We Love LA

Otis White's Urban Notebook at Governing.com (which, by the way, is
becoming my new favorite blog) recently had a post on the surprising
amount of residential density in Los Angeles, that alleged sprawl-mad
city everyone likes to beat up.

Full disclosure: though I have friends and family in LA, in many ways
I despise the place: hate the sports teams, hate the reliance on the
car, hate the triumph of image over substance. The city itself was a
rich and interesting story over the course of the 20th century, but no
one who lives there seems to care about it. Hate that, too.

And yet, Mayor Villaraigosa is doing some interesting things to
encourage continued population growth on the same amount of land, most
notably converting local eyesores into manageably high (i.e. three or
four stories) mixed-use projects.

For a nation that, for the most part, equates the American dream with
the unattached, 2500 square foot house in the suburbs, this is a
promising development (no pun intended). For though our country is
vast in land, not all of it is desirable by its inhabitants. The hot
places will draw even more and more people, and the population in
general is growing; the land, on the other hand, of course is not
growing.

Unless you count the sprawl of metropolitan areas further and further
away from their central cores. But this sprawl causes all sorts of
problems. Which is why Mayor Villaraigosa's aggressive actions to get
Angelinos comfortable with denser and denser living is so refreshing
and necessary. For it portends what all hot areas will have to do,
unless they want to either turn people away, make them mad, or give
into sprawl. Could it be that LA, of all places, could teach the rest
of us how to properly grow into this new century?

Facing My Fears

When I was 12, I was a fairly fearful kid.  I was scared of a lot of things.  I was particularly afraid of the dark and of public speaking.  And it was at the age of 12 that I began to conquer my fears, starting with those two.  I remember a dark staircase outside the community center my family would go every Chinese New Year.  The kids would play ball outside, and whenever our ball went astray and went down that dark staircase, that was the end of our ball-playing, because no one was brave enough to go down that staircase to retrieve the ball.  That year, when I was 12, I decided that I had had it with my fear of that staircase and of the dark.  When the ball went down that staircase, while my friends were resigning myself to going inside to watch the boring cultural programming, I said boldly, "I'll go get the ball."  I walked off toward the staircase, and could feel every eye beating down on my back.  I held my breath as I climbed down the staircase.  Down, down, down, until I say the ball.  I secured it, turned around, walked up the steps, threw it back to my friends, and then exhaled.  I thought to myself, "That wasn't so bad."  I realized I was conquering my fear of the dark.

Later that year, my junior high had scheduled an assembly for some important visitor.  I was one of a handful of students selected to serve on a panel that would make a few remarks on behalf of the school and then take some questions.  I think they picked me because my English teacher thought I gave good presentations.  They didn't know I gave good presentations because I practiced them to death, so fearful was I of making a mistake in front of others.  The thought of speaking in front of the whole school, extemporaneously at that, scared the heck out of me.  But I was even more scared of backing out.  So there I was, the day of the assembly, sitting up there scared out my wits with the other three or four students, who were also scared out of their wits.  But I decided to take a few deep breaths and just sit there in my nervousness.  And slowly but surely, my hands start shaking and throat stopped tightening up.  And when it came time for me to speak, I spoke slowly and calmly.  I realized I was conquering my fear of public speaking.

Why I do share these two stories?  Because I fear I haven't been doing a lot of conquering lately.  It's not because I don't have any fears, far from it.  Actually, what I think is happening is that I'm so afraid of that feeling of fear that I don't get anywhere near it.  Metaphorically, I'm nowhere near that dark staircase, nowhere near that junior high school stage, letting someone else go to those places.  I should know better.  I should know that courage is going to your that place of fear, taking a deep breath, and going boldly forward. 

But I'm not 12 anymore.  The things I'm afraid of seem bigger and badder.  And I am older and more conservative.  It is easier, then, to just settle, to not take chances and to take the easy road and to avoid the dark staircases and junior high school stages of life. 

