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Why The Government Is Not The Answer To Urban Planning

City planning is a task that is often seen as a unique realm of governmental necessity.

The existence of externalities means that the market could create extremely sub optimal outcomes when creating a city.

For example, a house with a messy front yard hurts everyone, but the people in this house might have little incentive to clean up. A network of streets might not benefit its creator as much as the people who use it. While there are certainly some examples where the government intervening can be very helpful for most people, there are also many circumstances where government intervention is actually the key to a city’s demise.

The importance of city planning is so great that it truly cannot be the decision of any one individual.

Governmental city planning has many wins, but even more losses, not as a result of any specific government’s choices, but as a result of the institution’s inherent inability to capture information. 

The first problem with governmental urban planning is that they cannot effectively gather information on what people want.

It would be uncommon for them to even run surveys on individual preferences. Beyond this, preferences themselves fluctuate. Predicting people’s preferences far into the future is almost impossible, and even more impossible for cash-strapped governments. People often cannot predict even their own preferences, so even if this information was to be gathered, there is no guarantee it would remain true. This harms city planning practically in the example of deciding how walkable a city will be versus how much it will allow people to live in the suburbs and commute in. The usefulness of a city is derived from  how well it fulfills the preferences of its residents. People who try to make city planning a science don’t account for the fact that the exact same city would be a success or failure, depending entirely on the people who live within it. 

The second problem with government driven urban planning is that there is an extremely poorly-functioning feedback loop.

Governments obscure their understanding of their own successes because they typically benchmark against other cities. They can only see their actions in conjunction with so many other environmental factors that it is difficult to disentangle the results of their policy and what would have happened anyways. The problem with benchmarking against other cities is that the inherently different environmental, social and legislative conditions of each city mean that a success for one city would truly be a failure for another city. However, there is too much pressure for urban planners to compare between fundamentally different cities. Sometimes a city will view itself as a failure and take drastic remedial action, but not realize that they have actually improved greatly from their previous state and would have kept proving with even less drastic action. Like anything in the study of humans, it is almost impossible to isolate factors within city planning. The relative success of a given district within a city might arise from 30 different subjective factors but also allow urban planners to falsely attribute the success to either outcome variables, or insignificant elements of the urban tapestry.

A final limitation of governmental urban planning is the lackluster incentive structure.

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Woman Sues Chicago After Being Shot by Gun from Buyback Program

Twanda Willingham is suing the city of Chicago after being shot with a pistol that had been “relinquished to Chicago police at a gun turn-in event,” according to the NRA-ILA.

FOX 32 reported Willingham was shot in August 2023 with a Glock 21 “surrendered months earlier at a Chicago Police Department gun buyback.”

Willingham subsequently filed suit against Chicago, after it was discovered the gun had allegedly “disappeared while in transit between the [location of the buy back event] and a nearby police station—just blocks apart.”

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Meta’s Shocking AI Scandal: Chatbots Cleared for Steamy Talks with Kids as Young as 8

Meta Platforms faces intense scrutiny following a Reuters investigation that exposed internal guidelines permitting its AI chatbots to engage in romantic or sensual conversations with minors.

The 200-page document, titled “GenAI: Content Risk Standards,” outlined permissible behaviors for AI personas on platforms like Facebook Messenger.

These rules, in effect until recently, allowed chatbots to describe children as attractive and use affectionate language in role-playing scenarios.

One example from the document involved a hypothetical user prompt where a high school student asked about evening plans, prompting an AI response that included guiding the user to bed and whispering endearments.

Another scenario featured an 8-year-old user describing removing their shirt, with the chatbot replying by praising the child’s “youthful form” as a masterpiece.

While explicit sexual content was prohibited, critics argue these allowances blurred lines and risked normalizing inappropriate interactions.

The guidelines also permitted chatbots to disseminate false medical or legal advice if accompanied by disclaimers, and to generate derogatory statements based on race or ethnicity in educational, artistic, or satirical contexts.

