WEBVTT

NOTE The Private Production of Urban Planning

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The title of our paper is The Private Production of Urban Planning, and the genesis for this

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paper came back in college when I was rooming with an urban planner, a guy that was in the

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sociology department, and there was also a faculty member in the philosophy department

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where I was studying, and in any discussions that came across libertarianism, my roommate

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kind of had these quick defeaters for the whole idea of liberty and talking about what

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What about roads? What about zoning? And all the things that he was studying. He was just

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of the mindset that this is, you need a state to do it, you need a government to do it.

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It doesn't make sense to talk about liberty in certain contexts. So I've been bouncing

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ideas with Stephen, the co-author of this paper, bouncing ideas off each other about

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how we can approach this. It's easy enough to say the market will do it, but we're trying

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to start some philosophical groundwork for showing the compatibility of taking care of

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essential needs within the context of libertarianism.

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So the history of urban planning goes back as far as society has organized itself beyond

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the bare structures of family and small tribes and so on.

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Planning in those situations which is typically land use planning runs into natural organic

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Limits, as it begins to create commons, so while human society always tends to organize

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itself along the principle of community, communal everything can be economically inefficient

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at best and really an economic disaster at worst. Urban planning as a term is used almost

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exclusively today as a child of the early to mid 20th century progressive era, as people

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It is the Hobbesian central planning answer to the fundamental problems that plague our

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cities today, which ironically were caused by previous planning errors, poverty, overcrowding,

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crime, traffic, and so on. It is most often planning in the worst sense, rash economic

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and Social Assumptions packaged together and enforced on a local population by the state.

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Even worse, most planners believe that their activity serves the common good. That's why

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they're in it. In her introduction to the death and life of great American cities, Jane

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Jacobs wrote this book in the, I believe it was published in the early 60s, and by the

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way Rothbard had very high praise for this book. Jane Jacobs, very libertarian minded,

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I think without knowing it at the time she wrote the book, described urban planning as

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it existed in America at that point this way, quote, there is a wistful myth that if only

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we had enough money to spend, the figure is usually put at a hundred billion dollars adjusted

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for inflation, that's about a trillion dollars, a little less than that, we could wipe out

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all our slums in ten years, reverse decay in the great dull gray belts that were yesterday's

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Suburbs, anchor the wandering middle class and its wandering tax money and perhaps even

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solve the traffic problem. That such wonders may be accomplished, people who get marked

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with the planners' hex-signs are pushed about, expropriated, uprooted much as if they were

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subjects of a conquering power. Businesses are destroyed and their proprietors ruined

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with hardly a gesture of compensation. The economics of city rebuilding rests on vast

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Involuntary Subsidies Wrung Out of Helpless State Victims, The Means to Planned City Rebuilding

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Are as Deplorable as the Ends.

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Now, it would be easy to dedicate this paper to critiquing modern ideas of urban planning.

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And in fact, if you search in the literature, as I have, what you find is pretty much anything

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in libertarian literature that addresses urban planning takes that angle.

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It's a critique of the state and what it's doing.

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And none of this criticism is misdirected, of course, because planning has a tremendous

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impact on the day-to-day life of the population it controls.

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And we contend that this is precisely the reason why the impact of urban planning is

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precisely the reason that warns us against entrusting it to the state.

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Yet it does not follow from the follies of state urban planners that planning as such

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is incompatible with a free society within its proper limits.

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Urban planning can be defined as the science that integrates the disciplines of land use

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planning and transport planning, with sociological implications. We contend that neighborhood

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and city planning can be, is likely to be, and should be provided within the framework

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of a free market for the purposes of interpersonal, community, and human flourishing. We also

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find it a neglected topic in typical libertarian discussions, and we think that urban planning

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Planning can be mentioned as a tool of the free market, just as much as farming, manufacturing,

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security and other goods and services are. Consider two brief examples of how a libertarian

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understanding of urban planning can change libertarian discourse. The first is external.

