News and Updates

Tonight the local Chittenden County crowd was treated to a discussion with Senator Bernie Sanders at the 2007 CCMPO Annual Meeting. Sanders brought the rather progressive discussion from the Executive Director Scott Johnstone up a level by providing some legitimacy of federal policy and probably more importantly ..dollars to the discussion.

Much as the ULI’s annual meeting discussed transportation as it relates to land use - the more fundamental discussion is based on finding money to pay for transportation infrastructure that pretty much everyone agrees is necessary. The ULI discussion highlights comments from John Horsley from AASHTO discussing the VMT method of fees - but says it is out of reach for 10 to 20 years…

John Horsley, executive director of the American Association State
Highway and Transportation Officials, pointed out the impending crisis
at the federal level, a consequence of rapid increases in the price of
materials needed in construction and a flat gas tax per gallon which
has not been raised in 14 years. The highway trust fund is expected to
generate less income than planned spending by 2009, a deficit which
would cause sharp reductions in funding to states. New approaches for
charging drivers, such as by miles driven, may be more effective in the
10-20 year period, but for now AASHTO is calling for a 10-cent increase
in the federal gas tax to restore its buying power.

Come on… 10 to 20 years for a sustainable funding mechanism to be established? This could be established much sooner than that if people are willing to move forward and face the future.

Senator Sanders discussed his future role in the next transportation bill and mention that impacts from global warming, supporting transit, and moving people from their SOVs are intentions - however - given the recent reports from AASHTO and ASCE of the inadequacy of our current transportation infrastructure - significant pressure is being placed on highway infrastructure replacement. While this is of course an extremely important area we much address - but, perhaps first we need to decide … when is it time to NOT replace some infrastructure. The Operation and Maintaince of our current system is tremoundous, and the costs of maintaining it will only continue to increase given the future demand for oil based materials will increase in cost.

I urged the Senator to use the term Sprawl in his discussions in the next transportation bill. This term should be used to denote the unsustainable land use and development patterns leading to inefficient transportation systems (only one significant cost of sprawl).

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The ULI does it again in this piece from their annual meeting held in the urban sprawling metropolis of Las Vegas…

http://thegroundfloor.typepad.com/the_ground_floor/2007/10/gen-y-and-housi.html

The first observations are interesting to note. I don’t know where they obtained these data and how valid they are, but I can relate to what these data indicate. The vast majority of my colleagues and friends desire similar such areas to find a home.

Some takeaways from this session:

What Gen Y members don’t want: big houses on big lots, isolated from everything.

What they do want:
housing that fulfills their need for instant access and convenience.

With the oldest members of Generation Y (those in their mid-20s)
starting to enter the housing market, the characteristics of this
demanding, strong-willed generation provide many clues to their
preferences in living arrangements.
For instance, they:

    Favor the quirky, unique and different.
    Seek diversity in all aspects of their lives.
    Prefer urban over suburban environments.
    Multi-task (One observation: “Most don’t wear watches because watches only do one thing.”

The second interesting observation is the change in demographics - changing households from couples, young males being replaced by single-women households.

One key signal of a housing shakeup resulting from Gen Y: changes in
household formation and more single Gen Y women entering the housing
market. In the years ahead, look for the decades-long prevalence of
married couples with children to be increasingly replaced with
single-women households. With more women than men now graduating from
college, women in many markets will soon be making more than men,
placing women in a position of affluence and authority that will affect
housing decisions. Because they will likely delay marriage to pursue
careers, their housing choices will be far different than those made by
their baby boomer mothers. The likely favorite: close-in multifamily
rental or for-sale units in mixed-use communities that emphasize
communal space and social interaction. “This bodes well for urban
communities,” one panelist said.

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This post from the economist Greg Mankiw helps to describe a bit of the recent phenomenon of high oil/gas prices and the seeming resiliency of the US Economy (… at least stock market).

http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2007/10/where-have-all-oil-shocks-gone.html

 Where have all the oil shocks gone?

Oil prices are near record highs, which raises a fascinating question. In recent years, the U.S. and world economies have typically shrugged off oil price increases. By contrast, oil price increases are a major part of the conventional story of the economic turmoil of the 1970s. Why the difference?

We economists do not have a complete answer, but we have some clues. One important clue is below (via Carpe Diem):

The economy is far more energy-efficient today than it was in the past, in part because economic activity is based more on services and less on manufacturing. As a result, energy prices matter less today.

In their research on the topic, Blanchard and Gali also give credit to more flexible labor markets, better monetary policy, and a bit of luck.

Another hypothesis: The macroeconomic effect of high energy prices may depend on whether the high prices are the result of reduced supply or increased demand. Perhaps in the 1970s high oil prices were largely the result of supply restrictions, whereas in recent years high oil prices are driven more by increased demand from a booming world economy.

One final conjecture: Maybe the recent increase in oil prices has been less sudden, making it easier for other prices to adjust. In particular, it may not have affected the skewness in the distribution of relative-price changes in the same way as previous oil shocks did.

We have no shortage of theories. The definitive study on the macroeconomic effect of oil prices is still waiting to be written.

Recent news from the Environmental Building News bringing new studies to light regarding the full emissions profiles of Green Buildings - with the focus on Transportation.

That’s right—for an average office building in the United States, calculations done by
Environmental Building News (EBN) show that commuting by office workers accounts for 30% more energy than the building itself uses. For an average
new office building built to code, transportation accounts for more than
twice as much energy use as building operation.

LEED buildings - while a great step, and with recent advances in viable buildings with minimal GHG footprints - transportation remains the biggest hurdle to develop sustainable, green buildings. The article describes eight key factors that contribute to the energy intensity of buildings… “D-factors,”
including density, distance to transit, diversity of uses, and design
of streetscapes.

Given recent documented improvements in building efficiency can be done economically and marketed

The answer: for newly built multifamily housing, virtually all of it.
At the annual ULI Shaw Forum (endowed by the late Charlie Shaw) held
last week, Solara,
an affordable housing development in San Diego with 56 units and a
2,100 square foot community center, was showcased; its operating carbon
footprint has been reduced by 95%.

We still need to be aware of the location of our new buildings….

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