From an economic point of view, money is something of an enigma. Its buying power varies according to the most abstract economic processes. Only some money circulates as currency, the majority exists solely as representations on accounting ledgers. In his essay, “Money, Time, Space and the City,” geographer David Harvey describes money’s this way:

Money is simultaneously everything and nothing, everywhere but nowhere in particular, a means that poses as an end, the profoundest and most complete of all centralizing forces in a society where it facilitates the greatest dispersion, a representation that appears quite divorced from whatever it is supposed to represent. It is a real or concrete abstraction that exists external to us and exercises real power over us.

Even the precise amount of hard currency eludes precise calculation. The Treasury Department’s own “U.S. Currency and Coin Outstanding and in Circulation” report (issued since 1888) that calculates the value of all currency in circulation admits the estimate includes “some old and current rare issues that do not circulate or that may do so to a limited extent.” Who knows how many bills are burned for drama’s sake, or pennies are dropped into wells? Nonetheless, as of June 2008 the government estimates some $826,313,890,478 in total currency and coin is in circulation, or $2,712 per American.

Given its abstract nature, understanding the movement of currency seems beyond any study. How could one track a note with any regularity? What parts of the country have a more dynamic cash economy? Even if you could find out such a thing, would it have any real importance? Is it, as Harvey says, both “everything and nothing”?

The goal of following the movements of individual bills used to be impossible. That was before the invention of the Internet. Since 1998, a growing group (over 4.8 million at last count) of people have systematically marked and logged the movements of 140,485,942 unique bills worth a mere $766,394,212.

This vast tracking project was made possible by WheresGeorge.com founder Hank Eskin. Using his website, hobbyists would write or stamp (marking bills is not illegal, defacing them is) on mostly small denomination bills something like “Track This Bill on wheresgeorge.com.” Recipients of the bill who so desired could visit the website, enter the unique serial number and series, and log their location in terms of the Zip Code. Registered users are notified when a bill they’ve entered (”hit” in the terminology of the site) is entered by someone else.

What can we learn from such an exercise? First, the realities of paper money is running against such an experiment. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing estimates the life span of a $1 bill to be a mere 21 months, and the Bureau printed over 38 million notes per day in FY2007. Such sober statistics may help explain why the most popular bills in the entire system have only been entered around 12 times. In fact, the most popular bill in the system was entered in March 2002 and noted to be in “preety good condition.” The user logging the bill during its most recent entry, three years later in March 2005, noted it looked old. The website has also inspired a passionate following, at least among a tiny proportion of its users. All of the most active 50 users have entered over 100,000 bills, and the most active, “Wattsburg Gary,” has entered over 1 million. The owner of a gun shop in Wattsburg, Pennsylvania’s, Gary’s site profile is a somewhat self-deprecating monument of his dedication to the hobby.

Despite the methodological challenges of relying on such a serendipitous dataset, one group of researchers used it to theorize about contagious disease, but no other uses are easily found online. Let’s explore a bit about what Where’s George can tell us.

The website’s list of most active Zip Codes is thrown off by the location of some of its most active users — Wattsburg, PA unsurprisingly tops the list. Hits, on the other hand, will be less skewed by these super-users. After all, even if they enter a huge number of bills, there’s no way to attract a disproportionate share of marked currency through the money supply. Of course, this could be thrown off by users sharing marked bills, such as I do with my girlfriend’s mother (another user), or happens at Where’s George meetups. Nonetheless, here is the all-time county hit map:

Comparing that with this population density map raises more questions than it answers:

Given the different character of the category breaks, it’s difficult to draw a comparison. The site does have a “Zip Code Lookup” tool allowing you to query how many bills have been entered in each U.S. Zip Code. Using a random number generator, I generated random 5 digit numbers until I had 15 actual Zip Codes (not every 5 digit number is a Zip Code). I then looked up the Census 2000 population and the number of hits in each Zip Code, and did a simple linear trend line using Excel. The results showed considerable variation. The R^2 of the best fit line was a mere 0.44. I decided to plot a few Zip Codes where I had lived. Lapeer, Michigan and Cumberland, Maine, the hometowns of my girlfriend and I respectively, generally followed the pattern. Where I live now, Cambridge, MA, was significantly higher. The Zip Code containing the bulk of the undergraduate students at the University of Michigan is far off the chart.

