Bears, Moose, People Part I - The Narratives

Several bear attacks with graphic front page coverage in the Anchorage Daily News this summer have raised the volume in Anchorage's ongoing discussions about the risks of wildlife in town against the advantages of living in a town with moose and sometimes bears.

A lot of the coverage is breathless reporting of the details of specific attacks and pictures of the victims in their hospital rooms along with interviews with people who like living with wildlife and people who want the bears shot

The way people react to such situations is often related to the narratives they have in their heads. We latch onto any incident that seems to support what we believe and we tend to reject evidence that contradicts the stories we've grown to believe. Environmentalists think that Al Gore's movie proves everything they've been believing while many in the Bush administration see it as flawed propaganda.

Without taking people's stories, their narratives into account, we really can't

• understand how and why people respond the way they do, which allows us to
• begin an authentic discussion that can lead to community action that satisfies most people

So, in this post I'm going to run through some of the narratives that seem to underlie the discussions I've been hearing this summer about bears in Anchorage. (Moose are also an issue, but not like bears. Mostly I'm going to ignore the moose issues here.)

I would also note that people can hold more than one of the narratives at the same time. Some people integrate them into one single story, others compartmentalize them and see the world as one story when it fits and the other story when that one fits and never see a contradiction.


The Possible Stories:

Story 1: Bears are dangerous animals and have no place near urban settings where they can endanger people.

This sounds clear, but where do we draw the line?

• By people at risk:
  Wildlife in Anchorage is not worth risking any people's lives, therefore:
• All dangerous wildlife should be removed from the Anchorage Bowl to protect human life.
• However, wildlife should not be removed to protect adults who stupidly provoke (put in your own definition of this) wildlife.
• Wildlife in Anchorage is not worth risking a child's life, therefore any bear in a neighborhood where children live, should be immediately removed.

• By geography. All bears:
• in Anchorage residential or recreational areas should be removed.
• within 10miles of an Anchorage home should be removed.
• within 2 miles of an Anchorage home should be removed
• in any residential areas should be removed
• in areas zoned for lots of less than one acre should be removed.
• that come within five feet of a home should be removed

• By bear behavior - All bears that:
• show no fear of people should be removed
• have been seen eating garbage should be removed
• threaten people should be removed

Holders of this story include people who did not come here by choice and have tried to recreate the ideal life of where they came from. Bears aren't part of that dream. It includes some hunters. It includes people who strongly believe in order and controlling nature. It also includes people who have grown up in Anchorage and have seen the bear population increase dramatically in recent years and are genuinely concerned about the safety of their family. The ADN earlier wrote about

Hillside resident Scott Gorder has seen so many bears in his yard in recent years that he's nervous about leaving his house come summer.

Since he bought his home in 1990 he's seen the number of bears increase, he said.

"I grew up in town," Gorder said, "but as kids we camped everywhere (on the city's edge). I never saw a bear."

In his youth, he and friends camped and fished along Campbell Creek east of Lake Otis. They never worried about bears being attracted to their fish. They left their camp full of food. In short, they did just about everything one wants to avoid in bear country because of the danger of attracting the animals, Gorder admitted.

If I had kids and lived on the Hillside and bears were pawing my back door regularly, I suspect I'd be thinking more along these lines.




Story 2: Wildlife is a special feature of Anchorage and we can all coexist. Of 73* US cities with populations over 250,000 Anchorage is the only one that has a significant bear and moose population. (Though some have coyotes or pumas or poisonous snakes.) The Municipality has promoted the city in the past with a dancing moose called Seymour and the slogan "Wild About Anchorage." The current Anchorage slogan is "Big Wild Life" and the website that promotes Anchorage has bears representing the 'wild' part of the slogan. Living with wildlife is part of the attraction of Anchorage for many residents. People who don't want moose or bears in their yard have 72  other US cities where they can live. People who want this sort of environment have just one choice: Anchorage. That choice should not be removed. Options:

People who do not want the risk of encounters with bears should:

• Move out of Alaska and let the rest of us enjoy this environment
• Move into a part of town that has a negligent risk of bear encounters

A very vocal section of the Anchorage population has always supported the idea of wildlife, particularly moose, being part of our urban environment. This is not a new issue. Wolfsong's website has a series of letters to the editors from three years ago which show a lot of support for then censured wildlife biologist Rick Sinnot who publicly made some candid remarks about people who attracted bears to a neighborhood with dumped fish waste. I'm not sure if these are all the letters from that day or they picked the ones that fit their stand on the issue.

* I took the number from a Lexington website. Various sources give different ways to talk about how many other cities there are. Tucson's website mentions 141 metropolitan areas in the US and Canada with more than 250,000 people. Demographia identifies 96 principal metropolitan areas (in the US) with populations over 500,000.


Story 3: People's perception of risk is skewed. Bears are a minor risk compared to other causes.

Top five causes of death in Anchorage in 2006 were:

• Malignant Neoplasms (Neoplasm =tumor; any new and abnormal growth, specifically one in which cell multiplication is uncontrolled and progressive. Neoplasms may be benign or malignant.)
• Heart Disease
• Unintentional Injuries
• Cerebrovascular Disease (Disease of the blood vessels and, especially, the arteries that supply the brain.)
• Diabetes

The state chart above doesn't identify the unintentional causes. We know that only two people have ever been killed in Anchorage by bears - Marcie Trent and her adult son while jogging a wooded path past a bear kill at McHugh Creek, technically in the city limits, but pretty much out of town - in 1995. (The stories I found said hiking, but they were early news stories. I remember the day well because we were headed right there to hike, but got headed off by someone who called to say it was closed.) So bears are not in the top five, top ten, or even a cause of death in Anchorage for any year except 1995.

[Note, I had to take this story from the New York Times because Google gave me an Anchorage Daily News story that begins " A bear attack Saturday..." but is dated April 17, 2007. The NYT article is dated July 4, 1995. This raises a giant question about the integrity of digital newspaper files that can be changed - intentionally or unintentionally - after the fact. This one is obviously in error - it even has the "last modified" time as earlier than the published time. I'm posting a screen shot at the bottom of the post as documentation in case they change it. An Alaskan Abroad has recently criticized the ADN for changing digitial stories without acknowledging the change. But also reported that they did later follow up with a correction.]

1990-1994 stats from the Municipality of Anchorage (I know you guys are short handed, but those stats are 14 years old and older) lists the ten top causes of death and breaks out motor vehicle accidents from other unintentional causes.

This narrative would go on to suggest that death by bear is a low risk and that if people want to prevent human deaths, they should work on preventing obesity (diabetes was the 5th highest cause of death in 2006 in Anchorage) and various traffic violations that lead to death. Some radical bicyclists who believe this story might advocate banning all cars like the radical safety people might advocate killing all bears. The 1990-94 stats also suggest that we work on suicide (number 7 back then) prevention and crime prevention (homicide was number 8).

