, essentially, a pact of states. NPV states would agree to allocate all their electoral votes to the national popular-vote winner, no matter what happened in their state. They would, in other words, place the national will above their state's narrower interests.

The NPV would take effect as soon as states representing a majority of the nation's electoral power -- states with at least 270 electoral votes, the majority needed to elect a president -- agree to the scheme. At that point, the U.S. will be assured of electing a popular president. And, in all likelihood, avoiding more controversies over hanging chads.

Already, 15 legislative bodies have passed the plan -- including one or both chambers in California, Illinois, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Vermont. The plan has 370 legislative sponsors in 47 states.

One of the NPV's greatest virtues is that it wouldn't aim to eliminate the Electoral College. The virtues of the current system -- state-by-state campaigning, focus on the needs individual states and blocs of states -- would survive.

But most important, we would be assured that the winner of the national majority would become the president.

Without waiting, until the end of time, for a constitutional amendment.

Managing the Unmanageable

By Charles Euchner

The tough ex-cop from New York stood before a group of cynical New Orleans cops. You want mood? Think of the caustic, sweltering heat of “The Big Easy.”

Jack Maple was taking questions about CompStat, the computer-based crime-tracking system that he was installing in New Orleans, a city as notable for corruption and incompetence as Mardi Gras and the Superdome. Maple started CompStat in New York under Police Commissioner Bill Bratton. The idea was simple, but revolutionary — input every conceivable piece of data about crime, every day, into a vast database. Then display those data on maps. Then deploy cops strategically.

More than anything else — community policing, the incarceration boom, the economic swell — CompStat produced dramatic drops in crime in Gotham. Maple, since retired, was bringing his baby to the toughest place in the world.

But N’Orleans cops weren’t terribly impressed. At one meeting, a cop told Maple they’d just revert to old ways after he left town.

“No, you won’t,” Maple shot back, merrily. “You’re too stupid and too lazy to change anything. So when we get CompStat going here, it’ll last.”

Since then, Jack Maple has died and Hurricane Katrina has wiped out New Orleans. The city’s broken culture and physical devastation have not allowed CompStat to work. So maybe the cynical cop was right. Maybe the forces of corruption were stronger in the Bayou than Maple’s number-crunching system could confront.

And so I wondered if CompStat’s Version 2.0 — CitiStat, the even more ambitious computer-based management system that Maple installed in Baltimore for Mayor Martin O’Malley — would last. O’Malley became governor of Maryland this year, leaving his signature program behind. Would the new mayor, Sheila Dixon, would keep CitiStat alive?

CitiStat is a most amazing program. Every day, in the course of doing their jobs, city workers input all kinds of data into their computers — parking tickets, potholes, vacant parcels, EMS and police response times, drug raids, vehicle usage, absenteeism, school shots, capital projects, repair work, tax payments, and more. You name it. If a city official encounters anything that can be counted, it goes into the database. Every two weeks, department heads meet with the mayor to discuss trends, actions, and planning. Within a matter of seconds, data about any issue can be retrieved and displayed in charts and maps. Armed with reports, the mayor can press his top officials to make more progress here or fix that problem there. Over time, everyone in City Hall gains an amazing sense of both the small details and the broad outlines of government. Amazing.

When O’Malley became governor, he took his brightest CitiStat aides — Michael Enright and Matt Gallagher — with him to Annapolis. Gallagher set out to implement StateStat for Maryland government. But would CitiStat survive in Charm City?

Good innovations fail for two reasons. First, when the great forces behind the innovation leave, they don’t always leave behind enough talent or institutional memory. Second, newcomers take over, they often way to sweep away the old guy’s programs and start their own.

Happily, O’Malley, Enright et al. trained a whole swarm of CitiStat people in the six years of the program’s operations. Everyone in City Hall — from the mayor down to the lowest-level sanitation person — was schooled in the power of data. All you have to do is input numbers on the day’s activities, and over time, those numbers start to tell a powerful story. Everyone knows that in Baltimore. On the three occasions I visited O’Malley’s gang in Baltimore, I was struck with how much more purposeful and knowledgeable people department heads were in Baltimore than other cities I knew, like Boston. Walk into Baltimore’s stately City Hall and you feel a sense of purpose rare in government.

