The Antiplanner discusses how well-intentioned agencies become wasteful government-planning bureaucracies.
The mal-investment in our socialist highway system and the resulting congestion, pollution, disrepair, and sprawl come to mind. Using smart growth, modern day planners are trying to correct the lack of foresight of the planners and politicians of past generations who brought us the sprawl and congestion in the first place. However, with the lack of signals the market give us, it took several generations to recognize we had been going the wrong direction. We won’t know for another generation or two which wrong road modern planners are sending us down.
Even if it’s unlikely we can privatize everything overnight, by introducing market solutions to our highway/transit systems, we can begin to make better decisions for the long run. Politicians need to welcome the ideas of tolling and privatization and stop pandering to the automobile-reliant voters.
