| 0:37 | Intro. [Recording date: November 26, 2024.] Russ Roberts: Today is November 26th, 2024, and my guest is urbanist Alain Bertaud, a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and a senior research scholar at the NYU [New York University] Marron Institute of Urban Management. This is Alain's second appearance on the program. He was last here in June of 2019 to discuss his book, Order Without Design: How Markets Shape Cities. Today we're going to talk about cities generally and all things urban. Alain, welcome back to EconTalk. Alain Bertaud: Thank you. I'm very glad to be back. |
| 1:12 | Russ Roberts: You call yourself an 'urbanist.' I like that word, but I'm not sure what it means. Why do you choose that phrase as a description? Alain Bertaud: It came from--when I start working in Russia, at the time where Russia was trying to convert to market. It didn't succeed, but I was working there. And, my Russian colleague, their first impression, I had the title of Urban Planner from the World Bank, and they say, 'Why the bank is sending more planners? This country is dying from planners.' And, indeed there was a Gosplan where next to the office where I--and one of them may even say they are, what, I think he was counting a million of planners in Russia were destroying the country. Why? So, I decided that urban planners, in a way--the old way--means that you are planning city for people. You are deciding what to do; and the people have to follow like the Gosplan of the Soviet Union. So, I decided to change my name there--I mean, my title. Russ Roberts: And, how would you describe what it means? Is it just a secret name for an urban planner? Alain Bertaud: No. It means that I deal with cities. I consider that what people call 'urban planner'--I mean, the way I see myself, because I work in many different cities, I see myself as a city doctor. I'm not going to a city and tell them, 'Hey, I have a vision for you. You should create a new Silicon Valley,' or something. I'm looking at the problem they have--usually housing, affordability, traffic, labor market thing. And, I'm trying to, with my knowledge, solve them their problem. I'm not trying to plan the city. Now, part of it might be city extension. I may advise on that. But it's part again of a problem they have already. I'm not here to design a city for them, the way an architect, for instance, design a building for a client. |
| 3:29 | Russ Roberts: So, I live in Israel. I live in Jerusalem, which is a great city. And, across the country, which is not very far away because it's a very narrow country, is Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv has tremendous building going on. There's a lot of magnificent, giant office buildings. It's got a beautiful beach. It's extremely expensive. It's gotten expensive, more expensive every year for a long time. Young people can't afford to live there. The traffic is atrocious. It's appalling. There is some public transportation. There's a lot of buses and they're building a light rail. But, I come to you, Doctor--I'm sure it's a common set of illnesses--that high price of housing--rising, high price of housing. Horrible traffic. What do we do, if you were the doctor there? Maybe you don't have enough knowledge, so you might need to thump the chest of the city or bang the knee with a rubber mallet. Russ Roberts: But, what are your thoughts? Alain Bertaud: There is also a cultural aspect, you see, in solving a problem. Again, similar to a doctor who, his patient has been smoking for 50 years. This is different from somebody who has a very healthy life. So, you have to deal with that. Then there is the geography and the topography. I've never been to Tel Aviv, but I can imagine that there are a lot of land constraints-- Russ Roberts: Tremendous-- Alain Bertaud: including because Israel itself is a very small country. So, if you have a land constraint like that, certainly the way to go is up, because you cannot go so much extending the city. So, you have to create more floor space. Now, when you reach a certain amount of floor space or people per hectare, the amount of road space is limited. It's not--where you can increase the supply of floor space, you cannot increase the supply of road space, practically. Because, if you had to enlarge the roads, you will destroy building, you will destroy a very valuable. And, except in the case of a dictatorship, it's practically in a democracy, it's nearly impossible. So, you have then to change the way people circulate within the city; and a number of people will have to use transit. And, I suppose in a dense city like Tel Aviv, a subway. Going tunnel--tunneling--is only way to expand in a democracy. The only way to expand the space which is devoted to circulation. When you have a large city, you have to connect everybody together. If not, there is no point in having a large city--is, everybody is isolated in his own neighborhood. So, you need to expand the possibility of moving goods and also people between different neighborhoods. The idea that you could have self-, autarkic neighborhood, which was the idea of Corbusier--for many planners actually--is absurd. A city like Tel Aviv works well economically because there is a very large labor market. If I establish a firm in Tel Aviv and I am looking at somebody who have a very narrow skill--for instance, say, the food regulation of Europe, so you can export food to Europe--I will find this person. But, I will find this person if this person is able to meet me, if we have to. So, we need the connection of that. If I look at somebody who is at the forefront of quantum computer design, I will find this person: but on the condition that we have the possibility to meet face-to-face, practically. So, for that we need a connection to the entire city, to the entire metropolitan area. Russ Roberts: Well, that unleashes its power. Yeah, keep going. Alain Bertaud: Yes. So, again here, there's a number of way to improve transport; but usually now you will have to have a type of transport with multiple modes. A subway is not enough. You will need again, the--what's it called--the last mile, or the last two kilometers. Because, if, and to go from your house to or your office from a station or something. And this is, by the way, what a transport company have been very bad at doing. If you have a subway, they are only interested in the people who take the subway. They are not trying to connect with, for instance, a electric bicycle rack where you could go, or scooters, or things like that. And, I think that the only people who are doing that now, unfortunately, are the Chinese. They are looking at that very, very carefully. |
| 9:00 | Russ Roberts: So, let's talk about two ways that we could make a city like Tel Aviv a little less traffic-intense. One way we talked about with Donald Shoup--and he quoted you. I interviewed him two years after we spoke and he says--Donald, of course, for listeners who haven't heard it, that episode, I recommend it. He's obsessed with parking. And, parking is an obsession of a lot of people, many of them living in Tel Aviv and cities like Tel Aviv or New York and so on. And, he says he was--I'm quoting him now talking about you. He says, quote, ... I was at a conference with him once. It was in Beijing. I preached what I'm preaching to you. And, at the end of the session, of the three-day conference, our Chinese hosts and the foreign visitors were assembled and they asked, 'Well, what city on earth has the best parking policies?' Alain said he thought Tokyo has the best parking policies, and I agreed with him. What's different about Tokyo? They prohibit on-street parking. It's not totally enforced during the daytime always, but it is ruthlessly enforced at night. So, you cannot own a car without having off-street parking. And they have very low off-street parking requirements. They