a bit more pointless New Urbanism bashing
On Reason online, Randall O' Toole bashes grid streets, asserting that cul-de-sacs and separation of land uses control crime.

O'Toole asserts that the safest neighborhoods are dominated by cul-de-sacs that are as isolated as possible from stores and from other streets, implying that any neighborhood in which residents can walk anywhere at all is "custom made for easy crime" because of the possible influx of strangers. In other words, the way to stay safe is to imprison yourself.

But the experiment of imprisoning residents in order to protect them has been tried in the American Sun Belt, with dismal results. In my former home town of Atlanta, the traditional street grid disappears about two or three miles from downtown, to be replaced by a maze of cul-de-sacs. Yet in 2002, Atlanta had 1964 burglaries per 100,000 people - more than five times as many as New York City, and more than twice as many as San Francisco. (I think burglaries are the most relevant crime to this argument because that crime is most likely to occur inside a house, and thus most likely to be connected to street design and land use - and also because O'Toole has, in another article, used the term burglar-friendly to describe pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods).


The rest of metropolitan Atlanta has tried similar techniques with equally dismal results. According to a Smart Growth America survey, Atlanta has the third lowest "street connectivity" score in America - that is, its streets do not connect with each other, just as O'Toole would like.

Yet the region boasted 924 burglaries per 100,000 people in 2003 - more than twice as many as in metro New York City (356 burglaries/100,000), the region with the highest level of street connectivity for which 2003 regional crime statistics are available. Rochester and Syracuse, the two regions with the lowest level of street connectivity, also have burglary rates higher than metropolitan New York City.

Segregating housing from commerce is no panacea either. The three regions with the lowest mix use levels are Raleigh (854 burglaries/100,000), Greensboro (1198/100,000) and Riverside (853/100,000)- all more burglary-prone than the national average of 757 burglaries per 100,000 people. By contrast, the three most mixed-use areas for which crime statistics were available (Providence, Allentown and Oxnard) all had fewer than 600 burglaries per 100,000 people.

To be sure, regional crime statistics are of limited value, because regions include a wide variety of neighborhoods.

But plenty of small suburbs have a gridded, mixed-use core and extremely low crime rates. For example, East Aurora, New York is dominated by a gridded 19th-century downtown - yet it had fewer than 150 burglaries per 100,000 people (20 in a town with just under 14,000 residents). Ditto for Haddonfield, New Jersey, which sits on a subway line running from Philadelphia and crime-infested Camden, and had just over 11,000 residents and only 10 burglaries.

Concededly, these neighborhoods are high-income enclaves. But how do they stay that way? If East Aurora-style urbanism was so inherently undesirable, high-income people would stop living there.

More importantly, if high-income suburbs have low crime rates no matter what their geographic form, it logically follows that the main reason one town is more dangerous than another isn't urban form: its demography. Places with lots of poor people have a lot more crime, whether they look like East Aurora or like a typical Atlanta suburb. Places that don't have a lot of poor people don't have a lot of crime.

cute parody of Bush bashing (I think)
I found this in the "Fray" (the readers' feedback section of Slate:

"The road of Providence is uneven and unpredictable -- yet we know where it leads: It leads to freedom."

Truth: The road of Providence is I-95, which depending on traffic conditions and maintenance, can be quite uneven and unpredictable.

http://www.dot.state.ri.us/WebTraf/index.html.

But mislead: I-95 does not lead to freedom, or at least not directly. Directly, it leads along the Providence River past Rhode Island Hospital and Providence Place. It does lead to Pawtucket to the North and Cranston to the South (which does have a Freedom Seafood), and technically, goes all the way up and down the Eastern Seaboard. But freedom is not found anywhere near I-95 in Providence itself.

There is a Freedom Square a few miles off I-95 in Reston, Virginia.

http://www.mortons.com/website/htmldocs/locations/restonP.html

There is also the Freedom Florence Recreational Center off I-95 in South Carolina.

http://www.cityofflorence.com/freedom/vision.html.