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It gives libertarians something to cite against some of the more common objections raised

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against free market theory in general. I'm thinking of my roommate here. Just as citing

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Roads, Police or Courts often serve as defeaters of liberalism for the common man. So also

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are the following objections treated as strong counter examples to the notion of liberty.

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But how might garbage collection or fire protection work? Or what about when a brothel builds

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its house next door to me? I don't want that. Or our personal favorite, what if all of the

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One of the land surrounding my house is purchased, and then the evil owner denies me access to it, trapping me in.

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It's a crime that these easily answered objections satisfy so many, who conclude that therefore, libertarianism as such is insufficient to handle society's needs.

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But think for a moment about what is built into these objections.

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In each of these examples, someone is essentially claiming that in a free society, there will

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be no service to meet oppressing essential market demand. To our sensibilities, these

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concerns are answered by the central characteristic of the free market to maximize satisfaction

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for any given want. Yet not everyone agrees with this abstract resolution. And this objection

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is not entirely unfounded. After all, the market as an abstract entity won't take

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care of private roads, medicine or any other good or service, concrete individuals, namely

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entrepreneurs and businessmen, have to. Therefore, libertarians are wise to expound upon the

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kinds of companies or organizations that will handle individual problems and needs. Plenty

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of work has been done in this area on concerns relating to private security, roads and money

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and other goods and services. We think that a more extensive libertarian theory of urban

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and Planning will likewise provide a solid answer to legitimate questions or objections,

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and provide the substance to challenge those who think they can dismiss capitalism with

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a flippant wave of the hand.

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The second example lays entirely within our own community. Free market ideology tends

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to foster a resistance to collectivism in all of its forms. In many cases this is a

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good thing, however some libertarians under the influence of this impulse go as far to

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to reject all forms of social organization, compulsory and free, but our perspective is

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that many traditional institutions, family, organized religion, communities formed both

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by interest in geography, friendships and so on, organizations that often require individual

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sacrifices for the good of the whole are essential to a flourishing society. It is not collective

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of Efforts, or commitments that are wrong per se, providing that such relationships

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are voluntary.

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In this introduction I've laid out our bottom line.

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The rest of this paper is going to give a little bit of flesh to these preliminary claims.

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And the second section of this paper will take our appeal that planning is compatible

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with a free society and ground it more firmly in a libertarian framework, and Stephen's

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going to present that.

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And then the third and final section of this paper is going to place this argument in the

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larger context of the Eudaimonist libertarian understanding of human nature, which is an

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Aristotelian liberal tradition.

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So Stephen's going to present the next section.

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I wish I had some pictures or something up there.

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I'm sure we could show all these wonderful plans that people had 50 years ago, which

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are now slums where people live, or at least are dying.

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So that'd be really effective, but I'm a crank and I'm not very good with computers.

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So starting, essentially, underlying the permissibility for urban planning in a free society is that

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it could be voluntary, right?

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Daniel already said if there is a need, a demand that people have, then it seems to

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be a prima facie claim that there's a market that will meet that need, and certain planning

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Banking efforts seem to fall under the umbrella of needs.

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For instance, if a contractor contracts with builders, plumbers, electricians, why not

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park planners, street layers, pool builders, etc., if he does something like that, whether

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or not he acknowledges it, he's essentially undertaking something like urban planning.

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A contractor or neighborhood's customers will likely be concerned with, among other things,

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How well placed and kept up his parks are, how accessible his streets are, and how shielded

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from NIMBY concerns he is.

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NIMBY concern is an acronym for not in my backyard.

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These are concerns like brothels being built next door, airports within a measurable distance,

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or football stadiums.

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I never thought of that before, but those do not look like nice places to live.

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It is likely that customers will demand this service in a free society because they are

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by and large demanding it now.

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In the market, consumers' demands are met directly and immediately communicated to entrepreneurs

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through profit and loss.

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Unhappy customers quickly make their feelings known.