Of course, I'm not talking about engaging in reckless or stupid behavior.  I'm talking about taking the kinds of risks one ought to take: calculated risks, bold risks, most of all faith risks.  I learned well after I was 12 that going to your place of fear and taking a deep breath and going boldly forward isn't just a great way to conquer your fears; it's a great way to build your faith in God and see Him come through on your behalf and on behalf of all His promises to you and to His own reputation and character. 

This is what I'm missing by being afraid to be afraid.  So I'm writing to spur myself to not settle, to not coast, to not chicken out.  Now if you'll excuse me, I have a dark staircase and a junior high school stage to find. 

Rich and Poor in Cities

I wanted to pick up on a topic I wrote about a couple of days ago, this notion of rich and poor juxtaposed on our city streets.  Just yesterday morning on my walk to work, as I was approaching the behemoth that is the new building for the Wharton School, a homeless person in tattered clothing wobbled toward me, screaming expletives.  I couldn't help but pause at this side-by-side image. 

Fifteen years ago, on my way into downtown San Jose to volunteer at the homeless shelters, I would always pass by tons of new construction; after all, this was the time when the city was emerging into the great commercial and cultural hub that it is now.  These stark images helped shape my passion for urban ministry, my sense that we could do better by our cities and by their poorest. 

Last year, when I went to China to adopt my daughter, I saw some more juxtapositions.  China, as you know, is booming, and yet it is still a predominantly poor country.  And so I saw gleaming skyscraper and gleaming skyscraper, all erected in the midst of urban squalor. 

So it is a topic I cannot seem to escape, no matter how old I get and no matter where I go.  And yet, though it is an issue I have given a lot of thought to, I can't say I have come to any sort of peace about what is going on, what ought to be done, what my response ought to be as a Christian and an urbanite and a young professional. 

Some days I actually wish I was on either extreme of this story.  It is easier to be oblivious, to not care about or to be patronizing towards the poor in our midst.  It looks nobler to be outraged, to vent indignation at inequality and demonstrate solidarity with the poor and preach condemnation of the rich. 

But my heart is on neither side, but somewhere in the middle.  The issue is too in my face to ignore it, my heart too warmed by God to dismiss it, my sensibilities too practical to be satisfied just ranting without actually accomplishing anything substantive and sustainable.  I am left with a faith that believes in a God of miracles, but a mind that knows just how entrenched the problems are, how complex the issues, how onerous the solutions.  Some days I want to change the world but am discouraged that my best efforts make so small a difference, other days I struggle to give even that small effort, and still others I give that effort gladly but feel bad I can't do more. 

For now, I will say this: I live and work and worship and shop and play and transact in the city.  And everywhere I go, there are rich and poor, solutions and problems.  And God is God over all of it, working it all towards a great and grand end my mind can't even fathom and my heart can't even hold, but my faith can trust wille be for good. 

Exciting Numbers

I've been working my way through the book of Numbers in my morning Bible read as well as in my weekly Bible study with the men of my church.  In both cases, I wasn't looking forward to it as much as accepting that it would be good to study this important book.  After all, I thought, there's a lot of boring stuff in there about censuses and laws and such. 

 

Boy, was I wrong.  The book of Numbers does have long and dry sections about censuses and laws and such, but it is also rich in allegory and instruction.  After all, the wandering of the Israelites from Egypt to Canaan is meant to represent the journey of God's people today, out of their former godless ways and into a new walk with God. 

 

What a journey it is today, and what insights we can gain about that journey and about our God from the book of Numbers.  I no longer chastise the Israelites from their grumbling or their hard-headedness, because I see it in me in my journey; nor do I chastise their leader Moses for losing patience with the people, but rather commend him for being as longsuffering as he was.  It is helpful to observe in the Israelites the grave consequences of disobeying God rather than having to experiment with them in my own life, even more helpful to contemplate the faithfulness of God in rescuing His people from their enemies so I can hold out for such a deliverance in my own life.