Perception of risk is not necessarily related to actual risk. Certainly the ADN front page, big pictures coverage of bear maulings is far more graphic and attention grabbing than its coverage of traffic deaths. And how many of the cancer or heart disease or diabetes deaths get front page coverage with pictures? Every non-lethal bear mauling does.

There are certainly other stories/narratives people carry in their heads about bears in the city.

• The Timothy Treadwell story was about how humans and bears can live together in complete harmony. One of his bear friends ate him, but only in the 13th summer that he lived with bears in the wild.
• As humans moved from the pre-modern to the modern world, they moved from being part of nature to being conquerors of nature. But today we are finding out that many of those conquests - dams, DDT, automobiles, for example - were short term fixes with long term negative side effects. People holding this story would argue that we need to get back into balance with nature, to understand nature. If we do this, we can probably live fairly safely with a limited bear population.
• No one and no thing should restrict my freedom to do as I please. I'm going where I want to go, when I want. I've got a gun and if I run into a threatening bear, I'll shoot it.

People sometimes take anger or frustration about something in their life that they can't overcome and redirect it toward something they feel safer attacking. I'm sure you all know couples who are in bad marriages but take out their anger on some 'legitimate' cause rather than confront each other. I'm sure there are spouses who rant and rave against bears because they really resent having been dragged up to Alaska by a spouse.

So those are some of the narratives. Did I get yours? Part of yours? If not add it on in the comments. Even if the narratives aren't completely accurate, just talking them out helps people become aware of stories in their heads that they've acquired along the way without seriously examining. It also helps people understand that sane, reasonable people can hold contradictory stories.

In the next post on this topic, I'll try to identify the various components of this issue that can be manipulated (in the positive sense) to effect changes.



* Here's the ADN story with the incorrect dates I mentioned above. All photos can be double clicked to enlarge.

Ugly Anchorage or a City To Match Our Mountains? The Decision is NOW

OK, I admit, we're not likely to have a city to match our mountains. (Though there are places in the world where the city scape is spectacularly beautiful and in harmony with their environments.) 


Tonight the Anchorage Assembly 'starts' public hearings on changes to Title 21 - the Municipal Code that governs design criteria for developing Anchorage into the future.  I say 'starts' because this has been going on over ten years and was all set to be adopted when Sullivan became mayor and hijacked the process.  (Yes, I'm moving out of my normal even handed perspective into a more editorial one.  Sometimes there aren't two sides.  Sometimes one side is right and the other is not.  While I don't think this is a case of right and wrong, it is a case of much righter and much wronger.)

I see several interest groups here:

1.  Planners - those who recognize that every large successful business makes plans about what they are going to do in the future so that they can stay competitive.  These folks believe that governments, involving and representing the vast majority of citizens, should come up with plans for simple things that make, in this case, our city safer, easier to walk and bike in (this includes kids, the poor, the elderly), and just a lot nicer to look at.

Anchorage has gone through a very comprehensive process over a ten year period to come up with such a plan.

2.  The Builders - those who make their living in various areas of construction - from architects to pavers.  While this group is relatively small in percentage of the Anchorage population, they have, individually, a much bigger interest in this and have wielded a lot of political power to stop the community process from being implemented and with the help of Mayor Sullivan made radical changes to the plan so that they can continue to build with as little oversight by the City planning department.  They can continue to build with just their immediate costs in mind and with little interest to the impacts their buildings have on the availability of decent, durable housing, and the visual impact of their buildings of the neighbors.  Some of these people already do forward thinking projects, but most don't and don't want anyone to restrict them in any way.

3.  The average citizen who doesn't think much about long term impacts, doesn't think she has any power to make a difference, is terribly busy anyway, and/or doesn't even know what Title 21 is.

4.  The "in their own world' delusional types.  These are folks for whom out-of-context facts and half-truths are ammunition to support their own dysfunctional fancies.  In this case they are remnants of the Anchorage Tea Party movement who have declared Anchorage's Title 21 to be a conspiracy to take over the world by the same people who are pushing the UN's Agenda 21.   Glenn Beck is one of those pushing this bogey-man to get these folks to continue to vote against their own self interests.  Sorry, I know it's more subtle than this, but not a lot. Really, there were lots of these people at the Planning and Zoning meetings on Title 21.  Lots. 

While other parts of the US not only recognize same-sex marriage, our friends at the Anchorage Baptist Temple have managed to keep the words gay and lesbian out of our anti-discrimination law.

And we're just as far behind the rest of the US in planning and zoning standards that help prevent the worst of developer practices.  Good developers support planning because then they can do well designed projects that make sense for their immediate client in the short term, and also for their client and the rest of Anchorage in the long term.  Without the guidelines, they get undercut by unscrupulous builders and get forced into shortcuts that ultimately hurt their clients and the rest of us.

The builders argue there is a shortage of land in Anchorage to develop so they shouldn't be restricted.  I'd argue the shortage means that what is left is at a premium and the price of the land will mean their clients can afford to do things that have long term value for their clients and the rest of us.

Is the Title 21 that came out of the community planning process perfect?  Certainly not.  If you want perfection, try soap bubbles.  But it's a lot more reflective of what the greater public that particiapted in its creation wanted, than the developer mangled rewrite that Dan Coffey got two lucrative contracts from Mayor Sullivan to do.  Even Sullivan didn't take all off Coffey's recommendations. 


Here's some background from those who have worked for years to improve the design quality of Anchorage including tips for what you can do: 

Tuesday, January 15, Loussac Library Assembly Chambers, 7pm.

[My sense is that this won't be finished tonight.  But you should be at the Assembly Chambers to let the Assembly members know how the public feels. And to get riled up by the nonsense some people are spewing.  And to fill my space since I'm out of town. In the previous meetings the Tea Party folks were there in number and volume opposed to any government planning because this was all an Agenda 21 conspiracy.  If you absolutely can't go, watch online.  But one of the best ways to influence the Assembly is to be there in person for your interests.  Bring the kids so they can learn how democracy works.  Let them see what happens if their voice is or isn't represented.]

You don't have to understand the newest code.  The Assembly certainly doesn't.  They only received copies of it last weekend, and it's over 700 pages long. 

Just come and talk about what you're an expert on:  Why you choose to live here, and what problems you've lived with that you want fixed before another ten years go by.  

Folks who scorn improving the city's quality of life will be there talking about their property rights and fighting sidewalks and landscaping because it's 'too expensive.'  Your voice is very much needed.

Tell the Assembly you want them to approve the 'Provisionally Adopted Title 21' that went through 8 YEARS of public review and compromises.

Anchorage Citizens Coalition will prepare technical comments after we've gone through the newest Title 21 with the help of our great volunteers.  If you can help on any particular issue, please contact us.

We have two kinds of threats from the Assembly:  

1.  The Assembly hasn't yet learned that if we want small, walkable neighborhood shopping districts they need to help by concentrating commercial/retail development, not scattering it all over town into industrial and residential districts.  We need 'Mixed Use District Zones,' that will produce compact shopping areas next to neighborhoods, and other strategies that they threw out last year.