Additionally, the rules enabled depictions of violence against adults and partially sexualized images of celebrities under certain conditions.

A related incident highlighted potential real-world harms when a cognitively impaired New Jersey man, infatuated with a Meta AI persona named “Big Sis Billie,” died after attempting to meet her in person.

The 76-year-old fell fatally while traveling under false pretenses encouraged by the chatbot. This case underscores concerns about AI’s impact on vulnerable users, though Meta has not commented specifically on it.

Meta spokesperson Andy Stone stated that the examples were erroneous and inconsistent with company policies, and have been removed from the document.

The company is revising the guidelines and prohibits content that sexualizes children or allows sexualized role-play between adults and minors.

However, enforcement has been inconsistent, and Meta has declined to release the updated policy publicly.

The revelations prompted bipartisan backlash from U.S. lawmakers, with Republican Senators Josh Hawley and Marsha Blackburn calling for a congressional investigation into Meta’s oversight.

Democratic Senators Ron Wyden and Peter Welch criticized the protections under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, arguing it should not shield AI-generated harmful content.

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Freedom advocates seek judicial review of the Nova Scotia forest ban

The Canadian Constitution Foundation (CCF) is challenging Nova Scotia’s province-wide travel ban on wooded areas. An August 5 proclamation made it illegal to enter any wooded area — including Crown and private land — without a permit, with fines of $25,000 (plus HST).

Freedom advocates wrote to Premier Tim Houston and Natural Resources Minister Tory Rushton on August 6, urging a reconsideration of restrictions, but received no reply. 

The CCF will now seek judicial review and an expedited hearing to challenge the government.

Due to “incredibly dry weather,” Nova Scotia has seen 122 wildfires this year, below the 10-year average of 152. Minister Rushton stated that “only a significant amount of rain” would improve conditions as current fires burn deep underground.

The extensive restrictions under the guise of wildfire prevention include a ban on hiking, fishing, off-road vehicles, and camping outside designated areas. Additionally, forestry, mining, and other industrial work in wooded areas now requires an exemption permit.

Josh Dehaas, author of the August 6 letter, stated the travel ban is “unlawful, disproportionate and unreasonable,” despite the government’s legitimate interest in wildfire prevention.

The Foundation argues that Nova Scotia’s Forests Act unconstitutionally restricts access to “woods” and improperly impacts Charter rights through vague and overbroad imprisonment offences.

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On Ukraine war, Euro leaders begin to make concessions — to reality

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky huddled with European leaders yesterday in advance of Donald Trump’s highly touted meeting with Vladimir Putin in Alaska. The call, which Trump joined as well, was viewed as Europe and Ukraine’s final chance to influence the American president’s thinking ahead of the U.S.-Russia summit in Anchorage.

With Ukraine’s position on the battlefield progressively worsening and Trump renewing his push for a ceasefire, European leaders have begun to make concessions to reality. Most strikingly, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said yesterday that the frontline should be the starting point for territorial negotiations, echoing NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte’s recent comment that there may be a need for de facto recognition of Russian occupation of Ukrainian land.

Moreover, in response to Putin’s proposal last week to agree to a ceasefire in exchange for Ukraine’s withdrawal from the rest of Donetsk region, Europe and Ukraine have insisted that any land swaps must be reciprocal. While European leaders remain firm that the norm of territorial integrity must be upheld in principle, these moves clearly embody a shift from the more uncompromising stance they embraced through the first three years of the war.

That said, some aspects of Europe’s stance remain delusional.

Prior to their meeting with Trump yesterday, Ukraine and its European partners agreed on a series of principles for negotiations with Russia. Among these remains the long outdated notion that Russia cannot have a veto over Ukraine’s NATO accession, even though the Trump administration has already ruled this prospect out. Even Trump’s much more transatlantically friendly predecessor Joe Biden was not prepared to take any tangible steps to make Ukrainian membership in NATO a reality.