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Contrast this with the market strategy of state urban planners who advocate, quote,

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and this is from the New Urbanism Constitution, this is really great, quote, the restructuring

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of public policy and development practices to support the following principles.

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Neighborhoods should be diverse in use and population.

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Cities should be designed for the pedestrian and transit as well as the car. Cities and

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towns should be shaped by physically defined and universally accessible public spheres

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and community institutions. Urban places should be framed by architecture and landscape design

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that celebrate local history, climate ecology and building practice. It may well be that

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in free society neighborhoods should be diverse, that people would walk more and utilize mass

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that public spaces would be readily acceptable and so on, but an urban planner in a free

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society will direct resources in order to meet the demands of buyers, not expropriate

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the consumer's money to meet his personal preferences, his being the urban planner.

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So we'll look at some of these a little bit closer, see exactly how that might pan out.

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When buying a house, the obvious expectations are good plumbing and electricity, strong

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foundations, nice yard and other features of the structure and functionality of the

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building.

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Other current consumer demands, less obvious perhaps, but just as important, are the access

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to and quality of roads, parks, security, shopping centers, schools, fire protection,

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pools, etc. Still other concerns are ones that we rarely consider, but if faced with

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a problem we desperately seek to solve, here we have in mind NIMBY concerns, neighborhood

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rules, the like. These and other concerns exist today and would persist in free society.

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Without the state apparatus to take care of them, people would look elsewhere to meet

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A likely place for one to look would be his contractor or neighborhood association.

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This is because in the same way that one does not expect to call a plumber to install piping

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or an electrician to install wiring, one could just as easily not expect to have to call

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a road company in order to finish the line up to his driveway or a police agency in order

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to ensure his protection.

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In most cases, the contractor building the subdivision will have contracted this work

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Workout or the Neighborhood Association would arrange for companies to take care of it.

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The consumer buys not just a house, but a membership in a community.

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He simply has to sign the dotted line and enjoy the amenities from his purchase, either

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on a yearly contractual basis with membership dues or some other form of payment.

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In this way, the contractor or neighborhood association has essentially become an urban

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planner, even if not by title.

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This is an important distinction because this account of planning, that of entrepreneurs

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Contractors meeting the demands of consumers treats urban planning not as a separate science

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from the other sciences devoted to human living, rather, urban planning subsumes those sciences.

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Contractors who otherwise arrange the details for water and electricity will just as easily

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provide still further coordinating services in tomorrow's free society.

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Their list of services may simply have to grow or a new subvocation of construction

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will develop with its own specialists.

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Another possibility are independent urban planners who work as consultants.

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That is, specialists who focus on land, utilities, transport and mini-coronation.

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But of course, just as with the state, such bodies, if too large or too prescribed, though

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free and voluntarily entertained, could encounter such impediments as the calculation problem,

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cultural incongruity, lack of spontaneity, and other weaknesses that will drive consumers

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to stronger competitors.

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The very genius behind freely based urban planning is that buyer's concerns must be

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met.

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There is a common fallacy held even by most advocates of laissez-faire that the government

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must supply police protection as if police protection were a single absolute entity,

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a fixed quantity of something which the government supplies to all.

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This is precisely why state-run urban planning fails.

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Planning is not an absolute fixed quantity.

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Some neighborhoods will require litter to no planning, others will require extensive

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planning, intricate services to cater to the wishes of its consumers.

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One further benefit is the amelioration to NIMBY problems.

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Because most do not want to live near a strip club, at least they don't want to raise their

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family near one, or an airport or a garbage dump, the contractors will either have to

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shield their buyers through land use planning or negotiations with other contractors or

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some such thing in order to keep the peace in their neighborhood.

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Whatever the specifics, it is clear that a contractor and neighborhood association

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will have great incentives to provide these services.