And a Freedom Commerce Drive off I-95 in Jacksonville, Florida (go Eagles!)

http://www.motel6.com/reservations/motel_detail.asp?MotelId=1232&state=FL&full=Florida&city=Jacksonville

And the Freedom Salon and Spa about ? mile off I-95 in York Maine, whose website, in classic Republican fashion, tells us "Freedom will be on your right in the rotunda." I'm am not making this up.

http://www.freedomsalonandspa.com/contactus.htm

That Bush has to continuously resort to such verbal trickery is a disservice to our nation and to freedom itself. And no, I am not referring to the Freedom Federal Credit Union ATM in I-95's Maryland House rest stop."

Bush budget out
The Bush budget is out, and right now I don't have anything exciting to say about the details. But I do recommend the Historical Tables,which show how the government has grown (and occasionally shrunk) over time. A couple of things that grabbed me from Table 1.2:

1. Even if you believe the Bush projections, government will be bigger in 2010 that it was when Bush took office. In FY 2001, government took up 18.5% of GNP. Today its at 20.3%. Bush claims it will be at 19% in FY 2010. (Of course, these sorts of projections tend to be highly optimistic).

2. The good news: either way, government far smaller than under Reagan. In the 80s, federal outlays took up 21-23% of GNP.

a belated dvar torah on Mishpatim (last week's Torah portion)
In some circles, any deviation from strict laissez-faire (or in slightly less doctrinare conservative circles, any deviation that might help poor or black people, depending on the speaker) is termed "socialism." - the basic ideological assumption being that you are either for laissez-faire or socialism, and there's no middle ground. And I think this sort of thinking motivates the whole push to mess with Social Security- the idea that there is something repugnant about society providing for its old, and that those oldsters should just take care of themselves like everyone else. (Of course, many of the same people who think this way are all for government getting involved in foreign wars). I grew up in Atlanta listening to libertarian talk show hosts like Neal Boortz, so I'm very familiar with that kind of thinking.

By contrast,this week's Torah portion (Mishpatim), doesn't seem to agree with the Boortzes of the world. This week's Torah portion, Mishpatim (Exodus 21-24), has all sorts of laws about social justice- some criminal and tort stuff, but also the first of the Torah's many redistributionist laws (restricting lenders' rights, leaving the land unharvested every 7th year so the poor can take grain, etc.).

Obviously, some of these laws can't be followed literally in modern society. But looking at the Torah as a whole, if there's one economic idea that comes across again and again and again, it's that society is not every person for himself/herself, and that there is a middle ground between total egalitarianism at one extreme and Neal Boortz economics at the other extreme - that even though there will always be rich and poor, the rich (and the middle class) owe something to the poor and also to each other. If political economics is a football field, with some sort of socialism at one end and some sort of libertarianism at the other, I don't think the Torah is at one particular spot on the field -- but I do think it is somewhere between the 40 yard lines, or maybe between the 20 yard lines.

So how does this play out in a secular society where church and state are separated to some extent? That's an issue I struggle with.

an antidote to election-based euphoria
The mainstream press was full of euphoria about the Iraqi elections, for the excellent reason that turnout was heavy among two of Iraq's three major religio-ethnic groups (Shiites and Kurds).

But as the Washington Post points out, conditions in Iraq are sufficiently dangerous that some people would rather live in the totalitarian dungeon of Syria than in the new, "free", Iraq.

