Anthony Downs

"Rental housing is increasingly recognized as a vital housing option in the United States. Government policies and programs continue to grapple with problematic issues, however, including affordability, distressed urban neighborhoods, concentrated poverty, substandard housing stock, and the unmet needs of the disabled, the elderly, and the homeless. In R evisiting Rental Housing, leading housing researchers build upon decades of experience, research, and evaluation to inform our understanding of the nation's rental housing challenges and what can be done about them. It thoughtfully addresses not only present issues affecting rental housing, but also viable solutions. The first section reviews the contributing factors and primary problems generated by the operation of rental markets. In the second section, contributors dissect how policies and programs have—or have not—dealt with the primary challenges; what improvements—if any—have been gained; and the lessons learned in the process. The final section looks to potential new directions in housing policy, including integrating best practices from past lessons into existing programs, and new innovations for large-scale, long-term market and policy solutions that get to the root of rental housing challenges. Contributors include William C. Apgar (Harvard University), Anthony Downs (Brookings), Rachel Drew (Harvard University), Ingrid Gould Ellen (New York University), George C. Galster (Wayne State University), Bruce Katz (Brookings), Jill Khadduri (Abt Associates), Shekar Narasimhan (Beekman Advisors), Rolf Pendall (Cornell University), John M. Quigley (University of California–Berkeley), James A. Riccio (MDRC), Stuart S. Rosenthal (Syracuse University), Margery Austin Turner (Urban Institute), and Charles Wilkins (Compass Group)."

The environmental impacts of sprawling development have been well documented, but few comprehensive studies have examined its economic costs. In 1996, a team of experts undertook a multi-year study designed to provide quantitative measures of the costs and benefits of different forms of growth. Sprawl Costs presents a concise and readable summary of the results of that study. The authors analyze the extent of sprawl, define an alternative, more compact form of growth, project the magnitude and location of future growth, and compare what the total costs of those two forms of growth would be if each was applied throughout the nation. They analyze the likely effects of continued sprawl, consider policy options, and discuss examples of how more compact growth would compare with sprawl in particular regions. Finally, they evaluate whether compact growth is likely to produce the benefits claimed by its advocates. The book represents a comprehensive and objective analysis of the costs and benefits of different approaches to growth, and gives decisionmakers and others concerned with planning and land use realistic and useful data on the implications of various options and policies.

"Congested roads waste commuters' time, cost them money, and degrade the environment. Most Americans agree that traffic congestion is the major problem in their communities—and it only seems to be getting worse. In this revised and expanded edition of his landmark work Stuck in Traffic, Anthony Downs examines the benefits and costs of various anticongestion strategies. Drawing on a significant body of research by transportation experts and land-use planners, he counters environmentalists and road lobbyists alike by explaining why seemingly simple solutions, such as expanding public transit or expanding roads, have unintended consequences that cancel out their apparent advantages. He argues that while there might be some measurable gains from increasing housing densities, most other land-use strategies have little effect. Indeed, the most powerful solutions, including higher gasoline taxes, increased public funding for transit, and highway tolls, are also the least palatable politically. St ill Stuck in Traffic contains new material on the causes of congestion, its dynamics, and its relative incidence in various parts of the country. In clear and realistic terms, Downs seeks to explore why traffic congestion has become part of modern American life and how it can be kept under control."

This volume contains the most significant and still timely articles on urban economics, metropolitan and regional planning, real-estate economics and housing written by the noted urban economist Anthony Downs over the past four decades. The book has a new autobiographical introduction outlining Downs's extensive experience as a real estate and urban affairs consultant and policy analyst for hundreds of private firms and government bodies since 1959. The articles in this book set forth fundamental policy analyses concerning all of the major elements of urban policy. Written in Downs's exceptionally clear and compelling style they focus on the space-related dimensions of urban affairs, ranging from traffic congestion to telecommunications, education, and housing, with additional analyses of key aspects of real estate finance. Together, these essays form a veritable handbook of how to conduct urban policy analysis in many fields. The analysis and conclusions are directly relevant to the urban problems which are intensifying throughout the world today. This important book will be an essential companion to scholars and students of housing, urban planning, transport, regional science and real estate, it will also be useful to policymakers and government officials.

