[UPDATE 5/14/07: Seattle’s innovative mixed income development, New Holly, is also “social engineering,” according to the Seattle Times. I guess it’s because policymakers had an objective in mind when they made policies.]
I keep seeing the phrase “social engineering” used to describe policies that don’t kowtow to the car. See, for example, this inexplicable subhead about a third of the way through a P-I story. Not only is this usage annoying, it’s exactly backward (as others havenoted before me).
First, let’s look first at specifics. The P-I story reports that the city will put parking meters on some formerly-free spots in a rapidly urbanizing district near downtown Seattle. The paper calls this “social engineering.”
I suppose that’s right, at least to the extent that parking meters alter the incentive structure for parking, which ultimately may change some people’s behavior.But if anything, the alternative to the city’s plan—continuing to provide public rights-of-way for exclusive, uncompensated use by a handful of private car owners—is closer to “social engineering” than charging a small fee for the privilege. Really, the question is not whether the city will engage in “social engineering,” but what kind of social engineering. And in particular, will government continue to use public resources to subsidize private cars?
Speaking more generally, just about any transportation policy—or any policy at all, for that matter—can be described as “social engineering.” Consider some (slightly) overheated rhetoric: today’s car-centric system is the result of Soviet-style social engineering.
Governments used the awesome power of the state to take money from the populace. Then central planners used the money with an ethic of brutalism, forcing gigantic car thoroughfares across neighborhoods, into the hearts of cities, and then out into far-flung farmlands and wild places.
In town, America’s Soviet-style planning wasn’t much different.
Wielding authority over private property, the central planners decided that for the good of the collective, private homes and business should be forced to provide minimum numbers of parking spaces. As if that weren’t enough, the government itself got into the parking business, using publicly-owned land to provide “free” parking along both sides of most streets (the hidden high costs would come later). And the parking laws were, of course, enforced by state agents paid with public dollars.
Much like their comrades in the Soviet system, the central planners in the United States often sought to cloak their actions in the language of social equity. But more often than not, the effect was just the opposite: low-income neighborhoods were literally bulldozed under for faster car-ways; working class transportation choices like streetcars were summarily destroyed, while buses were relegated to second-class status; and once-lively city neighborhoods emptied out as the wealthy segregated themselves in isolated cloisters.
Worse, the car-dominated system was financed by taxes that were often regressive or unfair. Property taxes helped to push homeownership out of reach. And blatantly regressive sales taxes fell hardest on those who could least afford to pay.
You get the idea.
So here’s my plea for today: let’s put a moratorium on using the phrase “social engineering” unless we mean something pretty distinctive. And no, parking meters don’t qualify.
Clark Williams-Derry
Shorter version:”Social engineering” is public policy I don’t like.”Sound public policy” is social engineering I do like.
Arie v.
Mossback should pick up last week’s edition of The Economist Magazine on Greening the Big Apple. They add to the “ideological consensus” around concepts such as congestion pricing:“The most controversial proposal and the most politically courageous is congestion pricing. A one-time sceptic, Mr Bloomberg has been won over by the success of pricing in London and Singapore and now intends to set up a three-year pilot programme. The $8 fee to enter Manhattan below 86th Street will, he hopes, encourage more people to use public transport, thus improving the air, general health (in some areas one in four children suffer from asthma) and the quality of life. Taxis are exempt. By his reckoning, only 5% of New Yorkers commute to Manhattan by car. Those drivers will pay about half the fees, suburban commuters and commercial vehicles the rest.”They go on to point out that the savings in time spent locked in traffic and other benefits will more than justify the cost even for those who do pay the toll. They don’t use the term “free candy” but imply as much – “no brainer” is another term that comes to mind.
Arie v.
I should add that there is more detail in the *print* version of the linked article above—too bad because much of it is pertinent.
fpteditors
Bloomberg says that “of course, transit should be fare-free” (to paraphrase) but he went for “congestion pricing.” Because neither he nor anyone else in the public eye wants to face the bitter truth. We have to choose between the auto and the human race. Congestion fixes fix congestion, which can mean just moving the autos elsewhere. You wouldn’t expect the “Economist” to advocate anything to hurt the precious auto-sales figures they live and die for.