Henry George Hoodoo: Point/counterpoint

Editor’s note: This splendid exchange on the Single Tax (Land Value Tax) proposal of Henry George took place more than one hundred years ago. It appears here thanks to the eagle eye of Mark Monson who spotted it in the annals of Project Gutenberg at http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext96/bti1010.txt. My only contrition to this chain has been to clean up the formatting and introduce paragraph breaks so that it makes for easier reading. (But what about the language! Pure American! Wow. I would l say that we are moving backward.)

Eric Britton

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A RIGHT ROYAL ROAST. THE ICONOCLAST MADE HARD TO CATCH.

Letter to the Editor, The Iconoclast, Galveston, Tex., August 12, 1897.

Mr. W. C. Brann:

In your editorial on the "Henry George Hoodoo," which appears in the August number of the ICONOCLAST, the following passage occurs: "It seems to me that I have treated the Single Taxers as fairly as they could ask, and if I now proceed to state a few plain truths about them and their faith they will have no just cause to complain."

From the tone and tenor of these words it is fair to assume that in the editorial referred to you have discharged against the Single Taxers and their faith the heaviest broadsides of which your ordnance is capable. If, notwithstanding all the time you have wasted "crucifying the economic mooncalf" which has played such sad havoc with the wits of Single Taxers, it should turn out that the monstrous concept, far from being crucified, annihilated, or even "dying of its own accord," only gathers strength, energy, and renewed activity from the healthful exercise with which you provide it, must it not seem the part of prudence for you, even if occasion of regret for us, that you should abandon the war and leave the calf to his fate?

Your belated and apparently desperate resolve to "tell some plain truths" about us, Single Taxers, justifies the inquiry, what were you telling before? The fact that it seems to yourself that you have treated Single Taxers fairly is not absolutely irrefragable proof that they have been so treated at least it has not brought conviction of the fact to them.

That the offer of your space to Mr. George was courteously declined affords no just ground for refusing it to those "whose matin hymn and vesper prayer reads, there is no God but George," etc. I'll warrant you that if you and the Single Taxers had access on equal terms to a journal which neither controlled, and whose space both were bound to respect, you would not have to go outside the limits of your own state to find a dozen foemen worthy of your steel, and I'd stake my life on it that you'd find not a few to unhorse you.

This is not claiming that any one of them, or all of them together, can come anywhere near you in the artistic manipulation of words or the construction of ear-tickling phrases; but it is claiming, and that without any false pretense of modesty, that they have yet seen no reason to fear you in rigidly logical argument when the Single Tax is the question at issue. Their cause is so palpably just, its underlying principle so transparently simple and elementary, its practical application so direct, feasible and efficient that no mere wizardry of words, no thimble-riggery or language, can by any possibility obscure the principle--or confuse the advocates.

Of course there are among Single Taxers, as among other enthusiasts, men who indiscreetly use abuse for argument, and of these you may have some reason to complain; but should not your great talents and the immense advantages which the undisputed control of your own journal give you, enable you to rise above their abuse, to ignore it completely, and to grapple with only those who present you with argument? I have no right to expect from you more consideration than has been meted out to better men; still, you can but refuse this rejoinder to your August editorial, which is respectfully offered for publication in your journal. If you are quite sure of your ground, you can only gain strength from exposing my weakness, but even if you are not sure of it, both the requirements of simple justice and the amende honorable to Single Taxers would still plead for the publication of this article.

You say that Mr. George has obtained no standing of consequence in either politics or economics "because his teachings are violative of the public concept of truth." Do you really believe that the fact that he has obtained no standing of consequence in politics is in any way derogatory to his character or his teaching? Do you not know full well that a Bill Sykes, a Jonas Chuzzlewit, or a Mr. Montague Tigg would have a hundred chances to attain that distinction to-day to the one chance that Henry George, Vincent de Paul or even Jesus Christ would have? Don't you know this well, and if you do, why do you use it as an argument against Henry George?

As to his standing in economics, that, I submit, is a matter of opinion. You think he has no standing of consequence; I think his teaching is the most active ferment in the economic thought of to-day. We may be both mistaken, but whether we are or not cuts no figure in the truth or falsity of the Single Tax. But it is worth while to point out that the reason you have given for his lack of "standing" lends neither weight nor force to your argument. "Because," you say, "his teachings are violative of the public concept of truth."

When did the public concept of truth become the standard by which to test it? The public concept of the best form of money is, and has been for thousands of years, gold and silver coins. I am much mistaken if that be your concept. By the way, why did you not say "violative of truth," instead of "violative of the public concept," etc.? I guess you had an inward consciousness that a thing is not true or false by public concept, but by being inherently so.

What Henry George taught was inherently true or false before he ever taught it, and would be so still if he had been never born. The only difference would be that so many of us who now bask in the blessed light of inward, if not of outward, freedom would, in that event, be still barking with the great blind multitude over every false trail along which blinder teachers might be leading them and us.

You admit that Mr. George is a polemic without a peer, and you say that "no other living man could have made so absurd a theory appear so plausible, deceived hundreds of abler men than himself." Surely there is something very faulty in the position you assume here. If what you say be so, how do you know that you are not yourself the victim of deception at the hands of some inferior? Or is it only men who have "gone daft on Single Tax" that possess the extraordinary power of leading abler men than themselves by the nose? Surely that were too much honor for an antagonist to concede to them.

More surely still, if a man's intelligence is not proof against deception by inferiors in argument, he can never reach finality in a process of reasoning, and logical proof for him there is none. "He mistakes the plausible for the actual and by his sophistry deceives himself." O pshaw! We all say things sometimes that just do for talk, but this hasn't even that poor excuse. I might just as well say, "He takes the conceivable for the supposable and by his logic enlightens himself. One statement would be as valuable as the other and neither would be worth a pinch of snuff.

Come, let us argue with dignity and composure, like honest men sincerely searching after truth, and eager to lend a hand in abolishing this social Inferno of legalized robbery which fairly threatens to consume us all. There is, you'll admit, such a thing as land value, i. e. value attaching to land irrespective of improvements made in or on it by private industry. This value arises from the presence of a community and can never actually exist without it. If the exclusive creator or producer of a thing is its rightful owner, land belongs to the community that creates or produces it, and can never, in the first instance, rightly belong to any other owner.

The Single Tax is the taking of this value for this community. Is it just? The highest homage, the highest act of faith which the human mind and heart can offer to God is to say that He could not be God and pronounce the Single Tax unjust! Here now is a gage of battle cast at the feet of whoever wishes to take it up, be the same logician, metaphysician or theologian. (Pardon me, Mr. Brann, for momentarily turning aside from you.)

The justice of the Single Tax is beyond all question of refutation. What about its efficiency for the cure of social ills? Here, I think, is where we are widest apart. You say, "the unearned increment is already taken for public use under our present system of taxation." If by "unearned increment" you mean what I have defined as land value (and I think you do) your statement is the wildest and most astounding I ever heard or read from a sane man making an argument. Is it possible you have not learned that where all the land value is taken in taxation there can be no selling value?

And where is the land to-day with a community settled upon it that has not selling value? If land value is already absorbed by taxation, what is it that goes to maintain landlordism? Perhaps you'll contend that landlordism doesn't exist. What value is it that a man pays for when he buys an unimproved lot in the heart of a city? What is it that the boomer booms and the land speculator gambles on when he adds acre to acre and lot to lot without any intention of productive use? What, if not the community value which he expects to attach to his land as a result of increase of population? And what advantage to him as a speculator would this community value be if, as you claim, it is now being absorbed in taxation and should continue to be so absorbed as fast as it arises?

Do landlords in cities and towns retain for themselves only the rent of buildings and hand over to the government the full amount of their ground rents as tax? I know an old eye-sore of a building in this city not worth $150, whose occupant pays $100 a month rent. Do you seriously believe that all of this $1,200 a year which does not go to the city and state in taxes is rent on the old $150 rat-warren?

Why, the thing is too childish for serious discussion; and to have discussed it with you without having been driven to it by yourself, I should have regarded as in the nature of a slight on your intelligence. If what you claim as a fact were true, we would have the Single Tax in full swing now and would be fretting ourselves to fiddle-strings, not to bring it about, but to get rid of it for its evil fruit.

As to whether the Single Tax, in full force, would provide enough revenue for municipal, county, state and federal governments, we, Single Taxers, are not greatly concerned. We have our own opinions on that question and can give better reasons for them than our opponents can give for theirs. But the question is not essential to our argument. What we hold to is that until land values fully taxed prove inadequate for the expenses of government economically administered, not one cent should be levied on labor products, no matter in whose possession found.

This, however, belongs to the fiscal side of our reform. Of infinitely more importance is the social side. Here our end and aim is to secure to all the sons of Adam an equal right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness by securing to them an equal right in the bounties of nature--and passing strange it certainly is that men who would not dream of denying this right in the abstract are ever ready to anathematize it in the concrete. With the Single Tax in force, that is, with the plain behest of nature observed and respected, no man will hold land out of use when, whether he uses it or not, he must pay to the community its annual value for the privilege of monopolizing it.

No man will hold land for a rise in community value when that value is taken from him for the use of the community as fast as it arises. No man will need to mortgage his home and the earnings of his most vigorous years to a boomer or speculator for the privilege of living on the earth for there will be no boomer or speculator to sell him the privilege, and the privilege itself will have ceased to be such and become an indefeasible right.

"He (Mr. George) is a well-intentioned man who confidently believes he can make the poverty-stricken millions prosperous by revoking the taxes of the rich and increasing the burthens of the poor." Fie, fie! What is to be gained by such transparent, palpable misrepresentation as this? Do you verily believe that land values, which Mr. George proposes to tax, are mainly in possession of the poor? Did you not see--of course you did--a diagrammatic exhibit made not long ago by the New York Herald of the holdings of twenty New York real estate owners?

Let me quote a passage from an article in the New York Journal on this exhibit: "The reason 170 families own half of Manhattan Island, as stated in the Herald, and that 1,800,000 out of the two million residents of Manhattan Island, until very recently, had no interest whatever, except as renters, in this superb property, is because, until the last few years, it required a fortune to own the smallest separate parcel of this great estate. Only the rich could participate in its ownership, its income, its profits."

Now is it your view that all this is but clumsy lying, and that in reality it is the poor people of New York as of other large cities that own the bulk of its land values? Again you say, "He would equalize the conditions of Dives and Lazarus by removing the tax from the palace of the one and laying it upon the potato patch of the other." This statement is much more artistic than the preceding one. It wears a jaunty semblance of truth. Indeed it is true in a sense as far as it goes. But it is vague and incomplete, and for that reason as deceptive and misleading as half truths always are.

