Sunday, April 17, 2011

Trying again

Anyone trying to read my posts can tell that I am no match for the internet blockers.

Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution recently mentioned that he liked Brasilia and that planned cities can work.  (I cannot link to his post from here.)  Another way to approach all this is to note that there are top-down plans as well as bottom-up plans.  There is no "unplanned".  But what is the division of labor?

Top-down is intuitively plausible to many.  Bottom-up planning is not.

Paris has Haussmann's top-down plan plus a lot of infill which is likely to be bottom-up.  Americans are increasingly moving into bottom-up privately planned communities and shopping and playing in bottom-up planned lifestyle and other centers.  And anything that can be metered can be privatized.

Top-down has exclusive jurisdiction of "mega-projects".  We know how most of those have worked out.