I Don't Like Walmart

I don't like Walmart.

No, I'm not joining the majority of folks who think Walmart is evil
for the way it short-changes wholesalers, underpays its employees,
buys from China, or ruins mom-and-pop stores. I'm too pro-business,
too libertarian to toot that horn too hard. (Although to be honest,
sometimes even I think Walmart goes too far.)

When I say, "I don't like Walmart," I say it like a stock expert would
say it. I like Walmart's business model, admire its singular focus on
"everyday low prices," even agree with some of its more draconian
methods for squeezing one more penny to the bottom line. But I don't
think it's a formula that will lead to significant success in the
future.

Great companies don't just keep wringing the towel for one more drop;
they find new ways, new products, new markets. I just don't see
Walmart being able to do this. Their greatest asset -- admirable
focus on getting cheaper and cheaper -- locks them into a way of doing
business that doesn't translate to the kind of innovation required to
be an attractive stock play.

I don't think Walmart's going out of business anytime soon. But I
also don't think it's a good stock to invest in. That's what I mean
when I say, "I don't like Walmart."

What Kind of House Will My Daughter Buy

Tonight, I read a great article from last October about Toll Brothers,
the Philadelphia-based mega-builder of houses. In the article, the
reporter told the CEO he had an 8-year-old daughter and asked what
kind of house she would be buying. He was shocked to hear Robert Toll
say she'd be living in her father's house until she was about 40 or
50, and then she'd buy that house off him, spending almost half her
income each month for her mortgage.

As optimistic as Mr. Toll is about the future of his company, he
understands the US house market is reaching a point of maturity. The
article makes an apt comparison between the US and the UK: in the UK,
they pay seven times their annual income for a house that provides 330
square feet per person, while in the US, we pay half that amount for a
house over twice as spacious. It's only a matter of time before the
US reaches the same point of saturation as Europe. Hard to believe,
given how roomy the US is and how cramped Europe feels, but consider
this: New Jersey is close to being completely built out, from a house
standpoint.

We Americans may have to skimp on our sense of entitlement for larger
and more luxurious homes. It's an appetite we can currently whet by
populating developments further and further from city centers, but one
which we'll eventually run out of room to whet. Our lower-density
desires may have to give way to higher-density realities. Good thing
my daughter's learning how to live in a city.

But that's a generation from now. These house-builders still have to
make a living today. And that means scoping out where people want to
live. So you've got to track where people and jobs are moving to,
fighting local political battles along the way that can create
five-year lead times between putting your finger on a piece of land
and being able to start building on it, and duking it out with other
national builders who are trying to do the same thing. It's a tough
job, and where and how my daughter buys her first home depends on it.

God Intended it for Good

As a Christian, I strive daily to live out my faith in ways that will
be light amidst darkness, saltiness amidst blandness, ever pointing to
a glorious God. Sometimes I do OK and sometimes I fail miserably;
sometimes the context I am in makes it difficult to stand out in this
way, and sometimes the context I am in makes it quite easy.

This morning, I am challenged to live this out in a new way. I just
finished the book of Genesis in my morning devotions. You may know
that the book is basically about five men: Adam, Abraham, Isaac,
Jacob, and Joseph. The book ends with Jacob just having died, and his
son Joseph forgiving his other brothers for selling him into slavery.
(If you haven't read the book before, I strongly recommend it: high
drama, family dysfunction, flawed characters . . . it's got
everything.)

Joseph utters this famous line: "You intended to harm me, but God
intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving
of many lives." It's a true statement: the brothers, jealous of
Joseph, sell him off to passersby, where he ends up in Egypt, where he
successfully administers Pharaoh's crops during seven years of feast
and seven years of famine, without which countless hordes of people
would've starved.

And yet while I've read this passage before, I am challenged anew by
this statement. For Joseph harbors no ill will towards his brothers,
nor any bitterness towards God for the many things that happened in
his life that he could've easily shaken his fist towards God about:
being sold in slavery, being falsely accused of seducing his master's
wife, being forgotten in a prison cell. Instead, he reaches the end
of his life with a profound understanding of God's goodness and
authority amidst the entire arc of his life.