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Senators Call For Probe Into Meta After News Report On AI Conversations With Children

Two Republican Senators on Aug. 14 called for a congressional investigation into Meta Platforms, Facebook’s parent company, after a recent news media report revealed an internal policy document that allowed the company’s chatbots to have “romantic or sensual” conversations with a child.

On Thursday, Reuters reported that it had viewed a Meta policy document detailing polices on chatbot behavior that permitted the technology to “engage a child in conversations that are romantic or sensual,” generate incorrect medical information, and assist users in arguing that black people are “dumber than white people.”

While Meta confirmed the authenticity of the document, the company said that after recently receiving questions from Reuters, it removed the portions stating that the chatbot is allowed to flirt or participate in romantic roleplay with children.

Andy Stone, a spokesperson for Meta, said the company is currently revising the documents and that those types of conversations with children should never have been permitted.

“The examples and notes in question were and are erroneous and inconsistent with our policies, and have been removed,” Stone told Reuters. “We have clear policies on what kind of responses AI characters can offer, and those policies prohibit content that sexualizes children and sexualized role play between adults and minors.”

On the X platform, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) criticized the company for allegedly only making the changes after being questioned by Reuters.

“So, only after Meta got CAUGHT did it retract portions of its company doc that deemed it ‘permissible for chatbots to flirt and engage in romantic roleplay with children,’” Hawley said. “This is grounds for an immediate congressional investigation.”

A spokesperson for Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) said she supports a probe into Meta.

After Hawley called for an investigation, a Meta spokesperson reiterated the company’s previous statement. However, the spokesperson declined to comment on Hawley’s remarks.

Blackburn said the report underscores the need to pass reforms for better protection of children online, like the Kids Online Safety Act. The senator co-sponsored the bill, which passed in the Senate last year by a bipartisan 91–3 vote, but failed in the House.

The bill called for certain platforms, such as social media networks, to “take reasonable measures in the design and operation of products or services used by minors to prevent and mitigate certain harms that may arise from that use (e.g., sexual exploitation and online bullying).”

“Additionally, covered platforms must provide (1) minors with certain safeguards, such as settings that restrict access to minors’ personal data; and (2) parents or guardians with tools to supervise minors’ use of a platform, such as control of privacy and account settings,” the bill states.

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The New York Times Has Called for Insurrection and the Destruction of the Constitution TWICE in 48 Hours

Is there something in the water at the New York Times?

Over the course of the last 48 hours, the supposed ‘paper of record’ has advocated for a military coup against Trump and called for the abolishment of the U.S. Senate and the Electoral College, and to pack the U.S. Supreme Court.

These are the people who claim to want to save Democracy? Really?

From the column:

We Used to Think the Military Would Stand Up to Trump. We Were Wrong.

By ordering 800 National Guard troops to Washington, on the pretext of an illusory crime wave, President Trump has further dragged the U.S. military into domestic law enforcement, in a move credibly perceived as an ominous “test case.” This continues what the administration started in California in June as part of the its deportation efforts.

Unfortunately, though we (and others) had hoped that the military would only respond to calls to action in American cities and states kicking and screaming, we no longer expect resistance from that institution. Once, perhaps, traditionalist officers might have leaned on protocol and refused to heed a lawless order, taking inspiration from the generals — Mark Milley and James Mattis — who resisted the uprooting of established military standards in the first Trump term.

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Leftists Still Want To Abolish the Family

Early last month, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)sponsored a panel on the family at the organization’s Socialism Conference 2025. The organization described the topic this way: “How should the left relate to the family? Socialist analysis makes clear that the nuclear family form is an inherently repressive, racist, and hetero-sexist institution that functionally reinforces and reproduces capitalism.”

The roundtable featured Olivia Katbi, the co chair of Portland DSA;  Eman Abdelhadi, an assistant professor and sociologist at the University of Chicago; and Katie Gibson, a Teaching Fellow at the University of Chicago.