 

Most of all, I understand better the journey between Egypt and Canaan.  There is certainly a lot of drama in the book of Numbers, and in the same way, there is a lot of life to live and a lot of lessons to learn in our wilderness wanderings between former bondage and future glory.  I will still grumble, wander, and lose patience on this journey.  But from reading Numbers, I have a much better perspective of the journey and of the God who leads us on it. 

Rich and Poor Together

On my twenty-minute walk to and from walk, I pass by a lot of new development.  University City is booming, no matter how you slice it.  The Cira Centre rises up behind me as I begin my trek home.  Depending on which route I take home, I might pass by developments in process (like the new retail/residential project on 40^th and Chestnut) or recently completed (like the new library branch on 40^th and Walnut).  There's no question University City is sizzling hot.

 

But there's also no question that there is a fair amount of poverty amidst all this progress.  Today, I passed by not one, not two, but three homeless people ranting to themselves.  There are certain blocks where the sidewalks are cracked, weed-infested, and strewn with trash.  As I get further away from the PENN campus and closer to my house, the caliber of the retail and the condition of the housing deteriorates. 

 

Some are oblivious to the poor in our midst, and that's a shame, for those among us who are poor ought neither be an invisible group nor one we seek to brush away.  Others are too aware, so outraged that such indigence could exist in the midst of such wealth that the only logical solution must be radical upheaval. 

 

My read of the Bible indicates that neither the rich nor the poor are especially favored by God, despite what the "health and wealth" people might say on one side and the "liberation theology" people might say on the other.  My read of the Bible does convince me that material abundance can be a blessing or a curse, and material scarcity the same.  It also convinces me of the beauty of the economically rich and the economically poor living together in community, of the obligation and opportunity of those who are economically rich to economically enrich those who are economically poor, and of the danger of one's economic riches or economic poverty making one spiritually and morally and socially poor.

                                                                                                                                        

There's a lot of food for thought in the Bible when it comes to socio-economic issues.  The challenge and choice for those of us who live in University City, of course, is that it's not just what we think but what we're going to do. 

It's Pretty Here

For the longest time, Philadelphia has been known as a dirty city.  Out-of-town friends and family would tease me about living in "Filthadelphia," and I had to admit we had our share of garbage swirling around on the streets and catching in trees.  Whenever I visited another urban center, I always marveled at how clean it was.   I was a little envious, but accepted the dinginess of my new hometown as part of its colorful charm.

But don't look now, Philadelphia is bursting forth with prettiness.  The city has greened the eastern bank of the Schuylkill River into a lovely path for walking, biking, or just sitting.  A business improvement district downtown is constantly adding pedestrian-friendly amenities, like maps and lamps.  As I live longer in University City, I'm struck by how pretty the architecture and the trees here are. 

And this week, PBS is featuring the city in its "Edens Lost and Found" series.  Among the local organizations featured: the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, the Village of Arts and Humanities, and the Mural Arts Program.  Each of them and others is responsible in their own way for making Philadelphia a pretty city. 

Sure, people here and afar who don't see it yet might still call it "Filthadelphia."  But now, when asked about my city, I can say with a straight face, "It's pretty here."

Manipulating the Demand Curve of Oil

Sources say when it comes to oil consumption, President Bush is pushing alternative technologies rather than calls to conserve because he doubts Americans can voluntarily curb their appetites. And I think he's right.  It's folly to assume Americans will voluntarily restrict their car driving; instead, we need to change the equation for them.  After all, the demand curve for gasoline is a fairly steep one, in that even big increases in the price of gas haven't led to less driving, nor have big decreases led to more driving.

What's happening now is that where the supply and demand curves intersect is at a quantity that is too high and is therefore socially suboptimal.  What does that mean?  The price of gas is too low, because it doesn't take into account such negative externalities as pollution and congestion, not the mention the geopolitical volatility and undeniable scarcity of this resource.  What happens when the price of something is artificially low?  The supply and demand curves meet too far to the right.  Factoring in the true cost of a gallon of gas shifts the supply curve upward, which moves the equilibrium point up and to the left on the demand curve. 

