Haters of Profit

ExxonMobil just announced record profits of $10 billion for Q4 2005,
and the local news radio station hit the streets this morning to get
the reaction of passersby. The reporter said most people dropped
their jaws and/or shook their heads. One person who was interviewed
said, "There's really no need for them to make that much money. It's
making it harder and harder for average people to afford gas. They
really ought to get the prices back down to a more fair market level.
But they're not going to do that -- I heard the guy the other day
testify in Congress that if they set the price too low, they won't
produce as much, so they're just blackmailing us."

Wow. Where to start? Let's unpack each of these statements:

"There's really no need for them to make that much money." So there's
an acceptable level of profit, and above that it's unacceptable? One
of the reasons our country has prospered is its unprecedented
entrepreneurial vitality. And entrepreneurship, because of its
greater risks, requires greater returns. But you might say, forget
the higher returns if it means fat profits for fat cats and high
energy costs for the common man. Well, look at your 401k or
equivalent retirement savings vehicle sometime. If you're a cop,
teacher, firefighter, or any number of countless jobs in which you can
save for retirement through your paycheck, I'll bet you ExxonMobil is
in the portfolio. Which means the reason they make money is to enrich
their shareholders. Including you.

"It's making it harder and harder for average people to afford gas."
Maybe you should do what rational people do when the price of
something they guy goes up: buy less of it, and/or buy something else
instead. The reason we have suburban sprawl, traffic congestion, and
bad pollution is that gas is artificially cheap. Gas should be more
expensive, not less. And if that affects your pocketbook, use public
transit or walk or pool errands. (I make an exception for home
heating: even after you turn down the thermostat and weatherproof your
house, you're still looking at a bill that many people struggle to
afford, and with no alternatives to choose into. But home gas
companies have assistance programs for these situations.)

"They really ought to get the prices back down to a more fair market
level." Um, what do you think "fair market level" means? It means
what is set in an open market between buyers and sellers, absent of
price controls imposed by governments. If you really want to get
"fair market level," add in the true cost of gas: pollution,
congestion, highway fatalities, road construction/maintenance. I bet
you'll arrive at about $5-10 per gallon, or what people pay in every
other part of the world except North America and oil countries.
People don't really want "fair market," what they want is
"ridiculously, artificially, irresponsibly cheap."

"But they're not going to do that -- I heard the guy the other day
testify in Congress that if they set the price too low, they won't
produce as much, so they're just blackmailing us." I wasn't old
enough to understand back then the oil shortages of the 1970's, but I
understand them now: when you artificially set the price too low,
suppliers have less incentive to sell so they sell less. And the
difference between demand and supply leads to long lines and irate
consumers. And oil companies are motivated by profit to drill for new
sources and to get more efficient in their extraction; take away the
motivation, and not only will we have less oil now, but we'll have
less oil later.

OK, I'm done.

Quantifying the Supply of Retail Business in a Neighborhood

If the current demand for a particular good is greater than the
current supply of that good, then there's a business opportunity to
supply that good. In one of my classes, we're learning how to
quantify these discrepancies between supply and demand. One of my
roles in a group project I'm working on this week is to quantify the
retail supply of apparel and home furnishings in a particular
neighborhood in West Philadelphia. So this morning, I hit the road as
soon as the sun was up to walk the streets of my assigned region,
counting relevant stores and measuring store sizes. My region is
supposed to be a one-mile radius from a particular address, so as you
should know from geometry class, the area is pi r squared, or about 3
miles. Almost as soon as I started walking, I thought to myself,
"This is going to take forever; I should've driven or at least rode my
bike."

But I continued to walk. As I zigzagged through the streets, I
noticed a lot more than the apparel and home furnishings categories.
I marveled at how many nail and hair salons there were. I made note
of the many non-business institutions: churches, health-related
entities, educational facilities. I studied the architecture of the
homes. I was impressed by how many different kinds of ethnic shops I
came across. I sensed subtle changes in the mood of different places,
like every block had its own unique flavor.

By the time I was done, I was glad I walked instead of biking or
driving. Because when you walk blocks, you really get a sense of the
vibe of a place. The only thing that would've been better would've
been to have walked the blocks during a time people were out. But
walking them early on a Saturday morning was enriching, too, if
anything to strip away the people and the hustle and bustle, and be
able to take in the streetscape in a different way.