2.  The Tea Party, the Building Owners and Managers Assoc. and the new Planning & Zoning Commission didn't get all they wanted from the Assembly's Title 21 Committee, and we can expect them to come back for more on issues such as 

• allowing taller commercial buildings inside neighborhoods (B1A and B2B zones,) 
• squeezing homes onto lots that are currently considered 'too small,'
• reducing the open space children need for outdoor play,
• dumpster screening,
• sunlight into neighborhoods, and more. 

Here's what we expect to be at stake as the Assembly votes on Title 21:

• sidewalks on both sides of the street and to connect schools, parks and neighborhoods (keep pedestrian standards.)
• keeping tall buildings from shadowing our yards and south facing windows, (keep midtown and other B-3 business zoning, business height transition standards for neighborhoods)  (Note: no standards have yet been developed that protect homes from shadowing other homes.)
• incentives to build small, active, walkable neighborhood shopping districts out on the main streets, (bring back mixed use zoning districts, do not scatter mixed uses into industrial and residential zones.)
• keeping ticky tacky cookie cutter houses out of our neighborhoods, and making sure new homes have more landscaping and less asphalt. (Strengthen standards for single family and multifamily design, landscaping, garage front domination.)
• protecting our wildlife corridors and fish habitats (Restore 50 foot stream setbacks, limits on fences & buildings next to streams.)
• making sure children have decent, attractive play space near their homes.  (Maintain 'useable' open space standards.)
• making sure it's safer to walk in midtown as it continues to grow.  (Restore height restrictions in midtown that allow for increased height only after building adds landscaping, sunlight protection, public space, plazas, etc.)

Besides going to the meeting you can:

Call your Assembly representative.  http://www.muni.org/Departments/Assembly/Pages/MemberProfiles.aspx

Work with your Community Council to adopt a resolution promoting the Provisionally Adopted Title 21 and supporting Anchorage 2020.  http://www.communitycouncils.org/  Other councils' resolutions are available for your review by contacting AnchorageCitizensCoalition@gmail.com

More info is at accalaska.org and at the Facebook site Free Title 21

The muni has posted all relevant Title 21 documents at: http://www.muni.org/Departments/OCPD/Planning/Projects/t21/Pages/Title21Rewrite.aspx

The ADN's Press-Release Journalism - Kulis Airport Story

[Update, July 7: Followup post here]

Yesterday I got an email from the Department of Transportation.   Somehow I got on their email list and I decided to keep it to see how many of their press releases get picked up and published and how  various media handle them. Do the reporters identify the stories as a press release or publish it as 'news.'

Today we get a good example of Press Release Journalism.  Today on page A-4 the Anchorage Daily News has essentially published the press release with just minor cosmetic changes.

The by-line is Anchorage Daily News/ adn.com.

It starts off like a story written by a reporter.  It's not until the third paragraph (of five) that it says, 'according to the Department of Transportation.'  It's not until the fourth paragraph that it mentions a Department of Transportation statement.  As though everything before that had been gathered and written by a reporter.  Not all the press release is there. A few words have been changed or omitted, but it's basically the DOT's press release almost verbatim.

Here's an example.  I've copied the original sentence from the press release and then used strikeout and brackets to show the ADN changes.

Northern Aviation Services, a division of NAC, has reconfigured the building that once served as the mess hall and kitchen, transforming it into a first class charter terminal for the use of their client, Shell Alaska Exploration [by Shell's employees and contractors.]" 

Essentially, the whole piece is from the DOT press release with most of the language intact.   The byline should read "Department of Transportation" not "Anchorage Daily News."  Although they take paragraphs (actually almost everything) verbatim, there are no quotation marks.  You can see the ADN piece here and the original press release here.

If the ADN wants to publish a press release, that's their business.  But they owe it to their readers to identify it as such.  They shouldn't disguise it as news. 

If they treat it as news, they need to clearly identify what came from the press release and what value the reporter has added. They should relate the story to other stories.  They should raise questions about how this fits into the bigger picture of Anchorage development. 

Essentially DOT announced that Northern Aviation Services (a division of Norther Air Cargo) has remodeled the old mess hall at  Kulis Air National Guard Base (127 acres total) into

"a first class charter terminal for the use of their client, Shell Alaska Exploration. The facility will be supporting transportation of Shell’s employees and contractors during the summer offshore exploration season. NAC has also chartered a Boeing 737-400 passenger aircraft from Miami Air which will be based at Kulis as well."

They also mention that there is still space to lease:

Approximately 230,000 square feet of building space remains available for lease. This includes three C130 hangars, four office buildings, and a large warehouse. Existing improvements also include approximately 15 acres of aircraft parking apron and three acres of vehicle parking lots. 

I couldn't help wondering about the link between the proposed land swap the ADN reported in June where the airport wanted to take land from one of Anchorage's most loved parks - the coastal trail - and swap it for other land.  The move caused widespread protests.

To some people, natural, untouched land that isn't generating income, is wasted land.  The value of the land as watershed, wildlife habitat, noise buffer, aid to mental health, or recreation space,  isn't factored.  For more depth on this idea see an older post on E.O. Wilson's The Future of Life.  or this one on "What makes an Empty Lot?"

The press release says they have 18 acres in the old Kulis land for parking - 15 for planes, three for cars.  The June ADN article doesn't say how many acres would be in the swap.  An Anchorage Press article on the swap doesn't either. (At least searching for 'acre' didn't locate the information.)  But the City Planning Department's West Anchorage District Plan 2011 Chapter 4.3 gives us some numbers:

Ultimately, the Assembly developed and approved a compromise land exchange in 1994 similar to the ballot initiative. Under the exchange, the school district received 40 acres of state land at the southwest corner of Caravelle Drive and Raspberry Road, the airport received 130 acres of HLB land west of its then existing boundary and 191 acres of HLB land were transferred to the Parks and Recreation Department. The land transaction received final approval in 1995, which formally dedicated Point Woronzof Park.

I don't understand how this all fits together.  But I couldn't help but wonder how this relates to the recently reported airport land swap proposal.   I'm not sure, but I think it is worth raising the question. Let's talk about it.  Maybe others do know.  At the very least we need to find out.  The obligation isn't for the journalist to know everything before writing, but to raise questions, and be clear about what is known and what isn't.

I do know that there is a lot of pressure on the city by developers to make as much land available to them with as little regulation as possible. See the current fight over the Municipality's planning document Title 21.   There is also concerted effort by the State Department of Transportation - despite overwhelming community opposition - to push what was Bragaw Road and is now Elmore Road through the greenbelt on the land of the University.  

Some might say that newspapers have been publishing press releases as news items forever.  I don't know if that's true.  It's only when you see the original press release that you see how blatant it is.  Perhaps the generic ADN by-line gives it away.  There is no reporter's name.