With your permission I will fill it out in parenthesis and convert it into an honest whole truth: "He would equalize the conditions of (both freedom and justice for) Dives and Lazarus by removing the tax from the palace of the one (and from the labor products of the other) and laying it upon (the community value of the land occupied by the palace and) the potato patch of the other." Now, if the potato patches of the poor occupy, as a rule, more valuable land than the palaces of the rich, there might be some apparent ground for your contention. It would be only apparent, however, for in such a case the potato patch would be as much out of place as a public school on a wharf front. To devote highly valuable land to ordinary potato culture would be about as sensible as to print the Sunday edition of the Galveston News on costly linen paper.

One of the virtues of the Single Tax is its potency to prevent such stupid waste of opportunity. Your way of stating the case, however, has this virtue that it is a welcome variation of the old wearisome chestnut about the poor widow owning a valuable lot, etc. You believe Progress and Poverty inspired by the plutocracy, "250,000 of whom own 80 per cent. of the taxable wealth of the country, while the land is largely in possession of the great middle class."

Passing over the source of the inspiration, you have come pretty close to the truth here! Unfortunately for you, however, the statement has no value in the argument. Single Taxers do not need to deny that the great middle class largely own the land, but they do claim, and you won't have the hardihood to deny it, that the plutocracy own the vast bulk of the land values. You will perceive the distinction when you reflect that the land is nearly all out in the country, while the land values are nearly all in the cities and towns.

To tax land according to area is the bug-a-boo you are putting up your guards to; to tax it according to community value is what we invite you to smash if you can. You "cannot understand how a man possessed of common sense could fail to see that removing taxation from the class of property chiefly in the hands of the rich and placing it altogether on property chiefly in the hands of the comparatively poor, could fail to benefit the millionaire at the expense of the working man." Neither can I, if you tax it according to quantity, but that is not the Single Tax and it is time you knew it.

Let me tell you now something that I can't understand--why a man who has the means and the ability to strike giant blows for the cause of the blind, stupid, plundered humanity prefers to waste his time, his talents, his opportunities making himself a straw man and, with that silly-looking thing for antagonist, belaboring all about him like a bull in a china shop. Your sincerest well-wishers, of whom I claim to be one, earnestly hope you will soon change your tactics.

You ask some practical questions which it may be well to answer: "How will you prevent the Standard Oil Company forcing weaker concerns to the wall by the simple expedient of selling below cost of production?" The Standard Oil trust is maintained

1. by monopoly of oil lands;

2. by monopoly of pipe lines;

3. by collusion with railroads.

The Single Tax and its corollaries would absolutely destroy each of these advantages;

1. by throwing unused oil lands open to all on equal terms;

2. by government ownership or complete control of pipe lines to all distributing points, such lines being open for use to all oil producers on equal terms;

3. by exactly analogous treatment of railroads.

With the three-fold monopoly of oil lands, pipe line, and railroad abolished, the Standard Oil trust would find no wall against which to crush weaker concerns.

As to the trust, we hope that the abolishment of the thieves' compact, i.e. the protective tariff, will make the trusts sick unto death. Absolute free trade, a necessary concomitant of the Single Tax, will leave 99 per cent. of the trusts stranded. If any survive it will not be the fault of the Single Tax.

Be it remembered that the evils which the Single Tax is guaranteed to cure are, primarily, land monopoly, and, secondarily, all the other monopolies based upon it; as those of the coal, iron and lumber trust, the Standard Oil trust, etc. "With coal fields leased to the operators by Uncle Sam, how would you prevent Hanna organizing a pool, limiting production, raising prices and reducing wages?" Coal fields are included in the economic term, land. When unused land is free for occupancy, unused coal fields will also be free. If Mark sought to limit production by shutting down his mines, one of two things would happen. Either somebody else would start in to mine coal, or Mark's tax would be raised till the wisdom of either letting go or resuming would dawn on his fat wits. Unless he owned or controlled the coal fields he could not limit production, raise prices, or cut down wages.

"How will you prevent the Standard Oil company forcing weaker concerns to the wall by the simple expedient of selling below cost of production?" We wouldn't prevent them. But if they afterwards tried to recoup their losses by raising prices as they do now, we might get after them with a tax commensurate with their asinine generosity, and keep after them till other concerns got well on their feet. If they became too refractory, what's to prevent the government from taking hold itself and working the oil wells for the benefit of the whole people?

Remember the government is theoretically the people's servant, and it could be actually so if the people only had a little intelligence and moral courage. You very needlessly tell your Ft. Hamilton friend that land is the primal source of all wealth; that it does not produce wealth, but simply affords man an opportunity to produce it; you forgot to add--provided the landlord doesn't prevent him.

You say in another place, "Figure it as you will, adjust it as you may, a tax is a fine on industry and will so remain until you get blood from turnips," etc. This very objection in protean form is continually being raised by a class of shallow-thinking men with whom the editor of the ICONOCLAST should not be proud to herd.

"What difference docs it make," they say, "whether I pay rent to the government or to a landlord when I've got to pay it anyhow? And what difference does it make whether taxes are levied on my land or my improvements, or both, so long as I've got to pay them with the products of my labor?" Now, it is quite true that all taxes of whatever nature are paid out of the products of labor. But must they be for that reason a tax on labor products.

Let us see. I suppose you won't deny that a unit of labor applies to different kinds of land will give very different results. Suppose that a unit of labor produces on A's land 4, on B's 3, on C's 2 and on D's 1. A's land is the most, and D's is the least, productive land in use in the community to which they belong. B's and C's represent intermediate grades. Suppose each occupies the best land that was open to him when he entered into possession. Now, B, and C, and D have just as good a right to the use of the best land as A had. Manifestly then, if this be the whole story, there cannot be equality of opportunity where a unit of labor produces such different results, all other things being equal except the land. How is this equality to be secured? There is but one possible way. Each must surrender for the common use of all, himself included, whatever advantages accrues to him from the possession of land superior to that which falls to the lot of him who occupies the poorest. I

n the case stated, what the unit of labor produces for D, is what it should produce for A, B and C, if these are not to have an advantage of natural opportunity over D. Hence equity is secured when A pays 3, D, 2 and C, 1 into a common fund for the common use of all--to be expended, say in digging a well, making a road or bridge, building a school, or other public utility. Is it not manifest that here the tax which A, B and C pay into a common fund, and from which D is exempt, is not a tax on their labor products (though paid out of them) but a tax on the superior advantage which they enjoy over D, and to which D has just as good a right as any of them.

The result of this arrangement is that each takes up as much of the best land open to him as he can put to gainful use, and what he cannot so use he leaves open for the next. Moreover, he is at no disadvantage with the rest who have come in ahead of him, for they provide for him, in proportion to their respective advantages, those public utilities which invariably arise wherever men live in communities. Of course he will in turn hold to those who come later the same relation that those who came earlier held to him.

Suppose now that taxes had been levied on labor products instead of land; all that any land-holder would have to do to avoid the tax is to produce little or nothing. He could just squat on his land, neither using it himself nor letting others use it, but he would not stop at this, for he would grab to the last acre all that he could possibly get hold of. Each of the others would do the same in turn, with the sure result that by and by, E, F and G would find no land left for them on which they might make a living. So they would have to hire their labor to those who had already monopolized the land, or else buy or rent a piece of land from them.

Behold now the devil of landlordism getting his hoof on God's handiwork! Exit justice, freedom, social peace and plenty. Enter robbery, slavery, social discontent, consuming grief, riotous but unearned wealth, degrading pauperism, crime breeding, want, the beggar's whine, and the tyrant's iron heel. And how did it all come about? By the simple expedient of taxing labor products in order that precious landlordism might laugh and grow fat on the bovine stupidity of the community that contributes its own land values toward its own enslavement!

And yet men vacuously ask, "What difference does it make?" O tempora! O mores! To be as plain as is necessary, it makes this four-fold difference.

First, it robs the community of its land values;

Second, it robs labor of its wages in the name of taxation;

Third, it sustains and fosters landlordism, a most conspicuously damnable difference;

Fourth, it exhibits willing workers in enforced idleness; beholding their families in want on the one hand, and unused land that would yield them abundance on the other.

This last is a difference that cries to heaven for vengeance, and if it does not always cry in vain, will W. C. Brann be able to draw his robe close around him and with a good conscience exclaim, "It's none of my fault; I am not my brother's keeper." It will not do, my dear friend; you must think again on the Single Tax, even though, in doing so, you might make men suspect that you are not infallible. The sublimest act it will ever be given you to perform is to candidly confess to your grand and ever-growing constituency that you were mistaken in your estimate of the Single Taxers and their faith.

"Government must compel each to pay toll in proportion the amount of wealth it has produced--and this is the only equitable law of taxation." Just reflect for a moment what a monstrous conclusion flows from these premises. Labor applied to land produces all wealth. Landlordism as such produces nothing. Therefore labor should bear the whole burden of taxation, while landlordism and all other forms of monopoly should go scot free. T

he iniquity of our present system of taxation is that a portion of it is levied on land instead of being all levied on labor products, like the tariff! To be strictly just, we must quit taxing land and exact no royalty from owners of coal mines and oil wells! That your view? "There is every indication that his cult has had its day and is rapidly going to join the many other isms, political and religious, that have been swallowed up like cast off clothes and other exuviae by the great mother of dead dogs." This is fine, incontestably fine! Also forcible, impressibly forcible--with the force of a squirt of tobacco juice.

If "the Single Tax party will not long survive its creator," perhaps it is because it has not as much attraction for the great sovereign voter as the blessed protective tariff, which, to use your own fantastic expression, you should "cosset on your heaving brisket" for its splendid success as a survivor of its primogenitors.

Look at the pinnacle of political success to which the McKinley bill has brought Bill McKinley (excuse the paltry little pun) and sound money (saving your presence) brought Grover Cleveland, and then contemplate the ignominy and obscurity has brought George and free silver has brought Bryan. Evidently George isn't a mouse to McKinley, while Bryan is but a brindle pup compared to the great and only Grover.

Yes, the "public concept of truth" makes it plain that protection is all right and Single Tax all wrong. "George is a reformer who can't reform because he took issue with the wisdom of the world," just like the man who said that the earth was round and that the sun didn't go round it every twenty-four hours, contrary to what the wisdom of the world had long ago decided.

You are not mistaken in saying that "Mr. George was unable to keep one of these expounders of his doctrine (a S.T. paper) from running on the financial rocks." It is a very logical deduction to draw from this fact that the teachings of the paper were worthless.

Why should anybody teach what does not, in the teaching, promote his financial prosperity? See what fools Professors Bemis and Andrews have made of themselves. Because they did not have due regard for the "public concept of the truth" they are cashiered; and it serves them right, for the truth must be vindicated--if it pays.

On the other hand, see what splendid financial successes the ICONOCLAST, the Galveston News and the so-called yellow journalism of New York all are. "Deserve, in order to command success," the old copy-book headline used to say, from which it follows as mud does rain, that whatever succeeds deserves it, and whatever doesn't, doesn't. It doesn't take much besides capital to succeed, however, "where the conditions for the propagation of empiricism are more favorable than ever before." All you have to do is to propagate and expound the "public concept of truth" and let the truth itself alone. The Single Taxers respectfully solicit some more plain truths on the "Mumbojumboism of George."