The Problem of Having Too Much Money

After spending the first half of the decade in the red, the City of
Philadelphia had a budget surplus in 2005 and is budgeting another,
larger one for 2006. Credit an expanding economy, the local real
estate boom, and a climate that might actually be getting friendlier
to business.

You'd think that bringing in more money than you take in would be
great, but it does come with its problems. For one, Mayor Street has
spent most of his term in office using the budget deficit to drive his
political persuading: cautioning against further cuts in business
taxes, pressuring agencies to tighten their belts, even using
reductions in cuts as negotiating chips with other local power
brokers. Also, with the extra cash comes a whole line-up of
politicians hat-in-hand, declaring that to not use the surplus to
support their pet issue would be irresponsible, short-sighted, and/or
morally wrong.

I understand that public finances are a political game, so perhaps it
is unfair for me to say this, but what about doing the kinds of
prudent things that individuals and families do when they bring in
more money than they spend? Instead of just raising their standard of
living, they pay down debt or set up a college fund or put some in a
rainy day jar. If they're going to spend instead of save, it'll be
for stuff like a new kitchen or replacement windows, things that they
can derive enjoyment from but that also increase the value of their
property. And maybe one nice dinner out with the kids, to celebrate.

Similarly, Philly would do well to do municipal equivalents of these
kinds of things. They can set up rainy day funds and do other fiscal
things to improve their credit rating, which allows them to borrow
money for things like bridges and parks at a cheaper interest rate.
They can start hacking away at their long and growing list of deferred
maintenance projects, which left longer undone can erode city assets
and diminish quality of life for residents. Or they can lower taxes
or do other things which eat into the surplus in the short run but
which attract residents and businesses for the long run.

The trouble with getting any of these things done is that they are all
things that make sense in the long run. But the people who propose
and haggle and vote and implement are all elected or appointed in
short-term cycles. It seems, then, that we are destined to substitute
short-sighted deal-making for the kinds of prudent choices smart
families make? But wait a minute, who votes in these politicians?
That's right, you and me. And if we plan to be in Philly for a bit,
or even if we don't but we love it and want it to be set up for
decades to come, we should let our elected officials know how we want
and don't want that surplus to be spent.

Web Cafe

One of the three classes I'm taking this semester is outside my
program. It's a Wharton class and it's in Wharton's building. Having
graduated from Wharton undergrad, albeit over ten years ago, you'd
think I'd be at least somewhat oriented. But I still feel like a bit
of an outsider, or perhaps freshman is more accurate. For example,
the class list has been passed around at the beginning of every class.
I didn't realize the prof was using it to take attendance, so when I
didn't initial next to my name for the first three classes, I almost
got dropped from the course!

One nice wrinkle to Wharton classes is access to Web Café. Each class
has a space on Web Café, where assignments are housed and people can
post articles and other musings. Since the class has already spurred
me to post four entries on my blog in the first two weeks, I decided
to cross-post them on Web Café as well – some as new discussions and
some as contributions to ongoing ones.

While our prof certainly encourages us to use the site, it occurs to
me that Web Café ought to be more required for classes. After all,
there's only so much you can get out of three hours a week of class,
no matter how thorough the lectures are and no matter how stimulating
the discussions are. The most effective way many people gain a deeper
understanding of a topic is to have dialogue around it, especially as
it relates to real-world issues and recent articles. What better
mechanism than something like a Web Café to post musings, have
arguments, and learn from one another?

Why I Like the Cira Centre

The Cira Centre is a brand-new skyscraper above 30th Street Station in
University City. Thanks to its status as a tax-free zone, it will be
inhabited by companies who will benefit the most from such breaks:
high-end service providers like law firms and financial advisors.

People disagree on whether its architecture is sleek or sloppy, but
that's not the conflict I want to talk about. There has been a lot of
opposition towards this project from its inception, and as one who
knows of the people who have brought it into being and heard their
rationales, I want to offer my reasons why I like the project.

But first, the dissenters. On the one side, you have the
left-wingers, for whom this looks like a huge tax break for the rich,
much like the tax-free zone at 17th and Market is benefiting Philly's
biggest big boy, Comcast. On the other side, if you're a libertarian,
you're protesting that government subsidies distort the free market's
ability to efficiently arrive at the optimal mix of firms and
locations. Then you have owners of other Center City office
properties, who (correctly) assume this new building will attract
existing downtown tenants rather than drawing new business tenants
from outside the city.

