Post on 28-May-2020
Orchestra video
Voting with Your Feet
Dr. Bartley R. Danielsen Assoc. Prof. of Finance and Real Estate
North Carolina State University
Naperville, IL
The reason?
Good schools
Seven years later
• I had tenure
• I weighed 20 pounds
more
• I had diabetes
• And I had company
Long Commutes Linked to
Risk of Diabetes
“We have built America in a way that is, I believe, is
fundamentally unhealthy. It prevents us from walking. It
inhibits us from socializing. It removes trees and the things
that make our air quality better. We could not have
designed an environment that is more difficult for people’s
well being at this point. Two percent of the United States’
gross domestic product goes to the treatment of diabetes.
This is a crushing economic impact.”
Dr. Richard Jackson
Chair, Environmental Health Sciences (UCLA)
Danielsens resolve to
move into Chicago
However, public schools in downtown Chicago
are really bad
Whitney M. Young Magnet High School
Magnet School Rules
• Students are selected
by a computerized
lottery
• No attendance
boundaries
• Students across the
city may apply
A Possible Magnet School
Plan?
Danielsen Chicago School Plan:
• Sell the house in Naperville
• Move to Chicago
• Enroll the children in the bad schools
• Apply for magnet programs
• Wait for the lottery
• Pray for the children to be delivered into the
magnet
We needed a new plan
Chicagoland Population
Changes
Inner-city schools are a major contributor to
continued urban sprawl
“There's a flight out by many middle-class people
because of schools. A couple gets married and by
the time their children get to age five, they move.”
From: “The Luxury City vs. the Middle Class”
http://www.joelkotkin.com/content/0052-luxury-city-vs-middle-class
New York Times, July 6, 2010 “The question starts to hang in the air sometime
after the children arrive, and the apartment in the
city begins to feel a little tight:
Should we consider moving to a house in the
suburbs?… if the deciding factor is the relative cost
of each, the answer is quantifiable... based on an
apartment and a house in the New York
metropolitan area. … a suburban lifestyle costs
about 18 percent more than living in the city.
New York Times, July 6, 2010
“… But the one big caveat in all the calculations is
private schooling. If the city dwellers decide to send
their children to private school-- that expense would
instantly make the suburbs a bargain.”
From: “High-Rise, or House With Yard?,” New York Times, July 6, 2010.
http://finance.yahoo.com/real-estate/article/109998/high-rise-or-house-with-
yard?mod=realestate-buy
Petroleum is the biggest CO2 contributor
“Petroleum supplied the largest share of domestic
energy demands, accounting for an average of
47 percent of total fossil-fuel based energy
consumption.”
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/co2_human.html
Commuting = Petroleum
“About 95 percent of the energy consumed in
the transportation sector is petroleum.”
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/environment/emissions/carbon/index.h
tml
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1. Draw school district lines on the
ground.
2. People will vote with their feet (if they
can).
3. Impacts
– School Qualities will differ
– House prices will reflect school quality
• Economic Segregation
• Spatial Mismatch
• Income Inequality
People Vote with their Feet
(Tiebout, 1956)
Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956
Year
Vehicles
per
capita
1950 0.286
1960 0.377
1970 0.481
1980 0.615
1990 0.717
2000 0.755
2007 0.824
1. Draw school district lines on the ground.
2. People will vote with their Cars (if they can).
3. Impacts
– School Qualities will differ
– House prices will reflect school quality
– Economic Segregation
– Spatial Mismatch
– Income Inequality
4. Tiebout fueled with gas – sprawl,
pollution, CO2, traffic, roads
Now people vote with their
cars
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