Environmental and Urban Economics

At the Fletcher School at Tufts, my students argued that the transportation of goods such as roses from one continent to final consumers in the USA helped to exacerbate greenhouse gas externalities. They were arguing that "local produce" and goods may impose fewer negative externalities.

Here is a funny example of what my students were trying to say. I'd like to know how liability works here. Is the truck company libel?

November 28, 2007

Chicken Fat Leaks Over 20 Miles

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

ACCOMAC, Va., Nov. 27 (AP) — A truck leaked poultry fat along 20 miles of Route 13 on Tuesday, causing at least four crashes and making a stinky mess.

I was born in Chicago on day that my mom claims that the temperature was minus 15. I've lived in 3 cold places (Boston, Chicago and New York City) for 39 of my 41 years on this planet. But, after 11 months in Los Angeles --- I'm worried that I can't take the cold anymore.

This weekend I make my first trip back to the Northeast and the weather report says that there will be snow on sunday and I'm worried that I may freeze.

Purifying sewer water will increase Orange County's available water supply. Will the public be grossed out? Or does the median voter trust local government and modern technology to do its job? As this article highlights, the "gray water" will not directly go to your tap --- it will be used as a "moat" to protect the water supply and to drip slowly into aquifers.

The article does highlight how engineering feats can cope with growth.

This article has several interesting pieces to it. It is almost like a Simpsons episode as it wanders from subject to subject. In the middle, it laments that the City of Chicago has several simultaneous "green initiatives" going and wonders whether these various projects are cost-effective and offering synergies.

I am getting more interested in how and when local government has the right incentives to evaluate its "value added" in achieving its stated goals.

The Coase Theorem will not go away. Today's New York Times has a nice case study of the rising costs of air and noise pollution generated by a local airport in West Los Angeles. For those of you who only think about Kobe Bryant and Paris Hilton when you do think about LA, permit me to provide some details.

Santa Monica Airport is located in Santa Monica. This pretty town is located adjacent to the Pacific Ocean 5 miles west of UCLA.

Now that I've become an Uncle for the first time, I feel a responsibility to blog about important topics rather than trivia. So, I'd like to talk about ambient particulate levels at Cigar Bars. As discussed below, one brave Canadian went deep undercover to measure the ambient pollution at a hotel filled with puffers. The article doesn't mention if Ed Glaeser was there or not.

I went to a new dentist today in Westwood. We should all read Alan Blinder's Journal of Political Economy paper on the economics of tooth brushing (Volume 82, issue 4, 1974). Near the dentist's office in the hallway there was a box, the sign on the box said "This box does not contain drugs or money. It does contain blood and urine samples." This information convinced me not to open the box.

If you need some excitement in your life, take a look at this urban economics conference.

Have you ever wanted to know more about suburban New Jersey? The New York Times celebrates a small town there called Hopewell Borough. The commute to New York City looks a little bit too long for my taste. You couldn't walk to Columbia or NYU from there.

In these real estate articles, The Times does do a pretty good job sketching how "other people live". It would interest me how the morning Manhattan New York Times readers respond to this information.

Is Free Trade good for your environmental exposure? This is an interesting case study. It claims that U.S electronic waste is heading to China because it is cheaper to dispose of it over there. It also claims that this would be less of an issue if nations ratified the Basel Convention.