have a number of small parking lots--they call them coin parking lots--that you don't need any permission to open one, but it's a small piece of land that you can park in. And, they have very clever automatic machines that, if you go in, your car is immobilized in the space until you pay to remove it.... So, Tokyo streets are in many cases almost entirely pedestrian. So, his point--Shoup's point--and probably yours, and I want you to elaborate on this, is that parking is a free subsidy--on-street parking is a free subsidy--to car owners. And many people in cities don't own cars. So that encourages car ownership. And, at the same time, when new buildings are permitted, they often have to have a certain amount of off-street parking, which makes it more expensive to build a building and means that the rent has to be higher than it otherwise would be. So, what are your thoughts on how parking policy could make over-trafficked cities like Tel Aviv and others more livable? And, I would just add: Tel Aviv has an enormous number of bicycles and scooters, but they still have a lot of cars. Alain Bertaud: Yes. I think that, again, like in Tokyo, practically there will be no street space should be devoted to long-range parking. You could have curb space of course to loading or unloading. A large city like Tel Aviv or New York require, by the way, a lot of maintenance. You need to have plumbers coming and unloading things. They cannot come on a bicycle or a subway. So, you need loading and unloading, but that should be very strict. It should be a few minutes and the rest should be entirely[?]. Parking should be a type of real estate, independent from housing or things like that. Like hotels, for instance. Hotels is a type of rent, so it will be hotel for cars, and it should be priced the way hotels are priced: If you are for the weekend for instance, you'll pay more. In certain season, you pay more, and parking price should be adapted to that. So, to adjust demand to supply. But, they should be--the idea that it's a responsibility of the city to provide free parking in the street is an aberration. I don't know where that came from. For instance in New York, where they are trying now to do congestion pricing, but at the same time I think about 70% of the parking lot in Manhattan are free, which is an aberration. Because, in a way when a car is moving--but, say the problem is cars. Cars consume. They are very convenient to go around because they are always on demand, but they consume an enormous amount of real estate. Including when they move faster, they need more real estate. If I move at 20 kilometers an hour on Fifth Avenue, I am consuming about 80 square meters of Fifth Avenue, which it's the size of two studios. Just for moving. And I don't pay anything. So, of course it's kind of a under-supply. Something which is free is always under supply. So, we have to find a way of moving around in a dense city because dense city has some advantages. Although, there are cities which are not dense at all, like Dallas, Fort Worth, or Houston or Atlanta. And, they are congested, but in a certain way they function relatively well. If you look at that, for me the median or the average--well, the median commuting time is very important in a large city and it should be monitored, by the way, very carefully. And, if it goes above, say, the median go above 35 minutes one way, you have a problem. You have to look at it very carefully. I have seen cities like Johannesburg where there are some people who commute two and a half hours one way. So, that means five hours commuting. This is a complete destruction of personal life. It's a complete waste of time. Russ Roberts: Well, it's good for my listeners because they have something to do: while they're sitting in traffic, they can listen to EconTalk. And a 35-minute commute is almost perfect because that means on the way out you get half--the first half of the show--and then the second, way home, you get to finish it. But they're usually so interesting, a lot of people just sit in their car for the whole hour and then they get fired and I feel bad for them. |
| 15:19 | Russ Roberts: But, you bring me to the other policy, of course, that that people use lately is congestion pricing. And that's charging people to bring their car into the central city or banning cars entirely in certain parts of the city. What are your thoughts on that as a way to reduce traffic problems? Alain Bertaud: I think that to use market--to use congestion pricing, the way it is done in Singapore--Singapore is the best city for that. They have done it for years and they have the best experience. This is completely legitimate. It's a bit, again, like pricing for a cinema. If a movie is very popular, you will put a high price. But, say you'll put a high price on Saturday night or Friday night. And, if you want to go to see the movie at 2:00 in the afternoon on a Monday, you'll pay much less. Congestion pricing is that. It's not to ban cars. It's to a bit optimize demand and supply at the same time. Unfortunately, for I think it was a case in New York when they try to do congestion pricing, you have the feeling that it's more an anti-car thing. The idea is not to ban cars or vehicles because no city can survive without vehicular traffic. Again, you have plumbers, electrician, people. If people take cars, it's because it's shorter. When I go--about twice a week, I go to Manhattan; I have an appointment there--I take my car because it's shorter. But, shorter by, I diminish by half I think. And I pay a huge price for doing that. But so, you have to balance this, demand and supply--because again, the supply of road is limited. And a car--again, a traditional car--use a lot of real estate free. But, to ban car is not a good idea. For instance, the policy now in Paris to prevent crossing the center of Paris with a vehicle unless you stop in the center, is a bad idea. It's just pushing traffic on the side of this thing. It doesn't decrease the number of cars. You will decrease the number of cars if you have much better-performing non-car traffic, like bicycles, scooters, or buses. You could have express buses or things like that. |
| 18:04 | Russ Roberts: Do you have a favorite city to spend time in? And, do you have a favorite city because it has the best policy in terms of regulation? Or a favorite--it doesn't have to be the best? Alain Bertaud: Let's say the best in terms of regulation is Singapore. Now, Singapore, by the way, has improved a lot in terms of cultural aspect, things like that. But, say--it depends. If I am a tourist, I enjoy Paris very much, or New York. Because in the center--the historical Paris--you have a very good system of subway and buses. And, it's so small in a certain way that it's nearly walkable and you have a lot of things. But, if I was working in Paris--if I look now at the labor market of Paris, I see that about 30% of the people who live in the center of Paris are commuting outside. They have jobs outside Paris. Because again, Paris control densities, not directly, but because of preserving the existing floor space. You can use the floor space the way you want, but you cannot expand it in Paris, practically, ever. Because of preserving the aspect of Paris as it was at the time of Impressionist, which was the time where Paris was really the top city in the world. So you see, here, if you are living in Paris, but you have to commute outside and you commute then sometime up to an hour, then again you have living in Paris lose a bit its attractiveness. You still have it for the weekend, you can, but it loses attractiveness. So, we have not yet found a perfect city to balance those things. In a certain way, again, Singapore does it, but Singapore now, the population is slightly growing, but it's mostly people on contract. People who are coming to Singapore on contract, whether they are at the low end or at the top end, they never become Singaporean. And, I think that again, this is linked to the land use. And so, no city that I know is perfect yet. I see a lot of the big difference also now is compared to my career, is a fertility rate. Falling in a love city of Europe for instance, and in Asia. This is a turning point and we have no experience to deal with that. Russ Roberts: Say that again. Falling what? Alain Bertaud: The fertility rate. Russ Roberts: Oh, fertility, yeah. Alain Bertaud: For instance, recently I was, five months ago I was in Thailand and was in Bangkok. I was asked by the government to advise on the growth of secondary cities. And suddenly I realized--I lived in Bangkok 30 years ago, the fertility rate was six. That mean every woman had six children on average. And, now the fertility rate in Thailand is 1.3. That means that the country is losing population in the long run: it's going to lose population. So, when the tide, people in the tide[?]