Thomas Flavin. . . .

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Response from the editor:

Thomas Flavin:

Ever since the appearance of my first courteous critique of the Single Tax theory the followers of that faith have been pouring in vigorous "replies"; but as my articles were directed to Mr. George and not to his disciples, I saw no occasion for the latter to intermeddle in the matter, and the tide of economic wisdom went to waste. Although a publisher is supposed to be privileged to select his own contributors, and Mr. George had been requested to make reply at my expense, the Single Taxers raised a terrible hue and cry that the ICONOCLAST was unfair in that it "permitted one side to be presented."

In order to cast a little kerosene upon the troubled waters I decided that they should be heard, and selected Dr. Flavin as their spokesman, believing him to be the ablest of those who have followed this particular economic rainbow into the bogs. So much by way of prolegomenon; now for the doctor.

My very dear sir, I shall heed your advice to "rise above" the abuse of those who mistake impudence for argument, and ignore the discourteous remarks with which you have so liberally interlarded your discourse. Doubtless you include yourself among that numerous tribe of Texas titans who can "unhorse" me as easily as turning a hen over; and having accorded you unlimited space in which to acquire momentum, I would certainly dread the shock were I cursed with an atom of polemical pride. Frankly, I wish you success--trust that you can demonstrate beyond a peradventure of a doubt that all my objections to the Single Tax are fallacious, that it is indeed the correct solution of that sphinx riddle which we must soon answer or be destroyed.

At a time when the industrial problem is pressing upon us with ever increasing power, it is discouraging to hear grown Americans prattling of "unhorsing" economic adversaries--priding themselves on polemical fence, like shyster lawyers, and seeking victory through sophistry rather than truth by honest inquiry. That is not patriotism, but a picayune partisanship which I profoundly pity.

Regarding "the public concept of truth" which seems to irritate you sorely, I will simply say that the people are slow to accept new and startling truths like those promulgated by Galileo, Newton and Harvey; but a truth, howsoever strange, GROWS year by year and age by age, while a falsehood creates more or less flurry at its birth, then fades into the everlasting night of utter nothingness.

That Mr. George's theory, after several years of discussion, is declining in popular favor, and has never made a convert among the careful students of political economy, is strong presumptive evidence that it is not founded on fact. The more you hammer truth the brighter it glows; the more you hammer Georgeism the paler it gets. It is not for me to prove the fallacy of the Single Tax theory--the onus probandi rests with its apostles, and they but saltate from mistaken premises to ridiculous conclusions. Like the German metaphysicians, they are abstract reasoners who do not trouble themselves about conditions.

It is not well to sneer at "the great blind multitude" because it fails to see the beauty or wisdom in the Single Tax, for many a great man before Lincoln's time had profound respect for the judgment of the common people. "Truth," say the Italians, "is lost by too much controversy;" and while the Georges and Flavins split hairs and spute and spout themselves into error, the hard- headed farmer and mechanic, exercising their practical common-sense, arrive at correct conclusions.

In saying that Mr. George has, by his sophistry, "deceived hundreds of abler men than himself," I simply accredited him with a feat that has been a thousand times performed. Carliostro was an ignoramus and possessed very ordinary intellect, yet for several years he succeeded in deceiving some of the wisest men of his day with his Egyptian Masonry idiocy. Thousands of fairly intelligent people believed poor looney Francis Schlatter a kind of second Messiah, some of the ablest men of Europe were misled by half-crazy Martin Luther--and Dr. Flavin regards Henry George's economic absurdities as omniscience. The latter has "mistaken the plausible for the actual," has deceived himself with his own sophistry, else he and his few score noisy followers are wiser than all the rest of the world, or, for the sake of gain or cheap notoriety, he's peddling what he knows to be arrant nonsense. You may take as many "pinches of snuff" on that proposition as you please.

All your remarks about land values, their origin and rightful ownership--the tiresome old piece de resistance of every Single Tax discourse--I answered fully in my two former articles on this subject, wherein I also explained how the "unearned increment" is at present appropriated by the public, and I cannot afford to rethresh old straw for the benefit of Single Taxers who WILL write and WON'T read.

I will remark en passant, however, that by "unearned increment" I mean exactly what I suppose Mr. George to mean--increase in the market value of land for which the proprietor is not responsible. This, I have explained, is already appropriated by the public, because the total annual increase in land values in this country--barring betterments of course--does not exceed the total annual tax levied upon the land. There's always a boom in land values here and there; but hundreds of millions of acres, urban and suburban, have not increased a penny in selling price during the past decade. The owners are reaping no unearned increment, but they are paying taxes regularly into the public till.

"The exclusive creator or producer of a thing is the rightful owner," says Dr. Flavin. Quite true; and as the only thing the community creates for the land owner is the unearned increment, it has no moral right to take anything more. The Single Taxers persist in ignoring the fact that there is an EARNED as well as an UNEARNED increment, and that the former is as much the property of the individual as the barn he builds or the calf he breeds. Of this earned increment more anon.

"The highest homage, the highest act of faith which the human mind and heart can offer to God is to say he could not be God and pronounce the Single Tax to be unjust!" O hell! That's not argument, but simply empty declamation intended to tickle the ears of the groundlings--to raise a whoop among the gallery gods. As you have suggested, "Come, let us argue with dignity and composure," instead of emitting fanatical screeches like fresh converts at a Methodist camp meeting, let's see about this God of Justice business:

About 200 years ago a party whom we will call Brann, as that happened to be his name "cleared" a farm in the wilds of Virginia, enduring all the hardships and dangers of the frontier. He built roads and bridges, drained swamps, exterminated Indians and wild animals. His descendants helped drive out the British butchers, some of them being scalped alive by John Bull's red allies, while their wives and children were tomahawked. They contributed in their humble way to secure the blessings of free government which the present inhabitants of Virginia enjoyed. They helped support schools, churches and charities and otherwise make the district desirable as a place of residence. Finally railways were built and stores opened, not to enrich these people, but to be enriched by them.

These conveniences added to the value of the land, but were paid for at a good round price, as such things ever are by the users. The land is now worth about $30.00 an acre, and while this value is unquestionably due to the presence of population, {sic} it is fair to assume that in two centuries the estate has yielded that much in the shape of taxes. As the present owner, I ask, has the Old Dominion against that property for unearned increment? I say it has not; that the $30.00 an acre represents the savings of seven generations of my ancestors; that while the community created the land value, said value has been duly purchased and paid for--that it represents EARNED increment.

Unearned increment is not what Dr. Flavin is after; he would confiscate the RENT of my patrimony; he would deprive me of the VALUES created by my people--would allow me no larger share therein than he accords to the newly arrived immigrant from that damned island we call England. If our God says THAT is just, then I want no angelic wings--prefer to associate with Satan.

Has the son a just right to wealth created and solemnly bequeathed him by his sire? That land is as much mine as the gold would be mine, had my people their savings in that shape, and the rent is mine as justly as the interest on the gold would be. It is quite true that none of my clan CREATED that land; it is true that I cannot show a title to it signed by God Almighty and counter- signed by the Savior, any more than I can show a title from the same high source to the watch I hold in my hand; but I have a title to all the rights, conveniences and profits appertaining to control of the land, issued by their creator, the community, for value received. I have the same title to the land that I have to the watch; not to the material made by the Almighty, but to whatsoever has been added of desirability thereto by the action of man. The community has been settled with up-to-date for both the land and the watch, but has a continuing claim against them so long as it enables me to employ them advantageously than I could without its assistance.

If I sell my land the purchaser receives in return for his money all those advantages which it required so many years of toil and danger to win--he pays for the sacrifices made by others in preference to going into the wilderness and making them himself. The market value of my land is a "labor product," just as my watch is a labor product, hence all this prattle about relieving industry of governmental burdens by any economic thaumaturgy whatsoever is the merest moonshine.

It is quite true that "the great middle class" does not own the most valuable lots in New York and London; but I have the "chilled steel" hardihood to affirm that not only the bulk of the land but of the land values are in the possession of people who are poor as compared with the occupants of those sumptuous palaces which the George conspiracy for the further enrichment if Dives and the starvation of Lazaras would exempt from taxation.

The total wealth of this nation is not far from 75 billions, while all the land, exclusive of improvements, would not sell for more than 20 billion. The naked land of our 5 million farms is estimated at about 10 billion, so that leaves but about 10 billion for urban lands--less than one-seventh of the total value. I have no reliable statistics at hand showing what proportion of urban inhabitants own their homes; but we may safely assume that one-half do so. Now, if this be true, we may also assume that the land values held by the very wealthy--the people whom the Single Taxers profess to be after,--do not exceed one-fourth of all land values, or one-fifteenth of total property values. Hence you see it is quite possible for 250,000 to own 80 per cent of ALL values, while the bulk of the LAND values remain with the common people. And it is these common people that the Single Tax will crush for the benefit of these 250,000 plutocrats, the bulk of whose wealth is in personal property.

it down and think it over, doctor; you are really too bright a man to be led astray by the razzle-dazzle of Single Tax sophistry. You do your enviable reputation for intelligence a rank injustice by mistaking poor old George for an economic Messiah, and if you are not careful somebody will try to sell you a gold-brick or stock in a Klondike company. Suppose that you and Hon. Walter Gresham occupy residence lots worth $1,000 each, but that you inhabit a $1,500 cottage and he a $150,000 mansion; and suppose that your income is $2,000 a year while his is $20,000: Do you think there is any necessity for tearing your balbriggan undershirt because not compelled to put up as much for the maintenance of government as your wealthy neighbor? Is it at all probable that Gresham will become discouraged, refuse to longer serve the corporations and sit in the woodshed and sulk, even jump off the bridge, because taxed in proportion to the property in his possession rather than according to the land he occupies?

If Col. Moody builds a million dollar cotton mill on suburban land worth but $500 why should you refuse to sleep o' nights because not required to pay double the taxes of that old duffer? As a worthy disciple of Aesculapius you should know that too heavy a burden on your own back is liable to make you bow-legged.

I suspected all along that the Single Tax would require several able-bodied "corollaries" to enable it to effect much of a reformation, to usher in the Golden Age. It were very nice to throw unused coal and oil lands "open to all on equal terms," have the government pipe off all their products for equal pay, then compel operators by piling on taxes to maintain high prices to consumers "till other companies got well on their feet"--and a combination was effected. If Rockefeller, Hanna, Carnegie, et id genes omnes tried any of their old tricks "we might get after them"--just as we HAVE long been doing. These plutocrats are so afraid of our politicians that there is danger of their dying of neuropathy. If the coal, iron and oil operators advance prices we'll advance their taxes--for the people to pay. And I suppose that when the whiskey trust get gay, the doctor will raise the rent of corn land, when the cotton-seed oil trust becomes too smooth, he'll knock it on the head by adding a dollar an acre to cotton land, and so on until we get the cormorant fairly by the goozle. It's all dead easy when you understand it--works as smoothly as an "iridescent dream" on a toboggan slide! We are continually discovering new coal, iron and oil districts, and these are "open to all on equal terms"--I can acquire them just as cheaply as can Rockefeller or Carnegie.

