Half of all new housing built in the past 25 years has been under the rule of community associations, which are a cross between local government and the assistant principal for discipline at a very strict high school. These associations have two functions: to provide services and enforce rules of behavior. It's the second function that tends to cause trouble, the Baltimore Sun reported recently. That's because these associations restrict things that most people wouldn't tolerate governments regulating, including political yard signs, too many pets, unusual fences or exterior house colors and fanciful mailboxes. In the most capable hands, this regulatory function would be difficult, but as the Sun pointed out, the rules are enforced almost exclusively by the neighbors themselves, some of whom are unsuited for the job. Epic legal battles have been launched over homeowners erecting unapproved fences or parking their cars overnight on the street. In Maryland, one state legislator has looked into community associations and decided they may need a bit more due process. Senator Delores G. Kelley has helped set up a legislative task force to study changes in association laws.
MEDDLING IN TRANSIT
Some congressmen can't stop themselves from micromanaging transit projects, almost always with bad consequences. Perhaps it's a hopeful sign, then, that one of them has decided to let transit professionals do their jobs. The only problem is his decision comes 20 years too late. The congressman is Henry Waxman of Los Angeles. In 1985, when L.A.'s transit system was tunneling for a subway line to the Westside, it hit a pocket of methane gas, setting off a scary explosion that burned down a store and caused underground fires. There were serious questions about the agency's tunneling techniques and commitment to safety. Waxman got a bill through Congress forbidding tunneling in his city's "methane risk zones," which had the effect of diverting the L.A. rail system from the area of greatest need, the fast-growing, traffic-choked Westside. Now Waxman has changed his mind and has introduced a bill to lift the ban on tunneling. He says subway construction techniques are much safer than 20 years ago, but the more likely reason is that traffic congestion on the Westside has reached crisis proportions. Better late than never, but the delay was expensive. The Los Angeles Times pointed out that the cost of underground construction has skyrocketed to more than $300 million a mile. Back then, L.A. had federal commitments to pay for the Westside line. Today, it doesn't.
THE TROUBLE WITH TELECOMMUTING
When New York City's transit workers went out on strike recently, something strange happened. People walked to work, often trekking miles in frigid temperatures. Many who walked to work during the strike, the New York Times said, were white-collar workers who could have stayed home with a computer and a phone. This raises a larger question of why telecommuting has failed to take hold as futurists predicted in the 1990s. The answer seems to be that, for all the convenience of telecommunications, we really need to work around others. Ironically, the fact that some work can be done remotely may be making the personal touch more important, one professor said. "In an era when so much of our communications is electronic, the value of a face-to-face meeting has actually intensified, since the phone and e-mail have become routine while a meeting reflects the importance of the person or topic," he told the Times. This is obviously important to cities, since urban areas accumulate workers and workplaces. If people didn't need to work in arm's length of each other, the economic reason for cities would vanish.
