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For problems I've been thinking about that need better ideas. Your input is welcome.

Hunting a way to make private expropriation more fair

Submitted by brad on Thu, 2005-06-23 18:49

Well, the Supreme Court ruled today that expropriation for private development can still be legal if the town council seems to think there's a public benefit. It's a terrible decision, with strange logic, and strange votes from the judges, but you will probably read many other articles about that today. What I want to figure is, given this ruling, what can we do to make it better?

What we will see happening is a land developer coming to the city with a plan to demolish a redevelop a block in a way that they claim will be good for the city -- perhaps bringing in tourists, jobs, business, whatever. Of course the deal is very good for the land developer, or they would not be drafting it.

I suggest we make it less sweet for the developer in such cases and give some of that sweetness to the expropriation victims. Today they get a "fair market value" for their property (that part of the 5th amendment wasn't shredded) but I say, if the expropriation is for private use, let's give them more.

First, start by paying them this fair market value at the date of expropriation, as we do now.

Then, after the deal is complete (with some time limits and other good constraints) we want to determine just how much "value" came from aggregating the properties. Right now this value goes to the developer. We're going to give most or all of it to the expropriated folks. So we come up with a value for the amalgamated property. (More below on how to do that.) This pre-opening profit would go, all or most of it, to the landowners. The developer keeps any further appreciation of the property as they operate it -- they need an upside too, of course.

More ideas follow...

Topic: 
Politics
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Enforce the "step in before storing your bag" rule?

Submitted by brad on Fri, 2005-06-10 15:59

Here's an entry in my new "solve this" cateogry, which asks for reader input on solving problems.

When flying on a very full flight yesterday, we had an example of what my approach for faster airplane loading would have helped with. But until we get that, are there other solutions?

On the full flight, passengers would stand in the aisle trying to store their bags. With the compartments full they took a long time doing it, sometimes found themselves unable to. This blocked the loading and even though we started boarding 30 minutes before the flight, we were not finished by departure time. The flight attendants were on the PA every few minutes telling people not to stand in the aisle, to instead step into the row and let people pass, but very few paid attention to it. We don't seem inclined to do this, and not just because we are desperate for storage space. (I'm one of the desperate, I carry on fragiles like camera gear that I refuse to let them throw around.) We just don't believe that our own efforts will slow things much, and we also believe it will take "just a few more seconds" to get the bag in right.

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Topic: 
Air Travel
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