I realize the newspaper industry is suffering hard times and they need easy stories.  But give the byline to the source - in this case the Department of Transportation, the department that owns the airport and has a vested interest in its development.  While a state entity should have the public interest in mind, often they are staffed by people whose values are shared with only some of the public.  The readers shouldn't be tricked into thinking this was a news story.

The AK Redistricting Board's Amateur Decision Making Process - Plus Marcum and Binkley Reasons For 3B Votes

In my previous post, I put up the video of the meeting where the three Republican Redistricting Board members go through their reasons for choosing Option 3B.  It also includes Board member Borromeo's rejection of those assertions and a plea to Judge Matthews to just fix the map himself and not remand it to the Board because they aren't going to change.  

In the post prior to that I went through Board member Budd Simpson's reasons for supporting Option 3B - as he laid them out in Wednesday's meeting - and pointed out problems I had with his reasons.  I thought this next post I would do the same with member Marcum's and member Binkley's reasons.  (And I do that as sort of an addendum to this post at the bottom.) But it seemed to be more useful to demonstrate that their reasons do not add up to a good, professional decision making exercise.   And in doing that, try to summarize their strategy so it's easier to understand what they did and what they didn't do, in terms of good decision making.  (But I wasn't quite done with it and so I put up the video of that meeting yesterday instead.)

Using a decision making model allows me to establish the flakiness of how they - in their words and actions - decided that Option 3B was the best option.  Because flaky as it might seem to many, the districts they created, while not optimal, could be considered Constitutional by the courts.  That depends on how they interpret "as contiguous as practicable."  Since other criteria, such as deviation and compactness, are applied more strictly in densely populated urban areas than more sparsely populated rural areas, why shouldn't contiguity be treated the same?  It's much easier to be contiguous in a densely populated area.  Will they see that such an urban/rural differentiation makes sense now?  At least in Anchorage.  

But if the Courts view the maps as basically in compliance with the Contiguity requirement, the other way I see that they might block the map is  by deciding it was politically motivated gerrymandering.  Part of the evidence for reaching that  conclusion is to:

• realize that the Board's decision making was haphazard at best,  simply the application of anecdotal evidence to 'prove' the 3B map was the best, because it's not the best on objective measures
• wonder why the majority fought so hard for Senate pairings that ignore the obvious pairings and force together much less natural pairings and  
• conclude there was an unspoken (by the majority) reason - getting another Republican Senate seat.

So first a brief description of what good decision making should NOT look like from a 1998 Harvard Business Review article, The Hidden Traps in Decision Making:

"So where do bad decisions come from? In many cases, they can be traced back to the way the decisions were made—the alternatives were not clearly defined, the right information was not collected, the costs and benefits were not accurately weighed. But sometimes the fault lies not in the decision-making process but rather in the mind of the decision maker. The way the human brain works can sabotage our decisions."

The article is more interested in the problems with the mind of the decision maker, and while I'm sure exploring the hidden biases in brains of the decision makers would yield fascinating results, we don't have to go there to find serious problems with the Redistricting Board's decision to select Option 3B over Option 2.  

If anyone wants to know what went wrong - and it's clear the decision was wrong from a public interest perspective - we need look no further than

1. the alternatives were not clearly defined, 
2. the right information was not collected, 
3. the costs and benefits were not accurately weighed

Click to enlarge
More detailed maps with the Simpson post

1. the alternatives were not clearly defined, 
1. The Board settled into two map options.  
2. One offered by the East Anchorage Plaintiffs - Option 2
3. One offered by Randy Ruedrich - Option 3B
4. They could have made more, but didn't.
5. The 3B Option chose to 
1. Pair north Muldoon (D20) with south Muldoon (D21)
6. That left D22 as an orphan district (not connected to another district to make a Senate district)
1. The two key options were to connect with D24 (to the north above the map) or D9.  Both were connected to other house districts, so both required at least one more change.  
2. Majority basically decided that 24 was not available because it was paired with 23 and they weren't going to change that.  
7. So the next choice was D9.  

So, basically, the majority had only ONE choice - pairing 22 with 9.  So, no, the alternatives were not clearly defined.  

1. [This loose 1. is here because I haven't figured out how to do lists that I can break for a moment and then continue on Blogger.  I even tried to make them white so you can't see them, but they are independent.  There will be more at 3.  If anyone has a suggestion I'm listening.]
2. the right information was not collected, 
1. The only information that the Board collected in any sort of organized way in the whole process was related to maps.  They used the census data and the Autobound software organized that data for the Board
2. The Board collected anecdotes, personal preferences, justifications, but did not pursue collecting data that would help verify which of these vague notions about the Senate seats was accurate
3. The Board was given more anecdotes, personal preferences, and justifications via the public testimony (I've offered a methodology for evaluating that here)
4. The Board received some actual data and information via the public testimony 
5. The majority did not study the data and information that came in.  Rather, they picked things that supported their preference and ignored data that didn't (example:  JBER students going to ER High School.  They cited Lance Pruitt's assertion that ER High School wouldn't exist without JBER.  They ignored Denny Wells statistics that showed more JBER residents live in areas of the bases zoned for West High and Bartlett.  And they never compared how many D9 students went to high schools in D22 or vice versa.)
6. This was a giant gap for the Board.  While they hired technicians for the technical mapping data gathering and organization, the only other professional decision making expertise used for evaluating how well they met the non-numerical criteria for redistricting was to hire the VRA expert. Most of that debate was hidden from the public and I'm guessing led Marcum to pair D22 with D20 because the VRA expert said pairing D22 with D21 (north Muldoon) wouldn't work because of the diversity of that district.  That would have been the majority's ideal pairing because it would have forced popular Democratic Sen Bill Wielechowsk into an Eagle River district.  But that's speculation on my part.  What's key is that they did not remotely follow the three steps of decision making outlined in the excerpt above.

1. 
   
2. 
   
3. the costs and benefits were not accurately weighed
1. The majority never compared the two basic options which were:
1. Pairing  22 and 24  versus pairing 22 and 9
2. Instead, they
1. took pairing 22 and 24 off the table from the beginning and
2. thus made it impossible, in their minds, to pair 22 and 24
3. used anecdotal information to argue the benefits of pairing 22 and 9
4. used anecdotal information to argue why 23 could not be separated from 24
5. used anecdotal information to argue why 23 could not be combined with 17 
6. only looked at data that favored what they wanted and disfavored what they didn't want
3. I say anecdotal because there were reliable or valid numbers available to evaluate,  that could be put into tables that neatly outlined factors that would help them compare how well each pairing met the constitutional criteria. (Actually the only criterion for Senate seats is contiguity, but that didn't stop them from talking about socio-economic integration (9SEI)when they thought it would help their cause.  They pointed out the primacy of contiguity when the proponents of Option 2 discussed SEI.
4. They never gathered objective numbers to fill into the non-existent cost/benefit chart (in this case perhaps advantages/disadvantages chart)

This was not professional decision making.  This was just marshaling claims and assertions to back up a decision that clearly had already been made:  To keep Senate seat L (D23 and D24) intact.  

