The best-laid plans : how government planning harms your quality of life, your pocketbook, and your future

The best-laid plans : how government planning harms your quality of life, your pocketbook, and your future /

Reveals how government attempts to do long-range, comprehensive planning inevitably do more harm than good by choking American cities with congestion, making housing markets more unaffordable, and sending the cost of government infrastructure skyrocketing.

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Bibliographic Details
Online Access: Full text (MCPHS users only)
Main Author: O'Toole, Randal
Corporate Author: Cato Institute
Format: Electronic eBook
Language:English
Published: Washington, D.C. : [Lanham, MD] : Cato Institute ; Distributed to the trade by National Book Network, 2007
Subjects:
Central planning > United States.
Capitalism > United States.
United States > Economic policy > 2001-2009.
Local Note:ProQuest Ebook Central
Table of Contents:
  • Acknowledgments
  • Introduction
  • pt. 1. Forest planning
  • 1. The case of the fake forests
  • 2. Garbage in, gospel out
  • 3. A process of natural selection
  • 4. Analysis paralysis
  • 5. The return of fire dominance
  • pt. 2. Why planning fails
  • 6. Radical doctrine or rational decisionmaking?
  • 7. Human barriers
  • 8. Planning is not necessary
  • pt. 3. Land-use planning
  • 9. Urban renewal
  • 10. Turning Portland into L.A.
  • 11. How smart is "smart growth"?
  • 12. Smart growth as oppression
  • 13. Homeownership
  • 14. Housing affordability
  • 15. Housing bubbles
  • 16. It's supply, not demand
  • 17. Portland housing
  • 18. Smart growth and crime
  • 19. Portland planning implodes
  • pt. 4. Why planners fail
  • 20. The planning profession
  • 21. The history of planning
  • 22. The ideal communist city
  • 23. Urban renewal in the United States
  • 24. From radiant city to smart growth
  • 25. Typical planning methods.
  • pt. 5. Transportation planning
  • 26. Planning vs. chaos
  • 27. The benefits of the automobile
  • 28. Costs exaggerated
  • 29. The panic over peak oil
  • 30. Planning for congestion
  • 31. Building auto-hostile streets
  • 32. The rail transit hoax
  • 33. Transportation myths
  • pt. 6. Why government fails
  • 34. Power and rationality
  • 35. Legislators : seeking reelection
  • 36. Special interests : looking for handouts
  • 37. Bureaucrats : maximizing budgets
  • 38. The executive : distracted by detail
  • 39. Courts and voters : the last lines of defense
  • pt. 7. Instead of planning
  • 40. 246 varieties of cheese
  • 41. Make the market work
  • 42. Turn open-access resources into property
  • 43. Protect public goods with trusts
  • 44. Understand government's limits
  • 45. Reforming public land management
  • 46. Reforming transportation
  • 47. Reforming land use
  • 48. The American dream
  • Notes
  • Index.

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