And in the New York Times, another article (which I can't seem to link to) says that Sunni turnout was very low and that Sunnis don't appear all that willing to play ball with whoever is elected.

and now, a break for ultimate theological questions
Normally, people who believe in the Documentary Hypothesis (i.e. that the Torah was written by a variety of humans at a variety of times) and in Divine authorship of the Torah pretty much ignore each other, rather than arguing with each other.
But Apikorsus posts some actual debate on the issue.

following up on my 1/19 post on sprawl and politics
An alert reader quoted the following from a New Republic article by Joel Kotkin:

"Democratic legislators too often seem hostile to suburban concerns, and indifferent to the aspirations of those who would like to buy a home and a small greenspace to call their own. In Albuquerque, for example, planners working for the local Democratic regime advocated banning backyards . . . [this and a similar incident] speaks to a stereotype that Democrats have been battling for years now: that they disdain suburbia and the families who live there. It is long past time for Democrats to start undoing that perception."

But the election returns really don't show much evidence that such a "perception" exists. Let's compare the gap between the Democratic nominee's suburban vote and the national vote:

1980 35% suburban, 41% nationally -6
1984 38% suburban, 41% nationally -3
1988 42% suburban, 46% nationally -4
1992 41% suburban, 43% nationally -2
1996 47% suburban, 49% nationally -2
2000 47% suburban, 49% nationally -2
2004 47% suburban, 48% nationally -1

If anything, the Democrats are holding their own in suburbia: winning in the three way elections of 1992 and 1996, and fighting to almost a dead heat in the last two elections. And as noted in by 1/19 post, Bush has gotten clobbered in lots of blue state suburbs.

Where the Democrats are losing ground is in rural areas. Again compare:

1980 39% rural, 41% nationally -2
1984 32% rural, 41% nationally -9
1988 44% rural, 46% nationally -2
1992 39% rural, 43% nationally -4
1996 44% rural, 49% nationally -5
2000 37% rural, 49% nationally -12
2004 40% rural, 48% nationally -8

Its not the suburbs with the small back yards where Democrats got clobbered. Its back on the farm.

And in fact, Albuquerque itself illustrates my point. In both 1976 and 2004, Republican presidential candidates narrowly won New Mexico. But no thanks to Albuqerque: the Republican presidential vote in Bernalillo County (city of Albuquerque and some suburbs) slipped from 54% in 1976 to 47% in 2000.

URLs to some of my law review articles
...For people who want to read them in print quality format (as opposed to the cut and paste work of my December posts)

Hastings article on ADA and public transit:

http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/hastlj52&id=1065&size=2&collection=journals&set_as_cursor=4

Colorado article on APA Planning Guidebook:

http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/ucollr74&id=661&size=2&collection=journals&set_as_cursor=6

Utah article on urban growth boundaries:

http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/utahlr2002&id=13&size=2&collection=journals&set_as_cursor=5

Marquette article on sprawl:

http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/marqlr84&id=307&size=2&collection=journals&set_as_cursor=9

1995 New Mexico article on cumulative voting:

http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/nmlr25&id=203&size=2&collection=journals&set_as_cursor=10

1993 Florida article on gerrymandering:

http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/uflr45&id=417&size=2&collection=journals&set_as_cursor=12

Johnny Carson, may his memory be a blessing
In today's times, Steve Martin writes the kind of obituary I hope someone will write for me after I leave this world.

wonderfully pithy line
"While adequately entertaining, "Fahrenheit 9/11" is, unfortunately, as ultimately disappointing as the Bush presidency."

Steve Sailer, getting digs in at both sides

a wonderfully cute little flim
Europe and Italy compared

I've never even been to Italy (except when I was too young to notice) and I STILL enjoyed it.

for Clevelanders only
an enormous set of blogs, etc. for Cleveland, Ohio residents:

www.brewedfreshdaily.com

good way to get humility
Google yourself and realize how limited your notoriety really is.