Why all this effort to pretend that pairing D22 with D9 was the only option they had?  And was far superior to D22 and D24?    And what was the problem with pairing D23 with D17 ( downtown)? In Marcum's words, "Choosing option 2 is an intentional attempt to break up that natural pairing [23/24].  JBER should be with Chugiak." 

But these aren't dumb people.  

The only explanation that makes sense to me is one that the Court already found them guilty of:  political gerrymandering.  The proclamation plan would have given them (and Eagle River) control of two Senate seats.  The Court specifically broke up one of those (D21/D22).  Pairing D22 with D21 gave Eagle River control over a Senate seat that was half a swing district. Pairing D22 with D24 would force them to give up control over another swing district. (D23)  Eagle River would end up with just one solidly red Senate Seat.  So they had to pair D22, not with the obvious match Eagle River seat D24 - a perfect Senate seat by all the normal criteria - but with D9, across the mountains and with no adjoining neighborhoods.  And that would force pulling D9 apart from D10, another reasonable community of interest.  

And that's what they did. Since this doesn't make logical sense from a redistricting perspective and they had to manipulate data to pretend that it did, one has to ask why?   

Is it possible there is another explanation?    Given the attempted gerrymandering the first time around and the fact that this time the three Republican Board members teamed up to support a map made by Randy Ruedrich and voted for that map over the strenuous objections of the other two Board members, it's pretty compelling.  

Addendum:  Based on my notes from the Wednesday, April 13, 2022 Board meeting.

Board Member Bethany Marcum's Reasons for supporting Option 3B

[Board member's comments in black, mine in red]

Marcum:  I’m very uncomfortable with Option 2 because it moves JBER and links it with D17.  It makes the least sense for any possible pairings.  Downtown is the arts and tourism center, that's not what makes up JBER.  It is used to wake up?? the military community.  Choosing option 2 is an intentional intent to break up that natural pairing.  JBER should be with Chugiak.  

It was hard to sit through these comments without putting my hands over my face.  She’s just pulling words and ideas out of the blue here.   Let’s look carefully at the majority’s defense of 3B strategy.  

The first step is to assume the Chugiak/Eagle River(24) and JBER/Government Hill (D23) Senate district is untouchable.  That’s because this is the last district left for them to pull an extra Republican Senator from.  In the same way that the courts found linking (ER) D22 and south Muldoon (21) was political gerrymandering because it ‘cracks’ D21, this pairing ‘cracks’ D23.  

How?  Eagle River is solidly White, comfortably middle class, and Republican, Trump Republican.  It’s the voters who elected Lora Reinbold  and Jamie Allard.    D23 is, in general, lower income, and far more diverse.

Both Simpson and Marcum refer to D23 as the JBER district although 1//3 of the population does not live on JBER.  Other factors:  many military either don’t voter or they vote in their home states.  The JBER precincts had fewer people voting in the last few elections (including 2020) than the non-JBER districts even though they outnumber them 2-1.   So this is a perfect district to pair with a strongly Republican district.  Higher income white neighborhoods have a higher voting percentage than lower income diverse neighborhoods, so Eagle River will dominate Senate races.  As has been pointed out at different times in this process, when a Muldoon house district was paired with ER in the 2011 redistricting process, a popular Senator, and the only black in the State Senate at that time, was handily defeated by ER voters.  

It would appear the Republican majority of the Board is working hard to keep this district for themselves.

So, basically, they start out by putting it to the side, not even to be considered, as they look for a partner house district for a D22 Senate pairing.

But D23 is NOT just JBER.  It’s 1/3  off base, Downtown-adjacent neighborhoods.  

And if JBER and downtown are so different they can’t be paired, why did the Board  make a house district that does just that:  puts downtown in with JBER?  You can’t have it both ways.  It was ok as a house district, but not as a Senate District?

And none of the majority have considered the reverse problem of lumping Government Hill folks in with Eagle River.  If it’s bad one way, then it should be bad the other way.  But that doesn’t help their case.

I’ve been listening to the Redistricting Board debates since December 2020.  I don’t recall people talking about Downtown as the arts and tourism center of Anchorage before and I’m not sure why she thinks the military have no interest in the arts.  They don't go to the museum? They don't go to the Performing Arts Center?  She didn’t mention that downtown is probably the bar/tavern center of Anchorage too because she knows it would be harder to keep a straight face saying the young soldiers don’t spend time in the downtown bars.  

While Marcum has taken umbrage when people have characterized her intent, she has no problem jumping to the conclusion that pairing D23 with downtown is an intentional attempt to break up “the natural pairing” of JBER and Chugiak/Eagle River.  See, it’s just such a natural pairing that it’s off the table when we make these adjustments.  And I suspect that Marcum has convinced herself of this.  The problem is that pairing D22 with D24 is the most natural pairing to be had.  It’s not just me saying that.  Lots of people did, including Dr. Chase Hensel and Dr. Phyllis Morrow.  Dr. Hensel was the expert witness for the East Anchorage plaintiffs.  The two submitted about six pages of testimony about why the two ER districts were a community of interest, the crux is this:

“Because a large data set informs the question of whether and to what degree a population constitutes a community of interest, it can be a judgment call as to where the boundaries of a community of interest lie. In the Eagle River case, however, there is no question: all the signposts point in the same direction.”    

You can read it all in the public testimony listed for April 7-April 8 on pages 327 - 332.  

In that same file there is testimony (pp. 312-316)  from Doug Robbins who offers a long list of references to “Chugiak Eagle River” by the Municipality, by businesses, by Eagle River organizations, to make the point that we all know that Chugiak Eagle River is the most natural pairing.  

Marcum:  Looking back at E Anchorage lawsuit.  Challenged K and L.  L - 23/24, not found to be invalid.  Both are proposals we are not considering.  Both addressed K issue the same way.  It’s what the E Anchorage plaintiffs wanted, satisfactory.  Those individuals still very involved pushing one plan over the other.  Why are they investing themselves in this?  I have to conclude there is political motive.  

I’d have to go back and review the East Anchorage plaintiffs’ suit before commenting on what it did or didn’t do.  

 I have learned over the years that people often project their own thinking and actions on to others.  The Supreme Court found the majority Board members had politically gerrymandered the map.  And so with no proof offered other than they are proposing Option 2, Marcum concludes it’s political.  I’m guessing that she knows that her preference against the common sense pairings, is for political reasons, then opposing her choice must also be for political reasons.  There are other reasons to do things, like fairness and equity in voting.

I didn’t gerrymander.  Here’s why I support pairings.

Courts ruling on Senate K - key response created Muldoon Road district.  

When you put 20 and 21 together, you are left with 22 empty.  The only pairing is D9.  

