The Cost of Urban Density
I'm sitting at a midtown Manhattan Starbucks waiting for a friend of mine who actually works. Below, I supply a photo of some urban garbage that I found close to the Hilton Hotel on 53rd and 6th.
This image nudged me back to my work on "green cities" and density. As you know, in several past papers I have extolled the green benefits of density. But, this photo highlights that if NYC wasn't rich -- this densely populated place could be a real mess. I ran into this today as I walked through midtown. Too many smoking people packed into too little space. Maybe the makers of that 1960s sitcom Greenacres were correct?
But, $ can solve several problems. This garbage must have been placed there with the intent of some well paid public sector worker picking it up and taking it somewhere. NYC uses $ to create a moat between its waste and its consumption. In many LDC cities, residents can't afford to do this.
As I lecture on "green cities", I interact with ecologists who argue that rich cities "artificially" green themselves by being able to export their trash. If you had to sit in a dirty diaper all day, you might poop less! I believe that this is their logic.
As an economist who believes in free trade, I would point out that NYC has to pay for trash removal but I certainly agree that less trash would be produced if producers paid per bag versus facing a zero marginal cost incentive.
This topic popped up in a lecture I gave to my UCLA freshmen last week. I was facetiously arguing that they use too much toliet paper in the dorms because they face a zero marginal cost per sheet. I argued that a little person should sit there in the stall and sell the sheets for a positive price. My brilliant freshmen looked puzzled and slightly disturbed. I told them that this logic would appear on their final and they should go think about it.
This image nudged me back to my work on "green cities" and density. As you know, in several past papers I have extolled the green benefits of density. But, this photo highlights that if NYC wasn't rich -- this densely populated place could be a real mess. I ran into this today as I walked through midtown. Too many smoking people packed into too little space. Maybe the makers of that 1960s sitcom Greenacres were correct?
But, $ can solve several problems. This garbage must have been placed there with the intent of some well paid public sector worker picking it up and taking it somewhere. NYC uses $ to create a moat between its waste and its consumption. In many LDC cities, residents can't afford to do this.
As I lecture on "green cities", I interact with ecologists who argue that rich cities "artificially" green themselves by being able to export their trash. If you had to sit in a dirty diaper all day, you might poop less! I believe that this is their logic.
As an economist who believes in free trade, I would point out that NYC has to pay for trash removal but I certainly agree that less trash would be produced if producers paid per bag versus facing a zero marginal cost incentive.
This topic popped up in a lecture I gave to my UCLA freshmen last week. I was facetiously arguing that they use too much toliet paper in the dorms because they face a zero marginal cost per sheet. I argued that a little person should sit there in the stall and sell the sheets for a positive price. My brilliant freshmen looked puzzled and slightly disturbed. I told them that this logic would appear on their final and they should go think about it.
posted by Matthew Kahn at 2:29 PM
1 Comments:
Classic picture of Manhattan. I've seen much worse. All that garbage would be great for renewable energy investments
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