--my client were the people from the Parliament, were representing secondary cities. When they asked me, 'We want our secondary state to grow and so that people will not all move to Bangkok.' And, I look at the demography, I say, 'Well, you don't have enough people for that.' And, the young people in the secondary city, as soon as they finish their studies, they move to Bangkok because for a young person it's much more attractive. For firm, it's the same thing. Would you move to a city which have a shrinking labor force? And, shrinking labor force mean an aging labor force. You don't have young; you have old people. In Germany for instance now, the median age of the labor force is something like 47, I think 46, 47. It's disturbing. I see this is what happened in Japan. That the large cities, Tokyo, Osaka are still growing because the young people from smaller city are growing, but particularly all the smaller city are losing population. And, that by the way, as a city doctor, I don't know how to deal with that. Russ Roberts: Yeah, well when you say there's no perfect city, it's like saying no one has perfect health either. Russ Roberts: The world is a complex place, and the body is complicated and the city is complicated. We have the same issue here in Israel. The government wants lots of people to live in a spread out way and they all want to live in Tokyo [?Tel Aviv?--Econlib Ed.] or Jerusalem. A few want to live in Haifa; it's also a beautiful city. But, it's a serious problem and they're constantly trying think of ways to make these other cities more attractive. We do have a very high fertility rate, which helps, kind of--has other issues. |
| 23:54 | Russ Roberts: I want to go back to the comment you made about Paris. We talked about this before, but I want to hear your latest thoughts. And, it came up with Bryan Caplan. Bryan Caplan--we did an episode recently on housing and zoning. And, Bryan wants to let a thousand flowers bloom. He thinks San Francisco should have 50 skyscrapers, and let--solve the problem of high prices by the way you mentioned: by creating more land, implicitly by building higher buildings. And, one thought I had is that--and it's true about Paris and lots of other places--is that part of the charm of the reason a lot of people want to live in San Francisco is because it doesn't look like Manhattan, at least in the central part. It's got this charming, low-level buildings. And, Paris is similar. Paris has restrictions on height and it gives it the look of--it's a museum. It's a way to go back in time. And as a tourist it's fabulous. I love going there. I love seeing the way it looked in Impressionist paintings. And, there's something wonderful about preservation. One of the costs of that is that people with low skills can't live there. And, they have to spend that hour and a half or two hours commuting from very far away to be able to get into San Francisco or into Manhattan because of all the restrictions on building. And, you remind the listener that this beautiful city that you admire when you visit is very hard on people who can't afford to live there. But, are there ways--when I asked Bryan this question, he said: Well--he assumed developers would find ways to build charming buildings when they built tall buildings. I don't know. They might. There's an externality there that I don't think they'll necessarily take into account. They're not going to worry about how their building necessarily fits in with the skyline. It's not profitable generally to do that. So, on the other hand, I don't want no building being done. So, how do you balance that? When you think about an ideal policy, do you think there should be some zoning restrictions? Or of a certain kind? What are your thoughts on zoning these days and this issue of preservation versus affordability? Alain Bertaud: I think that zoning--we have to make a difference between the different type of zoning. If the zoning, the restriction of zoning--for instance, in the case of Paris, as you said, the Parisian tried to maintain Paris at the time of the Impressionist. So, we have zoning restriction like the height of building, the slope of roof, the size of windows, which are--so these are restrictions, but the restrictions are doing exactly what the objective is. They don't say, 'You cannot build high because of it's bad for the environment.' They say, 'Well, you cannot build high because the roof of Paris are what we are looking for.' So, when the regulation does exactly what it says it does, and if you are in a democratic country, I have no objection for any regulation which is even extremely restrictive, like the slope of the roof of Paris. If you have restriction like American zoning, which are literally based on completely arbitrary thing--like, for instance restricting where a restaurant can locate; imposing also the number of parking for every commerce, or things like that--the regulation has nothing to do with the objective. You cannot even find the objective. You know, that there are in New York, some commercial zoning where you can sell bicycles but you cannot repair them in the same thing. The zoning. Restrictions like that, absolutely not. By the way, in Paris--one of the advantages of Paris is the lack of--you have zoning for the structure of the building, but not for the use. You can have a lawyer living on the third floor of a residential building, for instance, and have an office there. You can open a bakery anywhere in Paris--on the sidewalk, anywhere. Russ Roberts: I think I have a suspicion about what the objective is, sometimes. Sometimes the objective is to keep out competition. It's not some lovely ideal about how the city should work or how it should look, right? Alain Bertaud: Yes. Yes, yes. Basically, I was in Vancouver recently. Vancouver is a beautiful city, also very pleasant. Mountains, beautiful. It's well-run, also. It's clean, it's wonderful. So, the people who live there, they appreciate it so much that they are against any possible change because it works so well. Don't fix it if it works. But, no city can survive without changing. The world around us is changing, our demography is changing, the technology is changing; and so you have to adapt to that. I think that, in a way Paris survives because historical Paris, which is really restricted, is two and a half million people, but is surrounded by eight million people who work really hard and have very little of the benefit of Paris. But, again, you have this very large labor market which do not benefit from going to the opera or having those fancy restaurants. And so, you have a mix of things. How do you adapt to that? How do you improve, for instance, the access of people who live in suburbs to the high density of amenities that you have in the center of Paris? By the way, heavily subsidized by the central government. It's not the Parisians who will pay for the opera or the Comité Français: It's a French taxpayer. |