This is exactly what Simpson said.  The other part of Eagle River (D24), what is known by so many organizations and people as Greater Chugiak and Eagle River, is not an obvious pairing?  Only if you’re locking D24 with D23.  The rational way to proceed is to look at the two adjacent districts - D24 and D9.  When you do that and measure the pairings by every criteria (other than political advantage) then the obvious choice is D24 and D22.  And since it is so obvious, Marcum and Simpson have simply taken that option off the table.  D24 and D23 is a done deal, end of discussion.  So all that is left is D9.  

That leaves 10 without a partner.  ???  That leaves 14 stranded and requires a new pairing.  Take two primary midtown roads.  Four remaining districts 23/24   17/18 same as current    11/12  no changes.  15/16   four changes that result from responding to court ruling and four that remain the same.  

In comparison, Simpson had a set of points and arguments that he went through.  Like Marcum, pairing D22 with D24 was never an option.  So there were never any comparisons of that pairing with the D22/D9 pairing.  Because everything they said about how compatible D22 and D9 are - non-urban neighborhoods, mountainous, wild life encounters (as though those don’t also happen in the Anchorage bowl), fire and snow, service areas for roads - all that is true and a much better match with D24 than D22, as former ER representative/senator Randy Phillips testified.

So let’s move on to Chair John Binkley’s reasons.

Binkley:  Thank you Bethany.  My position.  Then the second round.  Outpouring of public testimony.  Shows me Alaskans are engaged.  Seven different public hearings.  Heard from 100 Anchorage residents.  Heartening that Alaskans care.  People are supportive or opposing one of the other. We step back it’s our job to replace Sen K  - concerned with our pairing of 22 and 21.  Heartening that both proposals repaired that.  It is noteworthy that is how we solved the problem.   

No dispute with them on the process. 

Heard from people that  D22 and D24 should be paired.  Those people are articulate about how ER Chugiak, Peters Creek are closely tied together.  But as Budd pointed out earlier, the two Republican Senators and former Sen President all testified they should be together.  There are factions in the Republican Party who think they should be paired.  Budd mentioned another member of the administration.  Also supported 22 and 24 together.    I take it seriously and those are legitimate moves by people

Let’s give him points for even talking about the D22 and D24 option.  He did not rule it out from the get go.  He likes to ramble a bit and seems to have gotten off the prescribed talking points.

But also heard similarities between 22 and 9.  Both more rural, larger lot sizes.  Single family homes.  Served by road service districts.  Share the Chugach state park.  Close to mountains, deal with wildlife, wildfire danger.  Could be important.  Most house districts are compact and larger districts large rural districts on the outskirts.  Also heard that ER and Hillside were once in a single house districts - met a higher standard.  

The judge said that the Board members’ simple preference doesn’t outweigh the preponderance of public opinion.  Binkley has given us NO hard data to support his feelings about this.  There is no serious comparison of the two possible Senate pairings.  Just words with little or no factual support.  And in the past Eagle River didn't have a big enough population to form two house seats so the population was shared with other house seats.  

I'd also note that nine of the 2021 map districts border Chugach State Park either directly or border other park land that spills into the park.  And no district in town is more than 15 minutes from Chugach State Park.  

JBER in District 23 one of the most compelling.  Extends from D23 into D24.  If underlying house districts different it could have been done differently.  

The only one who recognizes something about how D23 was drawn.  But he doesn’t explain what he means.  Perhaps if they hadn’t made the district 1/3 off base, downtown adjacent?  He also doesn't mention that Government Hill in D23 extends from D23 to D17 (downtown).

Really active and retired military reside in 24 and have that connection to 23.   Direct highway connection Arctic Valley and closer to town.  Also heard testimony to JBER and N Muldoon.  Also legitimate.  Not an option presented to us.   

He’s saying here, I think, that he heard compelling testimony that pairing the JBER with N. Muldoon was another option, but it was “not an option presented to us.”   Excuse me?!  You are chair of the Board.  It’s the Board’s job to create the maps.  Why didn’t you pursue that option yourself if you thought it viable?  Are you saying the Board’s hands are tied? Unless someone else offers an option they can’t entertain it?  

But, of course, the East Anchorage plaintiffs’ preference was to pair the two Muldoon districts, so they didn't  offer it to you.  And the other option was a map which both member Marcum and Randy Ruedrich prepared independently (according to Marcum.)  But if you start with the assumption that  the D24 and D23  pairing is untouchable,  then it wouldn’t be hard to come up with the rest of the maps exactly the same.  

I don’t find compelling the idea of JBER with downtown Anchorage. For 13 years I’ve had a condo here and  been in that district for work and with Alaska RR and in my experience the downtown area part of D23 is dominated by professional services.  

Hearing this, member Borromeo jumped in and said something like, “You deferred Anchorage to Marcum because you said you didn’t know Anchorage well, and only now you are telling us you had a condo in Anchorage for 13 years?

Just moments before Marcum said that Anchorage is the arts and tourism center of Anchorage.  Now it’s portrayed as dominated by professional services.  But no data, no statistics to back up either claim.  Just feelings, personal experience in the past.  I’m not saying that there aren't art galleries and a museum downtown or that there aren’t professional services.  But why does this make the district incompatible with the Base?  There actually wasn't much testimony from the base.  The only person I recall is retired Air Force doctor Felisa Wilson and she said people on the base use their nearest gates and the base should be connected to the part of Anchorage nearest their gate.

Military is a community of interest

Did everyone notice how all three pointed out the commonalities between the pairings they favored and the lack of commonalities between the pairings they opposed?  And how they are long on rhetoric and short on documented evidence?   

I’d point out one more thing.  They’ve spent a lot of time saying that every part of Anchorage is socio-economically integrated to dismiss such comments for house districts and senate pairings they opposed.  But now that’s pretty much their whole argument.  Even though Socio-Economic Integration is a criterion for House districts, but not Senate districts.  Though the related concept of community of interest is considered in Senate districts.

I believe we have two good options.  I’m more comfortable with Option 3B.  I plan to support.

"I feel more comfortable with", not, ‘the preponderance of evidence clearly shows 3B is the plan to support.”  Because the preponderance of evidence goes the other way.  And they did their best to not have any sort of direct, professional comparison of the two key options:  22/24 ER and 22/9 ER/Hillside.

I’d make one final point:  Although the Board members cited the extensive public testimony, there was no serious analysis of that testimony.  I offered a methodology for that there.

Nor did the Board do any serious evaluation of their options.  The Option 2 folks seemed to have gathered more specific reasons.  The Option 3B people, even Simpson’s organized list of reason - had sound bytes and talking points that were based on personal preference rather than any hard data that compared the potential Senate pairings.  And as I said, early on, their strategy was to

Claim Senate District L (23 and 24) as a done deal, the ideal pairing that shouldn’t be touched.

They claimed D23 as the JBER district, even though 1/3 of the district lives off base around downtown and other north Anchorage neighborhoods.  

So their only option left is pairing 22 with 9.  

Me again in black.  There are just so many details that could be added in.  As it is, I'm trying the patience of all but the most obsessed redistricting folks.  The mass of data makes it hard for people who haven't followed closely to see the forest for the trees.  