Then what's the matter? I lack the capital to properly develop them, to produce so cheaply as my wealthy competitors. Or if able to become a thorn in the side of the great corporations they either lower prices and freeze me out or make it to my advantage to enter the syndicate. When Rockefeller lowers the price of oil he lowers his rent; when I am either crushed by competition or taken in out of the cold, he advances the price of oil. His rent is regulated by competition for the use of oil lands--you cannot make him pay more than the market price. When you raise his rent you raise that of all the other operators in proportion, and the same is the same as an increase of the excise on whisky--the people get a meaner grade of goods at a higher price.

If an ordinary man cooked up such a scheme as that for the benefit of the people, I'd feel justified in calling him a "crank," and I cannot conceive how a man like Dr. Flavin can tack his signature to such tommy-rot. Before we can make the Single Tax "a go" we've got to have government ownership of telegraphs, railways, pipe-lines, etc., etc., and use the taxing power to regulate prices just as the Republicans do the tariff--and for what? To humble the haughty landlord? Oh no; to knock the stuffing out of capital--so long wept over by Single Taxers as a fellow sufferer with toil.

Why not call the George system Communism?--"a rose by any other name," etc. When the doctor get matters arranged it will really make no difference whether a farmer is located in the black-waxy district, or on the arid cactus-cursed lands of the trans-Pecos country, as he will have to surrender to the public all he produces in excess of what the poorest land in use will yield. He will have no incentive to study the capabilities of his land and bring to bear upon it exceptional industry, for he will be deprived of all the increase he can make it yield by such methods. A will be placed on a parity with D because he took the best land he could get instead of the poorest he could find. Intelligence and enterprise are to have no reward under the new regime. You can squat on a sand-bank or pile of rocks in any community and be on a financial parity with the man whose black soil reaches to the axis of the earth--no need to bundle the old woman into a covered wagon, tie the brindled cow to the feed-box and head for a country where better land is to be had. There will be no temptation to carve out a home in the wilderness, for later immigrants will set at naught your toil and sacrifices and deprive your children of their patrimony--the best situated merchant in Waco will have no advantage of the keeper of a tent store on a side street of Yuba Dam or Tombstone. A tax will not longer be "a fine on industry"--it will be a fine on fools.

My Galveston friend should not work himself into a fit of hysteria because I declared that the George doctrine has had its day, it being sheer folly to quarrel with a self-evident fact. When Henry George first flamed forth he made a great deal of money out of his writings, and has thus far shown no more aversion to the silver than has your humble servant. His paper was doubtless launched with a view of promoting his financial and political fortunes, for he did not go broke publishing it "for the good of the cause," but promptly rung off when he found that it did not PAY, hence I fail to see that he is entitled to any more credit than Col. Belo or myself. I called attention to the failure of his paper, not in a spirit of rejoicing over its downfall, but simply to accentuate the fact, after giving some years to consideration of his rather pretty platitudes, that people condemned them--that his heroic attempt to reclothe with living flesh the bones of the impot unique had proven a dismal failure.

Now, my dear doctor, I have not undertaken in this hasty article to fully expose this Single Tax fallacy, having attended to that heretofore, but simply to answer a few of your arguments which I had not hitherto heard. Let's drop the subject--let the dead go bury its dead, while we devote our energies to LIVING issues. _

W. C. Brann_,_._,___

Letting go of left vs. right

From: "Dan Sullivan"
Date: Sat Dec 23, 2006 9:03 am
To: The Land Café (http://www.landcafe.org)

Bernard's post was just fine until the final, gratuitous statement, "All stand in opposition, of course, to 'right-libertarianism', one of the most shallow political philosophies ever."

I don't know what's worse -- lefties stereotyping righties out of ignorance or righties stereotyping lefties. The right wing of the libertarians might indeed have the most shallow philosophy, but the left wing of the socialists would give them a good run for their money.

It is so easy for people in one group or the other to lambaste the opposite group to the cheers of their fellow true-believers. To people who know better, however, their sweeping generalizations reveal a substantial ignorance of the legitimate concerns of the other side, and even an ignorance of the dynamics of how the other side, and their own side for that matter, remain unable to deal with their own shortcomings.

What motivates left-bashing by the right and right-bashing by the left is that both groups covet power and control, and each group harps on the shallowness other group as a bogey man to cover its own shallowness.

They are mirror opposites of one another. The extreme right wants to effectively control everything by privately owning everything, and the extreme left wants to effectively own everything by publicly controlling everything. The fact that each side's core accusations about the other is basically true must be compartmentalized, so that each side can avoid exposure to the mirror it tries to hold up to the other side.

Both sides also focus on taking over groups with balanced alternative approaches to liberty and freedom. Leftists take over politically by flooding an organization with members, getting hold of the political reins, and then redesigning the organization to suit its original agenda. If that fails, they create their own imitations of the successful groups and compete under dubious pretenses. Rightists simply buy the organizations and then pretend, for a while, to hold up the organizational ideals.

The US Greens, for example, voted repeatedly against forming a Green Party, rejecting proposal after proposal from a subgroup calling itself "The Green Left." So, the Green Left formed its own Green Party and eventually co-opted the Greens. Hence the Green Party is primarily a socialist party with an emphasis on environmentalism, with a platform that is wholly incompatible with its own "Ten Key Values."

Similarly, the libertarian right had been unable to prevail with regard to an excellent libertarian magazine, *The Freeman*. Its founders and first two editors, Albert Jay Nock and Frank Choderov, were ardent Georgists. Although the publication always struggled financially (especially when Choderov was jailed for civil disobedience), it had excellent articles and a large libertarian following.

Leonard Read, who became a friend of Nock and eventually bought the rights to *The Freeman," very much epitomizes the label "libertarianism sans single tax." Indeed, in his first letter to Nock, Read had written,

I've just read your *Our Enemy, the State*. It is a perfectly splendid book. But how can a brilliant man like you advocate the Single Tax?

Not surprisingly, articles praising the single tax or criticizing land monopoly dwindled and disappeared after Read took over. Eventually, they changed the name of the publication to *Ideas on Liberty*. I suspect this was partly a reaction to Georgists throwing Nock's views in the faces of right-wing libertarians and identifying Nock as the founder of *The Freeman*.

This does not mean that we should shun libertarians or socialists per se, as long as they are open to criticism of their fondness for economic monopoly or political control. The fact is that there are very reasonable people in both the socialist and libertarian camps -- people who are drawn to the truth and who resist stereotyping those who seem to be on the other side. However, we can ally ourselves neither with either camp, nor with people from either camp who compulsively bash the other camp with their own polarized nonsense.

Escaping the big lie of left vs. right requires that we constantly seek balance, rebuffing efforts to draw (or push) us into one camp or the other. Usually the same polarizers will do both. After trying to win people into their own camp and failing, they accuse those people of being in cahoots with the worst elements of the other camp. Thus I have dozens and dozens of posts by right-wing libertarians calling me a socialist, communist or Marxist, and a comparable number of posts by left-wing socialists calling me a libertarian, capitalist or fascist.

To show how mistaken this stereotyping is, let's use the Libertarian Party as an example. Stereotypers from the left might not know that its founders broke away from the Republican Party in 1972 on three issues: opposition to the Viet Nam War, imposing wage and price controls, and increasing the grip of bankers over the money supply through the Breton-Woods Act. Those are hardly right-wing objections.

David Nolan, the principal founder of the LP, advocates that land value tax should be the only tax.

The late Karl Hess, founder of the LP News, called land value tax "the one tax that should be levied until the state can be abolished altogether." Hess had been the speech-writer for Barry Goldwater, and had coined the ill-fated phrase, "Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."

John Hospers, the first LP candidate for President, also supports land value tax and recounts an episode where Ayn Rand screamed "Let them buy it!" at him over the telephone when he had suggested that Peruvian land should be returned to the indigenous people.

The problem with the Libertarian Party, and with any party, is that party politics becomes dominated by the lowest common denominator. Thus the great thinkers who started the LP, and the great thinkers who started the Greens, are eventually drowned out by a cacophony of polarizing knee-jerk aphorisms uttered by throngs of superficial thinkers who only know that they are against whatever the other side is for, and vice versa.

There are flashes of brilliance among libertarians, and even in the writings of such extremists as Ayn Rand, Murray Rothbard and Ludwig von Mises. For example, socialists could gain greatly from their understanding of how crucial personal freedom is to human initiative, and how soul-crushing it is to be under authoritarian control. They just don't see (or at least don't talk about) how corporate monopoly is just as stifling and soul-crushing as government monopoly.

Similarly, many brilliant things are said by lefties about how soul- crushing private monopoly can be, without the caveat that the kind of big government they advocate poses the same dangers.

Also, even the libertarian right is not what I would call the extreme right. The Constitution Party, the John Birch Society and other groups known for their anti- socialist fanaticism have been quick to sacrifice liberty itself in their mad paranoia about the socialist menace. (They have rather seamlessly transported this mentality to the Islamic menace.) Libertarians have been attacked by them for refusing to go along with such nonsense as The Patriot Act. Yet even Birchers are saying valid things that need to be said.

I have sat for hours and hours of engaging conversation with local leaders of the Socialist Workers Party and of the John Birch Society (not at the same time). I worked with the Greens long and well enough to be made their county chair in 1991, and with the Libertarian Party enough to be made their county chair in around 1996. All the while, I listened attentively to understand their legitimate concerns, but stood up against unwarranted criticisms of alternative viewpoints.

Although I highly recommend the practice of having heart-to-heart talks with people in opposing camps, it requires a lot of "letting go," and this, for most people, requires serious practice in relaxation and meditation. However, those who do not "walk a mile in the other person's moccasins" should not sit in the comfort of their own camp and pass judgement from afar against people in the other camp. Such judgements from afar are not entirely wrong; they are just clumsy, heavy-handed and unbalanced.

It also takes more courage to confront inconsistencies in the philosophy of one's own core group than the philosophies of distant groups. One great book in this regard is *Libertarian Party at Sea on Land* by Harold Kyriazi. Harold is a long-time libertarian who realized that they were wrong on the land issue and took them to task on it. In doing so, he corresponded with as many prominent libertarian leaders as he could reach. I would love to see someone from the socialist camp do a similar critique of the socialist error, instead of trying to criticize libertarians from a distance. (He is now learning that they are wrong on the money issue as well.)