I am not challenged to put a sunny disposition over my façade in the
midst of hard things, nor am I challenged to never shake a fist at
God. It is a false front to always smile when you're hurting inside,
and it is a false rendering of Christianity to say you can never rage
at God. I am, however, challenged, to get to a deeper place of
understanding God's goodness and authority, and how it is steeped in
everything about my life. Things we would shallowly call good, and
things we would shallowly call bad, God is working both out for a
greater, grander purpose.

Now this would be a powerful witness in our time. For Christians to
rid themselves of bitterness, and be profoundly rooted in a quiet yet
fierce understanding of God's goodness and authority in all things.
Again, not that we "don't worry, be happy," nor that we never express
our raw emotions before our God. But that we have depth in our faith,
not tossed from side to side from the particular joys and travails of
a given day. That would be a bright light in darkness, a salty treat
amidst blandness. That would point to a glorious God.

Densities

Spending a week in a California suburb, I can't help but notice what
low-density living is like. I always knew Californians were more
laid-back and us East Coasters were more high-strung. But I wonder
how much cause and how much effect densities are in these differences.

I live in a big city. Things are crowded together, and it's a good
thing, because it makes the place wonderfully walkable. Whether it's
high-rise condos, office skyscrapers, or public transportation,
compactness is a virtue.

Contrast that with California living, where houses are never more than
two stories high, and always unattached and moated by front lawns,
back lawns, and even side lawns. Retail is all one-story, surrounded
by vast parking lots. Highways are three, four, even five lanes per
direction. It's not quite rural, but I'm sure people here enjoy
having their space.

It's been kind of fun to check out of high-density living for a week,
and enjoy that space, too. It's a nice way to vacation, contrasted
with many people, for whom low-density living is the norm, and
vacation means heading in the other direction, to crowded resorts or
big cities.

But while I've enjoyed the slower daily rhythm and vaster personal
space of the West Coast suburbs, I'm itching to get back to my East
Coast city, to the compactness and energy and character of the streets
of Philadelphia.

Blow The Thing Up

In this day and age, good businesses don't just squeeze more and more
efficiency into their processes. Now, it's good to take a look at the
way you do things and ask the question, "How can we do it one second
faster / one cent cheaper / a little bit better?" But every once in
awhile, good companies take a look at the way they do things and don't
ask any questions. They just say, "Let's blow the thing up."

Success -- some might even say survival -- in this day and age comes
not from incremental improvement but from inspired innovation.
Kimberly Clark blew up the paper mills -- literally -- and became a
different kind of business. Apple took one look at a rapidly
commoditizing business and, instead of running, decided to make a real
product. GE is legendary for getting out of stuff it's not leading
the field in. It's a scary proposition -- to throw away what you're
really good at, for the chance at being something entirely different
and altogether better. But it's what makes for good times and great
businesses.

I call this to mind because our church is deciding to do the same.
Not because we're business gurus trying to be innovative and cool.
But because we believe God is inviting us to be more, because He is
more. We have a great and special church. It is a wonderful
manifestation of God's presence in our community, a wonderful vessel
of God's mercy in this world. But the leaders of the church have done
the hard but necessary thing in not asking the question, "How can we
do what we're doing better?" Instead, they're saying, "Let's blow the
thing up."

It's a scary place to be, especially where we (and this is true for
everyone who attends, no matter how long we've attended, so I really
can use the word, "we") look to our church for some semblance of
stability and familiarity. When you blow something up, nothing is
stable or familiar. Nothing, even and especially good stuff that
people have come to treasure as part of what they know as "church," is
off-limits. We must strip away our anchors, our comforts, and look
instead to each other, and ultimately to God. It's a scary way to
steer a church. But it's exactly how you give space for God to be as
big as He really is. And so it's exactly where we want to be.

Reenvisioning Retail Corridors

Walk or drive around Philadelphia and you'll notice certain streets
that you can't help but think were once bustling retail corridors.
And you'd be right: a generation ago, when urban life was more compact
and people walked to their jobs and to their stores, each of
Philadelphia's neighborhoods seemed to have a thriving corridor of
shops and restaurants.

