Samuel Staley

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

Member for
18 years 9 months

Contributed 43 posts

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.

Economists vs. Planners? Complements, Not Substitutes

Often, planners and economists seem to be at odds. Actually, a better description would be talking past each other—literally two ships passing in the night. Planners often think economists are too narrowly focused on dollars, cents, and rational decisionmaking. Economists can’t understand why planners don’t recognize the real world of markets and why incentives matter—a lot.

When Planning Matters

Why plan? That’s an important question for a planning skeptic like myself. I’m not at all convinced that conventional public urban planning has much value, despite (or because of?) spending eight years on a city planning commission. Yet, I don’t consider myself an “antiplanner”. I’m happy to leave that role to my friend and virtual colleague <a href="http://www.cato.org/people/otoole.html">Randal O’Toole</a> at the Cato Institute. (He even runs a blog called “<a href="http://www.ti.org/antiplanner/">The Antiplanner</a>”.) Urban planning has a role even though, IMO, on balance, its application has had a negative impact on communities and cities. Notably, even the free market (and Nobel Prize winning) economist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Hayek">F.A. Hayek</a> recognized a role for planning in his classic book on political economy <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Constitution-Liberty-F-Hayek/dp/0226320847">The Constitution of Liberty</a>. The question is: what is planning’s role and, perhaps more importantly, how has this role changed or shifted in modern times?

Is eminent domain necessary for revitalizing cities?

Planners are split on eminent domain—one group believes it’s a critical component of planning since it allows them to implement plans more quickly. Others believe eminent domain does more to destroy urbanism than build it up. I’ve weighed in on it numerous times, including <a href="/node/150">this commentary published by Planetizen</a>.

The Myth of the Urban Core

Question: What do Keybank Tower in Cleveland, the Kettering Tower in Dayton, and One Seagate in Toledo have in common? Answer: They are their respective city’s tallest buildings, and they were built after their city’s population peaked.

Planning the Long Tail

One of the more powerful concepts to come out of the information and services economy is the <a href="http://www.thelongtail.com/">Long Tail</a>.