I appreciate the agendas of both the left-wingers and the
libertarians, and the potential loss of business by the other Center
City property owners, and yet still I am in favor of the project. My
angle is that many of these Center City firms would, absent a project
like the Cira Centre, move to the suburbs – if not now, then
eventually. Instead now, they'll be downtown, where they and their
clients and other visitors have easy mass transit access to their
offices. So not only is the city stemming some of the bleeding of
activity and tax base, but the region is stemming some of the swelling
of sprawl and congestion and pollution.

Maybe tomorrow I'll write about why I like the Comcast project. In
the meantime, left-wingers, libertarians, and Center City property
owners, please put forth your arguments so I can learn from you.

Me and a Table Part Ways

Today, I donated to a local non-profit an eight-foot folding table
that was sitting in our soon-to-be dining room but had no place in our
future decorating scheme. Big deal, right? Well, after the table was
taken away, my wife asked me, "Did you cry?" For you see, this table
and I go quite a ways back.

The table was actually owned by InterVarsity Christian Fellowship on
the PENN campus. It was used at the beginning of the school year, set
up at a busy intersection with Bibles and pamphlets and a sign-up
sheet, and staffed by rotations of fellowship members eager to talk to
passersby about joining the group. Because it was littered with
various Christian books, it became known as "the IV Book Table." I
don't know if I ever visited the IV Book Table myself my freshman year
– I got plugged into the fellowship through a friend of a friend – but
I certainly spent my share on the other side of the table my
sophomore, junior, and senior years. Those were times of
anticipation, of good conversations with people on the other side of
the table, and of catching up with whoever was paired with me on the
same side of the table.

The table itself was retired from its purpose after my senior year,
when it was decided that a lighter card table was easier to lug around
than a metal folding table. By then, I was a volunteer staff member
for PENN IV, living in the senior staff members' house with four other
full-time or volunteer staff. There were four male staffers including
me, and we only had one big room and one small room at our disposal.
Since we only used our bedrooms for sleeping, we decided to move our
four desks into the big room. Now we just had to figure out how to
get four beds and four dressers into the one small room. Enter the
eight-foot folding table. Laid flat across two dressers, I could
sleep on top of it and another person could sleep underneath it. A
bunk bed took care of the other two gents, and we were good to go.

Several years later, after the senior staffers had left PENN IV and
moved away, I was among a group of people commissioned to clean their
house after it was sold. We were told we could take anything in it
that we wanted, and I called dibs on the eight-foot table. It was
moved into the house I had just bought with my wife, and it served as
our first desk – we sat side-by-side. Later, we moved it to our guest
room so that guests would have ample room to put their belongings.

But our guest room became a baby room last year, and so we had to move
the table out into the dining room. And when the dining room got
repainted earlier this month in preparation for buying a dining room
table, something we have been without for five-plus years in this
house now, we decided it was time to get rid of the table.

I laughed when Amy asked me if I cried as the table was living our
house and my possession. But then I thought about it and I told her
that indeed I was a little sad that this table, which I had had so
many good memories with and which I had slept on and which I had
lugged around to so many different places, wasn't mine anymore.

Government Procurement and Small Businesses

One of the things I worked on at my old job was helping small and minority businesses get contracts with federal, state, and local government agencies. After all, for many of the ventures we were helping, their next stage of growth meant progressing from servicing a bunch of small contracts to landing one or two big contracts. And governments are among the largest purchasers of goods and services in this country. Add to the fact that this transaction doesn’t always happen as often as it should – governments are notoriously confusing to do business with, and some have poor participation rates of small and minority businesses – and we had plenty of work to do in preparing our businesses and brokering the relationships.

But I have to balance this very important work with what is happening on the government side, which is that their mandate, as collectors and spenders of our tax dollars, is not necessarily to buy from small and minority businesses but rather to spend wisely and get the most value. And in many cases, as evidenced by the move in many agencies towards “strategic sourcing,” that involves using the government’s vast purchasing power to cut deals for larger contract amounts with larger vendors. Pennsylvania, for example, was buying computers from fifteen different suppliers and had 25 different cell phone contracts before Ed Rendell took office in 2003; consolidations and other strategic moves in these and other areas have saved the state government at least $140 million in three years.

So if you look at government procurement from the small business side, it is easy to cry foul at the low percentage of transactions going to small and minority businesses. And if you look at it from the government side, it is easy to clump together your purchasing and throw your purchasing weight around to cut the best deals in your purchasing. Is it possible for both sides to win?