But with suburbanization, our increasing use of the car, and the
emergence of big box retailing, these once-mighty corridors are really
starting to show their age. We may vilify Walmart and Office Max with
high-minded words about "keeping it local," but our own purchasing
habits are insufficient to support the neighborhood convenience shop
or hardware store. And so our city's retail corridors suffer, while
the parking lots are ever full at Ikea and Lowes.

Is there hope for reenvisioning Philadelphia's retail corridors? Even
if we could, would we want to? Good questions to ask, for public
officials and private developers. And good issues to participate in,
for neighborhood residents and city lovers.

Law or Justice

A classmate of mine commented on the quote I have at the bottom of
every email I send: "What does it profit a man to gain the whole world
and lose his soul?" Jesus said it, and I have it there to remind
myself (and hopefully others) that there are some things much, much
more important than worldly gain.

The quote was of special meaning to him, because he is a lawyer. And
as he explained it, it is easy for lawyers to lose their souls.
Lawyers are paid to represent their clients. They do this by knowing
the law and applying it on their client's behalf. Sometimes this can
be deeply rewarding.

But sometimes, in the course of serving their client and making their
money and winning their case, law may be upheld by the letter but
justice was not upheld by the spirit. And in some cases, in the name
of serving their client and making their money and winning their case,
not only is justice cast aside but so is law.

I empathized with my friend's perspective and thanked him for his
honesty. And I quietly and quickly said a prayer for my lawyer
friends, that they'd remember Jesus' words and not lose their soul in
the course of doing their jobs. And then I sat down with my classmate
and class started, and I quietly and quickly said a prayer for myself,
that I'd remember Jesus' words, too.

The Window is Still Open

About six years ago, a friend of mine who had expressed interest in
doing Christian missions work in China conjectured to me that there
existed a unique window in that country for evangelization and church
growth. Ten years before, he said, you couldn't get into China. Ten
years from now, he predicted, you could get in – but no one would
listen, because their hearts would be dulled by growing material
wealth.

It appears my friend may be right. China's economic boom appears to
have no end in sight. Business Week ran an article last week on the
growing number of millionaires in China and the explosive growth of
luxury items there. Five years ago, China accounted for 1% of
worldwide sales of luxury items; today, it's 12%, and within a decade
it's predicted that China will leapfrog Japan and the US and become
the world's largest luxury market.

How will this boom affect church work in China? Is the window, once
gapingly open, now closing? Well, there are still many issues that
the Christian church – both indigenous to China and missionaries from
outside of China – can speak to. How to not make money your god.
Urbanization of formerly poor and rural areas, sparking possible
resentments between haves and have-nots. Of course, issues of human
rights and political freedoms. My friend was right about one thing –
that more and more Chinese would experience a higher standard of
living. I hope (and I'm sure he would say he hopes, too) he's wrong
about the other – that that means the window is closing in China in
terms of more and more Chinese experience a greater measure of God.

The Longevity of Agglomerations

We talk often in one of my classes about the notion of agglomeration
economies; that is, that like companies will congregate near each
other, for the critical mass of workers, ideas, and other useful
resources. A student asked in one class if agglomerations had evolved
or would evolve over time, as technology made distance less relevant.
That is, clusters happen because distance makes it harder to
communicate and collaborate, so will technology eventually make
distance and therefore agglomerations obsolete?

Perhaps I will be seen as hopelessly old-fashioned a hundred years
from now when I say that people will always want to be near each other
and have that physical contact. After all, a trip to what is now the
suburbs used to be a couple days' journey a hundred years ago, and now
people do it everyday to go to work.

But I think what will give agglomeration economies staying power is
the power of being near a university. After all, many of the best
examples of agglomeration economies are industry clusters near
universities that specialize in that industry. Think of San Diego or
Austin or Boston or Raleigh-Durham. Distance learning's potential
aside, I think that universities will always be physical locations
where students and faculty gather to learn, experiment, and interact.
And therefore, businesses that seek their brains, their energy, and
their ideas will want to be nearby.