But because the demand curve for gas is so steep, even a huge increase in the price of gas won't yield the necessary reduction in the consumption of gas to get this equation right.  And any sort of call to increase the cost of gas is akin to political suicide.  So what's the solution?  Again, Bush doubts voluntary curbing of gas consumption will work.  Why would it?  Why would you voluntarily decrease your consumption when you would rather purchase a certain amount for the price it's at now?  Nothing has been done to your demand curve, after all. 

Maybe these alternative technologies, scoffed as they are by some, hold the key to actually changing the demand curve, so that the resulting equilbrium is socially satisfactory, both in terms of Americans wanting to drive and Americans wanting to avoid pollution and congestion.  Of course, things like ethanol and hydrogen-power vehicles have their own political triggers, too.  So this dilemma is pretty darn hard to resolve.  But I think understanding it starts with understanding the demand curve.

What A Difference Fifteen Years Makes

When I first came to urban Philadelphia from suburban San Jose, many people on both coasts thought I had lost my mind.  Was I willingly trading clean neighborhoods, sunny skies, and all the attendant positive spillovers from a tech boom with no end in sight for high crime, dirty streets, and a city in fiscal ruin?  Four years at Wharton and ten at The Enterprise Center and two at Fels and six as a homeowner later, it is clear I've not only traded in but settled in. 

 

And what a difference in the city I've transplanted to.  Our downtowns are clean and vibrant, thanks to the dealmaking of Ed Rendell, America's mayor and ours from 1991 to 1999, and to the remarkable work of Paul Levy and the Center City District.  The Greater Philadelphia Tourism and Marketing Corporation has made us a tourism hotspot for domestic and international visitors.  The city has always had its jewels -- the Mann Music Center, a second-to-none restaurant and bar scene, and deep R&B roots come to mind -- which locals, transplants, and visitors are starting to see in their full brightness.  And Philadelphia has even become, dare I say, cool -- witness our hosting of a season of the X Games, MTV's The Real World, and the Live8 concert.  For goodness' sake, we're making an audacious but legitimate bid for the 2016 Olympics. 

 

As a resident of University City, I can enjoy a number of things now that didn't exist when I first moved here in 1991: the greening and lighting of the neighborhood, courtesy of the University City District; paved paths along the Schuylkill River for me to walk, run, and bike; and a new K-8 school two blocks from our house to send our children to.  I jump at the chance to take friends and family in town to hidden gems they might not have heard of, like Elfreth's Alley and the White Dog Cafe.  The city which seemed so dirty and dangerous when I was a scared California teen in 1991 now seems to me so pretty, pleasant, and vibrant: ample trees, unique architecture, and everything within easy walking distance. 

 

Who could've predicted when I came out here for school that I'd stay for so much cool?

Governing Like Mick Jagger

Paul C. Light, author of The True Size of Government and other bestsellers, wrote a nice piece on Governing.com 's daily email blast today, urging state governments to be more like the Rolling Stones.  In what way, you ask?  Even though anyone who saw the Stones perform at this year's Super Bowl would swear these guys are all in their eighties, the group still rocks on, to the tune of scores of concerts before millions of fans each year.  Their ability to organize concert dates and set up their massive sets is so impressive that the US Air Force is using them as a benchmark for reducing their average time to battle.  In the same way, urges Light, state governments should be nimble, decentralized, and innovative.

 

Easier said than done.  There's a reason government is synonymous with bureaucracy.  Governments usually are stuck with the tasks no one else can do because they lack the scale, sophistication, or motivation.  What governments have to deal with are massive amounts of transactions and impossibly complex problems, requiring incredibly expensive interventions.  The Rolling Stones -- they just have to sing their same old songs.