| 30:38 | Russ Roberts: But, there are some features of cities of sufficient density. And, I think about--you know, when you're in London, it feels like--and it's close to true--that every block has a pub. And in Paris, every block has a cafe. And, here in Jerusalem, every block has a coffee shop. The crazy thing about Jerusalem is: a new coffee shop opens. Within a short period of time, it's packed. It's: all the tables are taken on a Friday between 10:00 and 2:00, and many other days around the middle and in the beginning. And, the other ones are still packed. It's like there's an insatiable demand for Jerusalemites and Tel Avivians--Israelis--to sit and drink coffee and talk to their friends. And, it doesn't matter how many there are: there's always room for another one somehow. Which suggests there's something restraining the quantity to start with. But, when you have that density of amenities--coffee shops, bars, pubs, restaurants, dry cleaners, and so on--you create that walkable city that is charming and pleasant both to live in and to visit. And I wonder--many American cities do not have that. Manhattan has it because it's very dense, but very few cities are as dense as Manhattan. And many cities struggle to have their downtowns--in America--to be functional at all. What do you think explains that? Why is it that European cities and New York, but very few other American cities have the density that allows that kind of dynamic amenity availability? Alain Bertaud: Because American restrict density more than any other cities in the world, American cities. You have zoning with a minimum load size, which is usually large. You have the floor ratio which limits the amount of floor space you can build on those large floors. Basically, most American city are zoned for single-family housing. Single-family housing, especially if they are on relatively large lots, do not have--if I wanted to operate a French café or a Viennese Café or a Tel Aviv café in my neighborhood, I will not survive because within walking distance there are just not enough people. And then, if they have to drive, then there are not enough parking for people to come to my café. So, then you don't have it. So, you have your coffee in your house, and you will watch television instead. Russ Roberts: Now, of course, you have a very large house in America because land prices-- Alain Bertaud: You have very large house, yeah-- Russ Roberts: Land prices outside the city are relatively low because it's a big country and there's lots of undeveloped land. But, here's the question now. You're very wise. I've learned a lot from you. I'm somewhat intelligent. But this is not rocket science, right? These restrictions that you're talking about, they are pretty easy to understand. And, why is it that American cities have adopted those density restrictions? Those restrictions that reduce density when--and I would just add: density is very good for environmental effects. It's a greener city that's dense; and yet somehow American government doesn't hear that. What's going on there? Any ideas? Alain Bertaud: Yes. There is a cultural aspect in people. Market is driven by culture. People are shocked when I say that sometime, but they are driven by culture. I think that American still have the spirit of the frontier, where you will move West. I mean, maybe it's a myth, but it's in the spirit. So, they value the size of housing-- Russ Roberts: For sure-- Alain Bertaud: much more than Europeans do. And, they value also having a piece of land around their house, for some reason. You know, in the town where I'm living, there's a lot of pressure from the state to build some townhouses. We are about 20 minutes from Manhattan; and the entire town resists that very much. They think that townhouses are kind of like if they were immoral or that they will bring the wrong type of people. Let's face it. And, I'm not talking here about--you know, I've been in the zoning board, attending the zoning board meetings several times, and I don't think it's now anymore racism. It's just that people will have a different income from themselves; and they don't want people higher income. They don't want people from lower income. They think it will disturb the social balance of the city for some reason. That's why they fight, again, so-called McMansion, which are just larger houses, but do not bother anybody, frankly. And, they will fight against townhouses because they figure out the people who can--the townhouses will be cheaper than the single-family house and therefore it will be the wrong type of people. The people who are not like us, let's say. But that again, I think it come from the frontier spirit: that you wanted to move out. It could be also if you are not used to go regular meeting your friend in a café, you don't see the need for it. And, that's why in Paris you will find rather wealthy people living in apartments of 60 square meters. And, for them the trade-off is that okay, they live in 60 square meters, but they can walk to 100 very wonderful restaurants. They can meet friends, things like that. So, it's a trade-off based on culture. You cannot change--I mean culture change slowly but very slowly. |
| 37:16 | Russ Roberts: I mean, it's an interesting question. As an economist, I tend to look at things like prices, monetary prices, and time price. And, as I was suggesting earlier, America has lots of land relative to, say, Europe. It explains partly why Americans love cars more than Europeans. Why Americans aren't as eager to ride trains because to go on a train any long distance in America, as opposed to some other in Europe, is very far. And so, you might not find that as appealing. But, my children, some of whom are urbanists and minimalists, take your tack. They argue that if Americans tasted this--had a taste of these different amenities--they might choose differently. My case is interesting. I grew up--most of my adult life, I've lived in suburbs. I now live in a city and I can walk to many things. I can walk to the theater, I can walk to restaurants, I can walk to coffee shops and bars. I don't own a car for the first time in my life and I love it. And, my sons and daughter might say, 'Oh, you see, if we had American cities were more like European cities, Americans would discover how much they liked them.' Now, I think I'm an exception. I don't think that's necessarily true, for whatever reason, whether it's cultural or incentive-based. I think Americans have a different set of preferences about the amenities that they want to enjoy. And, they like their backyards; they like suburban living. They don't view it as an abomination or a curse. But, I do think where I agree with you is that I think they'd like to meet their friends for a drink or a coffee and find out it's pretty nice if they could walk. And, most Americans can't. A lot of them can't because they're in the suburbs. Alain Bertaud: Well, they invite their friends to watch sports, for instance, for the Super Bowl or something like that. They have a barbecue or something like that. But, it doesn't replace the European cafe or the New York cafe or the San Francisco cafe. I recently read a fantastic book about the Viennese and how many ideas came out from the Viennese cafe and people--because it was also at the time the center of the Habsburg Empire. So, people were very different were coming to Vienna different. And, for instance, at a certain time they were talking about Schumpeter having a discussion with Weber in a cafe. Schumpeter saying that the Bolshevik revolution was a great thing because it was a way of experimenting with the socialist system. It will show that it doesn't work. And, Weber was very upset and say, 'Well, but million of people will die.' And, Schumpeter saying, 'Well, that's the price of ideas.' So, you see this