Not the Same Old Incentives

You can probably tell from previous posts that I'm not a huge fan of
playing the incentive game when it comes to retaining or attracting
businesses. It is usually a zero-sum game, where one city's gain is
another's loss; good for the winner, bad for the loser, and neutral
for the overall region. You might even argue it's a negative-sum
game, what with all the disruption and cost of moving.

But the fact of the matter is that companies are increasingly mobile,
and doing nothing when other localities are doing something will mean
a lot of firms will leave you and not a lot will come to you. So how
to compete without turning the whole thing into a negative-sum game?

Let's take a detour in the business world for a sec. Let's say you
sell a product. Others sell the same product. In order to win a
customer, you either have to be less cost or more quality than your
competitor, right?

Cost and quality are just two ways to win a customer, or in business
parlance, to have a competitive advantage. You can be the best
cost-quality trade-off, otherwise known as value. You can be the most
convenient, most appealing to social values, most durable, most
unique, and the list goes on and on and on. That's what great about
capitalist economies: lots of choices means companies get more and
more efficient, customers get better and better values, and everyone
wins.

So why can't cities compete in the same way? Cities that try to keep
or lure firms just by throwing tax breaks in their direction are
playing the same games that happen in the business world when you have
price wars. And you know how those end up.

Instead, cities should figure out what's unique about their location.
What's their competitive advantage, that can be no other city's
advantage? Sometimes it's price (low taxes). Sometimes it's quality
(great public services). Sometimes it's value, location, buzz,
history, or whatever. That's what's great about our country: so many
different kinds of cities, each with their own unique selling points.

So why do economic development offices in all these cities end up
throwing the same incentives at firms? Why don't they take the time
to figure out what's unique about their location and market the heck
out of it? That's what the Center City District is doing here in
Philadelphia. Sure, it offers some standard amenities to help bring
firms to the downtown area, like increased street cleaning and
security patrol. But its main thrust is to depict what's unique about
Philadelphia: its walkability, its restaurants, its night buzz.
There's a recruitment and retention strategy I could get behind.

The More Expensive Thing is Care

Local pastor William H. Gray 3rd is leading an effort to support
Katrina-ravaged houses of worship in New Orleans. This effort has $20
million from the Katrina Fund, spearheaded by George H.W. Bush and
Bill Clinton, which seems like a lot until you try to wrap your head
around the massive destruction clergy members are trying to rebuild
from.

Indeed, Gray and the other leaders are already bracing for a lot of
requests for funding for repairs and other rebuilding efforts. During
a gathering of about 1000 clergy in a New Orleans hotel ballroom, one
minister stood up and said he needed $1 million. So $20 million isn't
going to get very far. But it's a good start.

More expensive than repairs of buildings, though, and more important,
is the repairing of hope. Just like repairing New Orleans isn't just
a matter of writing a check, repairing hope in the hearts of the
religious leaders of New Orleans isn't just a matter of dispensing
hugs or pithy statements. It will take time to minister to the
ministers, to help them to heal so they can help others to heal. My
prayers are with Pastor Gray and the other drivers of this effort,
that they can instill in the local clergy a sense of hope and
togetherness, a notion that while things are tough now, there is life
in the rebuilding.

A Helpful Hand or a Wasteful Prop

The business of government subsidies for business is a tricky one.
Often, it's politically popular -- we're not going to take losing this
important business to some other place, so we'll do all we can to keep
it and its jobs here. Often, it looks good on paper -- a blighted
area needs more activity, so let's give people a reason to relocate
there. Sometimes, it can even appeal to my Republican values -- let's
lend a hand to a struggling business and help them get up on their own
two.

But it's not often as easy as that. Are government subsidies helpful
hands or wasteful props? There are a number of ways governments can
help businesses within their jurisdictions: outright grants,
low-interest loans, tax breaks, building stuff for them. All of them
take a situation where maybe nothing would have happened and create
the incentives for something to happen. Sounds good, right?
Something out of nothing?

Not so fast. Historical data bears out that the recipients of such
incentives are often teetering businesses that, once the incentive
period is over (for example, a tax-free period of ten years), begin to
falter and eventually shutter. Instead of helping businesses stand up
by themselves, it seems, these programs often just prop them up for a
period of time, after which they fall down on their own.