I’d have to say that the solution for both sides is to understand that there is no “one size fits all” solution. Small businesses should understand that government doesn’t exist to benefit small businesses chiefly through procurement, but rather through creating “an environment that’s good for growing businesses” (a quote from the state’s General Services director, from this month’s Governing Magazine).

(As an aside, when did we begin to depend on the government for contracts and jobs? Isn’t it the private sector’s role to catalyze contract opportunities and job creation, and the government’s role to make sure that happens in a fair and expanding way? I guess that’s just one other tip-off of my Republican leanings.)

But small businesses should also not resign themselves to losing out to big business. Sometimes, the best vendors for government are small and nimble ones. Small businesses should be getting a share of the government purchasing not for social policy reasons but because sometimes they are the best value for government.

(Value can be one or a combination of price, quality, expertise, service, location, bundling, etc. Businesses that can’t offer a winning package to customers and have to settle for customers settling for second-best when they do business with them aren’t going to be very successful in business. And so it is for small and minority businesses doing business with the government: be the best option, or don’t expect to get the contract – whether this time or next.)

As for government, they should be held by taxpayers to getting the best deals. But they should also be proactive in looking for contract types that lend themselves to small and minority businesses, in terms of being able to get better value from them than from big business. It is easy to talk about the percentage of overall government purchasing that goes to small and minority businesses, but it is unfair to measure a government’s endorsement of small and minority businesses just by that one statistic. We need to get more creative in holding government accountable to doing what it can for small and minority businesses, not just depending on the fact that it spends a lot on goods and services. What about a task force that identifies goods and services that are a good match between big governments and small businesses? To take the cell phone example above, the solution to too many vendors isn’t just one big vendor; perhaps it is a mix of vendors, some for scale and some for specialized services and some for unique needs. Or a performance measure that measures government regulations that create expansion opportunities for small and minority ventures? Maybe government dollars and priorities can be better utilized on training programs or industry symposia or mentor brokering.

I’m still on both sides of this fence, wanting to hold both sides to task to perform better. Governments, understand where you can and can’t help small and minority businesses, and be effective and proactive in helping where you can, both in procurements and in policies. And small and minority businesses, understand that government contracts are earned and not granted, and hold governments to task for helping you in other ways besides spending money.

Clarifying My Stance on Eminent Domain

Eminent domain has been in the new a lot in the last year or so, after
the landmark Kelo v. New London case, which created a precedent for
using eminent domain for private economic development (as opposed to a
more directly public use, like building a highway or removing an
eyesore). States have responded to Kelo by voting to place severe
restrictions on the use of eminent domain, lest localities abuse its
use.

When too many people get riled up about something, I start looking for
the wisdom in the contrarian position. And this one was no different.
I felt the anti-Kelo people were going too far in their vilification
of eminent domain. Sure, it is a scary thing to think that the
government can take your property. But you can play that up in an
irrational way. And without eminent domain, good development can be
hard to do, especially in urban areas where ownership is fragmented
and therefore good-sized projects are tricky to assemble the land for.
So when I hear people getting all frothy about how awful eminent
domain is, I start to bristle up a little; when I hear people talk
about how the government is going to bulldoze your house tomorrow, I
start to roll my eyes.

But let me offer a counterbalance to my counterbalance. Yes, eminent
domain needs to be preserved as a tool for cities and developers to
use, albeit carefully and sensitively. What does need to be checked
is the use of eminent domain as a pure, "kick the poor out and build
stuff for the rich" land grab. This is what appears to be happening
in Camden, a notoriously poor and crime-ridden city across the river
from Philadelphia. The city and developers want to take a mostly
residential, predominantly non-vacant neighborhood and transform it
into a mixed-use development of condos, entertainment, and high-end
retail.

This might pass the Kelo test as set by the Supreme Court, in that the
tax revenues generated from such uses would most likely be higher than
those that are currently being generated, and therefore a public
benefit is being derived from the taking. But is that what this tool
called eminent domain was intended for? In our country's delicate
balance between personal property and greater good, we must protect
individuals' possessions as well as work towards common gains.
Grabbing the homes of one, poorer group of people to provide land and
buildings for another, richer group of people can't be a good use of
this tool.

Let's not get all hot and bothered about eminent domain per se, for it
ought to be preserved as an important tool in the arsenal of cities
seeking to rebound and grow. But let's also not then pave the way for
uses of this tool that are improper and unjust.