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Currently, citizen's sole recourse is political action,

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a battle that consistently favors the privileged over the non-privileged

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and in no way rewards consumer preferences. Rather, it only benefits the state

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and its friends. Private planning

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accordingly will embolden a buyer such that he will not have to stand by helplessly as

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his neighborhood is infiltrated with such undesirable content.

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We have so far argued for the compatibility of, if not the inevitability of, urban planning

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within a voluntarist framework.

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It seems clear someone is going to have to make some of these decisions that urban planners

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currently take for themselves.

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It also seems clear that these decisions will tend to collectivize above the individual

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level, being organized according to neighborhoods or even small boroughs before hitting its

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natural organic limits of the commons.

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But perhaps one could object that we have simply defined away our problem, that what

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we're proposing isn't actually urban planning, it's just what contractors do, they build

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houses with amenities.

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Planning after all, as it is currently pursued, is an ostensibly sociological science. It

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takes a lot of pride in that. It is more than simply putting roads or houses here and there.

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It includes elements of architecture, culture, environmental concerns, and other issues of

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community design. We saw this exemplified in the New Urbanism Manifesto that was cited,

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planning aimed at sociological ends. Thus, one objection to what we have laid out is

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is that what we propose isn't urban planning per se and that therefore only a government

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really has the overarching reach to make planning happen.

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Well we don't think that that objection holds for two reasons.

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The first is that necessarily all planning decisions have a sociological impact.

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Just as you can't be kind of a coordinating contractor arranging quite a few services

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without also being a planner, you can't really be a planner without making what are essentially

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and these sociological decisions. Contemporary urban planning seeks to preserve local culture

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and prevailing sociology, often with a few nanny state improvements. But it has removed

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the power to do so from the individuals themselves, the way it's sort of worked up until the rise

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of the state. Planning, architecture and culture all came before the state. They often persist

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in spite of the state. And so there's good reason to think that it would flourish after

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The second reason is that we see a larger framework to free market urban planning than merely connecting garbage collectors with clients, or constructing enough parks per set of neighborhoods.

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Because planning necessarily impacts social conditions, there is an aspect to the science that must serve human beings' ultimate end of what Aristotle called eudaimonia,

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Human beings are what Aristotle calls the political animal that is a social animal, and as a result, we only find our fulfillment in connection with what he called the polis, or the community.

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The Aristotelian approach to praxeology tells us that society, that is, community, is a good to be pursued. It is not an arbitrary burden that can be easily rejected.

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This framework allows libertarians to go on the offensive with respect to many of the so-called commons objections that opponents of the free market site.

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This includes everything we have discussed from roads, parks, community shared goods and services, and fire and security protection and the like.

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But there is a wider implication to our argument than the mere fact of planning's compatibility with libertarianism.

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If it is the case that planning decisions cannot be sociologically neutral, then it follows that there is a proper science of urban planning to be pursued with the end goal of contributing to individual and social flourishing.

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There are some thinkers and authors who have begun this groundwork. Jane Jacobs, for example, critiques planning in The Death and Life of Great American Cities, but the book contains a series of insightful observations on just how well-functioning cities accomplish important social functions.

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and Social Functions. To cite but a few examples, she explores how sidewalks reinforce bounds

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for privacy while also encouraging healthy relationships among neighbors and safely incorporating

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children into city life. She cites how cities organically promulgate diversity, mixed uses

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for buildings, and naturally tend towards the right balance of population density. Peter

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Gordon, a sociologist working at a USC, is another good example of someone doing this

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Now the majority of our examples lend themselves to imagery of new construction and suburbs.

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But the reality of urban planning in America today is that the greatest volume of work

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lies in already existing residential zones that need a lot of work addressing decaying

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inner cities and revitalizing failed planning districts.

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We maintain that, just as the state, through its urban planners, was the agent of destruction

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for American Cities, so also it cannot be the entity that brings renewal to the places

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that it has destroyed. And it is for this reason that a libertarian theory of urban

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planning and libertarian minded urban planners are essential components for a possible future

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of flourishing communities in America. Thank you.