What if we could analyze the complete set of data against a range of variables. Would we learn users tend to be young, or educated? Would it instead trend towards a Bordom Index, including both college students and rural gun shop owners?

Measuring the velocity and prevalence of cash have other, less obvious uses. After all, one standard economics text notes, “One factor that undoubtedly has affected the currency-deposit ratio is the growth of the underground economy,” pointing out it includes both unreported waiter’s tips and the drug trade, and advising managers of cash to keep an eye on drug policy. Could some sort of sophisticated analysis tease out this sort of information from the master database? Only time will tell.

In the meantime, have you seen any Where’s George bills lately?

> WheresGeorge.com
> Wikipedia: “Where’s George”

An interesting study would compare these results with people who have not sought assistance from a counselor to measure the role of this assistance. I’m also curious about the nature of the loan modifications. Nonetheless it presents a window to what’s happening at the local level - thousands of homeowners facing hard choices and negotiating with lenders to find solutions.

> Boston Globe: “Lenders graded on response to troubled homeowners”

Obama quickly launched an official transition website, appropriately called Change.gov. Featuring a blog and an invitation for users to submit their vision about what “America can be” and “where President-Elect Obama should lead this country.” The website briefly featured his campaign platform, which has been removed. The platform was captured on WhiteHouse2.org, a private effort to allow thousands of citizens to set the agenda for the new president’s first 100 days. The website links to this transition guide for Obama’s transition team and various nominees and appointees, which features among other useful information a directory of acronyms and this high-level organizational chart of the federal government. (See full size)

The Change.gov transition website is reminding some of his tech policy, released a year ago, which pledged he would let Americans review and comment on non-emergency legislation online for at least five days before signing it. Here’s a piece from Slate on the possibility the Obama administration’s website would function as a social network:

The sort of Web site the Obama team seems to be envisioning—one in which the president and his citizens hold deep discussions about the controversial issues of the day—will surely be much less focused than My.BarackObama.com, which had a singular goal: to get Barack Obama elected. Obama’s campaign Web site connected disparate people who shared a common passion; the White House social network will connect people who disagree with each other and with the president—and whose goals might be in conflict. So far, the Web hasn’t had a great record of bridging social divisions. If Obama can change that, maybe he really is a different kind of politician.

On another topic, Obama adviser and transition co-chair Valerie Jarrett recently reiterated he plans to create a White House Office of Urban Policy. In addition to the new office, his picks for many other posts will have a profound impact on our cities, including three posts Richard Layman is thinking about: Secretary of Transportation, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and Director of the Federal Transit Administration.

> Slate: “You Are Now Friends with Barack Obama”
> CNN: “Obama launches Web site to reach public”
> Change.gov

Last night, thousands of people celebrated the election of Barack Obama at the very same intersection and in streets throughout the city. No doubt similar spontanious celebrations erupted in thousands of cities across the nation.

This year D.C. voted 92.9% for Barack Obama. In 2004, the city voted 89.2% for John Kerry, and roughly 85% for Al Gore in 2000 and Bill Clinton in 1996 and 1992.

See also Remembering 1968 and Understanding the 1960’s “Civil Disorders’