Imposing Costs, Not Values

In yesterday's Wall Street Journal, Joel Kotkin writes a scathing
indictment of the New Urbanist movement, which he claims demonizes
decentralization and seeks to impose upon people and communities a
vision of high-density, mixed-use living. I agree with Mr. Kotkin
that "sprawl" has become a pejorative term, and would like to be in
the habit of using the word, "decentralization," in its place.

I also agree with him that it is not good for government to be in the
business of imposing upon people and communities a preferred way of
living. The beautiful thing about our country is its diversity, in so
many forms, including living preferences. Some like the city, some
the burbs, and some the countryside.

But some of those preferences are flavored by, and in some cases
completely dictated by, issues of cost and convenience. And here is
where the tilt for one type of residential or commercial development
over another comes into play. If people prefer low-density,
car-dominated living, I have no problem with that. There is nothing
inherently better or worse, from a value standpoint, about an
unattached house or a strip mall or a gated community.

What the government's role is in all of these private decisions is not
to impose a value judgment on one type of development or another, but
to impose the appropriate costs so that things that we all care about
but don't always factor into our individual decision-making – like
environmental stewardship and economic equity and long-term tax
burdens – can be better managed for the good of all.

Some in this country would pooh-pooh our insatiable appetite for open
space, as compared to other nations. Others would vilify cities as
dirty dens of iniquity. Still others mock the simpleness of country
folks and country living. There's nothing better or worse about
cities, suburbs, or countrysides. I tremble at the thought of a
government telling us that one is better than the other. But I also
bristle at the thought that the government can and does create
incentives and disincentives for one over the other, which skew the
recouping of the costs of living in one place over another.

Seminary That’s Working

My impression of seminary is not formed from direct experience but
from the vicarious experience of a good handful of some of very
closest friends who have taken classes and gotten degrees. It is not
necessarily a very good impression. My sense is that too many
participants derive from their seminary experience one or more of
three not-so-great outcomes – not so great not necessarily meaning not
good, but meaning not complete in and of themselves. First, they are
force-fed a particular doctrinal angle that represents what products
of "that" school adhere to. Second, they are taught how to be
professional ministers (much like an executive education program for
pastors). And/or third, they get caught up in the world of full-time
religious students and full-time religious workers and lose contact
with the world outside that world.

And so it is refreshing to hear of a friend of mine who is having a
seminary experience that makes sense. I am fortunate to have been
able to keep in touch with a good friend of mine from high school. He
is currently in his last year of seminary, and he has enjoyed it
immensely. We talk on the phone every month or so, and he excitedly
tells me about the neat things he gets to learn and the neat people he
gets to learn them from.

Best of all, in his mind, is how his seminary education is shaping and
enflaming his life direction, in contrast to the three not-so-great
outcomes I listed above. First, he and his classmates are challenged
to study the Scriptures with fresh eyes, casting aside preconceived
theological and cultural assumptions so that the freshness of the
Bible can come through. Second, while his studies have better
prepared him for administration, they have also reinforced the
relational impact pastors and other professional ministers can have on
people, families, and communities. And third, what my friend has
studied and how he has studied it has not led him to huddle more
closely with other believers but has ignited and girded his passion to
reach out to non-believers – imagine that, studying Jesus under the
power of the Holy Spirit leading a man to have the Father's heart for
those who are spiritually lost.

I don't know enough about my friend's seminary to know if this is an
academic experience that is common at the school, or if it can all be
attributed to the fact that my friend has just approached his studies
in a proper way. I don't know enough about seminary in general to
pass judgment, and I'm not passing judgment. Every year, it produces
thousands of leaders changed from their experience of studying
Scripture, learning under outstanding professors, supported by other
students heading in the same directions – this is a good thing. I
just hope that as few of those leaders as possible is having a narrow
and insular experience that leads to rote acceptance of doctrine, an
overly bureaucratic approach to institutional management, and a
burrowing into the comfortable circles of the seminary-educated, and
as many of those leaders as possible is having a vast and
transformative experience like my friend is.

Life Changers

I have always been a fan of management guru Peter Drucker, but since
he passed away late last year I have taken to perusing through some of
the books he wrote over his long and productive career. Almost every
page, I find myself astounded at the freshness of his insights,
especially given that he wrote them anywhere from fifteen to fifty
years ago.

