Cities Matter

"And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth." ― Gen 11

Historians are not agreed ... [but] some tell us that fugitives of Troy obtained ships, were carried to the Tuscan coast, and cast anchor in the Tiber. There the women, who had suffered much from the sea voyage, were advised by one accounted for wisdom and noble birth, Roma by name, to burn the ships. At first the men were angry at this, but afterwards, ... they fared better than they expected, as they found the country fertile and the neighbours hospitable; so they paid great honour to Roma, and called the city after her name. ― Plutarch

Abba Isidore went to see the pope of Alexandria and when he returned the brethren asked him, 'What is going on in the city?' But he said to them, 'Truly, brothers, I did not see the face of anyone there, except that of the archbishop.' Hearing this they were very anxious and said to him, 'Has there been a disaster there?' He said 'Not at all, but the thought of looking at anyone did not get the better of me' At these words they were filled with admiration, and strengthened in their intention of guarding the eyes from all distraction. ― Sayings of the Desert Fathers

“The man who lives in a small community lives in a much larger world. He knows much more of the fierce variety and uncompromising divergences of men… In a large community, we can choose our companions. In a small community, our companions are chosen for us. Thus extensive and highly civilized society groups come into existence founded upon sympathy [then, as they grow,] shut out the real world more sharply than the gates of a monastery. There is nothing really narrow about the clan; the thing which is really narrow is the clique.” ― G.K. Chesterton, Heretics

"Cities" mean people and people need sociological order [even across generations]. But people and cities are dynamic which means disorder or reorder [at least temporarily] ... as generations come and go.

So what are the essential characteristics, the benefits and the costs of those collections of people we call "cities"? What are the alternatives? And how has technology changed these over time?

Then again ... here are some less abstract, practical questions about cities which our panelists feel will help make the important sociological issues surrounding them more relevant to our everyday lives.

• What should cities build? How much should they build? Who should build it?
• Should buildings be regulated, and if so, how much?
• How should buildings be paid for? And who should decide who should pay for those buildings?
• Should private builders be obliged to respect history? The popular will? Common spaces? The environment? If so, should incentives alone be used to accomplish those ends—or should use more direct means (taxes, zoning, eminent domain, public ownership) be used as well?
• ... more questions as they are posed.

When, Where and a Flyer

Tuesday, Feb 26,  7:00 to 8:45 pm at Friends University ... Room 100 of William Penn Hall.  Click FLYER above and [if we have it] you will get a flyer which you can print and post appropriately to alert others about the upcoming meeting.

Panelists and Moderator 👥

Please welcome our generous and accomplished panelists and moderator. Click a name to see a bio [if we have it]. And remember, they have busy lives so we do NOT require them to provide a position statement or suggested readings in advance ... but if they do, we have provided links to those materials following their name/bio below ... and we encourage you to review these links to get to know our panelists and moderator better.

Dr. Chase Billingham – Assistant Professor of Sociology at Wichita State University with emphasis on urban sociology especially research examining gentrification, economic development, education, and stratification in U.S. metropolitan areas.

Mary Beth Jarvis – As President and CEO Wichita Festivals, Inc. she works to enhance the region’s quality of life by producing a world-class annual community celebration. She is the chairwoman of the Century II Citizens Advisory Committee.

Robert Layton – has served as Wichita’s City Manager since his appointment in 2009. He reports to a seven-member City Council and oversees 3,000+ employees, a $573 million annual budget and a $1.9 billion Capital Improvement Program.

Bob Weeks – writes the “Voice For Liberty” blog focusing on community and public affairs in Wichita and throughout Kansas. He fills in as guest host on talk radio shows, serves as a panelist on public affairs television programs, and hosts his weekly television program WichitaLiberty.TV.

Dr. Russell Arben Fox - Moderator, Political Science Professor and Director of the Honors Program at Friends University, will moderate.

Epilogue

Thanks to our excellent panelists for an evening of different perspectives from which to view ... and with which to engage ... the complex, dynamic and often confusing world  of cities in the process of physical change to accommodate the swelling ocean of desires by individuals and groups that have the money, influence, power and/or opportunity to make things happen.

• Chase Billingham talked about sociology in a comprehensive way that made room for us to see that we have various options in how we regulate ourselves and that the different options we choose have different consequences.
• Mary Beth Jarvis reminded us that attempting to identify and articulate a collective preference without individual decision-making [in the form of actual purchases] is not a task for the easily discouraged or impatient.
• Robert Layton wisely steered us back to basics reminding us that we need to agree on definitions to be sure the thoughts we exchange compare apples with apples.
• And Bob Weeks repeatedly demonstrated how well free markets and competition work as a decentralized-but-not-chaotic method for sociological regulation across a wide range of factual and resource settings [Russell's reservations notwithstanding].

Thanks to each of our panelists for a unique contribution to our dialogue. 👏👏

For those who missed [or just want to relive] this stimulating evening at Friends University, use this link to watch a quality AV recording on "Cities Matter" ... thanks to Paul Soutar at Graphic Lens ... or you can just go to YouTube and search for it under "New Symposium Society".