6:59 PM: The New York Times county-level national presidential map includes historical data back to 1992.
7:25 PM: Here’s my favorite poll closing time map.
7:29 PM: Libby is really really excited about this.
7:52 PM: Libby’s watching Lapeer results on ElectionMagic.com.
7:52 PM: As of today, Obama has over 2.4 million Facebook friends.
8:00 PM: MSNBC calls Pennsylvania for Obama??
8:01 PM: New Hampshire! Maine!
8:03 PM: Aside: Shaw dog park proposal to reality in 6 months. The neighborhood’s public library branch closed in 2004, and the temporary trailer didn’t open for 4 years.
8:12 PM: Chris Matthews telling Howard Dean he “started this”
8:20 PM: MSNBC calls the New Hampshire senate race for Shaheen
8:24 PM: Live shot of Palm Beach County vote counting on MSNBC right now
9:26 PM: The Obama campaign has their own map
9:32 PM: Changing from CNN to MSNBC … what a difference calling Ohio makes!
9:34 PM: We want the hologram back
9:41 PM: Obama campaign announces they have made 1 million calls. Today.
9:57 PM: The Overhead Wire is blogging the transit results. The big kahuna is California’s $10 billion rail bond.
10:14 PM: New England House race update - all four seats in ME and NH go to Dems
10:38 PM: Mass. ballot questions: income tax preserved, marijuana decriminalized, dog racing banned
11:00 PM: CNN, AP, Fox call Virginia
11:01 PM: Race called for Obama!
11:02 PM: From Libby and I … thanks to our friends who worked so hard for the Obama campaign, including Will and Rachel in NH, Kristen, Aaron and Jenny in MI, Michael and Marissa in Chicago, Jackie, Rosie, Paul and Ramya in OH, Becky in NC, and any others we’re missing. Congratulations!

Since 1990, the Black share of the D.C. population has fallen 11.2%. That decline was made up by increases in four other categories: White (6.2%), Asian (1.2%), other (2.2%), and two or more races (1.6%). The U.S. Census Bureau allowed respondents to select multiple races for the first time in 2000, and asks separate questions for race and ethnicity. Over the same time period, the percent reporting Hispanic ethnicity has increased 2.9%.

Here is the Census data, with projections for 2010 and 2014 calculated from the trends since 2000 only:

My projection finds the Hispanic population relatively slowly growing. But unlike the Black and White population, this group may be subject to unique external influences such as immigration policy and global economic patterns that may reduce the validity of this projection.

A couple comments about these numbers. First, they show relatively gradual and ongoing demographic shifts, not abrupt change that most seem to assume is happening. Despite massive investments in a tiny majority of the city’s neighborhoods, D.C. only recently stabilized its population, let alone began to add significant population. Second, since 1990 the city has lost 77,958 Blacks but only gained 30,665 Whites. Collectively, the groups other race, two or more races, and Asian gained almost as many over the same period, 28,979. Overall, from 1990 to 2007 the city shrank by 18,608 people. The declining Black majority thus has three main causes: Black flight, growing White population, AND growing other racial categories.

Here’s the full table, including 2010 projections based on patterns since 2000:

	1990	2000	2006	2007	2010
Black	399,604	343,312	322,105	321,646	310,613
White	179,667	176,101	200,395	210,332	221,657
American Indian	1,466	1,713	1,903	1,172	1,373
Asian	11,214	15,189	19,827	18,066	20,739
Other Race	14,949	21,950	28,127	27,591	30,898
Two Or More	0	13,446	8,970	9,485	10,833

Obviously, when the shift occurs it will have profound effects on the city. While I will refrain from making a judgment about what it will mean overall, I hope the analysis above shows it’s not primarily caused by any one factor, but several.

> NYTimes: “Washington’s Black Majority is Shrinking”
> W. Post: “D.C. May Be Losing Status As a Majority-Black City”

After moving to Boston, wind power seemed everywhere. Setting up the utilities at our new apartment, my girlfriend and I opted for plan that would power our computers and toaster with 100% wind energy at only a slightly higher rate. (The electricity is produced by a New York wind farm so large it featured prominently in a New York Times story about the challenges of wind power transmissions.) On the way to a meeting, I passed a large mill installed alongside I-93 near downtown Boston. At a community meeting, attendees from coastal communities discussed pending proposals in their towns.

I was already familiar with the controversy surrounding a major wind farm proposed off Cape Cod, notoriously delayed by wealthy property owners. A recent story in the Boston Globe described quite a different environment for a farm a bit farther south along the coast. Thanks to astronomical power prices caused by the high cost of diesel for the island generator, the residents of Rhode Island’s Block Island were considering an offshore farm.