 

But just because governments have to deal with all these complicated issues doesn't mean they can't incorporate some of the private sector's best practices.  In his column, Light offers a number of suggestions for state governments in particular to inject some nimbleness into their operations, like governors who are good delegators, rainy day funds that seed innovation, and staff trained in multiple areas so as to better respond in situations of chaos and crisis.  State governments, rock on.

Cheap Government

My man Andy Cassel wrote another good column today. This time, it was
about our federal government's rising debt. Seems the classic
conservative's approach to reining in big government by cutting taxes
(so as to force legislators to curb spending) is not only not working
but is having the opposite effect. With historic tax cuts have come
historic spending increases, and not just on big-ticket military items
like Iraq and Afghanistan. And you know what happens when you cut tax
revenues and increase government spending? Bigger and bigger debts,
debts we're paying interest on now and debts our children and
grandchildren will eventually have to settle.

What happened? Cassel references a libertarian think tank's report,
which states that Americans, having been the grateful recipients of
tax cut after tax cut, have concluded that government is cheaper than
it actually is. And what happens when something's price is
artificially low? You buy more of it than you really ought to. And
that's exactly what has happened. Our demands reflect an incorrect
perception of the cost of doing government. And the bill is
skyrocketing.

Now as a fiscal conservative, I'm generally a proponent of what's
known as supply-side economics, which basically means that lower taxes
are an important driver of economic growth. But my allegiance to
Reaganomics only goes so far. In this space, I've railed about other
things whose price is artificially low, and whose overconsumption has
had deleterious spillover effects. As taxpayers, it's not that the
price of government is artificially low per se, it's just that it's
been so easy to finance our debt that we forget that when we spend a
dollar and only bring in seventy cents, eventually we have to find
that other thirty cents, plus interest. Instead, we've grown
accustomed to being able to spend that whole dollar.

I forget when I wrote this (I assume shortly after the 2004 election),
but even as a Republican, I was fearful that Republican control of the
White House and both houses of Congress would lead to rampant
overspending. But the blame rests on both sides of the aisle. For
you're always more popular when you spend for your people, and you're
always committing political suicide when you call for higher taxes
and/or reduced spending. So we continue to cut our taxes and up our
spending, and in the process we've deluded ourselves into thinking
government is cheaper than it really is and we're clamoring to consume
more of it than we can really afford.

Thank goodness that in our old age, when we've so bankrupted our
federal system that our children and grandchildren can't take raise
enough in tax revenues to take care of basic services for themselves,
let alone for us old fogies, that we have Social Security. Oh, wait a
minute . . . that's a topic for another post.

Introverted Me

College is a perfect laboratory for ministering like Jesus did. It's
the closest you can get in our modern society to living and eating and
playing 24 hours a day with others, incarnating yourself into the
lives and joys and pains of others, watching how other Christians act
in different settings and letting others watch you in different
settings. After all, the Christian faith is meant to be a public and
relational one, contrary to how many Americans view such things as
private and individual matters. And how can you get more communal and
interactive than a campus, a dorm, a bubble.

But while it's easier to form and keep relationships in college, it's
not impossible afterwards. Nevertheless, I must confess I haven't
tried as hard as I ought. A lot of it has to do with being busier,
having home and family responsibilities, and just being older. This
is just part of growing up, for the college lifestyle is for college,
not for thirtysomethings and fortysomethings.

But a lot of it has to do with my own introvertedness, and my
unwillingness to stretch past that natural introvertedness to make
contacts. Some who know me in a work setting might be surprised to
read this, for they might fancy me an able networker. And in fact, in
more formal settings, I can and do network.

It is the spontaneous, casual settings that I am not nearly as
effective. When I take my daughter to the local park, I ought to make
more effort to get to know the names of the other parents and their
kids. In the absence of regular interactions with old and cherished
contacts, I can intentionally reach out to them but too seldom do so.
Even when I walk around the city and spy an old acquaintance, I don't
often make the effort to flag that person down to say hi and engage in
a brief conversation.