You see this in a number of arenas. Rendell is trying to keep
Sovereign Bank afloat, states are setting up tax-free "enterprise
zones," and cities throw resources at small and minority businesses.
It is possible that many of these uses of taxpayer dollars aren't
accomplishing what their upfront rhetoric promise: that a little help
upfront will seed an area, strengthen new ventures, and expand the
local economy.

Does that mean we shouldn't consider such tools, then? My conclusion
isn't that government subsidies are bad, but that they can be bad if
poorly conceived or implemented. It is important for the program to
very explicit about its temporary status: there should be ample
hands-on preparation for subsidy recipients to cope with life after
the subsidy, perhaps even a scaling down of the subsidy in the final
years.

To be sure, some government subsidies aren't intended to empower their
recipients. Some politicians use them to dole out political favors,
others to allay their consciences, and still others to reinforce
existing structures of the powerful and the powerless. But even those
politicians who mean well can end up having their subsidy programs
backfire on them, to the tune of businesses going out of business
after the program is over and blighted areas settled in and then
blighted all over again.

It's easier to help someone than to help them help themselves. It is
politically more appealing, it is less complicated, and it can feed
into your preconceived notions of who is strong and who is weak. It
is much more difficult and complicated and burdensome to truly help a
business get to a greater place of strength. Would that those
proposing and implementing government subsidies to catalyze business
activity choose the harder but more effective road.

Winning and Losing in Pittsburgh

Enjoy today's Super Bowl parade, Pittsburgheans. Tomorrow, you have
to sweep up and get back to dealing with another mess: rescuing your
city's public finances.

As our economy is less and less about big manufacturing plants and
more and more about nimble knowledge workers, it's easier for
corporations of all sizes to move locations. Some move down the
street and others across the country. But when the moves cross
municipal or even state lines, and when they involve thousands of jobs
and millions in tax dollars, you best believe public officials pay
attention.

In a sense, attractive corporations are like attractive free agents:
if they think they can get a sweeter deal somewhere else, they play
the market. Some athletes offer their current employer a "hometown
discount," that is if the team they're currently on is in the ballpark
of the best offers, they'll stay put. And so it is with corporations:
since there's a cost to relocating, corporations won't move unless the
grass is really greener on the other side.

So cities and states cull together sweetheart packages. They offer
tax breaks, give away land, and promise to build stuff near the
location they're offering the employer. Sometimes the conversation is
about staying put and not being pried away by another place, and
sometimes you're doing the prying.

Pittsburgh did a lot of deal-making in the last quarter-century.
Faced with the loss of manufacturing activity after World War II, they
did what they had to, and as a result they have a lot of corporate
headquarters and two new stadiums in their downtown area.

But all this deal-making comes at a price. Seventeen years ago, in an
article for the National Journal entitled "Games Cities Play," Robert
Guskind wrote: "Critics argue that the cities, in their quest for jobs
and development at any price, are making Faustian bargains: luring
corporations and building downtown projects at the cost of starving
city treasuries of revenues for schools, infrastructure, neighborhood
improvement and other needs."

How prescient. For Pittsburgh is on the brink of bankruptcy. Its
population has dwindled to the point that it is smaller than some
Phoenix suburbs. According to an investigation done by the local
paper in Pittsburgh, the city's debt would take fifteen years of
property tax collections to pay off. It's had to slash its budget for
parks and senior centers by almost two-thirds.

But hey, it's got the Super Bowl champions. One better hope that a
lot of T-shirts and hats are sold this week, or that the euphoria of
winning it all carries over to a hopeful and determined plan to turn
the city's finances around.

Living By Faith

Again and again in my faith journey, I return to the eleventh chapter
of Hebrews, that great chapter of faith and of people who exercised
faith. I marvel at their ability to believe against belief, to act on
that belief in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, and
ultimately to entrust their desires and their entire beings to God
even though they themselves would never see the fulfillment of His
promises. I desire to be a Christian in this kind of mold, the mold
of the heroes of faith in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews.

As I digest these truths and stumble along in my attempt to live them,
I am realizing that such a life of faith has two components. The
first is this sense of future orientation. That is, the person of
faith, having heard the promise of God, is able to envision the
fulfillment of that promise in the future, and she responds to God in
the present. She believes that future reality to be in the bank, and
celebrates and worships God accordingly.