fertilization through random encounters. That's what I like in New York--that's why I go to Manhattan from time to time, is to meet people. Russ Roberts: Well, it's a very sad thing that you mentioned earlier. I have to say in passing--I don't know if you're a baseball fan, Alain; you probably didn't grow up with baseball-- Russ Roberts: But, one of my all-time favorite writers and thinkers is Bill James; and he--on this program--mentioned that he was once a Little League coach. Having Bill James as a Little League coach is very strange. Having Alain Bertaud at a zoning meeting must also be strange. You probably don't get any respect, I'd guess. Alain Bertaud: Well, they consider me a bit as a Martian. But, in a way, my French accent helps. They say, 'Well, with a guy with an accent like that, you cannot expect him to agree with us.' Russ Roberts: But, the part that's interesting and sad is that: The idea that people don't want to be around people who are different from them--I mean, I understand the human part of human nature--but then, you can't have an economist and a sociologist sometimes at a cafe because you need to have some friction and encounters and bumping-into of different kinds of people. And, that's the charm of a city. And, the idea that we want to be around people just like us--especially income-wise, financially--is very sad, seems like. Alain Bertaud: I completely agree. I think that the big contribution of cities is precisely randomness. That's why, by the way, remote work doesn't work that well in the long run. It's because if you go to work from time to time, at least maybe not every day to an office, you meet people--you meet the people you have to meet, but you may meet people randomly. When I was with the World Bank, that was the case. At the cafeteria, I will meet somebody was for instance, specializing in garbage removal, in refuse disposal. And then, we discuss with them and suddenly it become very interesting for me, things that I didn't realize. For instance, our disposing of garbage affect land prices in the area around it, things like that. I say, 'Hey, yes, this is interesting.' So, you see, it stimulates the mind to meet people and it has to be random. If everything is structured, it's a terrible thing. One of the worst--well, for instance, Sartre, Huis Clos--No Exit--Hell are the others. It's because there's no randomness. People are stuck in the room and forever. This is hell. And so, there's no randomness. They know already everybody and they will be with them. The other book like that is One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Solzhenitsyn. He described--again, there is no randomness there. Life is completely structured every day. And, all his life, I mean until he dies, will be exactly the same. A city is just the opposite. You don't know what to expect. You don't know who you will meet. And, it's precisely because you meet people who are different from you, who have different ideas. Sometime even it could be obnoxious people. I think obnoxious people are necessary, too. I mean, what I consider obnoxious are necessary in order to stimulate. Well, it give you in the same way as ugliness is necessary, if you can identify beauty. Russ Roberts: Yeah, for sure. Alain Bertaud: And, you have that again when people meet together. That's why cities have always been the source of philosophy, new ideas, technology, and innovation. Is because this shock of people, even if these people do not always like each other. If I go in a crowded street in Manhattan sometime I find people not very pleasant, frankly, in their behavior, but that's part of life. You don't want to live in a paradise. Kind of what it was called, The Truman Show. Where everybody--something like that, is terrible. Russ Roberts: One of my favorite movies--it's a fantastic movie--The Truman Show. |
| 45:24 | Russ Roberts: In one of my books--I think it's The Invisible Heart--I write about the fisherman who dies and goes to heaven. And he finds himself in a beautiful stream. He's got his waders on. He has a fly rod in his hand. He makes a perfect cast. And, a beautiful trout rises to his fly, and he reels him in, and it's a 14-inch rainbow trout. It's gorgeous. And, he thinks, 'Oh.' He can't get over how exciting and wonderful this is. And he puts the trout in his creel. And he casts again--another beautiful cast. Another fish rises; he pulls him in; it's a 14-inch rainbow trout. And after about the 10th time, he realizes he's not in heaven. He's in the other place: he's in Hell. And, it's a really interesting question. You think about obnoxious people--obviously I don't think you mean cruel people. But-- Russ Roberts: People who-- Alain Bertaud: I would say rude. Lack of civility, I would say. Russ Roberts: Yeah. People whose rough edges have not been rubbed off often produce both great things and stimulate thoughts in other people, not intentionally necessarily. but that's a great thing. |
| 46:44 | Russ Roberts: Before we move to another topic, I just want to highlight something you said a few minutes ago because it's one of the deepest things I know about urban life that I learned from you. You mentioned in passing, you said: a person might want to live in a 60-square-meter apartment, which is very small. So, have a small place which can be challenging. But get to enjoy the amenities around them of, say, theater, jazz, coffee, wine, restaurants, friends, and the random encounters we're talking about--because there are thousands of others. Thomas Wolfe called it the Man's Mormon[?]. Its many-footed weft--I think is the phrase he used--when he was on the streets of Manhattan. But, you made the point the first time we talked--it's in your book, I think also--how often there are restrictions on minimum size for apartments, in theory to protect people from choosing and living under very cramped conditions. But, instead what we've done is we've forbidden them from choosing an option that would be relatively inexpensive that they could afford and then have the amenities that surround that small apartment. And, as a result of those restrictions, an apartment building which could have 50 people in it will instead have 10. And, the price of any one of those 10 units is many times more because of the footprint issue. So, you can talk about that. I just love that. I think listeners should understand it because it's profound. Do you want to add anything about that? I've just stolen all your ideas. Alain Bertaud: Yes. For instance, even in Manhattan now, we have, for instance, regulations which have a maximum number of dwelling units per acre within--on top of all the others things, the minimums. So that means that, and those were, so basically it was a way of controlling densities. Because again, planners didn't realize that land is more expensive than a sewer system. You know, if you have more density in an area, you will have to review your water and sewer system. But this is not very costly. You can add a new pipe, compared to developing new land 20 kilometers away. So this, again, it's a question of trade-off. Architects and engineers are not used to make trade-off between the price of building materials and land. Economists understand that. Engineers have a difficulty doing it. So, they always say, 'Oh, but if we have more densities, we will have to add a water pipe. We have to increase the debit of water.' It's feasible. We do it all the time. It's not a big thing and it's much less. So, we do the wrong[?long?] trade-off there. And, many people are not aware of that. Because if you look at the zoning, the way it's expressed in this minimum, maximum number of dwelling units per acre, for instance. It means that if a developer realizes that, for instance, in some area there is a large demand for studio or, say, one-bedroom apartment, he will very soon go above the maximum number of dwelling unit per acre, and then he will not be able to use the full height which he is allowed to build. So, he doesn't do it, of course. And so, he provide larger apartments even if there is no demand for it. So, the people will have to, they will live there. So, these are hidden things. We should have an audit of the zoning, a complete audit, to remove these things which make no sense anymore. |
