Samuel Staley

Sam Staley is Associate Director of the DeVoe L. Moore Center at Florida State University in Tallahassee.

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Full Bio

Sam Staley is Associate Director of the DeVoe L. Moore Center at Florida State University in Tallahassee where he also teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in urban and real estate economics, regulations, economic development, and urban planning. He is also a senior research fellow at Reason Foundation. Prior to joining Florida State, he was Robert W. Galvin Fellow at Reason Foundation and helped establish its urban policy program in 1997.

Mexicans, Machines and Place

The newest Drew Carey video at <a href="http://www.reason.tv/">Reason.tv</a>—<a href="http://www.reason.tv/video/show/451.html">Mexicans and Machines: Why Its Time to Lay Off NAFTA</a>—is (IMHO) brilliant, and triggered more than a couple of thoughts about how technology and progress creates practical challenges for planning.

Why Transit is an 'Inferior Good'

In my last post, I suggested that transit’s “resurgence” is, ultimately, much ado about nothing. Transit’s increased ridership, while important for transit managers, will do little to change fundamental travel patterns of US urban areas.

Are transit ridership numbers more pomp than substance?

The <a href="http://www.apta.com/">American Public Transit Association</a> reports that <a href="http://www.apta.com/media/releases/080602_ridership_report.cfm">transit ridership climbed to 10.3 billion trips during the first quarter of 2008</a>, the “highest number of trips taken in fifty years.” That represents a 3.3 percent increase overall over the previous year while vehicle miles traveled, a measure of demand for car travel, fell by 2.3 percent, they observe.

Where's the planning in metropolitan transportation planning?

Randal O’Toole’s recent policy study from the Cato Institute, “<a href="http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9420">Roadmap to Gridlock</a>” is s worthy read for all professional planners, no matter what their ideological or professional stripe. Undoubtedly, most planners probably consider someone who maintains a blog called the “<a href="http://www.ti.org/antiplanner/">Antiplanner</a>” more of a bomb thrower than a serious policy analyst. But this dismissive attitude throws an awful lot of good work by the road side, and a good example of that is O’Toole’s “Roadmap to Gridlock.”

Planning Juno

Many viewers may not fully appreciate movies as a visual story-telling medium, but that fact came home to me dramatically the other night while watching “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0467406/">Juno</a>,” the off beat, smart and funny film that just snagged a best screenplay Oscar. The deliberate use of architecture and public spaces, in particular, was quite effective although you probably won’t find these references in plot summaries or synopses.