The CitiStat team also trained their replacement to run the program when the original team left for Annapolis. Christopher Thomaskutty, Mayor Dixon’s CitiStat director, came to Baltimore after helping Somerville, Mass., develop its own version of the program. Thomaskutty is as smart and disciplined as anyone you’ll meet. He understood the value of the program the instant he first learned about it. And he has become as expert as anyone anywhere. And he’s nice without being a softie.

CitiStat is the most important innovation to come to city government in at least a generation. Real-time data, used to scrutinize budgets and services, can do more to make a city run well than any other tool. And it’s easy and cheap, once you learn the basics. All you need is a bunch of computers with Excel spreadsheets. The Baltimore folks will be happy to give you some of the software they’ve developed. Input data every day, you get real information to develop strategies on everything from garbage pickup to school purchasing, from capital investments to managing city fairs, from police deployment to giving school kids shots.

In fact, it’s something of a crime that not every city hasn’t adopted CitiStat. Under Mayor Joe Curtitone, Somerville has gone from one of the worst-managed cities to the best-managed city in Massachusetts.

The dirty little secret of government, though, is that many managers don’t want real-time data. They certainly don’t want to share the data they have. And they don’t want to admit that they manage poorly with poor data. And so they resist efforts to install CitiStat.

But anyone not using some form of CitiStat is guilty of municipal malpractice.

Wherever you live, demand that the mayor install CitiStat — right away. It takes planning and commitment. But tell your mayor or city manager that you’re going to throw them out of office unless they can account for every penny, every hour of labor deployment, every arrest and every school lunch, every municipal vehicle and every pothole repair — instantly.

Reviving Cities, One Building at a Time

Across the United States, building codes apply the latest standards and technologies to requirements for the construction of homes, office buildings, factories and warehouses, and retail and commercial structures. Building codes have evolved over the years as new issues have arisen (e.g., the need to provide greater access to handicapped people).

Historically, requirements covering rehabilitation of existing structures have been tied to the standards for new buildings. The larger the cost of a project, the greater the burden on the developer to meet the requirements of modern codes. Meeting modern standards in old buildings is difficult and expensive, and often impossible. Meeting those standards often produces little or no benefit from the standpoint of safety, access, and utility. When code requirements impose excessive costs and other burdens, developers often walk away from projects. The impact can be devastating for cities with old building stocks that are trying to compete with suburban areas for development.

For new and old buildings, code standards cover a myriad of issues: main entrances, emergency exits, width of doors and stairways, placement of stairwells and elevators, treads and risers of stairs, building materials, plumbing and electrical systems, window size and placement, building setbacks, building materials, floor “sag,” ceiling heights, toilet and kitchen facilities, roofing, and siding. Regulations establish “ideal” design for these components of buildings. Realizing these standards might indeed be beneficial, all things being equal; but realizing these standards might not be reasonable when they add great costs to rehabilitation and add few benefits in terms of the safety or usefulness of the structure.

After years of frustration with the rehabilitation standards, the state legislature in 1995 passed a bill instructing the Department of Community Affairs to revise the subcode. A state senator from Trenton, where relief from the regulations was rarely granted and where old buildings were falling into disuse and disrepair at an alarming rate, introduced the legislation. The Department instructed the Division of Codes and Standards (C&S) to develop a new rehabilitation subcode. The C&S team commissioned a survey of New Jersey properties by the Rutgers University Center for Urban Policy Research. That survey documented numerous instances in which stringent and arbitrate rehabilitation standards frustrated efforts to save and improve old buildings.

Under the direction of its director, William M. Connolly, C&S created an in-house team of eight professionals with a wide range of expertise, as well as a 30-member advisory committee that included representation from construction, labor, environment, housing, local government, historic preservation, and other groups. The C&S team examined the building code section by section and created a whole new code. The new code incorporates all of the definitions and language used for years in New Jersey and across the nation, but uses them in a unique way.