I googled the following people:

My father 121 (whose Holocuast memoir, coauthored by my sister in law, you really should buy; just go to amazon.com, search for "bert lewyn" or "bev saltzman lewyn" or go to
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0738865532/qid=1106515536/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i2_xgl14/002-9220984-8362452?v=glance&s=books&n=507846)

Me 1060

Lawrence Tribe (superstar law professor at Harvard) 5380

Andres Duany (New Urbanist architect) 19,400

Rabbi Akiva 33,100 (2nd century Jewish scholar, famous for gory martyrdom)

James Howard Kunstler (New Urbanist author) 48,200

Robert Bork 64,300

Martin Buber (20th century philosopher) 178,000

Rashi (medieval Jewish scholar) 497,000

John Aschroft 921,000

Britney Spears 8.6 million

George W. Bush 12.1 million

If you really want to know what's going on in Iraq
Iraq Blogcount has a truly enormous set of links (97 as of today) from American soldiers, journalists, and ordinary (?) Iraqis. I of course have looked at almost none of them - which makes me feel slightly guilty.

I am linking to that blog, but am not taking the time to link to all the other blogs listed (since you can find them yourself by going to that site).

deer
I was walking home from the law school Thursday night and saw about five or six deer grazing in the law school parking lot. They are not so docile that they don't mind humans: they were staring at me, wondering if I was going to bother them. I crossed the street to avoid doing so. They kept staring until I was half a block away. Only in Carbondale!

tyranny, Pirke Avot and Iraq
President Bush's inauguration address boldly came out against tyranny- no surprises there. Indeed, some people seem to think of "tyranny" as the all-purpose argument stopper (as in, "I'm for the war in Iraq because Sadaam Hussein was a tyrant.")

But common sense suggests a more nuanced position. In Pirkei Avot, a book of aphorisms by rabbinic sages written in Israel during the late Roman Empire (2nd century C.E., maybe a bit later), Rabbi Chanina is quoted as follows:

"Pray for the welfare of the government, for without fear of governmental authorities people would swallow each other alive." (Avot 3:2).

Chanina was not speaking about a tidy little democracy, or even a garden-variety benevolent dictatorship. Chanina's "government" was the Roman Empire, a dictatorship which had killed hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of Jews, while putting down various rebellions - in other words, a government not all that much different from Sadaam Hussein's.

In other words, Chanina was saying: EVEN IF the government is murderous and tyrannical, pray for it, because a tyrannical government is generally far better than none at all.

And I agree with this view: in a garden-variety tyranny, I am free to do anything but criticize the government. But where there is no government, or where the government is too weak to establish order (e.g. some of America's more dangerous neighborhoods), I can get killed just for minding my own business.

Of course, there are some limits to that principle: a government that randomly kills people (e.g. the Khmer Rouge), or one that kills people who do nothing to offend it, is no better than anarchy.

But the Roman Empire was not such a government. If rebelled against, the Empire responded with indiscriminate savagery- but if left alone, the Empire left you alone. Most modern tyrannies (even, I suspect, Sadaam Hussein's) probably resemble the Roman Empire more than the Khmer Rouge. The logical implication of Chanina's view is that even a Sadaam Hussein-type government should be prayed for if there is no alternative government out there.

By contrast, if there is no order in Iraq, the Iraqis are left with a situation where people "swallow each other alive" - a situation worse than tyranny, according to Rabbi Chanina (and me).

(Caveat: I don't know enough about the situation to know to what extent this is the case, or whether the situation is likely to improve as long as American forces remain on the ground).

This week's Torah portion- parting of Red Sea, etc.
This week's Torah portion is about the parting of the Red Sea (or Sea of Reeds, or whatever). It is of course not known which Egyptian king was involved in this incident.

But the 13th-century Egyptian king Merneptah commissioned a monument known as the Merneptah stela which declares:

"Israel is desolated, his seed is not . . . "

As the above links point out, some people think Merneptah was the Pharoah of the Exodus, which means maybe, just maybe the stela actually refers to whatever happened between Egypt and the Hebrews.