This volume, together with a new original introduction, contains the most significant of Anthony Downs's essays written over the past four decades on politics and political theory. The articles address issues such as democracy, public choice theory, rational political decision making and political policy. As such this will be an ideal companion to his famous book An Economic Theory of Democracy. In this collection, Anthony Downs shows how a rational analyst can apply common sense and the lessons of practical experience to the most fundamental and difficult aspects of the political theory of democracy. Written in easily accessible language, Downs' analysis of political behaviour in a democracy and specifically the public choice view is applied to many aspects of democratic politics including cycles of political attention to specific issues, and the long term evolution of democracy. This book will prove invaluable to academics and students of politics, democracy, and public choice theory.

"In this volume, the author analyzes the problems of urban America and presents economically sound alternatives to guide the growth and development of metropolitan areas without increasing traffic congestion and air pollution; endlessly raising taxes, or sacrificing the availability of affordable housing. Copublished with the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy"

Anthony Downs' inzwischen klassisches Demokratie-Modell des Wähler- und Regierungsverhaltens orientiert sich an der ökonomischen Theorie. Er nimmt an, dass politische Parteien und Wähler in der Verfolgung bestimmter, deutlich spezifizierter Ziele optimal handeln. So treffen die Wähler unter Ungewissheit über den Wahlvorgang und die zukünftige Regierungsbildung ihre Wahl nach dem mutmaßlichen Nutzen. Die Regierung versucht, mit Hilfe der Manipulation des Budgets ihre Wiederwahl zu erreichen. Ideologien der Parteien auf der einen Seite, Interessengruppen auf der anderen stellen den Wählern bzw. der Regierung Informationen zur rationalen Entscheidungsfindung zur Verfügung. Dabei wird deutlich, dass Mehrparteiensysteme und Verhältniswahlrecht jedes Wahl-Kalkül unlösbar werden lassen. Auf die weiteren Folgerungen für Demokratie-Forschung und -Verständnis geht Downs im letzten Teil seines Werkes ausführlich ein.

English summary: It was Anthony Downs' objective to create a model dealing with voter and government behavior. In order to do so, he established goals which governments, parties and lobbyists as well as the voters can pursue. To motivate all those concerned, he introduced the self-interest axiom and called for rationality in order to attain these goals. With the help of marginal analysis, each voter determines his/her party differential, which will help to determine each voter's choice at the ballot box and to decide which party's rule will give him/her greater utility in the future. Downs describes how crucial the concept of ideology is to his theory. He maintains that a two-party democracy could not provide stable and effective government unless there is a large measure of ideological consensus amongst its citizens, and that political parties encouraged voters to be irrational by remaining vague and ambiguous. German description: Anthony Downs' inzwischen klassisches Demokratie-Modell des Wahler- und Regierungsverhaltens orientiert sich an der okonomischen Theorie. Er nimmt an, dass politische Parteien und Wahler in der Verfolgung bestimmter, deutlich spezifizierter Ziele optimal handeln. So treffen die Wahler unter Ungewissheit uber den Wahlvorgang und die zukunftige Regierungsbildung ihre Wahl nach dem mutmasslichen Nutzen. Die Regierung versucht, mit Hilfe der Manipulation des Budgets ihre Wiederwahl zu erreichen. Ideologien der Parteien auf der einen Seite, Interessengruppen auf der anderen stellen den Wahlern bzw. der Regierung Informationen zur rationalen Entscheidungsfindung zur Verfugung. Dabei wird deutlich, dass Mehrparteiensysteme und Verhaltniswahlrecht jedes Wahl-Kalkul unlosbar werden lassen. Auf die weiteren Folgerungen fur Demokratie-Forschung und -Verstandnis geht Downs im letzten Teil seines Werkes ausfuhrlich ein.

"Peak-hour traffic congestion has become a major problem in most U. S. cities. In fact, a majority of residents in metropolitan and suburban areas consider congestion their most serious local problem. As citizens have become increasingly frustrated by repeated traffic delays that cost them money and waste time, congestion has become an important factor affecting local government policies in many parts of the nation. In this new book, Anthony Downs looks at the causes of worsening traffic congestion, especially in suburban areas, and considers the possible remedies. He analyzes the specific advantages and disadvantages of every major strategy that has been proposed to reduce congestion. In nontechnical language, he focuses on two central issues: the relationships between land-use and traffic flow in rapidly growing areas, and whether local policies can effectively reduce congestion or if more regional approaches are necessary. In rapidly growing parts of the country, congestion is worse than it was five or ten years ago. But Downs notes that the problem has apparently not yet become bad enough to stimulate effective responses. Neither government officials nor citizens seem willing to consider changing the behavior and public policies that cause congestion. To alleviate the problem, both groups must be prepared to make these fundamental changes. Selected by Choice as an Outstanding Book of 1992 Co-published with the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy"