The code establishes six categories of rehabilitation – (1) repair, (2) renovation, (3) alternation, (4) reconstruction, (5) change of use, and (6) additions. Each type of work entails specific requirements concerning materials, structural strength, new building elements, the extent of the renovation, and other aspects of construction. The major principle underlying the Rehabilitation Subcode is that code requirements should be based on the work needed to produce a safe building, not those required for a new building. Unlike 25/50, which based code requirements on the dollar value of the structure and rehabilitation costs, the Rehabilitation Subcode sets code requirements that are designed to address specific issues such as fire safety and accessibility. In its focus on specific issues, the Rehabilitation Subcode delineates specific alternatives to meet the requirements and specific conditions under which requirements can be waived. The underlying rule of thumb is Hippocratic: all buildings should be as safe after the project is undertaken as before the project is undertaken. In other words, do no harm. By saving and rehabilitating buildings that have stood the test of time, the state will do more to protect its people that reams of regulations that attempt to force round pegs into square holes.

It is often said that the new subcode allows for “greater flexibility.” That is a fair statement in some cases, but not true in other cases. The rehab subcode is more flexible in allowing developers to choose from several options in meeting basic standards for safety and structural integrity. The ability to install a sprinkler system to avoid building a new exit is the most frequently cited example. But the rehab subcode also allows less flexibility. Because standards for rehabilitation are less arbitrary, there are fewer opportunities for developers to negotiate variances with local officials. This reduced flexibility saves time and money for all concerned, improves fairness across the state, nearly eliminates arbitrary enforcement of rules, and reduces the possibility of corrupt application of the code.

The new rehab code makes it easier for construction firms to initiate municipal review. Because project review entails less negotiation over small details, firms and agencies are confident that they can determine the feasibility of a project long before it reaches a full process of design. Developers can spend less money on uncertain projects, which leaves more money for actual projects.

The new subcode also avoids narrow interpretations of the characteristics of buildings that are irrelevant to the structure’s safety and structural soundness. Determining whether an old structure with an attic has two and one half stories or three stories could cause extended negotiations under the old code. Under the new code, the question is irrelevant. If the building meets or exceeds its previous record of safety, it does not matter how public officials count the floors.

Another innovation is the presentation of the rehab subcode. State officials liken the subcode to a cookbook. Users are given complete “recipes” for whatever they want to “cook.” Someone seeking to renovate an industrial building gets one recipe; someone seeking to redevelop residential structures gets another recipe. All of the ingredients are spelled out. This contrasts with the typical mode of delineating code requirements, which organize those requirements according to the element being addressed (e.g., windows, stairs, ceilings, plumbing, electrical systems). The cookbook format produces some redundancies – requirements are restated fully for each kind of structure – but that also makes the code easier to use. Users do not need to jump around several documents to determine the standards for their project. All the requirements are in one place.

The rehab subcode recognizes that simple statements of requirements are not always better. The rehabilitation subcode recognizes that explicit documentation of regulations is usually preferable to general standards. One state official commented that the old 25/50 rule is just one paragraph long, “but it leaves you nowhere. It looks simple, but it triggers 1,300 pages of regulations that are hard to find.”

In one year, the code has contributed to a dramatic increase in rehabilitation work in cities and towns across the state. It is difficult if not impossible to determine the rehabilitation code’s impact statistically, but the scant statistics we have are revealing. In Newark, total rehabilitation spending rose from $68.1 million in 1997 to $108.5 million in 1998, the first year of the code’s implementation, an increase of 59.2 percent. In Jersey City, rehabilitation spending rose from $48.5 million to $89 million, an increase of 83.5 percent. In Trenton, rehabilitation spending rose from $21 million to $29.4 million, an increase of 40.1 percent. As a point of comparison, statewide spending on rehabilitation rose from $3.79 billion to $4.08 billion, an increase of 7.7 percent. In the previous year, before the code’s implementation, spending on rehabilitation had actually declined in Jersey City (by 5.7 percent) and Trenton (35.6 percent), while increasing more modestly in Newark (16.4 percent).

Developers and state and municipal officials also state that the rehab subcode shaves at least 10 percent off the cost of redeveloping old buildings – and in some cases as much as 40 percent. One developer said that his project saved $500,000 alone by allowing floors in his structure to have twice the “sag” allowed new buildings; the building’s long history and impressive structural integrity obviated the need to reinforce the floors. Avoiding a requirement to replace stairs saved at least another $75,000, and the ability to use an old door saved $15,000. Many projects that would require replacement or redesign of windows also saved thousands of dollars.