Here's one, for example, almost a throwaway paragraph from the preface
to his book, "Managing the Non-Profit Organization":

It is not that these institutions are "non-profit," that is, that they
are not businesses. It is also not that they are "non-governmental."
It is that they do something very different from either business or
government. Business supplies, either goods or services. Government
controls. A business has discharged its task when the customer buys
the product, pays for it, and is satisfied with it. Government has
discharged its function when its policies are effective. The
"non-profit" institution neither supplies goods or services nor
controls. Its "product" is neither a pair of shoes nor an effective
regulation. Its product is a changed human being. The non-profit
institutions are human-change agents. Their "product" is a cured
patient, a child that learns, a young man or woman grown into a
self-respecting adult; a changed human life altogether.

Would that those who work for non-profits – in hospitals and schools
and social service agencies – apply the best of the business world and
the best of the government world, and yet at the same time understand
that their main job is not to sell a product or enforce a regulation
but to change a life.

Sprawl

I've read a number of articles in a couple of my classes about the
decentralization of metropolitan regions since World War II. That is
to say, cities are emptying, suburbs are growing, and metro areas are
expanding. Let me very briefly tell you why this is bad and what the
government has done to not only allow it but catalyze it.

Why this is bad:

1. Cities are older, and while older isn't always better (and
sometimes its worse), older areas deteriorating and even dying is a
bad thing because you lose something you can't ever get back: history,
culture, tradition, etc.

2. Sprawlier metro areas mean longer commutes, which means more
car-caused pollution, more gas consumption, and more road repairs,
which ultimately means worse health, less natural resources, and
higher tax bills.

3. Sprawlier metro areas also cost more to provide infrastructure for,
since things like roads and sewer lines and water treatment tend to
get more expensive when you have to build them further and further
out.

4. Developing further and further away from core cities eats into open
space, farm land, and other rural areas that are important for
environmental, agricultural, and aesthetic reasons.

What the government has done to not only allow it but catalyze it:

1. People blame the car for making it easier for residences and
businesses to locate wherever, rather than in a central city or near a
train line. But the car would have never become the dominant mode of
transportation in this country without the federal government's
massive investment in an interstate highway system and its ongoing
subsidization of roads (relative to mass transit).

2. Others say people just like having open space, and to be sure
cities in the first half of the 20th century where dense to the point
of unlivable at times. But federal and state policies have tended to
facilitate this flow to more open spaces by their (relative)
subsidization of infrastructure in newer suburban areas and their
(relative) disregard for redevelopment of older urban areas.

3. Related to the point above, people like an unattached home with a
picket fence and a front lawn. All well and good, but they wouldn't
have been able to afford it unless the federal government, through the
Home Owners Loan Corporation, began to guarantee mortgages. Before
that, you had to pay cash or settle for an unguaranteed loan that you
had to pay back in five years of less. Since no houses were built
during the Great Depression or World War II, there was a huge demand
for affording housing after the war. The federal government decided
to get involved, guaranteeing mortgages and making it easier for banks
to offer the kinds of term lengths that are now commonplace: 10, 15,
20, 25, even 30 years. But to do this, they had to get really
scientific in their risk management. So they assigned ratings to
every area in the country, from 1 to 4 (1 being low risk and thus
attractive for mortgages, and 4 being high risk and thus unattractive
for mortgages). 4 was usually defined by some combination of the
following: dense, old, poor, minority. Combine this with the fact
that homeowners could deduct the interest on their tax returns, and
you had a huge rush to suburban homes, now affordable and attainable
thanks to the federal government.

4. On the commercial side, manufacturing went from being vertically
integrated and low value-added to being horizontally integrated and
high value-added, as a result of industry shifts and global
competition. The truck replaced the train as the dominant carrier of
raw materials. As a result, where before you used to see compact
multi-story factories in big cities, now you saw sprawling one-story
factories in suburban areas, where land was cheap and access to the
interstates was easier. With the increasing automation and
sophistication of manufacturing in the US, you also went from having a
lot of low-skilled, decently-paid workers walking to the factory
downtown to factories that employed less people and a higher
percentage of high-skilled workers that commuted to work using a car
or truck. Again, these were market forces at work, but facilitated by
the existence of new highways and catalyzed by government subsidies
for infrastructure in suburban areas.

So what are we to make of this? I'm not suggesting that it was wrong
for the government to build highways, guarantee mortgages, or support
development. I'm not hardly trying to make a value judgment at all.
I'm not trying to be anti-development, anti-suburbs, anti-car,
anti-anything. All I'm asking for is that people understand that
those things created an unleveled playing field where suburbs won and
cities lost. And as that continues several decades later, it has
consequences for our tax bill, our environment, and our quality of
life.