But there is also a present orientation to this kind of faith. For a
solely future orientation, at its extreme, would lead the Christian to
check out of the present, to live in a detached, unengaging way
towards present matters. But the person of faith understands that the
belief in God's future reality births not only worship to God for what
He is going to do, but obedience to God in the midst of what He is
doing right now. The person of faith, when faced with a terrible
struggle, does not simply believe God for resolution, worship Him for
what He will eventually do, and then numb herself from those present
difficulties. No, she faces them with hope that God will eventually
rescue, and with hope that God will be with her until then.

Most of us are better at one thing or the other. Some of us are
future-oriented: our faith becomes a matter of hearing God's promises
and believing them, seeing past present ills to future glories.
Others are present-oriented: our faith becomes a matter of
experiencing God in the here and now, and trusting Him minute by
minute. One without the other is an incomplete faith: the
future-oriented believer is prone to be so in touch with what's to
come that she's out of touch with what's going on right now, while the
present-oriented believer is prone to get so mired in what's now that
she loses sight of what's to come. Would that we round ourselves out
in this area, and would that we be part of faith communities that help
us practice both aspects of living by faith.

What the Oakland A’s Can Teach Us About Improving Education in Our Cities

We had a very stimulating discussion in our church's morning service
today. The topic was public education, and since the discussion group
I was in was a mix of city and suburban folks and included a public
school teacher, you could guess that the conversation was impassioned
and animated. And you'd be right.

Public education is a heated topic in such circles because of the
perceived inequities between poor urban districts and rich suburban
districts. Let me try to paint some context before we get deeper into
the topic. In our country, we've decided that public education is a
good thing, worth supporting through government rather than just
letting the free market create its own buyers and sellers. Economists
call it a "positive externality," in that it has benefits to society
as a whole and not just to those who "consume" it. Because it is a
positive externality, absent government intervention we'd have too
little of it; in other words, if you and I had to decide whether or
not to educate our kids, and we had to foot the bill out of our own
pockets, there would be less of us opting into education than would be
optimal for our society. Thankfully, we've decided that public
education is a good thing, and so every citizen pays taxes so that
parents can send their kids to a public school without any additional
charges.

But this is where the inequities begin, because of course some
districts are better than others. The way it works in our country is
that education is a state responsibility, and states have decided to
devolve that responsibility to the local level. Therefore, from a
funding standpoint, districts raise money for education through
property taxes, and then states chip in the rest. Since some
districts are in richer neighborhoods than others, higher property
values means more taxes collected, all other things being equal, and
so even if states make up some of the difference by giving more to
poorer districts than richer districts, those poorer districts usually
end up with less to spend per student than the richer districts. In
many cases, those differences can mean thousands of dollars per
student per year.

And so this is where much of today's discussion picked up. What
should a just government do about such inequities? What about an
active church seeking to do God's will? Of course, these are complex
questions with no easy solutions. But let me try to unpack some of my
thoughts on the issue.

First, let us recognize that a lot of what makes America
simultaneously wonderful and frustrating is its twin allegiances to
the notions of liberty and equality. We love both concepts – would
die for them, really – and yet sometimes we forget that they are hard
to hold together. If our government works for peoples' liberty, it
must allow people to choose to be unequal. If our government works
for peoples' equality, it must restrict people from exercising
liberty. And so it is with our schools. Is our goal that all people,
all schools, all districts are exactly the same? Or is it that people
and schools and districts can do whatever they want? I would argue
that, just as we have to hold in tension our love for liberty and
equality, so we must avoid seeking a resolution with our schools that
is all one side or the other.