What the statistics do not reveal, the experiences of members of the construction industry do. A well-known developer of artist lofts, Carmie Bee, said he would never undertake to rehabilitate a Jersey City warehouse into almost 100 units of live/work space under the old code. James Landon, the developer of a Jersey City day care/elderly housing complex, said the same. In a separate interview, the executive director of Isles, a nonprofit housing development organization in Trenton, said the rehab subcode could dramatically increase the production of affordable housing in the inner city.
The experiences of municipal officials are also revealing. Len Pucciatti, a construction official with the City of Trenton, indicated that the program had dramatically streamlined the review process for rehabilitation projects. Because the subcode does not require complex wrangling over the extent of renovation and the type of changes needed to bring a building up to code, developers can present local officials with less detailed preliminary plans – making their planning process simpler and less expensive. Ray Meyer, a construction official in Jersey City, argued that the rehab subcode encouraged dozens of projects that might not have been possible under the old system.

Another benefit of the subcode is the aesthetic enhancement of buildings and city spaces. Previous code standards on door widths would have disallowed the use of a beautiful copper door at the front entrance of a structure for day care and elderly housing in Jersey City. One of the most striking projects made possible by the rehab subcode is the conversion of an old auto garage into housing in Trenton. Under the old code, the windows facing an alley would have been filled in because of requirements that windows not be located directly at the property line. Losing the windows would have destroyed the livability of the building and cut off a beautiful structure from its historic community. Even if it had been rehabbed under the old system – a doubtful proposition – it would not have fit into its context as well.

Urban design improvements and protections are also possible under the subcode. The so-called “New Urbanism” movement has underscored the desirability of locating buildings right up to the property line; a lack of setbacks helps to create an attractive and functional “street wall.” But new buildings require a setback that would damage the continuity of the street. Old buildings, which have grown into the “fabric” of the community, also enhance the historic character of neighborhoods.

A Silly Proposal to End Tobacco Use

Sometimes, a well-meaning policy wonk comes along with a clever approach to a social problem. Sometimes that approach is too clever by half. Even though you know the reformer’s heart is in the right place, you have to point out the flaws of the argument.

In other words, sometimes simple approaches are simplistic.

Such is the case with a recent New York Times op-ed article by David Adams. Noting recent research about tobacco’s addictiveness for young people, Adams proposes creating different standards for tobacco products for users of different ages. Let the young’uns smoke, Adams says, but make sure their weed is less addictive so they can pull themselves out of the habit when they decide it’s not so cool anymore. For the rest of the population, allow more addictive cigarettes and other tobacco products.

Adams suggests allowing the sale of less addictive cigarettes to buyers below the age of 21. After they reach 21, they can buy all the addictive cigarettes they want.

(Ah, the magical age of 21! You can drink at 21, and under the Adams plan you can get hooked on cigs at 21 too. We still let kids get blown up with roadside bombs when they’re just 18.)

The concept sounds good, for about a second. Most kids who start smoking do it because they face social pressures to look cool. James Dean’s rebel image, with cigs packed into the sleeve of a white tee-shirt, reinvents itself every generation. Most smokers realize after a year or so that smoking is an ugly, dirty, and expensive habit. But cigarettes are so addictive that smokers cannot muster the willpower to quit.

If young smokers sucked on a less-addictive butt, they would find it easier to quit.

Adams makes his simple strategy a little more complex with this amendment: “Better yet, sales of addictive cigarettes could be restricted to individuals born 19 or more years before the two-cigarette strategy was put into effect. Under this approach, 18-year-olds who start smoking non-addictive cigarettes would be prohibited from switching to addictive cigarettes even after they turned 21.”

Then he calls for higher federal excise tax on the more addictive cigs.

There are a few problems here:

Production: Who’s going to get the tobacco companies to go along with a major restructuring of their manufacturing processes? All tobacco companies, under the Adams plan, would produce twice as many brands of cigarettes or risk losing customers to some of their brands.

Enforcement: Who says 7-Eleven stores, gas stations, newsstands, and other retailers are going to follow this rule? Does Adams realize that minors often get their older friends to buy booze and cigarettes for them? And how do you policethe smokers who want to switch?