Did I unwittingly land in some sort of New England wind paradise? Not exactly. According to the American Wind Energy Association, the few turbines already mentioned unfortunately comprised half of the state’s wind power generation capability. With a total generating power of just 5.32 megawatts, among the states Massachusetts ranks 31st, far behind wind behemoths like California (5,604 MW), Texas (3,162 MW) or Iowa (1,375 MW). Although experiencing rapid growth in the past decade, wind-generated energy comprises only a small portion of energy consumed.

The turbines visible from flights into Logan are known as Hull I and II, named after the small community that owns them. Their story began with a small turbine installed during the 1980s. After it blew down in a storm in 1997, the community-owned power utility decided to install a larger turbine. Success beget success, and in 2006 the Vestas-manufactured Hull II began operations. Local boosters eagerly track the power production online and plans are underway for yet more turbines.

The turbine alongside I-93 was installed at the Dorchester headquarters of a the IBEW 103 union, as a demonstration project demonstrating their commitment to wind power. According to the American Wind Energy Association, in addition to these two others sit atop mountains, and the last is owned by the Massachusetts Maritime Academy, all installed since 2001.

Although Massachusetts has a long way to go before wind would contribute a significant portion of all power generation, there has been interest in renewable energy. Some of the 600 programs in renewable energy funded by the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative are shown here in a regional map created by my employer, the Metropolitan Area Planning Council:

The local interest in commercial-scale wind power production is no accident. Thanks to geography, the state’s coast enjoys some of the best wind conditions in the country.

Although there’s all kinds of new websites to investigate wind power potential, the map above from a government report clearly illustrates the issue. When it comes to wind power, the west is king. But unlike the flatlands of the Midwest and South, the New England seacoast and mountain peaks are blessed with high “wind power density,” meaning more proposals are sure to come.

> HullWind.org
> American Wind Energy Association project list
> 3Tier’s Wind and Solar Energy Potential Map
> U.S. Energy Information Agency
> My related post on solar thermal technology

As I have written before, the federal law setting transportation policy will expire next year, and this group has been created to lobby Congress about the new policy.

First, some history. The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 was a bold law, which set the mold for America’s surface transportation policy up to today. The act established a federal gas tax which funded a highway trust fund. States could apply for funds to build highways, and in general the federal government would pay most of the cost (recently, roughly 80%) so long as it helped complete their planned national network. The idea was simple, and it worked at achieving the federal goal: encouraging states to plan and develop a national network of limited access freeways. That policy has remained largely unchanged to today, over 50 years later. However, in that time we’ve built the entire planned freeway network. Meanwhile, our public transit systems have languished. The 1991 transportation bill known as “ISTEA” was a significant shift from the old mold. It required metropolitan planning and gave significant funding for transit improvements. However, since then applications for transit funds have far outstripped the limited funds available. Even if applicants succeed in getting transit funds, the federal government only paid roughly half the cost — or less. Federal bureaucrats, especially under President George W. Bush, have created elaborate applications for the limited funds and pushed specific ideological perspectives. The highway bills have also become politicized, laced with Congressional earmarks including the famous Alaska “bridge to nowhere.”

The old model is obsolete for two major reasons:the gas tax, and our transportation needs. First, the federal per gallon gas tax hasn’t been changed in over a decade. Thanks to inflation, and more recently, declining gasoline use thanks to high prices, the amount of money coming in simply isn’t enough for all our transportation needs. Second, we don’t need to build a national highway network: we have one. More highways are not the answer to metropolitan congestion. We must shift gears profoundly, to focus on highway maintenance, urban mass transit, and overall sustainability in transportation. This leads us to what the new campaign is advocating. Their five-point platform is as follows:

1. Build passenger rail between and transit systems within cities
2. Invest in a green future including clean vehicles, new fuels, public transit, walking and biking
3. Restore our existing highways, bridges, and transit systems
4. Stop wasteful spending on projects with little economic return
5. Save Americans’ money by coordinating transportation and housing

I’ve focused on the bare bones of the platform, but the short policy statement released this week explains the other related issues: jobs, climate change, and oil dependence. Their materials say little so far about how these values relate to how federal policy should be organized. Earlier this summer I discussed some of the various competing proposals, including an infrastructure bank, capital budgeting project, or some version of what we have now. Its weaknesses aside, the report completed by a study commission set up by the last highway bill suggests how the existing federal programs and departments might be streamlined and reorganized.