We welcomed old friends and some VERY EXCITING new friends !!! Special thanks to our local political representatives for coming and contributing. We hope YOU will stay in touch with New Symposium Society in the future. And if you have some ideas to share about ways to improve or expand our work ... just let us hear from you with a COMMENT below ... or an email to NewSymposium@gmail.com.  Goodbye until our next meeting and stay tuned to our blogsite for further info about upcoming meetings in 2019.

Suggested Readings

Civics 101
"Four Essential Attributes of a State",  Ja Teline, Dec 2010

The state is the result of social instinct in man. One cannot think of the state without human beings as one cannot conceive of cloth without yarn.

The Law, Frederic Bastiat, 1850

Here I encounter the most popular fallacy of our times. It is not considered sufficient that the law should be just; ... Instead, it is demanded that the law should directly extend welfare, education, and morality. This is the seductive lure of socialism. And I repeat again: These two uses of the law are in direct contradiction to each other. We must choose between them.

"Process of evolution of the State from the primitive times to the modern Nation State", Preserve Articles

Rome began as a city-state like the city-states of Greece. ... But before democracy could reach the final stage Rome found herself involved in wars with her neighbors ... [and] soon she subjugated [them] and turned westwards and southwards, bringing all the countries round the Mediterranean under her sway. ... The democratic city-state turned into an autocratic empire. The Greek ideals of liberty, democracy and local independence were subverted by the Roman ideals of unity, order, universal law and cosmopolitanism.

"The Road to Serfdom" [in cartoons], FA Hayek, 1946

Socialism has persuaded liberal-minded people to submit once more to that regimentation of economic life [centralized economic planning] which they had overthrown because, in the words of Adam Smith, it puts governments in a position where "to support themselves they are obliged to be oppressive and tyrannical."

The Delusion of Economic Development
"North Texas cities turn incentives arsenals against each other in fight for businesses & jobs", Dallas Morning News, March 29, 2018

University of Chicago Booth Business School professor, Anil Kashyap, said in the survey that the competition between cities and states for jobs is “almost entirely zero-sum.” Nevertheless, a recent report by the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research’s Timothy J. Bartik found that the use of business incentives nationwide tripled from 1990 to 2015.

"Why Don’t the 20 Cities on Amazon’s HQ2 Shortlist Collectively Bargain Instead of Collectively Beg?", The Intercept, Jan 22, 2018 

Rohit Ro Khanna, U.S. Representative for California’s 17th congressional district as a member of the Democratic Party, told The Intercept: “The cities should not compete against each other in a race to the bottom. It’s absurd for the taxpayers to offer subsidies to one of the richest companies in the world.”

"The Amazon Deal Was An Outrage From the Beginning", Veronique de Rugy, February 15, 2019, American Institute for Economic Research [AIER.org]

"You won’t hear me say this often, but in this case AOC got it right! It was indeed an outrage for the city to extend to Amazon over $3 billion in subsidies. In fact, there is never any good reason for government to subsidize a private company. Such handouts are appalling in their cronyism, in addition to being a sign of economic ignorance."

Intergenerational Equity 

Intergenerational equity is the concept of justice across generations [living and unborn]. It is often discussed with regard to transition economics, social policy, and government budget-making where, for example, the present accumulation of massive public debt or other obligations like pensions will burden future generations. Wikipedia

The Declaration of Interdependence And Jefferson’s ‘Brilliant Statement Of Intergenerational Equity Principles’, Joe Romm, ThinkProgress, Jul 4, 2013 

“The question [w]hether one generation of men has a right to bind another … is a question of such consequences as not only to merit decision, but place also among the fundamental principles of every government…. I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self-evident, ‘that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living’ … Turn this subject in your mind, my dear Sir, and particularly as to the power of contracting debts.” T. Jefferson letter to J. Madison, Sep 6, 1789


The Logic of Public Irresponsibility 

"It is easier to obtain votes for appropriations than it is for taxes ... to consume than to produce ... to borrow than to save ... [and] faced with these choices between the hard and the soft, the normal propensity of democratic governments is to please the largest number of voters. The pressure of the electorate is normally for the soft side ... [which] is why governments are unable to cope with reality when elected assemblies and mass opinions become decisive ... when there are no statesmen to resist ... but only politicians to excite and exploit. There is then a general tendency to be drawn downward ... towards insolvency."
Walter Lippmann, Essays in the Public Philosophy, Book One: The Decline of the West, Chapter IV: The Public Interest, Section 2: The Equations of Reality, 1954

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." ― H.L. Mencken

Crisis and Leviathan, Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government, Robert Higgs, 1987


"While traditional public choice generally maintains that democracy fails because voters'  views  are  rational  but  ignored,  the  Mises-Bastiat  view  is  that democracy  fails  because  voters'  views  are  irrational  but  heeded.    Mises and  Bastiat  anticipate  many  of  the  most  effective  criticisms  of  traditional public  choice  to  emerge  during  the  last  decade  and point  to  many avenues for future research."
"Mises, Bastiat, Public Opinion, and Public Choice: What's Wrong with Democracy?", Bryan Caplan & Edward Peter Stringham, Review of Political Economy, Vol. 17, No. 1, pp. 79-105, January 2005