After all, what can a socialist say that would undermine the mistaken ideas of the libertarian right better than Harold's book (available from the Schalkenbach foundation) or my essay, "Royal Libertarian"?

http://geolib.com/sullivan.dan/royallib.html

The real battle is not between institutions, but within them.

-ds

On 22 Dec 2006 at 5:13, Bernard Rooney wrote:

http://www.homepages.ucl.ac.uk/~uctymio/leftlibP&PA.pdf

Left-libertarianism seems to proceed largely in ignorance of the original libertarianism, libertarian socialism, and exist as a reaction to 'right-libertarianism' (you all know what that is), nevertheless, as a necessary counter, it is a healthy development worth watching and encouraging.

Steiner says "Left-libertarianism rests on two central claims: (1) full initial self-ownership for all agents, and (2) egalitarian ownership of natural resources." A Georgist will immediately see this as no improvement or even different from Georgism. Steiner's effort to formulate the principle is somewhat laboured and not really superior to George’s, and in the matter of improved or cleared land, that issue has been addressed by valuers long ago.

A lot of this theorising is not so much a matter of truth and logic as ideology and history. Thus, Georgism could be seen as the logical perfection and end-state of classical liberalism, at least in the question of property rights. But that of course is unacceptable to the ruling class. Various intellectual developments are explained by this. Late and Modern Liberalism (or Spencerism) becomes debauched into 'liberalism sans single tax', i.e. a systematic effort to wipe out not only George himself, but anything suggestive of a precursor all the way back to John Locke's 'proviso'. This morphs into or merges with the largely American phenomenon of 'right-libertarianism' or Randism.

On a separate development track is libertarian socialism (or anarcho-syndicalism). This is a largely Continental development with, obviously, socialist origins. This begins in socialism or common ownership and emphasizes local autonomy and dismantlement of hierarchy as most necessary steps.

Thus left-libertarianism begins with the individual ownership and moves to common ownership, while libertarian socialism does the reverse. Both could arrive at more or less the same place, which is more or less George's place also. Each strand of though however, has particular emphases and insights to contribute. All stand in opposition, of course, to 'right-libertarianism', one of the most shallow political philosophies ever.

User fees & paying for what you take

On Behalf Of Sean Brooks
Sent: Monday, December 18, 2006 5:15 PM

While economists may debate the existence of true public goods, there is no doubt that there are partial public goods. These goods have high capital and fixed costs in relation to their costs due to individual users. In fact most goods have at least a portion of goods that are not attributable to users.

We speak of charging user fees for roads, but the 'cost' of allowing a car to drive on a road is nearly negligible vs. the cost of allowing a heavy truck to drive on it, and very little compared to the capital costs and the damage done by weather. The individual driver in a passenger aute 'takes' very little from the public by driving down it. This changes slightly when the road gets croweded, and there's not enough capacity, and not as good, to go around. Paying for these road fairly would involve a mix of local LVTs, user fees on heavy trucks, and congestion fees for popular routes. Whether or not bonds are used, they must still be paid back from some source.

Many of the functions of local government are similar. Most aspects of Public Safety aren't directly attributable to individual people, and in any case, a great deal of the costs of providing public safety are relatively fixed. You may be able to find that benefits accrue to property owners in terms of their reduced insurance cost (which then may improve the value of land). You may find that commercial rents increase due to a safe pedestrian shopping area. Neither of these belie the justification for using LVT to pay for them. The fire department may be of intense benefit to the owner who's property was saved from a kitchen fire, but you'd probably not want to deal with the potential distortions created by a fee-for-use fire department, when general benefit can be attributed to the fire department.

Schools, which often comprise the bulk of local spending, are another issue altogether. Certainly no function of government seems to have an effect on property values more than the quality of the school system. It may be feasible to attribute a portion of the costs as variable costs, such that each student should pay a tuition. I disagree with this notion, in that once the capacity is built and paid for (E.g. the school district has X classroom spaces and Y teachers), individual students do not add appreciably to the cost of providing schooling. Furthermore, attendance is cumpulsory, so attempting to charge tuition-as-a-congestion-fee wouldn't work.

Rail transit has enormous fixed costs in relation to their variable costs, such that once a good level of service is offered, (e.g. trains in each direction every 7 1/2 minutes) it costs very little to add an additional rider. In fact the time cost in collecting such a trivial portion of the fee may severely outweigh the benefit. One possible exception would be a rush hour congestion fee, which, again, may or may not be worth it - especially in view of the tremendous increases in local land values due to rail infrastructure. (in fact, and in reply to the the .pdf regarding the london busses, the property value increase outweighed the public subsidy for the latest tube stations).

As for buses, their benefit depends on their use. If they are regularly used and provide all day service - in other words if they can be counted on as a means of getting around an area - they probably benefit property values quite a bit. For them to be counted on as all-day transportation, they have to run all day, regardless of ridership - which makes the variable costs of ridership moot.

On the contrary, if the buses are run in such a manner that the number of buses in service is a function of ridership, then the costs are attributable to the riders. This would be the case for intercity coaches, as well for very popular bus routes - where this fee would be indistinguishable from a congestion charge.

It is my opinion that when public transit is effective enough that a portion of people can do without cars, or a portion of families can do without a second or third car, then that nonspent spending capacity is generally reflected in local economies, and raises land values.

Sean

Sustainable Mobility: Seen to the Year 2030

Editor’s note: As part of our strategy over at the Journal of World Transport Policy and Practice, we are placing this summary introduction to the latest number here for your information and comment. To access the full volume all you have to do is click the above title. Let us know what you think of this, as well as any other ideas you might have for importing the journal and its potential impact on policy and practice in our troubled sector. Eric Britton

World Transport Policy & Practice

Volume 13, Number 1

Sustainable Mobility: Seen to the Year 2030

Contents

· Editorial John Whitelegg

· Abstracts & Keywords

· What goes up must come down: Household car ownership and ‘Walking for transport’ - Hazel Baslington

· Trends, innovative course settings and levers for mobility & transport:

· Seen to the year 2030 - Hartmut H. Topp

· Splintering the public realm: using local public space for corporate economic gain? - Fiona Raje

· Effects of pedestrianisation on the commercial and retail areas: study in Kha San Road, Bangkok - Santhosh Kumar K., William Ross

· Cycling for active transport and recreation in Australia: status review and future directions Rissel C, Garrard J

· Travel in Inner City versus Urban Fringe of Adelaide: the Role of Neighbourhood Design - Soltani A, Allan A, Sommenhalli S, Primerano F

Editorial

At an international conference on walking in Melbourne, Australia on October 24^th 2006, a large and eager audience sat patiently waiting for the Minister of Transport of the State of Victoria to give his opening address. He did not turn up, and his absence sends a very strong message indeed to all those who work very hard to make the glaringly obvious point that walking is transport, walking is important and walking is central to everything from tackling obesity and climate change to creating high quality liveable cities. Ministers of transport tend to turn up at conferences devoted to private finance initiatives and highway construction. They will always turn up to share the limelight about transport plans related to Commonwealth and Olympic games, but walking is off the radar screen and is easily replaced by something more important even if it has been in the minister’s diary for several months.

Australia is at the serious end of most transport, land use, energy and health and resource use problems. Its high levels of car use, even for short distance trips, makes it especially vulnerable to the peak oil problem and the refusal of its politicians to take sustainable transport seriously is a major obstacle to progress. Highway projects loom very large in the in-tray of ministers of transport.

The city of Brisbane in Australia has decided to build a central area tunnel at a cost of over $3 billion (Australian). The tunnel will end up costing far more than this and will be followed by many other high cost highway infrastructure projects. Brisbane’s approach to transport policy is not especially unusual but does bring into sharp relief the contradictions that lie at the heart of urban transport throughout the world. Brisbane is also the location of the self-proclaimed “largest travel smart project in the world”, and this project will work diligently to persuade people not to use the car. The combined highway projects and Travel Smart projects amount to a $10 billion plan to encourage car use and a $30 million plan to discourage car use. This is silly and looks especially silly when put in the context of the world-class physical environment of Brisbane and its enormously attractive walking and cycling possibilities. Brisbane has 1% of all trips currently accomplished by bike and about 80-85% by car. It is a car dependent city that is rushing headlong into higher levels of car dependency at a time when peak oil and oil dependency concerns are ringing alarm bells around the world. Car dependent and fossil fuel dependent cities like Brisbane are heading for a social and economic crisis because they cannot see the wisdom and precautionarity of moving to lower levels of oil dependency. Brisbane could easily have 10% of all trips by bike, 10-20% on foot and 15-20% on public transport but there is very little sign of the vision and clarity of thought that could produce this outcome.

Sweden on the other hand has declared its intention to become fossil fuel free by 2020 (‘Making Sweden an OIL FREE Society’, Commission on Oil Independence, 21^st June 2006) This policy links well with its “Vision Zero” road safety policy which was introduced in 1997 and commits the country to achieving zero deaths and zero serious injuries in the road traffic environment. This remarkable double-hit will ensure that Sweden maintains a high quality

of life and an exceptional degree of insulation from global oil supply problems and price increases. Australian citizens will find themselves living in a polar opposite world characterised by oil supply crises and prices of more than $100 per barrel. This is unnecessary and Australia has the experience and the people to deliver a revolution in mobility. It simply lacks politicians with the vision and clarity of thought to recognise that reducing car dependency is a win-win situation with hard monetary and security benefits that range across obesity, diabetes, mental health, reduced fiscal demands for roads, bridges and tunnels and reduced greenhouse gases.

At the international walking conference almost 400 people gathered to discuss best practice and to assess the multiple advantages of increasing walking and all modes of sustainable transport. The majority of the participants were Australian and there can be no doubt that if these people could be given a few months to sort out walking, cycling, health and urban design and planning in Australia then all these problems would be resolved.

It is increasingly clear that politicians are out of step with the needs and requirements of the age in which we live and that a major paradigm shift is needed to deliver urgent action on climate change, transport-related health problems, cities drowning in car pollution, children damaged by noise and deeply traumatised communities. A radical shift towards walking, cycling, and public transport and traffic reduction will deliver a huge part of the solution to all these problems and will create happier citizens.

This is the major challenge of the 21^st century and we will succeed. The 19^th century saw major world cities installing pure drinking water systems on a huge scale. The 20^th century saw the elimination of the dreaded and dreadful sulphurous yellow smog that plagued London and all major UK cites and we must once again rise to the challenge of system-wide re-engineering to restore civilisation, calm, peace and community richness to our cities.

This challenge will involve setting maximum speed limits of 30kph in all cities and banning through-traffic from residential streets. It will mean reversing almost 100 years of car domination and returning streets and cities to people. It will mean that we pursue interventions of whatever kind that protect children, the elderly and the mobility disadvantaged, and we no longer tolerate noisy, intrusive traffic near our homes and in our communities. It can be done and it will be done.