[UPDATE April 18, 2022, 6pm:  Someone did text me some suggestions for getting into the html code to make my own fix for the numbered list.  Thanks!   Also someone sent to me:  

"Must Read Alaska" is written by a former Republican Party Communications Director in Alaska and runs a sensationalist right wing blog on Alaska politics even though now she apparently lives in Florida.  While Board member Simpson said the fact that some Republican current and former Senators opposed Option 3B proved 3B wasn't partisan, Ms. Downing's headline here seems to acknowledge the obvious.]

Externalities, Time, and Why the Public Interest Often Loses Out

The Gist:

On any given issue, 'the public' interest is diluted by the many, many issues out there in which everyone has a small, but real interest. Each person is affected in a relatively small way by most decisions. Except for a few special interests that will be greatly benefited or harmed by the new policy or statute or action.

Most people say: "The variance to allow an apartment building in a single family home neighborhood doesn't affect me because I live far from there." "The changing of school boundaries in that other neighborhood won't affect my kids." So we do nothing, until it happens near us. But then no one else comes to help us out, because they aren't affected.

So the few highly affected people spend a lot of time and money to pursue their vested interest, while the public-at-large is either unaware of the issue or sees the impact as minimal.

But collectively, all those nibbles (and sometimes big bites) into the public interest, have a large impact and soon there is nothing left but a bit of core and maybe a few seeds of the public interest. Those seeds may dry up or may be nurtured to bear more public interest fruit in the future.


The Long Version

Mountain View Forum has an important post today on the dumbing down of Title 21 - the land use planning section of the Anchorage Municipal Code. There's a chart which shows how public space requirements for developers have, year after year, been watered down until they no longer exist. And how private open space has shrunk to almost nothing.

There are pictures of this kind of development springing up in Anchorage. Anchorage will be voting for a new mayor in less than a month. Read the post and start developing questions to ask mayoral candidates.

But why does this sort of thing happen?

"The public interest" is a vague phrase. It refers to a theoretical communal best interest. The dominance of the market system in the US society has led to the point where some people deny that there is such a thing as a communal interest. After all the dominant economic and political theories in the US have offered a story that posits such a communal best interest is the result of everyone fighting for their own personal interests.

But except for the most extreme anarchists, everyone seems to find something that is a communal public interest. Minimally it is national security or public safety. And, of course, individuals can't buy roads and bridges so we build those collectively too. And one of the most revered institution in the US - the various branches of the military - are highly communalized organizations where people defer many of their personal freedoms to a perceived collective public interest that they serve. Even to the point of giving their lives for that greater public good.

So, why does the public interest often lose out? While there are many factors, there's one that is structurally pretty basic to the problem, though articulating it isn't quite so simple, but I'll try.

"The public interest" is something that we all enjoy (or lose) collectively. There are many things that we have a collective public interest in:

Clean air
An educated, active, and responsible citizenry
A safe environment (safety from crime, dangerous situations, health hazards, terrorists,etc.)
As convenient means of transportation as possible
A monetary system that enables us to raise money to buy a house, start a business, pursue an education, etc.
Protection of collective goods - public recreation areas, our wild resources like salmon, natural resources, cultural heritages, etc.

I'm sure you can all think of other things that we enjoy collectively, but individually could not create, buy, or protect. In Anchorage we have some unique collective goods - easy access to wilderness, spectacular scenery, wildlife that connects us to nature in special ways, lots of space for each person, to name a few.

But the problem with collective goods include:

1. We each have many of these collective goods to enjoy and protect, too many for each of us to monitor on a regular basis.
2. Many of these things we take for granted and don't even realize how much we cherish until we lose them.
3. There are people with very specific interests in personal gain which often conflicts with our collective public interests.
4. These people stand to gain considerably (in the case of open space, developers will make more profit from their investment) if they are allowed to diminish the collective good.
5. Thus, these people are focused on a very specific issue where they have a highly concentrated vested interest.
6. While most people's collective public interests are so widely dispersed that they can't track what is happening in every area.

Thus individuals focusing on their own private benefit spend more money and time in pursuit of their interests, the side effect of which is to lessen our public collective good. Often these are nibbles at the public good, which, collectively, over time, result in significant loss. Anyone who has lived in Anchorage for 20 years or more has seen how our views of the mountains keep disappearing as open space is filled in with larger and larger buildings.

There is a name for this in economics. Externalities.  Externalities are identified by market economists as one of the failings of the market system. Tutor2U explains it this way:

Externalities are common in virtually every area of economic activity. They are defined as third party (or spill-over) effects arising from the production and/or consumption of goods and services for which no appropriate compensation is paid.

Externalities can cause market failure if the price mechanism does not take into account the full social costs and social benefits of production and consumption.

The study of externalities by economists has become extensive in recent years - not least because of concerns about the link between the economy and the environment.

Tutor2U goes on to give more details. This is a market version of the axiom often attributed to Oliver Wendell Holmes,

The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins.

But with externalities, the harm to others is often not immediately or so tangibly noticed.

For instance, if a car repair shop dumps used vehicle oil into a stream instead of paying for the legal disposal of the oil, there is the extra cost of pollution cleanup for the collective public, but that shop's costs are reduced. So they can charge less, hurting shops who pay the price of legally and safely disposing of waste. The rest of us collectively pay for the clean up. And we may individually pay for the health side effects too. And legitimate businesses may lose customers.

If a new development of 200 housing units is built, there will be additional traffic in an area, greater demand on the local school, loss of the vegetation and open land which served to clean the air, buffer noise, and serve as a natural drainage system, among other things. All these problems place extra costs on the collective public good as well as on neighbors whose basements may be flooded, so that the developers actually do not have those costs as part of their costs and so can sell the units for less than the actual total costs.

Determining the costs of externalities is something that economists and others have worked on and can calculate with some, but not complete accuracy. What happens, though, is that the developers have a vested interest in changing the law to minimize the requirements for them to absorb these externalities as part of their costs. So, after the initial public interest and excitement over a land use planning document is over, the developers continue to pick away at those provisions that serve the public interest and cut into their profits. The public is generally unaware, or their individual personal loss may seem relatively small compared to other issues, and so they don't keep track, and the laws get changed. And one day that buffer of trees they thought was protected by the Municipal Code is gone and their backyard looks into a parking lot.

That's why we have public interest groups, where a group is dedicated to keeping watch of the public interest in a specific area and warning people when that area is in danger. Such groups are all over the political spectrum from the National Rifle Association and the National Right to Life to the American Civil Liberties Union, the Daughters of the American Republic, and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

Some people say there is no such thing as the public interest. Others that there might be, but it can't be measured. Or that there may be a public interest but 'public interest groups' are all seeking their own private interest. There are legitimate questions about details, but I would argue those organizations that work on behalf of the public good and that do not gain any benefit that isn't available to everyone else, more or less falls into the public interest group category. More or less allows for some disputes on the edges, but not much in the center.