Of course, the stela's declaration of victory doesn't quite square with the Biblical story. But imagine the following conversation:

Soldier: "Your majesty, we lost a few people in that sea, didn't we. How are we going to explain this to the folks back home?
Merneptah: "Just declare victory and say the Hebrews all drowned or got killed."
Soldier: "But didn't more of OUR people drown than THEIR people?"
Merneptah: "Picky, picky, picky. The Hebrews are across the sea so they are not going to come back to contradict us. Just as dead slaves tell no tales, slaves who've skipped town also tell no tales."

Not saying it happened- just saying it could've happened (in which case the columns from Merneptah's palace that I saw in a Philadelphia museum last year could have been the very columns that Moses and Aaron leaned on as they visited Merneptah - and maybe just as the security guards in the museum warned my niece not to touch the columns, maybe Merneptah's security guards told Moses and Aaron not to touch the very same columns- how cool is that?)

Of course, all of this assumes that some Egyptians returned- a view which is arguably inconsistent with Exodus 14:28. But I'm not knowledgeable enough about Biblical Hebrew (or any other sort of Hebrew) to know whether that verse really meant that not a single Egyptian was alive to tell the tale (as opposed to every Egyptian in a regiment, or every Egyptian who actually went into the water to pursue the Israelis rather than staying on the shore to mop up).

the one good argument against the Iraq war
A recent article in the Forward quotes a report by a CIA-linked think tank stating that the Iraq war "could provide recruitment, training grounds, technical skills and language proficiency for a new class of terrorists".

Of course, the report is just a warning rather than a reliable prediction. But the Administration's incredibly lame response was far scarier: "Asked about the finding that the war had created a recruiting and breeding ground for terrorists, [press secretary Scott] McClellan said 'That's assuming that terrorists would just be sitting around and doing nothing if we weren't staying on the offensive." In other words, if the terrorists weren't in Iraq they would be someplace else.

What's so idiotic about McClellan's statement? The assumption we don't need to worry about encouraging terrorism because there is a fixed supply of terrorists, unchangeable by American foolishness.

But people aren't born with a big "terrorist" sign on their forehead. There are over a billion Muslims in the world, and all of them have the choice of either (a) quitting their day jobs and becoming terrorists or (b) NOT quitting their day jobs, and allowing their resentment of America (if any) to fester as a part-time passion rather than a full-time occupation.*

If we do the right things (whatever those are) we can encourage most of those billions to pick option (b). If we do the wrong things, we encourage more of those billions to pick option (a).

So the big question about Iraq is: does the war increase the number of Muslims picking option (a)? And now that we are already enmeshed in Iraq, what can we do to reduce that number?

*Obviously this is true of all human beings, but right now Americans are primarily worried about terrorism by Islamic radicals, since no other terrorist group seems to be particularly interested in exterminating Americans right now).

Torah thoughts
Every year, I use a different Chumash (Five Books of Moses) so I can get a different perspective on the week's Torah portion (2004: Richard Friedman's commentary, 2003: Plaut, 2002: Etz Chaim, 2001: Artscroll). This year I am using Samson Raphael Hirsch's work.

Hirsch has an interesting perspective on the prohibition of leavened products (chametz) during Passover (Exodus 13:7). I had always heard that chametz symbolized something bad: the egotism that we need to let go of during Passover. But Hirsch has a slightly different spin: unleavened bread (matzoh) is the bread of affliction, because slaves don't have time to sit around letting bread rise. Leavened bread symbolizes freedom and independence. So chametz symbolizes something good.

So why not eat chametz during Passover, the festival of Jewish freedom? To remind ourselves of the days when Jews were without freedom, and to remind ourselves that without the Creator of the idea of freedom (however one concieves that Creator), there is no freedom.

great minds sometimes think alike
George Will sees what I saw days ago:

"Some people warning of a distant Social Security crisis postulate 75 years of 1.8 percent annual growth. But if America has 75 such sluggish years, Social Security's insolvency will hardly be the nation's largest problem -- and personal retirement accounts will reflect, not compensate for, the stagnation."

But he favors privatization anyhow, on touchy-feely philosophical and economic grounds.