  • “When we talk about family abolition, we’re talking about the abolition of the economic unit… all of our material needs taken care of by the collective.”
  • “We argue for abolition of the family in general… the institution of the family acts as part of the carceral system.”

Naturally, these leftists partly want to abolish the family because they agree with Marx that the family is a “bourgeois” institution that must be destroyed in order to clear the way for the socialist utopia. Another element of opposition to the family comes from the Left’s bizarre preoccupation with commodifying sex. It is ironic that these “anti-capitalists” seek so vehemently to turn sex into an economic commodity, but this appears to be a key tenet of leftist thinking in recent decades. Thus, they seek to normalize sex work. This is partly because the Left views marriage as a type of sex work itself. After all, the family is “inherently repressive,” and all sex within marriage is essentially rape. It is therefore “progress” to abolish marital sex and replace it with “sex work.”

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‘Karen’s’ Attack of Portland Dog Owner Perfectly Frames Left’s Insufferable Bigotry

There’s a look, a voice, and a self-assured sense of entitlement, privilege, and presumption that courses through the veins of someone who believes they are politically and morally superior. They believe that only they and their fellow travelers possess the secret. They are worse than any proselytizer because at least people who acknowledge God know their place. When these tenets of secular faith unite to create one self-indulgent and boorish display proving the thesis, however, we get the woman in the dog park in Portland. 

We don’t go looking for examples of the left’s bigotry. Examples of this bad behavior fall effortlessly into our laps on a daily basis. 

Portland’s Mt. Tabor Park, my old stomping grounds on this mount to the east, a place known for what my elders called “necking” or “parking” while watching the city lights, has been turned over to the dogs. The city built a lovely dog park for Portlanders who just want to work out their pups, smile at their neighbors, and mind their own business. That has been temporarily ruined, however, because of that woman.

There’s a reason why venerable right-wing talk host Michael Savage decades ago coined the phrase, “liberalism is a mental disorder,” and it’s completely embodied in this person.

We join the mental breakdown of this self-entitled vegan (we find out later) on Monday, August 11 (was there a full moon or something?) as she completely loses her mind at a “racist” man for walking what she believes are pure-bred dogs. And because he owns these “pure-bred” dogs, he’s a Trump voter who supports ICE. 

But, wait, there’s so much more. As you’ll see in the video, she attempts to get passersby to come to her “aid,” feigning that it is he who won’t leave her alone and all that implies. 

All of her worst traits come together for these few moments based on her cocksure belief in her moral superiority, proving what a completely despicable and intellectually vacant human being she is. 

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“Breeding Ground For Sex Predators”: Louisiana Sues Roblox Months After Hindenburg Alleged “Pedophile Hellscape”

Roblox, the $27 billion online gaming platform pitched as a safe creative playground for kids, is now facing serious legal firepower from Louisiana’s top law enforcement officer. On Thursday, Attorney General Liz Murrill sued Roblox Corp. in state court, accusing the California-based company of enabling predators to target children and “facilitate the distribution of child sexual abuse material” on its platform.

“Today I’m suing Roblox — the #1 gaming site for children and teens – and a breeding ground for sex predators,” Murrill said in a statement announcing the suit. “Due to Roblox’s lack of safety protocols, it endangers the safety of the children of Louisiana. Roblox is overrun with harmful content and child predators because it prioritizes user growth, revenue, and profits over child safety. Every parent should be aware of the clear and present danger poised to their children by Roblox so they can prevent the unthinkable from ever happening in their own home.”

The lawsuit alleges Roblox “knowingly and intentionally fails to implement basic safety controls to protect child users from predators” and fails to adequately warn parents about the dangers on its platform. It cites years of alleged failures, pointing to games that have appeared on Roblox such as Escape to Epstein Island, Diddy Party, and Public Bathroom Simulator Vibe, which the AG’s office says have included simulated sexual activity, including “child gang rape.”

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