| 51:01 | Russ Roberts: Yeah, I mean, it's an important thing to understand when people criticize an urban city and say, 'Well, there's no housing for poor people, so obviously the market fails here,' without understanding that it once succeeded very well in New York. New York used to have a much wider range of apartments, sizes, prices, and quality. And, it's perfectly rational to build only fancy apartments if you've made it regulations that make that the appealing thing rather than what people would choose in a more free system. I would just observe on this question of minimum size of space per person in a unit: I have some personal experience, which I will not name names, but it's my understanding that in cities like New York, people find ways to get around this by building little--putting up walls that didn't come with the building to start with. And, I suspect that the monitoring of some of those regulations is imperfect. And, more people are living in a higher density in a unit than it was originally intended for--I suspect. Alain Bertaud: Yes, it is absolutely true. There is even a paper which was written nearly anonymously by an urban planner from New York some years ago which was explaining how especially some communities managed to buy existing apartments or houses and then illegally subdivide them. And, the assessment of this planner is that most of the real affordable housing--affordable to low income people--were provided by those illegal subdivision. Russ Roberts: Absolutely. Alain Bertaud: And so, unfortunately, because it's illegal, there are certain things--and for instance, you are not able to build a real kitchen. So, people have a kitchen in what was a bedroom, and then sometime the ventilation or there are certain things which are not good. And so, you have accident. You can see it even I remember--well, in New York. But, I remember in Paris from time to time you see that there is a fire in a central Paris, in an apartment in an area which very expensive. And then you realize that in this apartment there were 12 people living in it. And, it's an apartment of maybe 80 square meters. So, this is, again, the way people react by doing things illegally. But, by doing things illegally, you lose first a lot of protection. If you are a tenant, of course you have no protection whatsoever. And then, there are some regulations about fire or ventilation which are useful. My argument are the regulations which restrict consumption that you can see: You can see where your house is located, you can see how much land it occupies--whether it's high rise or it's a thing--and you can see how much floor space you have. You can judge by yourself. You cannot decide yourself whether, if there is a fire, this house will disappear in 10 minutes and you will burn. That you cannot decide. So, here you need a regulation. But, I don't see that you should have any regulation putting a minimum on your consumption of floor space or land. If you are in a city where you have people who are malnourished--for instance, you know that you have 20% of people who are malnourished because--to put a regulation saying, 'Well, everybody should have at least eat 2,000 calories a day,' is not going to solve the problem. This is what we are saying exactly when we say the minimum apartment in New York--I think now is I think it's 42 meters, 42 square meters. When I arrived in New York as a young immigrant 60 years ago, I was living in a old-law[?] tenement, which has been subdivided; and it was wonderful. There was my wife and a young kid. I think the UN [United Nations] statistic will have considered that as a slum because we were three persons with only one room and a kitchen. But, it was wonderful. It was a trade-off we were making to live in Manhattan and then have the life of Manhattan as a young immigrant. We could meet a lot of people. And, we managed very well with the furniture and everything to push it around the wall and have the minimum things to live there. It was a trade-off we were making. And of course, now I will not make the same trade-off. I will make a different one. But, it should be allowed. Russ Roberts: Yeah. A lot of the books behind me [see YouTube video--Econlib Ed.] are because they don't fit in my new apartment in Jerusalem, compared to my old house in Maryland. But, I'm very happy with that trade-off, and I like having my books here, too. All I'm saying is they're not all economics, as you can see. Many wise observers have noticed the Churchill up there and other things, who can see this on YouTube. |
| 56:41 | Russ Roberts: Let's close and talk about slums. You mentioned to me before we started recording that there are these things--you gave the example of Bogota--that are best described as spontaneous cities. What's happening there? What's happening in Bogota and other cities like it? Alain Bertaud: Well, Bogota, as every city, has minimum standards for land development and which are not affordable to a large number of people. However, people go to Bogota because that's where they found work. And, in the case of Bogota also, for a long time it was much safer to be in Bogota than to be in the countryside because of the problem with the FARCs [Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia/Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia]. So, Bogota grew; and it's also economically very successful, so you can find job. But then, where do those people go? We cannot. In the south of Bogota, there were quarries--they have mountains, very steep mountain--and there were stone quarries. So, they were one road going up to the quarry to get the stone. Eventually stone come from somewhere else; and there was no competition with the middle class to use this land because, again, it was too steep and very difficult to develop using normal regulations. So, people start occupying it just by themselves. That means having very narrow streets and having a lot of houses accessible by staircases. Instead of having every apartment with the bottom of the apartment contact with streets, the apartment will lead to a pedestrian street with a staircase. They eventually developed this enormous thing with only one road, which was the truck--the road that kind of going up and down. And, they ended up with 700 to one million people living there. It's called Ciudad Bolivar. You find there a complete mix of income. You find shops everywhere, cafes. Even at the very top, I had a latte with a quite decent croissant, actually, in what I appreciated. Russ Roberts: And, that's saying something coming from a Frenchman. Alain Bertaud: That's right. Russ Roberts: That means something. Alain Bertaud: So, it's a criterion, you see, of diversity. And so, you find a lot of middle- and high-middle-income people living there now in some area--you see from the houses. And, you find also people who are very poor who start, they start with really a shack of a few bamboos and a tarpaulin. And then, you start average. You see that they are storing bricks--their saving is in bricks. They come on their back, they carry 20, 50 bricks. Eventually you see that this is transforming to a brick house after some time. But, this is possible only if they can select their own standards from the beginning. Russ Roberts: Are there police or other things that prevent people from stealing those bricks? It is an informal place, right? Alain Bertaud: Yes. By the way, what is interesting now compared to what would have happened 20, 30 years ago, is that the