The conventional wisdom surrounding the bill — echoed in the Roll Call story below — is that the “road lobby” that kept money flowing for roads over the past 50 years remains strong in Washington. Regardless of the political opponents, the Transportation for America advocates will have their work cut out for them trying to curb the congressional love of the earmark and corral diverse, locally-based activists and convince them to get involved in high-level policymaking.

> Transportation for America
> Roll Call: “T4 Lobby Maps Its Route”
> My Planetizen article: “Getting the Transportation Infrastructure We Need”
> Previous posts on the topic

This November, supporters of a plan to construct a high-speed rail network in California could have something many thought they’d never see: $9.95 billion in cold, hard cash.

If approved by a simple majority on the statewide ballot, California Proposition 1A would provide $9 billion to construct a high-speed rail line between San Francisco and Los Angeles, and $950 million for other rail improvements in the state. Although a fraction of the total system cost, the money would provide leverage for federal matching funds (possible made available through a hypothetical Green-TEA) or private funds.

The proposed route is illustrated nicely through this interactive tool on the website of the state agency responsible for planning and building the new system, the California High-Speed Rail Authority.

The entire plan would connect the state’s major cities with modern trains traveling up to 220 miles per hour over a new, 800-mile rail network. Although some complain the system tries to do too much — provide express service as well as local service to smaller cities — and anti-rail ideologues have bludgeoned the plan with usual complaints, the proposal has been unusually resilient to criticism thanks to high gas prices, concern over global warming, and frustration with traffic congestion. The 12-year-old California High-Speed Rail Authority has made good use of the planning money allocated thus far, producing slick online maps, animations, renderings, and videos, that show brightly colored yellow and gold trains whizzing through un-built tunnels, stations, and transit oriented developments (strategically located throughout the state).

The agency has posted a number of videos to YouTube, and this somewhat stiff 10-minute promotional film has been viewed over 300,000 times:

Is all this too good be true? Fearing the worst, one rail supporter predicted in 2007 a failure of leadership, failure on the ballot, or public apathy would be enough to stall the plan. The bitter diatribe provoked some young commenters to respond. “You may have enjoyed most of your life but mine is just starting!” wrote a 16-year-old, who added, “if you’re going to sit at your computer preaching how high speed rail is never going to work maybe you could be more proactive.”

At a national level, much work remains to be done to improve inter-city passenger rail service. Despite isolated success stories (such as the subject of a previous post, the Downeaster), as a whole Amtrak faces serious financial and infrastructure obstacles. (Described in detail in a recent article in the Next American City magazine.) As for high-speed rail, no serious national planning effort even exists. The U.S. Department of Transportation plan itself doesn’t even propose an nationwide, interconnected network, and only a few activists have begun to consider what it might look like.

Then again, what could be better to convince a skeptical nation of the benefits of high-speed rail than a successful, functioning state system? For now then, we wait for the decision of California voters on November 4th.

> Yes on 1A - Californians for High Speed Rail
> California High-Speed Rail Authority
> California High Speed Rail Blog

> Should the Internet Replace Newspapers for Public Notices? Most planning and zoning ordinances require cities publish some notices in the local newspaper. In an age of newspapers decline, and with the Internet readily available, I suggest we should amend our laws.

> The Origin of New Urbanism’s Persistent Image Problem: Despite authoring a trenchant critique of contemporary urbanism and articulating a detailed, comprehensive vision for urban development, the New Urbanism movement retains a vague stigma with many American urbanists. Far more than an unfair stereotype, I argue the reputation problem runs to the core of intellectual life among American urbanists, speaking to the way our cities our developed and studied.