Culture: Everyone realizes that the cool factor — both the tough-guy or sophisticated-gal persona or the rebellion against adults — plays a big role in smoking. The more addictive cigarettes are going to be more cool, which is the main attraction for young smokers? What cool cat would want to be seen smoking kiddie cigs? Yeah, yeah, I know. You can make ‘em look the same, with indistinguishable gold or white filter tips. But the branding on the packages are what matters. And when kids are bumming cigs from each other, it would be way not-cool to be passing along a kiddie pack. Why not just tell kids they can buy the bubble-gum cigs?

Why have two levels of addictiveness? Why not phase down the addictiveness of all cigarettes? Or redirect subsidies to producers of the less-addictive or even non-addictiveness butts? Or toward tobacco products with lesser toxic content?

Another Strategy: Cut Subsidies

Another way to curtail tobacco addiction among young people is to attack the ways the government now encourages tobacco production — agriculture subsidies to tobacco producers.

Subsidies to U.S. tobacco growers totaled $530 million between 1995 and 2005. That might not seem like much, but marginal assistance can make the difference between an enterprise’s success or failure — and it can make the difference between growing tobacco and growing something else. This year, the subsidy amounts to $49 million.

The European Union has adopted a plan to phase down its annual subsidies of €1 billion for tobacco. Greece, Italy, and Spain grow most of the continent’s tobacco. Their tobacco subsidies will be shifted to provide assistance for growing other products. Of course, any kind of subsidy is problematic. But better to tilt toward healthful products than deadly ones.

The EU is also going beyond the bland warning labels we see on American tobacco products. Packaging will include graphic images of cancer and other diseases produced by tobacco.

Congressman Lloyd Doggett of Texas has proposed stripping tobacco subsidies from federal agriculture subsidies. Everyone knew the proposal was DOA, but it’s probably a good-faith effort to undermine the sellers of the stuff.

The Real Strategy: Keep ‘Em Busy

Let’s be honest: Cutting subsidies isn’t going to end tobacco use either. People are going to do destructive things, no matter what the laws or the incentive structures. The goal shouldn’t be to turn the whole culture into born-again tobacco virgins. (You know there’s a whole evangelist movement to create born-again virgins among kids who have already had sex. That’s what some people want for smoking too. Impossible either way.) It should be to minimize bad stuff, not to eliminate bad stuff. As Voltaire said, the best is the enemy of the good.

The ultimate answer — if there is an ultimate answer — is to keep kids active in healthy stuff through high school. Kepp ‘em playing soccer, baseball, hockey. Keep them playing musical instruments. Push them into theater. Get ‘em writing, programming computer games, or into camps and youth groups and other activities where they’re too busy to smoke.

Postscript

Dealing with tobacco ultimately requires facing the reality of foreign trade. In recent years, the tobacco industry has expanded its reach overseas, in cultures where smoking was traditionally nil. Now we are exporting death. This all started with the Reagan Administration negotiated lower tariffs among our biggest trade partners. More on that topic in a later post.

Fixing an Undemocratic System

The following piece was originally published in The Boston Globe on October 14, 2007.

Now that the presidential primary system has become undeniably undemocratic, it’s time to develop a new process to select candidates for the White House. Both parties should look to the National Basketball Association for inspiration.

Barack Obama, John Edwards, Joe Biden, and Bill Richardson all backed out of the Michigan primary last week. How could these candidates dare to ignore such an important part of the Democratic Party? Because Michigan had the temerity to defy the Democratic National Committee and schedule its primary for Jan. 15.

The DNC has decreed that only Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada may hold contests before Feb. 5. New Hampshire has held primaries since 1916 but gained prominence for its first-in-the-nation contest in 1952. A 1977 state law requires New Hampshire to hold its primary before any other states. Iowa has held influential caucus contests since 1972. South Carolina and Nevada established their early-bird status in recent years.

In defiance of the DNC, Michigan and Florida have both scheduled early primaries. Now the DNC is threatening to disenfranchise both states. If they go ahead with their early contests, they will not be allowed to send any delegates to the national convention. Meanwhile, the Republican Party plans to take away half of Wyoming’s delegates as punishment for scheduling a Jan. 5 contest.