local government recognize the usefulness of a development like that. Although they don't know how to handle it--they don't know how to promote it. But so, they use benign neglect. But, they have no problem eventually bringing the sewer system there. There's a sewer system which works. They pave streets They do a lot of things. And, recently they realized this only road connecting in a way one million people to the rest of Bogota, was not enough. It's extremely congested, very, very. If you are at the top, it will take probably an hour and a half just to get out of the neighborhood because there is only one road. So, they now establish a terrific--a gondola system. And, I took it. I was a bit skeptical at the beginning. I took it; and they connect the gondola to the transit system in Bogota, the TransMilenio, which is a BRT [Bus Rapid Transit], one of the most efficient BRT in the world. And, you can even buy only one ticket. When you take the gondola, it's one ticket and it give you access to the--you can have access to the center of the city through the BRT. So, in a way, now the government do not part--do not allow it legally, but when this is, they integrate them. And that's the best attitude. I've seen that also in Brazil, in Florianopolis. Again, they have some crazy regulations and the minimum plot size is--what, 350 square meters--a magic number like that. And, there are a lot of middle class people who are living there who are developing land illegally, but having very, very nice houses built by contractor. The only problem, again, is how do you link this when those settlements become large--in the case of Florianopolis, I think we are talking about 200, 300,000 people--how do you connect that to the rest of the labor, of the labor market? And, those informal developers are good at developing a few houses or few apartments. They have no possibility of having a main road which will link them to a transport system or where a bus can pass. So, this is where I think that's what I'm working with the municipality in Brazil, is to deal with this type of problem. |
| 1:03:05 | Russ Roberts: Let's close with one last question. You've been in this business for a long time. You tell in your book, Order Without Design, you tell some of the stories of urban mistakes and successes from a long, long time ago. How have things changed in this world? One of the things--I think we talked about it off-air is, or maybe in your old episode--is sprawl. Sprawl was a big thing. It's probably still a big thing, but I don't know if people are as focused on it as they were. So, there's these fads and trends in urban issues. What has changed? What's important in those changes that you see? And, am I right? Is it very active? Alain Bertaud: Yes, there is enormous change. I will say up to the 1970s, there was an anti-urban bias for some reason. Everywhere. In Europe, in Asia, in Latin America, people thought that there was an optimum size of cities and cities where more than a million or two million are impossible to manage. And therefore, migrants coming to those city because there were more opportunities in the big city than in the smaller one, were to be punished--let's say, by ostracize. Not providing schools in informal settlements, not providing water, not removing the garbage. So, to discourage them from coming. And then, they realize--I think what has changed now that I think most mayors realize that people are useful. People are important. And, they realize also, now they learn, that people will come from the countryside without much--they have skill which are useful in the countryside, but not skill in the cities--that those people, if they are integrated rapidly in the urban economy, they are very useful. They are the one who are working in restaurants. They are the one who are cleaning the streets. They are the one who are cutting the trees and maintaining the thing. So, now I think there is a much more positive attitude toward cities and big cities. But, at the same time, you have what I told about Vancouver: When you are in a city which works well, you don't want it to change. So, if you don't want any change, usually you banish the younger people from the city. This what is happening in Vancouver. The young people, even professional with a good degree, very good skills, decide to go to a smaller city, much less attractive, and where they will be less productive because they cannot afford a house in Vancouver. And I think that in the long run they will realize that and there will be a modification. Plus, of course, what will affect Vancouver soon also is a demography with a low birthrate. Although the Canadians are better at managing the immigration than we are in the United States. Russ Roberts: Meaning? What do you mean by managing? Alain Bertaud: They recognize that migration is indispensable to manage our cities. A city like Toronto, Vancouver, or New York, are in a way, well-oiled machine, which are working rather well. Although we complain, we bitch about things: but they work rather well. If you compare it to Bamako [Mali--Econlib Ed.], or Jakarta, even. So, we are now--the population who live there has a low birthrate. We are losing--our population is aging. If we want to maintain our way of life, we need people coming in. They say: 'We have to manage it'; 'But we have to manage it.' And, in Europe for instance, they see migration in two way. Either they think, 'Oh, we have to be nice to those poor people. So, let them come in.' Or they say, 'Those guys are taking our jobs. They are dirtying our street. They commit crime. We don't want them. They have a different culture. We don't want them.' I think both attitudes are wrong. Most of the world now, except the Middle East and Africa, is having a negative birthrate, practically. All this come with affluence. And so, if we want to maintain our economy, at least we have to have a stable population. We have dealt with expanding population. If you look at Japan and South Korea are the most interesting society to monitor because they have been there before us. They start having a low birth rate much longer. And, frankly, we do not know yet how to manage cities which have shrinking population. Now, the big city like Seoul and Tokyo, do not shrink because the young people from the smaller city are still moving there. But, I've spent some time in some years ago in Toyama, a city in Japan, which is 700,000, and one and a half million with metropolitan area. And, the mayor explained to me the problem he had with the population was decreasing, sorry, decreasing by about 2% a year. And then, I realized that none of my nearly 60 years experience as a urbanist gave me any idea how to advise this mayor. I had no idea what to do. This was a new. It's a bit like economists dealing with deflation. We know to deal with inflation more or less, but deflation, we are a bit at a loss; and that will be the case. So, I'm sure that if we face this problem, we identify the real problem. Not putting in terms of, 'Immigrants are disturbing our country,' or, 'Immigrants, we should be nice with them because they are poor.' If we consider that this is a problem, we can face that and we can solve that. Russ Roberts: My guest today has been Alain Bertaud. Alain, thanks for being part of EconTalk. Alain Bertaud: Thank you. I'm happy to be there. |
Why are European cities charming and American cities often so charmless? Simple, says urbanist Alain Bertaud: most American cities are zoned for single-family housing. The result is not enough customers within walking distance of a business, and not enough parking for the customers who drive. Why American cities are zoned that way is related to culture and history. Hear Bertaud and EconTalk's Russ Roberts talk about urban problems and how to solve them--not through urban design or planning, but by respecting what makes each place unique.