God makes some more extroverted than others, I understand. But even
for the introverts, He calls and invites us to make human contact, to
leaven the world and to learn from it, to get our hands and lives
dirty with the pains of others, to have an authentic moment of joy in
the celebration of someone else's happiness. So here's a prod to
myself, to stretch a little out of my introvertedness and do a little
relationshipping.

Job Criteria, The Second Time Around

Unlike most of my college cohorts, I stayed at the same job out of
college for ten years. I used to joke with people who asked about it
that "either I had good job satisfaction or was too incompetent to
find a better job; hopefully more the former than the latter." In
truth, I had great job satisfaction at my first job out of college.

One downside to working at the same place for ten years right out of
college, though, is that you don't have a very large sample size of
job searching experiences to draw from when you're searching for a job
the next time around. In fact, part of my job at my first job was to
be the interviewer. So this time around, I went to my job interviews
with a lot more insight on the perspective of the person on the other
side of the table from me than on my side.

To compound matters, job searching in your thirties is more complex
than in your twenties. It's easier to be idealistic, for example, and
take a job to change the world, when you don't have a family and
related obligations to worry about.

I hope that I am no less idealistic now than when I first graduated
from college; I've just added a little realism to the idealism. So
when I was looking this second time around, I knew I didn't want to
settle for a job that I couldn't wake up every morning and know I was
making a positive contribution to society, to people, and to the
Kingdom of God.

But this second time around, I added two other criteria. First, I had
to be around people smarter than me, doing work that challenged me
intellectually and expanded my professional experiences. And second,
the particulars of the job – pay, benefits, commute, hours, stress
level – had to work for my current station in life.

Although God has been remarkably faithful to me in my job searching –
I count my internship during grad school in this, so we're talking now
about a sample size of two – I doubted along the way that I could find
such a job. But once again, God has provided. I'm happy to announce
I will be starting next week at a small but active consulting firm
called Econsult.

The job will have me on projects that I believe will be beneficial for
urban Philadelphia and other localities we'll be tackling. I couldn't
ask for a more intellectually stimulating workplace and co-workers.
And did I mention the office is twelve blocks from my house?

While I haven't been steady in my faith in God to provide, He's been
steady in His faithful provision. It just goes to show you that the
more we change, the more God stays the same.

Political Economist

Here's an excerpt from one of my finals, which is a nice tying up of
my two years in government school:

"I'm politically and philosophically leery of artificial impositions
on the free market. I respect the choices of individuals and
businesses; after all, capitalism doesn't work without those free
choices. Nevertheless, if the price is wrong in that it leads to too
few positive externalities or too many negative externalities, then
appropriately calculated taxes and subsidies to get the price right
should be considered."

The topic was smart growth, although it could've been anything in
which the government gets involved, which is to say anything, and I
would've said the same thing. So two years after starting on this
thing called government school, I'm now done. I was hoping to see how
an economist's mindset could be applied to political topics, and I got
my wish. And now I start a new job, next week, at a place where I
will get to apply an economist's mindset to political topics. So
while the schooling has come to an end, the learning has just begun.

The Mundane Stuff

I became a Christian in high school but didn't really understand the
faith until college. And college is an important formative time for
many who became Christians at earlier ages. The great but tricky
thing about college is that you can be extremely focused as a
Christian. Sure, college has its unique distractions and pitfalls.
But it is also a time that you don't have a whole lot of other
responsibilities to worry about. If you live in a dorm, the school
usually pays to clean the bathroom you use and the cafeteria takes
care of cooking your meals and washing your dishes. You're kind of
cut off from your family, especially if you go to school far from
home, and even if you weren't, you wouldn't have many responsibilities
anyway: you don't have kids, and your parents aren't quite old enough
for you to be worrying about things like Alzheimer's and nursing
homes. All you have left is the books, and even those can be tackled
in the context of ministry, to the extent that you take classes with
others and build relationships with them as you study together.