Let's also consider just how unfair our financial inequities are
between richer and poorer districts. Poorer districts often have more
special-needs kids, who require additional attention and therefore
additional cost. (As a result, many states have created extremely
complicated formulas based on such needs, so that state funds are more
correctly allocated according which districts need more money to serve
their kids.) Richer districts have an easier time raising new money
for education-related expenses, because 1) property tax increases are
relatively easier for their richer residents to bear, and 2) property
taxes are deductible on federal income tax returns, meaning that
residents in the highest tax bracket are really only spending 65 cents
for every dollar they chip in for new education-related expenses (in
contrast, residents in poorer neighborhoods might not be itemizing, so
every dollar they spend on education is costing them a dollar).
Finally, financial inequities within the same metropolitan region make
it harder for poorer districts to attract good teachers (because
richer districts can pay more) and, to the extent that more money for
education leads to a better education (more on this later), such
inequities make it harder for students from poorer districts to
compete for jobs and universities against their richer counterparts.

So what is an appropriate Christian response? And what role can and
should the government play in making this wrong right? As to possible
Christian responses, certainly I know people who don't know about all
this and couldn't care less. They're just happy they can send their
kids to good schools, and don't think a second that they are
participating in a system that is potentially grievously unjust.
Others are aware of these inequities and use them to their advantage,
even looking down on others who didn't work as hard as they did or
weren't as shrewd as they were or don't value education as much as
they do. Still others feel deeply about such matters, but when it
comes to their own kids, they've made a move to a better school
district, and they feel guilty about it. Some are good, honest public
school workers who bristle at such rhetoric because their schools are
portrayed as pathetic and decrepit. Some want to blow up the whole
system, centralize education financing, and make sure every school has
the same amount of money so that such inequities will never again
exist.

I come to this topic with a certain worldview and a certain political
bent. In my opinion, to begin with, Christians should care about
deeply such matters, because we alone have an eternal and communal
perspective. That is, we're not just looking out for the here and
now, and we're not just looking out for ourselves and our own. Who
else will think long-term when others are thinking short-term? Who
will stand up with the marginalized when others are standing up just
for themselves?

As for government's role, I don't think it is to impose choices upon
people. I'm not a die-hard advocate of school choice, to the extent
that it can take away from efforts to improve neighborhood schools,
but I do believe in the premise of giving parents choices. And some
parents will choose to move to the burbs, others to send their kids to
private or religious schools, and still others to band together to
form charter schools. Far be it from the government to do anything
but give families room to make sensible choices about how they want to
raise their kids. And shame on Christians who guilt their brethren
for "selling out," when all they're doing is what they think is best
for their kids.

Speaking of choice, kudos to the School District of Philadelphia for
initiating a number of interesting concept schools within its borders.
Like any entrepreneurial initiative, this is going to have its
detractors and it's going to have its duds. But it still ought to be
implemented and supported, so that more choice and more variety can
get injected into this equation.

I am a little embarrassed to say that as strong as I feel about my
faith and my politics, I feel almost as strongly about my sports
allegiances. And so it is appropriate that I close my rantings with a
word about the Oakland A's. Baseball, like public schools, is not
fair. Some teams have more money than others. Sometimes this is
because of geography / market size, sometimes because of shrewd /dumb
moves, and sometimes there is chicanery. Oakland is one of the poorer
teams. And yet, for the past several years, they've been able to
field a very competitive team. How? Like shrewd investors, A's
management has figured out inefficiencies in the market. They buy low
and sell high when it comes to players, and they play the game in such
a way as to maximize success with minimal salaries.

I think there is a lesson here for our discussion of public education.
It's fun to bash the New York Yankees for having so much money, but
is the solution to fairer baseball that every team have the same
amount of money? Absolutely not. Baseball has its redistributing
(the luxury tax and the minor league draft being the two biggest) just
like public education, but for the most part, rich teams can and do
get richer, and poor teams can and do get poorer. But it doesn't
preclude a poorer team from becoming a winner. After all, money isn't
everything, as the A's have proven.

Besides, parents are finding this out when it comes to education.
People who have moved to a school district that has twice as much
money per student than their old neighborhood find themselves
disillusioned that the extra money hasn't prevented their new schools
from having some of the same problems as their former ones. Even
worse, sometimes the extra money causes students to develop an
unhealthy sense of entitlement or snobbery. Other parents have sent
their kids to private school, only to find that didn't solve their
problems either.