John Whitelegg

Editor

Melbourne, Australia

24^th October 2006

Making Sweden an OIL FREE Society

Commission on Oil Independence 21^st June 2006 http://www.sweden.gov.se/content/1/c6/06/70/96/7f04f437.pdf

Walk21 - Walking Forward in the 21^st Century

http://www.walk21.com

Abstracts & Keywords

What Goes Up Must Come Down:

Household Car Ownership and 'Walking for Transport'

Hazel Baslington

This paper reports research investigating the cultural determinants of childrens' travel. The 'diary sets' kept by 301 children linked travel with time spent on physical activity over one week. Parents completed a travel and exercise questionnaire (n=136) and some were interviewed (n=22). Car use for regular journeys and time spent walking is associated with the number of cars in households. Availability of a car can reduce walking for transport but may facilitate other exercise. Possession of two/more cars extends socio-economic and geographical boundaries. A bold policy measure advocated is a 'one car' policy for households.

Keywords:

Childrens' travel, mixed method design, walking for transport, multi-car ownership, 'one car' policy

Trends, innovative course settings, and levers for mobility and transport

Seen from the Year 2030

Hartmut H. Topp

We need innovative policies to shape the future of mobility and transport. Sustainable mobility in terms of ecology, economy and social justice is the goal, even though sustainability is poorly defined in the field of mobility and transport, and, at the same time, inflationarily used. Technical innovations in transport are often discussed, but we also need economic innovations, political innovations, social innovations, as well as, behavioural changes, because sustainable mobility can only be achieved by a broad range of measurements. We need new policies and innovative course settings, because laissez-faire cause undesirable developments, such as wasting fossil energy, climate changes and natural disasters through global warming, dead-end street of automobile dependency, urban sprawl resulting in high costs, unaffordable public transport in rural areas, macro-economic losses through congestion, environmental and health damage ... The list could be continued.

Keywords: Technical/economic, social innovation, behavioural change, sustainable mobility

Splintering the public realm: using local public space for corporate economic gain?

Fiona Raje

This paper provides an example of how conflicts between transport and planning policy and practice can manifest themselves in local communities. It discusses the building of a gated community on a deprived urban peripheral estate in Oxford and the dichotomy between policy statements about promoting social inclusion and the granting of permission to construct a socially-isolating housing development within one of the city’s most deprived neighbourhoods.

Key words

Gated communities, splintered urbanism, transport policy

Effects of pedestrianisation on the commercial and retail areas:

Study in Khao San Road, Bangkok

Santhosh Kumar. K, William Ross

Pedestrianisation of retail areas is a strategy commonly implemented in city centres. It has various impacts on the traffic speed and increases the quality of life for the people living, working and visiting the area of implementation. In addition, it also has an impact on the commercial and retail businesses in the area of implementation. The current study focussed on determining the effect of pedestrianisation on the retail and commercial businesses of Khao San Road, Bangkok. The results of this study were in line with earlier studies undertaken in various other cities. Qualitative research methods were used in this study and the results showed that business owners reported an increase of sales volume since pedestrianisation and all respondents reported a noticeable increase in the liveability of the area. The study recommends that the implementing authorities undertake similar projects in retail and commercial areas throughout Bangkok to boost the sales volume and increase the liveability of the area.

Keywords

Pedestrianisation, Retailing, Liveability, Commercial areas, Khao San Road, Bangkok

Cycling for active transport and recreation in Australia: status review and future directions

Rissel C, Garrard J

Riding a bicycle is a potentially important but neglected form of sustainable transport that can also contribute to achieving adequate levels of physical activity. Despite the clear health and environmental benefits of cycling, there has been no systematic review of strategies to increase or promote cycling in Australia, nor any consideration of a health promotion research agenda for cycling.

This paper reviews the available Australian published and grey literature reporting evaluation of strategies to increase or promote cycling (n=17). It identifies the prevalence of cycling in Australia from a range of sources, synthesises the main influences on cycling, reviews the little available evidence of effectiveness of strategies to increase or promote cycling, and identifies research priorities.

This review has highlighted the relatively low level of regular cycling for transport in Australia, and the marked gender disparity of riders. However, cycling is a very popular recreational activity (fourth most popular nationally), suggesting that under favourable conditions some of these riders could substitute short car trips for bicycle trips. Almost all of the identified cycling promotion program evaluations have shown some degree of increase in cycling, suggesting that if they were to be implemented on a wider scale and with adequate resources they would lead to increases in population levels of regular cycling. A number of suggestions are made for cycling related research in Australia.

Keywords:

Cycling promotion programmes, strategy evaluation, cycling research

Travel in Inner City versus Urban Fringe of Adelaide:

The Role of Neighbourhood Design

Soltani A, Allan A, Somenahalli S, Primerano F

Previous literature has found that suburban development is associated with the unbalanced choice of travel mode. The micro-scale aspects of the built environment that influence modal choice, however, have not been well-established. Furthermore, the majority of the literature is from North American or European cities, thereby less Australian context. Using a sample from Adelaide, this research looked at the connection between neighbourhood design and modal choice, classifying the sample into two low-density, growing outer-ring suburbs versus two suburbs selected for their higher density, stability, and inner-ring location. Statistical analyses showed that neighbourhood design has a strong association with modal choice. Specifically, traditional neighbourhood designs are correlated with the choice of non-motorised modes, while suburban designs are associated with the choices of car driver/passenger. The multinomial logit models suggest that micro-scale urban form factors play an important role, and that travel time and commute distance also impact modal choice along with a number of social factors such as income level, employment and family structure. This study, therefore, supports the assertion that land use policies have at least some potential to reduce the choice of private vehicles, thereby reducing car dependency. This study also may serve to assist other practitioners in Adelaide in their efforts to address the issue of induce travel, and to present better solutions for sustainability concerns.

Keywords: Travel; land use; multinomial logit model; Adelaide

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For full report, go to www.wtransport.org.

Build, Build, Build

Report by the Green Party

...All 33 boroughs will be given targets for more affordable houses and Mayor Ken Livingstone will have the power to intervene if they turn down schemes in designated areas... "affordable housing" has fallen by 38,000 since Mr Livingstone became Mayor, say the Green Party.

Mr Livingstone seems to be unaware of the fact that affordability declines because of property price inflation endemic to the housing market.
He can always order more houses to be built to meet rising demand and keep prices stable. He cannot, however, order more land to be conjured up on which to build the new houses.

The solution (Site Value Capture, also known as Land Value Taxation) has been available at least since the Liberal Party championed it in 1909. But a powerful minority who perceiving itself as loosing out managed to prevent its implementation fo a century.
How long will this privileged minority be allowed to sabotage a reform that would benefit the vast majority struggling and often failing to afford this third basic need?

Ending our mediocrity - A planner's-eye view from Canada

Note from the editor: From Canada here is a very thoughtful ‘planner’s eye view’ of what a good city is supposed to be all about. From our perspective here it is particular interesting, both for the quality of its ideas and for, it has to be said, the manner in which it all but totally skates over the ideas and issues that are at the heart of the New Mobility Agenda. Oops! In its four thousand wide words there is no mention of “mobility” and but a single reference to the word “transportation” -- and that in the context a comment to the effect that there is more to t than building more roads. As often is the case with even the best planners the only related references are to “transit” (the apparently unexamined single option of good old deficit financed buses and trains), which the author sees as the key to the solution. Likewise and typically for those of our colleagues who view the city as a series of interacting physical arrangements, there is virtually no concern with near-term measures nor the need for immediate actions in the face of the crisis at hand. This is indeed part of the problem, and the challenge we face. Bringing even the best and wisest of our friends and colleagues around to the importance of actions that can bite in and make a difference in the months and couple of years directly ahead. Work in progress.

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Ending our mediocrity

After the Sunday Star ran its `What If?' special in April, readers sent us close to 400 emails with their own ideas for improving Toronto. We handed them to Paul Bedford, Toronto's former chief city planner, who mentors on urban issues. Here are his thoughts

Jul. 23, 2006. 01:02 PM

The late Jane Jacobs once said, "If Canada did not have strong and prosperous city regions, it would be a third world country." Over the next 30 years, 80 per cent of Canada's population and economic growth will be in the six city regions of Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa, Calgary and Edmonton. These places must be successful for Canada to succeed, and if there was one overwhelming message in the hundreds of emails I read, it was that Torontonians have a real passion for the future of their city and region.

And their biggest frustration? Our collective inability to act on good ideas and get on with making things happen.

With a municipal election only four months away, a new City of Toronto Act in force, unprecedented development pressure, and a new provincial Growth Plan for the Greater Toronto Area, this is a good time to ask some tough questions about our collective future.

Why are we not making more progress in getting good ideas implemented? Why do we seem to be just muddling through? Despite a booming private sector economy, we are suffering from a culture of poverty within local government that is holding us back. We must find a way to break through this mindset in order to move forward.

Perhaps a glimpse into Toronto's potential may help to bring about the changes needed.

What the people said

There is no shortage of good ideas that could transform the look and feel of Toronto for the better. It is clear people desperately want our leaders to tackle our problems head on and stop just talking about them. Whether it is gridlock, transit expansion, safety or climate change, Torontonians want bold leaders who will inspire them to follow a clear and positive direction that will produce a sustainable city and region.

People appear to be way ahead of our elected representatives, who are still struggling with 20th-century solutions to 21st-century problems — even though there is overwhelming evidence that more of the same is not working. The range of ideas can be grouped into a short list of powerful first- and second-tier themes that actually form the basis of an emerging vision for Toronto and the region.

They also constitute a pretty good agenda for all candidates running in the fall municipal elections. The most powerful observation is that everything is connected to everything.

First-tier priorities

Community

People want to see us take ownership of our own problems, from the neighbourhood to the Greater Toronto Region. Suggestions for new ways to foster local citizenship and stewardship included local community advisory committees, a Toronto Volunteer Corps and an annual citywide potluck picnic held in all local parks.

Torontonians emphasized the importance of positive community involvement in city life and the need to find a way to share power with all socio-economic groups. They considered new models for successfully engaging people in the planning and development process essential.

There was also a strong desire to change the prevailing consumer mindset and attitude now associated with city hall. Put another way, city hall is not Wal-Mart. It serves citizens, not consumers, and people want to be treated that way.

Transit

People are fed up with declining transit service and frustrated with their inability to get around the region by transit. A growing number of city residents work in the 905 region and are forced to drive because of poor or non-existent transit. All-day transit service north-south and east-west throughout the city region is long overdue.

People also want to see a transit line to Pearson Airport. They want to see streetcar lines built throughout the city and they want the service to be at the level where there is always a streetcar in sight.

They also want to see continuous subway expansion, starting with such dense corridors as Eglinton Ave. They see how other cities of similar size have found a way to keep expanding their subway systems and wonder why we can't do the same. Madrid is perhaps the best example: it has figured out a way to build 28 new stations in the past 10 years, with many more under construction over the next 10 years. It is now the fastest growing system in the world and is Europe's third largest after London and Moscow.