Fast forward about a decade. You've got kids, so you're mind is
occupied with things like day care and college savings and good
nutrition. You've got a house to clean, laundry to do, groceries to
buy. You don't breeze through your routine physicals anymore, because
you're entering an age where you start to have to get things regularly
tested and such. In other words, there's just a lot of mundane stuff
that takes up your time, stuff you didn't have to worry so much about
in college so you could focus on being a Christian and doing ministry.

You might think from the previous paragraph that I'm speaking somewhat
autobiographically, and I most certainly am. You might also think
from the previous paragraph that I'm pining for my college days, but I
most certainly am not. I would not for a second trade my current life
and its responsibilities for my previous days in college. But I have
had to adjust my sense of time allocation. I was in college and still
am today a very driven person. The freedoms of college gave me lots
of time to do ministry, and by and large I used the time in that way.
Now I have less of that time, taken as it is by the mundane stuff. I
don't regret it, though I know people who, like the apostle Paul, have
chosen a lifestyle that frees them from the mundane stuff and frees
them for full-time ministry. Sometimes I even kind of like the
mundane stuff. So I'm not writing to complain about the mundane
stuff, just to acknowledge that there's a lot of it, and that it's an
adjustment from college days. Whether our lives are completely
allocated for formal ministry or we are responsible for mundane
things, may we understand that ultimately all of life is ministry and
accept our daily challenges accordingly.

Getting All the Tobacco Money Upfront

In the April 20, 2006 issue of the Philadelphia Inquirer, Monica Yant
Kinney rails on New Jersey politicians for securitizing and then
squandering their portion of the tobacco settlement. In her mind, the
tobacco settlement represents a steady income stream that can be spent
each year on things like prevention programs and other health causes.
She scolds Governor McGreevey and others for salivating over this
windfall and using it instead to plug budget deficits.

But while I may also disagree with New Jersey's profligate spending
ways, like Yant Kinney does, I don't necessarily disagree with their
securitization of the tobacco revenues. After all, the settlement
doesn't bind states to spend their take on health issues. Logically,
the revenue isn't for preventing future losses by states via
prevention programs, but for compensating for past expenses incurred
by states as a result of tobacco-related negative impacts.

By securitizing their portion of the tobacco settlement, New Jersey
shed the risk of a decline or even cessation in future tobacco
revenues. After all, if Big Tobacco goes out of business, that gravy
train to the states stops. Or if their market share dips, their
annual obligations to the states also goes down. So securitizing this
revenue stream means they're taking all the money upfront, and pushing
the risk off on the holders of the tobacco bonds the uncertainty of
future payments to the states by Big Tobacco.

Furthermore, they are now without conflict of interest in battling
tobacco use within the state, through actions such as their recent
legislative ban on smoking in public places. If they had not
securitized the tobacco revenues, they would be conflicted in working
to reduce smoking, for such reductions might lead to reductions in
future revenues from tobacco companies according to the terms of the
settlement.

Maybe the squandered the bond proceeds, and maybe they didn't. Even
if I agree with Yant Kinney that they did, I don't agree that their
mistake was in securitizing their portion of the tobacco settlement.

Is Jason Kendall A Sinner or a Saint

One of the more entertaining moments in sports is a baseball brawl.
Even though they're highly unpredictable and wildly messy, they
usually adhere to the following formula: pitcher throws at batter's
head, batter charges mound, pitcher and batter scuffle, other players
on the field converge, benches and bullpens join in.

Such a donnybrook happened last night in Anaheim between my beloved
Oakland A's and the hometown LA Angels. Apparently, Angels pitcher
John Lackey whistled a pitch past Oakland hitter Jason Kendall and
then barked something at Kendall. Kendall took offense at the words
and charged the mound, and both teams joined in the fun. Lackey and
Kendall were tossed for their role in the fracas.