During the past two decades, most large American cities have lost population, yet some have continued to grow. Does this trend foreshadow the “death” of our largest cities? Or is urban decline a temporary phenomenon likely to be reversed by high energy costs? This ambitious book tackles these questions by analyzing the nature and extent of urban decline and growth of large U. S. cities. It includes and integrates five substudies. The first examines urban decline and some of its long-run causes, and whether cities that are losing population are performing their economic and social functions less effectively. The second substudy is a multivariate analysis of factors associated with the growth and decline of 121 large U. S. cities and their metropolitan areas. Although its causes vary, urban decline appears closely related to processes that have both upgraded individual households and generated serious problems for city governments and poor neighborhoods. A third substudy shows that neighborhood decline is part of a systematic process related to the influx of poor households into metropolitan areas. Another substudy simulates five antidecline strategies in a single metropolitan area, that of Cleveland, Ohio, and finds that severe decline (occurring in about one-fourth of large U. S. cities) could be slowed, though not stopped by vigorous policies. From the last substudy it emerges that, even if gasoline prices rose to over $2 a gallon, resulting adjustments by commuters and firms would produce little net centralization of future urban development—though many older neighborhoods would probably be rehabilitated. The book concludes that further losses of population and jobs in most severely declining cities are unavoidable in the near future. Even Southern and Western cities, now growing fast, will find their rate of growth slowing as further annexation of surrounding territory is limited. The book ends with two chapters discussing policies designed both to help declining population and job losses and to minimize such loses in other cities.

"American cities are shifting collections of individual neghborhoods. Thousands of residents move every year within and among neighborhoods; their flows across a city can radically and quickly alter the character of its neighborhoods. What is behind all this ferment—the decline of one area, the revitalization of another? Can the process be made more rational? Can city neighborhoods be stabilized--and older cities thus preserved? This book argues that such flows of residents are not random. Rather, they are closely linked to overall migration into or out of each metropolitan area and to the way U. S. cities develop. Downs contends that both urban development and the social problems it spawns are built upon social arrangements designed to benefit the middle-class majority. Racial segregation divides housing in each metropolitan area into two or more markets. Socioeconomic segregation subdivides neighborhoods within each market into a class hierarchy. The poor live mainly in the oldest neighborhoods, close to the urban center. The affluent live in the newest neighborhoods, mostly at the urban periphery. This separation stems not from pure market forces but from exclusionary laws that make the construction of low-cost housing illegal in most neighborhoods. The resulting pattern determines where housing is built and what housing is left to decay. Downs uses data from U. S. cities to illustrate neighborhood change and to reach conclusions about ways to cope with it. he explores the causes and nature of racial segregation and integration, and he evaluates neighborhood revitalization programs, which in reviving part of a city often displace many poor residents. He presents a timely analysis of the effect of higher energy costs upon urban sprawl, argues the wisdom of reviving older cities rather than helping their residents move elsewhere, and discusses the advantages and disadvantages of public and private policies at the federal, state, metropolitan-area, city, and neighborhood levels."

In this fast-paced, fact-filled short book, Anthony Downs takes a close look at a national problem of increasing importance—opening up the suburbs to the poor. After marshalling the arguments in favor of introducing low and moderate income housing in suburban areas where it is not now possible, he presents the suburbanites’ case against change. He finds legitimate claims and fears on both sides. Mr. Downs believes it is possible, however, to devise public policies that will reconcile the objectives and legitimate desires of both poorer Americans desiring to upgrade themselves by entering the suburbs and wealthier Americans desiring to protect the quality of their hard-won suburban life. He proposes the concept of balanced communities as well as other public policies to effect this reconciliation. As the nation moves into the decade of the seventies, the pressures of expanding population on the suburbs are bound to increase. Anthony Downs provides here a thoughtful analysis of the problems that are coming and practical proposals for dealing with them, which will interest the professional planner and the involved citizen alike.