Public Realm

Former mayor David Crombie described the public realm as "the glue that holds the city together and forms the bedrock upon which it builds its prosperity, its communities and its social peace."

It constitutes all the elements of daily urban life that we rely on, including education, health care, social services, transit, water and sewer facilities, arts and culture, public safety, justice, libraries, streets, sidewalks, public spaces and much more. Continued investment in the public realm is essential for a high-quality civic life.

This theme found wide expression in all forms, from the conversion of unused or orphaned lands into public spaces in every ward, a continuous promenade of up to 15 kilometres around the entire waterfront, a big downtown public space on or near the water, and the redesign of great streets like University Ave. into Champs Élysée-style boulevards with wider sidewalks, streetscape amenities, public activities in the medians and retail shops and cafés to bring the streets to life day and night.

Perhaps most revealing was the strong desire for Toronto to strategically reinvest in the physical and social infrastructure of priority neighbourhoods in need, to stop the decline of public services, and to set new public-realm investment priorities over the coming term that will make a difference to everyday life.

Second-tier priorities

Waterfront

The waterfront was given much attention as a special place for all Torontonians to enjoy. There was evident public support for the recent West 8 winning design concept to re-image Queen's Quay, the water's edge and the heads of all slips. This is one area where people say, "Just do it!"

An overwhelming majority also want to see the conversion of the Island Airport into a car-free sustainable community instead of a busy airport that upsets the balance of mixed-use activities on the waterfront.

City Building

The current development boom throughout the region has brought to the surface the importance of beauty, quality of architecture and urban design in shaping the next layer of buildings now being planned and built. People want our public and private buildings to enhance the look and feel of our communities. They want them to strengthen the fabric of our local shopping streets.

They also want them to help inspire love and affection for our city and contribute to the heart and soul of the city.

Housing

People called for greater housing choice within local communities to meet the needs of people throughout their life cycle. This included a full range of housing options for all segments of society, including both affordable and seniors' housing. Most people want the option of aging within a familiar community where they feel comfortable and are well known by neighbours, local merchants and medical professionals.

A largely untapped opportunity exists for mid-rise housing on major streets to satisfy this range of housing needs. Many people want to live on main streets where they can walk to local shops, use existing transit and be part of the daily life cycle of activities of the community. This was especially true of younger and older populations.

Walking

Full attention to the pedestrian was a powerful common thread, with a rapidly growing downtown population that now frequently walks to work. The importance of a strong pedestrian environment to support local retail merchants was also a priority.

However, readers pointed out that while the city has adopted a Pedestrian Charter to promote a walking city, you would be hard-pressed to see positive examples. The narrowing of sidewalk widths on St. Clair Ave. W. was one example cited. Space for cars was given priority over space for pedestrians.

People want to see more bold initiatives such as the one on St. George St. between Bloor and College, where sidewalks were widened and pedestrian amenities enhanced. Perhaps the upcoming experiment in August to devote a portion of Queen's Quay to a wide range of pedestrian and cycling activities will help to bring the Pedestrian Charter back to life.

Accessibility

The upcoming retirement of the baby-boom generation feeds readers' desire for a proactive accessibility agenda. The public realm that we depend on for daily urban life will need to be seen through the eyes of the senior who takes longer to cross the street, or the person in a wheelchair.

Toronto could be a leader by making the city the most accessible possible for local residents and visitors from all over the world, who would be drawn to Toronto by its reputation for outstanding accessibility.

Waste Management

Simply put, people are ashamed that we continue to ship our garbage to Michigan and remain incapable of solving our own waste problems. There was a strong desire to tackle this issue head-on.

Reference to Sweden's model of incineration and new laws on excess packaging stood out. There seems to be a collective desire to have an intelligent discussion about the options. Necessity is staring us in the face.

Sustainability

The concept of sustainability was embodied throughout the range of ideas. Simply put, this means living off our interest rather than our principal. It also means coming to grips with our present lifestyle in a positive way.

Since 50 per cent of emissions in North America are under the direct or indirect control of cities, there is an opportunity to make a difference.

But while many good things have been achieved, such as deep-lake cooling, green development standards, and green-roof and tree-advocacy programs, people are still skeptical about the depth of commitment to sustainable actions.

It is widely accepted that aggressive transit development could remove large volumes of automobiles from our roads and thereby reduce emissions.

The recent adoption of the provincial "Places To Grow" plan to focus new growth into centres and built-up areas is a progressive step to battle sprawl; however, the companion transportation strategy was all about roads. There does not yet appear to be a companion transit strategy to service the current and future needs of a predicted four million new residents in the Greater Golden Horseshoe.

Other poor examples include the annual car-free day in Toronto, which is indistinguishable from any other day. This is in sharp contrast to how this day is treated seriously by our neighbours in Montreal.

In the 905, similar examples of inconsistent behaviour exist — Durham Region councillors recently voted to develop 1,400 hectares in the provincially designated greenbelt.

There seems to be a lot of talk but precious little action. Meanwhile, it is critical for the public and our political leaders at all levels to come to grips with the ever-increasing price of oil and the implications this will have on our society.

We are now at the tipping point of either making the right decisions that will produce a sustainable region or continuing to just talk meaninglessly

`The true measure of a city is its soul. This is the restless energy that doesn't wait for political leadership' Pier Giorgio Di Cicco Poet laureate of Toronto

For example, it is useful to contemplate how much of the Toronto City Region would continue to function successfully if gas prices rose to $2 or $3 a litre, as they already have in Europe.

It is likely that large portions of the population would no longer be able to justify a car-dependent lifestyle and be forced to make major changes to their living and working arrangements. Car-dependent suburban communities would be in serious trouble while transit-supported communities would thrive.

What will future generations say about the buildings we construct, the waterfront we develop, the transit decisions we make? Will we be praised for having the foresight to confront our problems and build a sustainable city region or be condemned for our stupidity and short-term perspective?

The bottom line is that we are now at the tipping point of either making the right decisions that will produce a sustainable region or continuing to just talk meaninglessly.

How to interpret the message

There are many reasons why we are not doing as well as we could, but they all boil down to two things: a lack of political will and a lack of money.

The lack of political will may have its origin in the abysmally low 30 to 35 per cent voter participation rate in municipal elections. The ward councillors who get elected generally only hear from people who share the same minority of interests.

As a result, Toronto and its GTA neighbours seem too willing to accept mediocrity, are still car-addicted, afraid of density and generally self-absorbed in their local affairs. We still seem to be preoccupied more with our private worlds than with investing in our public world.

We need to foster a sense of co-ownership among the people in our city and region, because we are all in this together. Perhaps serious governance reform at both the local level coupled with a creative new model of regional reform would raise voter interest. If people could see that their vote counted for major region-wide decisions as well as in their local community, they might be more willing to get involved in the democratic process.

The lack of money can be traced to the provincial downloading of transit, affordable housing and social services in the mid 1990s. This has left post-amalgamation Toronto with the impossible task of funding major new services from municipal property taxes.

Simply put, there is not enough revenue generated to cover the costs of maintaining, let alone expanding, these basic services. After almost 10 years, it should be evident that we can't just wait for things to get better. We need a hard-nosed assessment of why the city behaves the way it does. Brutal honesty and a willingness to take steps to correct what is wrong are essential ingredients before we can move forward.

This must also include a full-scale examination of how the civic bureaucracy is organized — who does what and why. The bureaucracy should be put under a sustainable lens and given a clear purpose. A new institutional capacity must be developed at city hall that embraces more experimentation and risk-taking; we also need cross-department staff teams for neighbourhood and public realm investment that are empowered to get things done.

The recent governance changes adopted by Toronto Council under the new City of Toronto Act are a start, but there is much left to do.

Toronto is both too big and too small. It has proven too large for communities to feel connected to their local government and yet is too small to address its regional infrastructure priorities.

This problem represents unfinished business. A new model of local civic engagement that produces on ongoing dialogue between communities and city hall is essential. A new model for regional problem-solving is equally critical.

A strong community-planning presence would be a good start; it would re-establish the importance and relevance of planning in the life of the city. We desperately need to develop a model that produces conversations, rather than arguments, at the local, city and regional levels.

Many of the responses to the "What If?" articles were also valuable for their perspective on Toronto, and not just for their ideas. What really matters to people is face-to-face contact with each other. This applies to communities, to civic staff, and to elected leaders.

Once trust is developed, society often displays both ingenuity and creativity and is more capable of embracing change.

If politicians can give people a clear vision that answers the question "Why?" they will figure out how to get there. Most people will help to implement good ideas, but they first need to understand why it is important.

Canadians recently ranked climate change as the number-one worry in a major national poll, with 72 per cent of respondents putting it at the top of their list. I believe this is because people are starting to see how climate change relates to, and will continue to relate to, their personal lives, and they are becoming motivated to act. This is clearly an area where people expect much of their politicians and appear to be ready to embrace strong leadership.

Torontonians would do the same for this city if their leaders made them understand why change is important. The role of city planners in this is vital. They need to provide both solutions to current problems and ideas for the future. They have an obligation to lead the change process, to shake the tree more than ever before, and to be the change agent we want to see in our society.

Choices and consequences

Leadership

Toronto's poet laureate, Pier Giorgio Di Cicco, has said "the true measure of a city is its soul. This is the restless energy that doesn't wait for political leadership."

There is a lot of restless energy out there looking for a home right now. Toronto and the region are building a new layer of city and developing a new style that is all about discovering our self-confidence. We are a great city that is full of potential and ambition looking to rise to the next level.

However, we are still unsure of how to get there and struggle with an inferiority complex about our place in the world.

The choice for our political leaders is simple. We can wait for others to solve our problems or spell out a clear plan of revenue generation, partnership development and urban reform together. We have all the ingredients to assume control of our own future if we are willing to think, act and plan differently. Toronto has at times been a leader in city building, transit development and successful urban experimentation, and we can do it again in both the city and the region.

Where are the political leaders who are prepared to aggressively champion the development of a dense network of subways, streetcar lines and buses to serve the needs of a 10 million-plus region, and who are willing to figure out how to pay for it? People will follow and support leaders who have the ability to get the job done.

Revenue

We need to confront the hard truths of revenue generation. Toronto's physical and social infrastructure is deteriorating and the city is chronically short of money.

There are two choices: Either transit, social services and social housing must be jointly funded by senior governments through a permanent share of income and/or sales tax revenue, or the Toronto City Region collectively has to pay for them.

The downloading of these big-ticket items to City of Toronto property taxes has crippled the city's budget capacity. We can't continue to exist in a culture of poverty and use it as an excuse for not being able to do anything. None of this will be easy but we absolutely must have the discussion, because the current arrangement is totally unsustainable.

A revenue menu that would make a difference should start with modest tolls on the entire 400 series of highways, including the Don Valley Parkway and the Gardiner Expressway, in addition to vehicle registration and licence fees.