Now, even as a biased A's fan, I have to admit Kendall's charge was
unnecessary. Lackey had thrown him a pitch that started at him and
the curved back toward the plate. I understand that pitchers have to
establish the inside part of the plate in order to be successful.
Kendall wears a big pad on his outside arm, and many opponents accuse
him of using it to get hit intentionally, thus winning him first base.
A teammate of Kendall even said that when he was not on the A's, he
once threw inside to Kendall and Kendall charged him, too. So perhaps
Kendall is a bit feisty, maybe even a little loony.

But does that make him a sinner or a saint? Not in the moral sense,
of course, but in his contribution to his team. Do we judge Kendall
for losing his cool and getting himself ejected from an important
game? There's another way to look at his actions. As crazy as his
behavior might have seemed, maybe it sends a signal to the Angels, and
to other teams who no doubt saw the highlights on SportsCenter that
night, that if you pitch inside to Kendall, and perhaps to anyone on
the A's, there will be retaliation. Maybe it's not fair, maybe it's
not good sportsmanship, maybe it's absolutely uncalled for and
downright inside. But it'll happen.

Jason Kendall is one of those guys who doesn't put up big individual
numbers but is always lauded for being a good team player. I never
knew what that meant. I thought players that won championships but
didn't have good stats were simply lucky to be on the right team at
the right time.

But I think I understand this notion a little better. Now that sports
is a full-fledged business and free agency means players jump teams
much more than in the past, you are seeing the triumph of teams that
espouse such principals as solid teamwork, veteran leadership, and low
player turnover. In college hoops, so-called "mid-majors" are finding
parity with the larger schools, because while the hot prospects will
never play for a small school, other decent players will, and will
stay for four years and together become a formidable team. Teams like
New England Patriots and the Detroit Pistons have had successful
championship runs in recent years due to a steady nucleus of minor
stars who learn how to trade individual statistics for team success.
Meanwhile, teams like the New York Yankees and the New York Knicks
have struggled with their "rotisserie league" approach to buying and
trading mega-stars.

Free agency is the marketplace introduced to sports. It is efficient
in setting the price for athletic talent. I am a believer in free
markets and in stats. But sometimes there are things that don't show
up in the box score. The Oakland A's have been on the mainstream map
of late because of Michael Lewis' Moneyball, which articulated the
small-market A's approach to beating the richer teams: buying
undervalued stats like on-base percentage (OBP) and selling overvalued
stats like saves.

OBP is a particularly telling stat to track, because it gauges a
batter's patience. Here is a classic example of a stat that doesn't
quite show itself fully in the box scores: for the more pitches a
batter sees, the more tired that pitcher is for the next batter. The
most valuable at-bat in a game might not be the three-run home run
that breaks a game open, but the ten-pitch at-bat by the previous
hitter, even if that at-bat resulted in an out.

Sports is easy to dissect because the stats are all there to crunch
and recrunch. But these principles come into play any time you have a
team. You might have some individual superstars on your squad. But
don't underestimate the importance of longevity, of learning to work
as a team, and of underappreciated individual acts that add value to
your whole team. Even if those underappreciated individual acts look
like charging the mound to tackle the pitcher for no apparent reason.

The Hidden Cost of Cheap Land

There was a nice column in last month's Governing Magazine about amenities in suburban office parks.  Busy workers can be more productive, after all, if their personal errands are close to where they work: things like dry cleaning and fitness centers and coffee shops.  The author made a good point that while it's smart for big companies to work these amenities into their facilities, it's even smarter for them to locate in urban areas where those amenities are already in place.  Why should a research institute or a software firm also be in the business of running a sandwich shop or providing auto maintenance when there are already plenty of places that already exist to take care of those things?

These extras constitute a hidden cost to cheap land.  Suburban office parks near highway off-ramps may be convenient to get to for America's suburban workforce and offer cheap and plentiful land for their developers.  But there are still some advantages to locating in dense urban areas.  We knew about agglomeration economies and proximity to academic institutions and financial centers.  Who knew that freeing companies from playing the role of bank, café, and dry cleaners was another reason?