The Democrats have decided that disenfranchisement of its voters in Michigan and Florida - two of the biggest, most diverse, and tightly contested states in the nation - is the only way to take control of a nomination process gone awry.

For years, states have rushed to push their primaries and caucuses earlier in the year. This “frontloading” of contests means that both parties could pick their nominees by early March - before most voters have had a chance to assess the candidates. That’s not only unfair; it’s also unwise. Selecting a president requires some care. Rushing the process makes no sense.

New Hampshire and Iowa have long claimed that their Athenian virtue should give them priority over other states. Both states are small and cohesive enough that candidates can do face-to-face campaigning. Voters get to know the candidates intimately, the argument goes, and make better choices for the rest of us. Many voters brag about having all the candidates in their homes many times.

But no state has a monopoly on virtue of any kind. As earnest as Iowans and New Hampshirites may be, they are no better than voters from Rhode Island or Nevada, Vermont or California, Florida or Washington.

The presidential nomination process should respect all kinds of states - small and large, compact and sprawling, diverse and homogenous. States with different characteristics would alternate with each other in the nomination process.

No state deserves to determine the range of choices for everyone else, year after year. It’s not fair that Iowa and New Hampshire always get to eliminate a raft of candidates before bigger and more diverse states have their say.

The parties might use a variation of the NBA draft to schedule primaries and caucuses. The NBA randomly selects one of the 14 teams that do not make the playoffs to the first 14 picks. (The number of ping-pong balls in the machine is weighted to account for the teams’ records.) The 16 playoff teams then make their draft selections in the reverse order of their records.

To make a primary/caucus schedule on the NBA model, the Democrats and GOP should pick a state from the pool of the 17 smallest states to go first. Then, states from the pools of the 17 biggest and the 17 middle states should alternate chances to pick dates. The parties could move through the three-pool rotation until the schedule is complete.

You could debate whether the first contest should take place in a small state. New Hampshirites probably have a point when they rhapsodize about the benefits of face-to-fare politics. But maybe in exchange for getting the first “draft” pick, states from the other pools each should get two calendar dates rather than one. Or maybe the order of the pools should change each election cycle. Such details could be hashed out.

The nomination calendar could stretch from 16 to 20 weeks, beginning in late February or early March. Some states might schedule events on Saturdays, while others could stick with the standard Tuesday contests. Some weeks would have only one contest, but others would have five or more contests.

States would have the opportunity to team with nearby states to make a Super Tuesday primary. After creating a draft of the calendar, states would have a set period - say, three months - to get neighboring states to join them. If New Hampshire gets the first pick, it could either hold its own primary or create a super-primary with neighboring states like Maine, Vermont, and Massachusetts. Some states would prefer to keep the spotlight to themselves, while others would like the greater heft of the group.

Using an NBA-style lottery to rotate states would not only provide a balanced sequence of states by population, but also regional location, economic diversity, ethnic diversity, urban/suburban/rural balance, and so on.

We could start the process with intimate retail campaigning, but also give bigger states a chance to express their will when it still matters. The greatest benefit would be to spread out the selection process, so that all states have a chance to have a say in selecting party nominees.

The ugly battles over scheduling the Michigan and Florida primaries should be the final indictment of the current system, which is arbitrary, chaotic, and unfair.

Ultimately, the Michigan and Florida controversies will get solved. It’s unthinkable that Democrats would alienate such important states by barring them from the convention.

But whatever happens in 2008, we need a better way to organize our presidential nomination contests. A system of allowing states to select dates like draft picks, NBA-style, is the way to go.

DRAFT POOLS

Below are the three pools that would alternate selections for presidential primary and caucus dates. The 50 states and the District of Columbia are listed in the order of their population sizes.

The Biggest 17 states: California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina, New Jersey, Virginia, Massachusetts, Washington, Indiana, Arizona, Tennessee.

The Middle 17 States: Missouri, Maryland, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Colorado, Alabama, South Carolina, Louisiana, Kentucky, Oregon, Oklahoma, Connecticut, Iowa, Mississippi, Arkansas, Kansas, Utah.

The Smallest 17 States: Nevada, New Mexico, West Virginia, Nebraska. Idaho, Maine, New Hampshire, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Montana, Delaware, South Dakota, Alaska, North Dakota, Vermont, District of Columbia, Wyoming.