Over the last couple of weeks, I have been re-reading the roughly 2600 blog posts I have written since 2005. I owe everyone an apology. Only 15% of them are good. Too many of the posts are self serving, and/or silly. The reason I sat down to read through all of them is that I knew that I did post some good material related to environmental and urban economics and I've now extracted that material and I'm rewriting it into a new free e-book I will release on environmental and urban economics.
From now on, I will be posting less silly stuff.
Two "serious" points about cities.
1. The Pew Center has posted an intriguing paper quantifying that suburbanites are the big winners from mortgage interest deduction. The Geographic Distribution of Mortgage Interest Deduction . Center city residents are more likely to be renters (because people live in multi-family buildings and such buildings are more efficiently run by single owners). So, the tax code is subsidizing suburbia. If suburban living has a higher carbon footprint, then the IRS is subsidizing climate change.
2. For teachers teaching urban economics, take a look at the LA City Budget Calculator. My proposal increased the deficit. Maybe I'm a Keynesian!