Normally, as a Republican, I'm hesitant for government to get involved
in terms of incentives and fees, because such actions can tend to warp
the market's ability to arrive at the most efficient equilibrium. But
here is a case when, absent government intervention, the market is
warped. There is insufficient financial motivation to reclaim
distressed urban areas, and insufficient financial deterrent to build
out suburban areas. There is a very real financial loss that happens
when cities are left to decay, and very real financial cost that
happens when suburbs are built out further and further. Let's put
those financial impacts back into the equation, and see if the market
– with appropriate government intervention – can't arrive at a new
equilibrium that works for city folk and suburbanites, in terms of tax
bills, clean air, natural resources, and quality of life.

I Love the First Day of School

It tells you what kind of nerd I am that I love the first day of
school. There's something about getting the syllabus and looking at
all the topics and issues we're going to cover in the semester. Also,
given that I am a "breadth over depth" kind of person when it comes to
knowledge, I love that the professor usually talks a little bit about
each of the course lessons; it's like a series of mini, bite-sized
lectures, which is my preferred portion size.

I've now gone to all three of my classes for this, my last semester in
grad school. The titles of the courses I picked had me excited, and
so far none have disappointed. What is particularly nice, even for a
"breadth over depth" kind of person, is that it looks like we'll
actually get into a fair amount of detail on the topics we're
covering.

Sometimes, the excitement of anticipation and possibility gives way to
the dreary grind of drudgery, and sometimes a class doesn't turn out
to be as exciting or interesting as I had hoped. But even when that's
the case, you can't beat the first day of school.

My Idol

I have blogged often in this space about my love for road running, but
I'm afraid I'll have to give it up for longer than I had hoped. It
looks like I have what is commonly known as "runner's knee," which
happens when the tendon that runs down the outside of your knee gets
irritated from too much rubbing against the knee bone. I have to
stretch it out real good for about a half-hour four times a week for
the next couple of months, and I can't even sniff a short run for the
next couple of weeks, maybe even more if I'm feeling discomfort once I
hit the road again.

Running is a very good way to stay in shape, and road running is a
very good way to experience the vibe of a city. In the movie,
"Chariots of Fire," the lead character, a devout Christian, proclaims,
"When I run, I feel God's pleasure." And yet, even and especially
good things can become idols if we cling to them too tightly and can't
give them up for a season. And so in seeing how cranky I have gotten
during this time of not being able to hit the pavement, I understand
that road running can be an idol in my life. You don't have to read
too far down the Ten Commandments to find out what God thinks about
idols in our lives.

And so here I am, having begun a self-imposed run fast and now having
a longer run fast imposed upon me. Honestly, I'm hoping I learn my
lesson so I can get back on the road. But I guess I should also learn
my lesson so I can keep myself from idols.

Bigger Than Me

On our car ride home from a weekend visit to the Big Apple, Amy and I
talked about getting Jada baptized. To be truthful, neither of us
have strong doctrinal impulses about the importance of infant baptism.
We understand that Jada has to own her own faith, and that ultimately
the responsibility is ours and not the church institution to teach her
the truths of the Christian faith.

For me, though, the importance of baptizing Jada at our church was the
notion of teaching her that being a Christian is more than adhering to
a distinct set of rules, more than her own personal relationship with
Jesus Christ, more even than the Christian household she is being
raised in. Rather, it is all of things in the context of a community
of people – frail and fallen and funny as they are. In fact, the
thing I like the most about the baptism ceremony at our church is when
the congregation has to stand and affirm that we accept our
responsibility in nurturing the one(s) being baptizing in the ways of
the Christian faith.

The Christian faith journey is not primarily an individual one, much
as our Western mindset would want to make it that. It is not
primarily a moral one, much as our legalistic mindset would want to
make it that. It is bigger than me, bigger than my personal
connection to God, bigger than my adherence to a specific moral code.
It is a living, breathing journey with a living, breathing people. As
an individualistic, independent person who came to faith outside of my
family upbringing, this is a challenging truth for me to accept and
live by. But in spite of that, or perhaps because of that, it is
something I want our children to understand about Christianity.

When Do You Build the Altar

Many of us have had experiences of God's abundant provision at various
times of our lives. Sometimes He surprises us, and other times He
responds to our desperate pleas. We tend to remember those times and
honor Him in some sort of way: bursting forth in spontaneous worship,
noting the occasion in our journal, maybe even holding onto some sort
of memento to remind us of what God has done.