All this revenue should be dedicated to transit development, with an immediate and substantial increase in the frequency of transit service. People must see a dramatic improvement overnight so they know their money is at work. The city and region could borrow against the massive revenue stream generated from road tolls and vehicle fees and use the money to buy new transit vehicles up front, so a huge visible increase in transit service occurs on the first day of electronic toll collection.

As well, the proposed Greater Toronto Transit Authority should have a strong mandate to build new transit lines within set time frames.

The GTTA should be primarily comprised of non-elected professionals who will look at the big picture and not be constrained by the local agenda. It should be the main vehicle for implementation of "Places to Grow," the recently adopted provincial growth plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe.

To facilitate rapid transit development, we need a special environmental assessment process that actually builds transit lines instead of building more bookshelves for endless reports.

Other regional revenue-generating mechanisms that should be explored include either a Toronto City Region sales tax or an income tax.

While such a tool would of course be controversial, there is now room to actually bring in a 0.5 per cent regional sales or income tax thanks to the federal government's reduction of the GST from 7 to 6 per cent. A new regional tax of this kind would generate ongoing revenue that would grow with the economy and would still mean that GTA residents would be paying less sales tax overall.

This argument becomes even more attractive when the GST is scheduled to be reduced from 6 to 5 per cent in the future. While no one likes to pay taxes, the truth is they buy us the essential services and facilities that make urban life possible.

These new revenue tools would need to be applied to the entire Greater Toronto and Hamilton Region, not just to the City of Toronto. Together, these revenue-generating mechanisms could produce billions of dollars for the development of essential regional transit and infrastructure.

The need for partnership

The transformation of the city and suburbs over the next 30 years into a sustainable urban region will require much stronger relationships between private and non-profit sector leaders and senior governments.

The current division between the city of Toronto and its suburbs and beyond is not healthy. The Toronto City Region functions as one economic unit and should be viewed as an integrated place where everything is connected to everything.

We need a regional body that has the clout and revenue base to coordinate and build the systems that will hold the region together. The GTTA could form the basis of such a body. It could evolve over time with a mix of political representatives from the municipal, provincial and federal levels in addition to non-elected appointees with professional expertise. Given the benefits of a prosperous Toronto City Region to the provincial and federal governments, perhaps special financial incentives should be examined by senior governments to encourage regional collaboration in key areas of physical, economic, social and environmental infrastructure.

The reality is that governments can't do it all and need to advance the development of innovative partnerships that target particular problems. One most recent example is a report entitled "Time for a Fair Deal," which dealt with the need to modernize income security for working-age adults. It was a joint product of many leading private sector corporations, public and non-profit partners that have a stake in our society.

If this model was repeated over and over throughout the urban region, a concentrated new set of resources and energy would produce multiple successes. It would also help to break down barriers that often prevent the development of creative solutions to the common urban challenges of youth unemployment, gang violence, affordable housing, and poverty.

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Toronto has gone through three experiments in urban reform. The first lasted from 1953 to 1997. It involved the creation of the Metro government in 1953, successive provincial governments that took a proactive role in the life of the city and the region, and the election of a reform city council and mayor in 1972. This lengthy but progressive experiment unleashed a flood of positive city-building initiatives and public-realm investment that we are still living off today.

The second experiment started with the amalgamation of Toronto with five other local governments in 1998. The past eight years have produced political, bureaucratic and community confusion. Despite the efforts of thousands of good people and positive examples of achievement, the experiment has produced mixed results.

The third experiment is the one we are all now just starting. It is marked by a new City of Toronto Act, changes to the Planning Act and the Ontario Municipal Board, along with provincial leadership in regional planning, greenbelt protection and a new Greater Toronto Transit Authority.

Perhaps most important, it is marked by an unprecedented desire to get things done. This attitude is positive and should give our political leaders the courage to spell out an aggressive urban reform agenda.

Politicians running for local office should be asked to outline their key ambitions for their city and region. With a new four-year term of office commencing after the November election, they must be held accountable for how well they deliver over this extended period of time.

The next four years should be a time of optimism about our future. We have the chance of a lifetime.

A Six Thousand Kilometer Non-CO2 Conference

Videoconferencing debriefing notes of 30 June 2006

The following notes were written up to report informally on how we handled the distance participation at a two part conference between Easthampton Massachusetts and Paris France on global warming and climate modification. The first half consisted of an in-place presentation by John Maulbetsch which was sufficiently well informed, balanced and dramatic to make Al Gore look like the comics page. Scary stuff. The second half of the presentation was led by me, and took a look at what we think can be done working from the bottom up – taking as a point of departure the specifics of transport in and around cities as set out in the New Mobility Advisory and Briefs for which full details are at http://www.newmobilityadvisory.org.

The meeting lasted for about an hour, equally divided between Easthampton and Paris. My travel costs were $00.00. Our communications cost were $00.00 I saved on the order of two tons of CO2 by staying at home. I was also able to eat dinner with my wife and sleep in my own bed. Highly sustainable. Eric Britton, Paris.

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The idea here is to see if I can ‘debrief’ you in a page or two with some reactions and thoughts from this end on our shared session the other day, with the idea of eventually getting this into a form that reflects your comments, etc. and will be useful for future sessions. So here below I will mix what we did and what I think we should do to get best mileage out of these tools in eventual future sessions (of which there will surely be many):

Background note on videoconferencing from here:

We have been using videoconferencing in our work daily here since 1993. It has not been a straight line and about every eighteen months (uh huh) we seem to change technology. In the old days it was both hardware and software (via ISDN), but since IP videoconferencing came on line here (late 1999 in parallel with move from ISDN to ADSL), it has been increasingly about new and better software as it comes on line. From 2000-2004 we worked with a toolkit from Polycom.com, which was a bit expensive but gave us good quality connections and nice group work package (which we still have to duplicate). Since 2004 we have in our open work shifted to a combination of Skype and SightSpeed, which has in both cases the advantage of being free and of quite satisfactory quality (most of the time). For a historical note on our progress in all this, check out. http://ericbritton.org/htdocs/general/eb-examples.htm#it.)

Our first “public videoconference” took place in 1995, with a seminar at University of Toronto. In 1996, at an OECD conference in Vancouver Canada (on the topic of Sustainable Transportation ;-). Since we have done at least one or two a year in places as distant as Bogota and Australia, with the latest at Williston last Saturday. Over this time we have developed a certain number of routines and work habits which I should now like to share with you.

The basic objective behind all this:

The goal is to integrate the distant speaker/participant as seamlessly, efficiently and inconspicuously as possible given what we have to work with. Please understand that despite what may seem like some considerably complexity, it is no big deal and while it takes careful preparation it is well within the capabilities of just about any group with even a smidgeon of IP competence. (Which is to say that if we can do it, anyone can.)

Basically this works best if we establish three channels of IP communications. In this case two SightSpeed video links and one Skype voice link for discrete ear-to-ear communications and overall management and control purposes.

1. Video link 1: The first video link has as its objective to permit as full participation as possible of the distant participant (in this case me).

a. In this case it consists of a SightSpeed camera placed on the speakers’ platform and aimed right at the audience (so that I can see them as I speak).

b. The speaker’s image is projected on a screen next to the podium -- and it is important that the image is of human dimension, bearing in mind the need for people at the back of the hall to see everything.

c. One nice option is to keep a smaller image up there when someone else is speaking, more or less exactly as if the distance guy were there on the platform, politely listening and not getting in the way.

d. When it is time for me to make my presentation, the image gets bigger, but should not be allowed to become a glowering Big Brother image.

e. By way of additional feedback, when my image appears there will also be the little ‘picture in picture’ image in the bottom right corner – so that the public can get an idea of what I am seeing. (I find this handy because I am a feedback guy, but if you don’t like it, well forget it.)

f. When there is a film clip or other presentation item to appear, these appear full size on the big screen, while my image as speaker is then reduced to a very small rectangle in the bottom right of the screen. (This retains the direct link between me and the audience, as they would have if I were up there on the podium during the projection.)

g. Questions from the audience: It will be important that the distance speaker can look at them both during questions and as he/she answers. Visual feedback in important.

2. Video link 2: The second video link provides my “chair in the audience”.

a. This camera provides a one way stream and is placed at the back of the hall (slightly raised usually to get a clear continuous shot of the action).

b. It provides both visual and sound feedback, thus permitting me to ‘sit in the audience’ and observe what is going on during the entire conference.

c. Incidentally for that to work well from here, I have to have, of course, to separate video and software/communications links on different computers. It is best to have the two monitors placed one next to the other so that the distance guy, me, can get a full view of the gongs on without having to race or swivel from one computer to another.

3. Voice link: The third link is a simple Skype voice only connection which serves two purposes.

a. The main purpose is to roved a private voice only link between the distant speaker and the technician running the show in the conference area. Stuff happens, and this discreet private voice link permits us to problem solve without getting in the way of the rest. The technician usually is best served by a wireless Bluetooth headset.

b. It also provides us with a last chance emergency backup in case the video links go on the fritz. This has happened to us on two occasions, and happily both times we had backup so that we could at least get through the conference. You can never be too careful when it comes to technology.

4. Watch out for: That’s about it, but here are a few other things it is good to keep an eye out for.

o Lighting is critical. At both ends. It is worth worrying over to get right.

o Sound too is critical and needs careful verification and fine tuning. Screeching speakers or interrupted transmissions are not fun.

o The speaker should take the time to ensure that (a) his/her image is not too huge and(b) not centered on the screen. People quickly loose interest in talking heads. Best is to have a visually interesting background, good lightning, and to pop yourself a bit off center. As a rule, half of the image should be of something other than the speaker. Nice and unaggressive. Kind of like not shouting.

o When any films or presentation items are to be presented, it is good to download them first and then play them locally. This saves precious bandwidth and removes one more potential source of problems.

o Best if everyone clears off all other programs and possibly conflicting stuff, so that the conference will be uninterrupted.

o Bandwidth. It is like they say: you can never be too blond or too rich. And you can never have too much bandwidth. Never.

5. Nice to have:

a. Orientable/zoomable cameras that can be controlled from this end. (Not a big deal and available at pretty low cost today.)

b. Ideally, the entire event will be recorded. And if appropriate streamed so that others who were not there but would have liked to be will have access at their convenience to the goings on.

c. We like to provide an on-line “Guestbook” for later comments and questions.

6. Take the time to prepare:

o We recommend a full run-through session one week before the target date to be sure that we have everything in hand and properly adjusted. This also gives us a chance to make the adjustments or get what might be missing equipment or software well in time.

o Then 24 hours before the broadcast, a full dress rehearsal: step by step, minute by minute.

o Finally, one hour before conference start-up everyone shows up on both sides to make sure that all is in order.

o We then get a cup of coffee and talk about how smart we were to get it all straight well in advance. No pressure. Pure pleasure.

And you can do it! Be a hero. Tell your children what you did. They will love you even more.