In short, education is an important but complicated process. It
behooves us parents, wherever our kids are, to get involved in our
kids' schools and in their lives. It also behooves us parents,
especially those who say we are Christians, to make sure the way
school funding is set up promotes our twin ideals of liberty and
equality. We don't concede that "this is how it is, so let's just
make the best of it," because we ought to strive to reform systems
that aren't fair. But neither should we say that because some
districts have more money than others, we should blow up the whole
system and make sure everyone has the same amounts to work with.
After all, if we're the Oakland A's, our goal isn't to eliminate the
New York Yankees from being able to spend so much money in its front
office, it's to beat them on the field.

Urban Growth Boundaries: Be Careful What You Wish For

Sprawl-haters often lobby for urban growth boundaries, where a
municipality draws a circle around its core and places restrictions on
development taking place outside the circle. Open space must be
preserved, they claim, lest the march of development encroach on
distant farmlands. Such spaces also have positive aesthetic and
environmental benefits for the municipality, things that sprawl-haters
tend to value.

But urban growth boundaries and other growth controls, far from
stopping decentralization, actually might encourage it even more,
according to William Fischel. In his paper, "Do Growth Controls
Matter," Fischel agrees that urban growth boundaries might make
individual municipalities more compact, but they probably cause
metropolitan regions to spread out.

Here's why. If one municipality institutes an urban growth boundary,
and the metro region is attractive enough that developers want to
build, those developers will simply go somewhere else where their
presence is more welcome. Those places tend to be exurban and rural
communities, where there will be less political resistance to new
development. Such communities are even further from the metro
region's urban core.

Over time, as these communities are settled, their residents will also
call for growth controls, pushing developers elsewhere. As more and
more new development takes place further from the metro region's
traditional core, a larger percentage of residential, employment, and
commercial hubs will be scattered over a larger area. In other words,
you will have sprawl, the very thing growth controls were trying to
rein in.

Though there might be good-sounding rhetoric that convinces people
that sprawl is a problem, there are no easy solutions. Urban growth
boundaries, for one, might not be the slam-dunk people think it is.

What Does the Gas Tax Pay For

Taxes on things like cigarettes and alcohol are often referred to as
"sin taxes," but the justification for having them isn't necessarily
to punish users of these products as it is to have those users pay the
full cost of purchasing and using these products. In other words,
with consumption of cigarettes and alcohol come such things as early
deaths, second-hand smoking, and car crashes. These are costs to
society, and in economic terms, we would call them "negative
externalities."

The thing about negative externalities is that because everyone is
losing but no one is paying, absent outside intervention you'll tend
to have more of the bad stuff than you'd like. Just like with
positive externalities, like public education or a beautiful garden,
because everyone is gaining but someone has to pay, absent outside
intervention you'll tend to have less of the good stuff than you'd
like. Taxes on things like cigarettes and alcohol raise the price of
such goods so that less of them are consumed, meaning less negative
externalities for all us, just like public expenditures on education
and gardens allow all of us to enjoy the societal benefit.

But what about the gas tax? Is it to cover negative externalities
like pollution? Is it priced like the scarce resource it is? No, the
gas tax is in place to pay for the roads we use. It's only fair for
the users of the roads to pay for the roads, goes the reasoning, and
since we don't want to make every road a toll road or install
privacy-intruding chips on everyone's car, the next best way to
connect road use with us consumers is by charging us at the pump.
Fair enough.

But that's all the gas tax does. What it doesn't do is help get us to
the true price of gas. As a result, you have negative externalities:
more pollution. And more pollution means deteriorating air quality
and reduced visibilities and other bad things. Of course, a local
levy won't work, because people can easily drive to the next
jurisdiction that has lower rates. In places where states are bunched
together, a state levy is similarly ineffective.

So what about at the federal level? If we want to reduce our
dependency on oil from unstable sources, the solution should be a
portfolio of responses. Yes, let's find new sources domestically.
Yes, let's invest in the next generation of energies that will power
our transportation. But let's also curb our demand by raising the
price of gas. A national gas tax will appropriately price gas by
forcing us to pay for our share of the negative externalities every
time we go to the pump. Kyoto and other gatherings remind us that
energy conservation and air quality are global issues, so it makes
sense that America's solutions should happen at the national level.