In the Bible, Abraham does those kinds of things way before we do. I
don't mean "way before" as in "he lived thousands of years before us,"
but rather as in "he remembered God's acts earlier in their
development than we do." Meaning that while we might respond to God
in worship after He has done something for us, Abraham responds to God
in worship before He has done something for Him, but after He has
promised to do something for him.

In the book of Genesis, Abraham builds a number of altars after God
makes abundant and at times audacious promises to him. He promises
land to him, a wanderer, and a multitude of descendants to him, an old
man with a barren wife. We may not be in the business of building
altars nowadays, but still it is easy to imagine the scene: God makes
a promise, Abraham responds with a tangible act of worship and
remembrance. He believes that the promises of land and descendants
are so sure to be fulfilled that he need not wait for even the whiff
of fulfillment to begin worshipping God.

It is good to remember when God surprises us with His abundant
provision, better still to ask for it and to receive it and to create
a memento to remind us to pray the next time. But Abraham shows us a
far better way: hear God's word, believe against belief in the
fulfillment of that word, and worship Him.

Reading the Bible with the Help of the Internet

In my morning reading of the book of Genesis, I got to the curious and
controversial part where Ham uncovers his father Noah's nakedness.
Not quite knowing what to make of this passage but knowing there was
more going on than at first blush, I decided to do something I hadn't
done before in my morning Bible reading times: go to the Internet.

In less than fifteen minutes, I had read three or four commentaries on
this passage. Some were far right and some far left. Some quoted
esteemed Bible scholars and others accumulated the comments of
skeptics and agnostics. I learned about how this passage has been
used to justify the slavery and subjugation of darker-skinned people,
not just in the (relatively) recent American experience but dating
back to ancient times. I learned about things like race and etymology
and Hebrew culture. I left this quick detour onto the Internet with
more questions than answers, but when I left the computer and returned
to the Bible I felt I had gained a richer perspective on the text I
was mulling over.

I don't think the Internet is the best thing ever or the worst thing
ever. It's just a tool, and like any other tool, it has its strengths
and its weaknesses, its proper uses and its improper uses. And one of
the things this particular tool is good at is aggregating lots of
content that can be easily searched and quickly digested. It turns
out that positive attribute proves useful when you're, of all things,
reading the Bible.

Not a Good Start to the Year

Many people are discouraged by New Year's resolutions, because they
think they will eventually break them. Me, I like the start of the
year, and the chance to begin anew and get off to a good start in
terms of good habits. But this year has not started out good in this
area.

The two things I was most excited about were getting back to running
(after an extended "fast" from it at the end of last month) and
getting to bed early. So I got up early this morning and hit the
pavement for my first run in awhile. It felt good to be at a running
pace again. But a mile or so in, my knee started to hurt again.
(This was why I had taken a break from running in the first place.) I
tried to shake it off but it was not meant to be. I stopped, turned
around, and began the walk home. After having so much time off it, I
was resigned to the fact that time off alone will not heal this thing,
and I will have to see a doctor about this. I was also discouraged
that I would probably not get to run for awhile, and this after
itching for so long to do it too.

The day ended poorly as well. Our bedtime strategy for Jada is to get
her good and tired and then begin our bedtime routine. Just like
clockwork, she began to fuss around 8:15, 8:30. So I took her to her
bedroom and expected her to be asleep by 8:45 and me asleep by 9:00.

Almost three hours later, she finally went down. I had to pull out
every trick in the book to help her fall asleep. Twice, she actually
fell asleep, only to spring wide awake just seconds later. As the
night wore on and the amount of sleep I was going to be able to get
dwindled, I found myself getting increasingly frustrated and
impatient. Not being able to run had already gotten me cranky, and
now not being able to get to bed at a decent hour had me bordering on
furious.

We may make plans but sometimes they don't go our way. When we get
too far ahead of ourselves, sometimes God has a way of getting us back
in line -- even when it comes to good things, like running and going
to bed early. I did not like how this first day of 2006 went, because
it didn't go the way I wanted it. I have to learn that the days
always go how God wants them to, and that in His sovereignty and love
they always go the way we need them to go, for our growth and
development and ultimately for His glory. This is a lesson I need to
learn, and it will be one I am sure I will fight many days this year.

Things did not go as planned on this first day of 2006. Maybe the
next day will be better – better in that my good plans will work out,
and/or better in that if they don't, I will have a better attitude
about it.