So, go to the Mt. View Forum website. Read the post. Look at the pictures and the table. Write your questions, and send them to all the mayoral candidates.

Some questions I have for candidates include:

How do you calculate the cost of loss of views, loss of sunlight (from tall buildings on the south of your property), increase of traffic and noise, loss of animal habitat and drainage, of new developments?

How do you propose to raise money to deal with the externalities (side effects) of the changes in Title 21 over the years? New taxes?

At what point do you think that the quality of life in Anchorage will be so degraded by increased traffic, loss of public space, loss of wildlife, etc. that we are simply a colder version of Seattle and Los Angeles?

Given what we know about the need to change to sustainable living, the effects of global warming, and Alaska's inability to feed itself because of the short growing season and the limited amount of wild game per capita, how many people can a place like Anchorage hold ultimately?

What plans do you have to make Anchorage more energy and food efficient, and increase our reduce our dependence on Outside suppliers? (I recognize that we will always be dependent, but to what extent can we be more self sufficient? And how do we do this?)

I write this from northern Thailand where, in a serious emergency, a huge portion of the population could sustain itself by growing their own food and simply go back to less oil dependent machinery. But Thailand is also a place with almost no zoning and officials who are easily persuaded to look the other way if someone wants to violate what little there is. And the delightfully wooded neighborhood I live in - a mix of large houses as well as small ones - is being seriously degraded by the sprouting of more and more high rise apartments, flooding the tiny alleys (they really can't be called streets) with more and more traffic and noise.

Anchorage needs to have a healthy balance between reasonable development and reasonable environmental protections. Right now, those who do the developing stand to make immediate and significant profit while those who value the natural environment do not stand to profit monetarily from their stance. So that means that the odds are stacked in favor of the developers. Unless the rest of us become vigilant in protecting the factors that make Anchorage a special place with qualities that no longer exist in the rest of the United States.

Two Links - French Blog Post on Planned Obsolesence and Anchorage Post with Title 21 Housing Design Horrors

I ran across the French blog  OWNI.eu with a good post on Planned Obselecence  because it has a link to my post on Victor's Lebow's quote in the Story of Stuff.  It documents more on how corporations design products to encourage hyperconsumption. 

Planned Obsolescence: How Companies Encourage Hyperconsumption

Like many of their professors, students at the Sorbonne had become used to going to buy their ink cartridges from a small shop on a nearby street. With no manufacturer affiliations, it carried shelves full of ‘generic’ cartridges that worked with printers from big name brands like Epson, Canon, HP and Brother. But that small shop soon faced a very big problem: some new printers only recognise ‘proprietary’ consumables that they can detect by matching their hardware signature against a signature in a chip on the cartridge. Anybody hoping to get round that by using a syringe to top up their existing cartridge with new ink was soon caught out because the chips can also track ink levels. But try seeing things from the manufacturers’ point of view: print cartridge sales can represent up to 90% of their turnover, so it’s not hard to see why they want to prevent consumers from going elsewhere. This process of trapping consumers in an endless cycle of buying more by supplying products that soon become unusable or beyond repair has taken on the almost cult name of ‘planned obsolescence.’

This is just the beginning.  It also talks about light bulbs, iPads, and the 'lift cartel' (elevators in American). This is part of the underlying problem that Occupy is about - the way large corporations gain control over our lives and income. 

During the depression people's consumption dropped and corporations had the problem of how to sell more to people who already had enough. The OWNI post says there were three lines of solutions:  Technical, Design, and Legal. 

The Technical line:

"technical: built weaker, less durable products that are impossible to repair;"

brings to mind our recently worn out bread machine.  The motor still worked, but stopped turning the dough after the first rotation.  The repair shop owner apologized when he told us he can't get the part we need any more. All that metal, the motor, the power cord, everything, has to be tossed because one small part isn't working.  (We left it with the repair man, hoping he might find ways to use some of it, but at least that he knew a way to recycle it if he couldn't. 


Large Scale Designed Mess

In Anchorage, the Assembly passed a revision of Title 21 last year that changes all sorts of standards for design and construction of housing which would address a similar problem - builders who cut corners to build ugly, treeless projects with erosion problems, minimal and unusable outdoor space.

But the mayor hired a former Assembly member at $60,000 to come up with changes that would make the development community happier.  The mayor has dropped most of the consultant's recommendation, but still  has offered a series of about 38 amendments to implement the development industry's wish list which would overturn many of the most critical improvements already approved.

Photo from Mt. View Forum used with permission (link to see more)

These amendments go to the Planning and Zoning Commission in December and then to the Assembly.  Mt. View Forum posted about Title 21 back in 2009 with a series of photos that show what shoddy Anchorage construction looks like.

The photo caption at Mt. View Forum read:

"Does it get any worse? Yes! Four-plex apartments, street sides windowless, entire area between buildings and street 100% paved, no landscaping."

Do you really think it's too hard for apartments and office to hide their dumpsters from street traffic?  How about 25 foot setbacks for buildings from creeks and only 10 feet for other parts of the property?  I'm hoping to write more on this soon, but let me jump the gun a bit to get Anchorage folks not only aware of this, but alarmed enough to start calling their assembly members.  Here's what the Planning staff at the Muni wrote about the 25 foot setback:

After considerable research, discussion, review and compromise with the T21 subcommittee, the provisionally adopted 50-foot setback is much lower than what is recommended in scientific literature and used in other cities. For comparison, based on scientific data the standard recommendation is 300-feet3. In most communities, stream setbacks average 100-feet nationwide. In Alaska: Soldotna has a 100-foot setback, the Mat-Su Borough has a 75- foot setback, and both Juneau and Homer have 50-foot setbacks. Stream setbacks are necessary to control floodwaters, provide water quality treatment by capturing and filtering pollutants, protect base stream flows to reduce threats of flash floods, maintain stream stability preventing channel migration and maintain stream health for fish and wildlife habitat. Anchorage’s existing 25’ setback came about because of politics, compromise and what was acceptable in the mid 1980’s—it was not based on scientific or practical findings. The consultant’s amendments reduce the role of setbacks from even current code, as illustrated following page 56 below. As proposed, allowing additional uses within 10-ft of streams threatens the very effective vegetative buffer for water quality and flood control. Vegetation along stream banks serves many purposes. Trees slow water velocity and hold the soil in place with their root system stabilizing stream banks. Overhanging vegetation regulates water temperature, provides shading for salmon, and contributes insects and other nutrients in the stream. Ground-cover vegetation filters stormwater runoff removing sediments and pollutants before entering streams.

This is from a list of the changes with staff comments put together by former Planning and Zoning Commissioner John Weddleton.  I've posted the whole document (21 pages) at Scribd., but they group opposing the changes, FreeTitle21, passed out a more concise version (4 pages) Tuesday night at the Assembly meeting.  Free Title 21's concise version, more a list of recommendations and reasons to reject most of the amendments,  is also at Scribd.