Environmental and Urban Economics

I was wondering why everyone looks so good in Los Angeles? Is it selection? Attractive people move here to try to make it big in various entertainment industries? Or is it treatment? This article below emphasizes the second theory. The treatment isn't the sun and fresh air! Instead, the treatment is every piece of specialized investment one could make to look young and fresh. Adam Smith should forget the boring pin factory and study specialization and the extent of the market in the "beauty production" industry. Note that these highly specialized fields could only be offered in a rich, large city that can guarantee high expected demand for such services.

Note that the article doesn't quote any dudes.

I am in Berkeley at an energy conference at the UC Energy Institute. The 5 day meetings are called a "summer camp" and the weather and group spirit makes it feel this way. The meetings are making me feel mildly youthful and enthusiastic about this subject matter. Given the importance of energy issues, it is surprising that not more economists have been working on the topic.

In the good old days, all jobs were downtown and all people lived downtown close to the jobs because transportation costs were too high to allow people to live further from employment centers and enjoy cheaper land. This society would have a small ecological footprint but its residents would be exposed to plenty of air, water and noise pollution and risk of disease from contagion. Transportation innovations allowed population to suburbanize.

Last Wednesday morning I left Los Angeles to fly up to Vancouver. The flight was easy but when I was in the Vancouver airport trying to pass through customs I got stuck in a 2000 person line. Apparently, it is cruise ship season and every person trying to take the Love Boat to Alaska was there with me. How did I respond to this congestion? I called my wife and asked her to read me my email over the phone.

As a young man, I was on Wall Street Journal Asia's Television channel being interviewed on how New York City's ban on smoking would affect the flow of asian tourists to NYC. Today, I made my radio debut on Vancouver's http://www.cknw.com/. In truth, when I was a student at Hamilton College I was a DJ playing classical music and sometimes classic rock at WHCL in Clinton but I didn't talk much on the air.

I have a new favorite newspaper. My only regret in this article is that I didn't do a good job discussing "Superstar" cities and San Francisco. Even I know that San Francisco's middle class is being hollowed out by gentrification. You would have to be quite open minded about what the words "upper middle class" mean below.

Tonight at 8pm pacific time, I'll be on

The World Today & Nightline BC CKNW NewTalk 980

to discuss these issues.

Suppose that investments in renewable energy plants such as wind power or solar is costly requiring large sunk upfront investments (think of wind turbines).

This books sounds interesting. I've blogged before about the NIMBYism versus green power proponents going at it in Cape Cod. This book provides a detailed case study contradicting a pet theory of mine. Recently, I've grown interested in the idea that environmentalists are often "guinea pigs" for new green products.

Next wednesday there will be some real excitement in Vancouver. I'm coming to town to speak for at least 10 minutes on the broad issue of gentrification and the balance between residential land use and commercial land use in a "Superstar" city.

http://cuer.sauder.ubc.ca/CUER_roundtable_event.html

I hope to see you there.

Plenty of papers have been written about the rise of poor nations as pollution havens

as international trade grows. Less has been written about environmental problems suffered in richer importing nations if the products we import are of lower quality and can cause potential health problems because they of the materials used to make them.

Recently there was a scandal with pet food from China. If I remember correctly, the pet food that was imported by the U.S had dangerous chemicals in it.