READER COMMENTS
Schepp
Dec 23 2024 at 1:00pm
Excellent and informative Episode.
I have been a civil engineer (Texas) for 3 decades and embracer of suburban life, so I will endeavor to shed light from a different perspective, perhaps surprising support both for my option of suburbanism and the option for urbanism.
Parking is not free; it is paid for by higher prices. In a suburban community, 95% of patrons are car drivers so the distortion is not that much. Moreover, there is a trade-off, once parking is not plentiful, enforcement/operations to ensure payment are needed. Once the government is involved it is easy to see a City Counciler is going to want to set the parking minimum high, so her constituents don’t call and complain that their neighbors’ customers are parking in his parking lot.
It is a sticky wicket when planners and politicians that created the current market distortions make plans to improve the system. It is not usual for politicians and bureaucrats to reduce their control. It is interesting to note that the movie Truman was filmed in “Seaside” Florida, a legendary new urbanist development, that has extremely limited parking. The distance between utopia and dystopia is not that great.
I note in Texas, suburban counties (sprawl?) surrounding the 4 largest cities have much better traffic safety than rural areas and better than their adjacent cities.
Now for perhaps the surprising part. I believe “Seaside” is a beautiful place. I hope that many walkable, dense, no minimum size residences and no minimum parking places are built. I enjoy visiting downtown Austin, Omaha, Jackson Hole and other locations that have made their communities more densely convenient. Revising development codes to allow more locations of higher density would be great, but they should not come at the expense of destroying the highly valued suburban life many want.
PS: A few brief asides:
I loved the streets are real estate concept.
Just adding another pipe is not so easy. There are likely 8-20 utilities running down each street and determining how to upsize these to handle more density is not easy when you don’t know how much growth to account for coming.
Donald Shoup is a market making bad a$$.
Reference to fire safety, and other reasonable regulations are a tricky path. Once you start taking agencies away from the resident and placing it on to the government, it is only natural for the government to over provide safety. Any loss of life comes with a charge of government not caring, resulting in governments proclaiming no one will ever die again. This will not be achieved but will be paid for with higher regulatory and tax costs.
Mr. Bertaud’s current status of living 20 miles from NY city may indicate that he sees the value proposition of single-family suburbanism equally as much as urbanism.
Gregg Tavares
Dec 27 2024 at 11:35am
I find that most (not all) but most suburbanites have never actually experienced a good large city. There are none in the USA so if you lived in NYC or LA or Chicago or SF or Seattle or Dallas etc, then you have zero exerience of what a good urban setting is like.
Good urban settings like Tokyo, Paris, Berlin, Amsteradm, are cities that are actually walkable with a bundant and super convenient public transportation that EVERYONE uses, not just homeless people. They have tons of wonderful cafes, restaurants, pubs and other places to go, and they are QUIET, unlike USA cities, because either by culture or by law, cars access is limited.
Except for living in one for a while there’s no way to covey what’s being missed. Sure, you might still enjoy suburban life even after experiencing good urban life but a large percentage of people who experience it would choose the good urban live. Very few people would chose the bad USA urban life.
Tim Hicks
Dec 24 2024 at 8:51am
Most of the guests (maybe all) have a bias toward urban living and I wonder where the other side of that argument lies. I have lived in four major world cities, two major suburbs, and now live in a rural area (one I lived in for ten years growing up). I would choose the rural area over a city or suburb without hesitation.
I have access to two larger cities (both university towns) within an hour of my home and yet, live on a dirt road on a small lake with hiking trails outside my door that allow for hours of solitude. Technology connects me to intellectual diversity and the small towns in the area have robust art and theater groups. I’m also fortunate to have neighbors who have had global experiences.
The one item the urbanists rarely discuss is the value of sunshine and a view. I have an amazing view now and was lucky to have one when we lived in Hong Kong. The psychological impact of view cannot be underestimated.
And they (the urbanists) keep going on and on about coffee shops and restaurants. Personally, I enjoy drinking coffee at home and making my own meals. Friends and neighbors can drop by – and do – anytime.
This is my long-winded way of saying that urban live isn’t for everyone and has lots of drawbacks. I hope you’ve had a guest on that speaks to the beauty of rural live and why some of us prefer it – without sacrificing our intellectual stimulation.
Kevin Ryan
Dec 26 2024 at 6:45am
When trade-offs were mentioned several times later in the interview Sowell’s ‘there are no solutions, only trade-offs’, a recent Econtalk buzz-phrase, came to mind. It did seem to me that Alain is quite a rare interviewee on this topic to acknowledge there are trade-offs as what we normally seem to get are people who are unswervingly committed to promoting their position.
And I guess I’d also echo Tim Hicks’ point that they are nearly always aimed in one direction – promoting an agenda of denser cities, and ignoring the wishes and interests of existing, often long term, residents in favour of people who are not local but would like to live in that location, often only for a short period of time; and often using the usually wrongly specified but noble sounding YIMBY when they are really YIYBY.
The only talk I can remember in the opposite direction was one, not I think linked here, which sympathetically considered the unwillingness of people in poorer communities to move away for employment opportunities
Kevin Ryan
Dec 29 2024 at 4:36am
Yes. Thomas SOWELL was who I meant. Sorry about that.
[I’ve fixed your original and I’ll remove this comment from visibility after a day or so.–Econlib Ed.]
Comments are closed.