Now that Gov. O’Malley has implemented PlanMaryland via executive order, more than a little ink and plenty of angst has been spilled over it.
It’s been declaimed as part of a War on Rural Maryland, an example of executive overreach, an assault on private property rights, and an effort to undermine local planning boards. All of these are true characterizations of PlanMaryland, but they’re also all wrong.
Alright, they’re not exactly wrong. But they miss the real problem and in doing so the obscure the real issue with PlanMaryland. Simply put, the real complaint against PlanMaryland isn’t what it proposes to do, it’s that it proposes to do.
Take a moment and pick up one of the pencils that is undoubtedly on your desk. Consider it for a moment. Just how did it come to be there?
This is a question explored in the famous essay “I, Pencil.” As Leonard Reed, its author explains, not a person in the world knows how to make a simple pencil. Simply obtaining the raw wood alone is a monumental task, requiring the coordination of hundreds of people and skills – not just to cut the wood, but the mine and smelt the saws and other tools, to grow hemp and make it into rope, to run and maintain the lumber camp, even to make the coffee the lumberjacks drink.
As a simple a task as that would seem, it only continues to grow more complex. To transport the wood, to mill it, to fill with graphite and finish the pencils, to ship it to stores across the world, to produce the energy that powers all of this and to generate the capital that finances it all – all of this involves the unplanned coordination of untold thousands and thousands of people.
With such awe-inspiring complexity, what person in the world could ever make a pencil on their own? And in a vacuum, without the way having been shown first, what person or even group of people could ever centrally plan the process? What minds could ever conceive of, much less manage such an intricate and intertwined system, one that spans not just countless humans across the globe but across time as well.
The answer is simple –none could, and only a fool would think they could.
But if the creation of a pencil is such a complex process, how much more complex is a whole house? And how much more complex a community, or the network of communities we call counties? And for someone to think that one person or even a committee could mastermind the collection of counties we think of as a state?
What hubris. What bald-faced arrogance.
But, in spite of his egotistical belief that government is up to the task of capably managing a system of such infinite complexity, Gov. O’Malley doesn’t deserve all the blame. We all need to accept our share as well. I’ll explain why in Part II.
The Spy is pleased to welcome Kevin Waterman as a columnist. Kevin was born and raised in Queen Anne’s County, attended Saints Peter and Paul High School in Easton, and graduated from Seton Hall University in 2009. After college, Kevin retured to the region to join the family’s real estate firm, Coldwell Banker Waterman Realty. He has contributed to such periodicals as The Journal of Liberty and Society, Star-Democrat, and the Gloucester County Times.
DLaMotte says
It does seem to me that there are a few states left where planners have coordinated vision…”are on the same page”, so to speak. Interesting also that these areas tend to look after their natural resources…..thus becoming the more attractive places to live or visit.
Gren Whitman says
Mr. Waterman’s explanation is a welcome antidote to Sen. Pipkin and Del. Smigiel and their so-called war-on-rural-Maryland bluster and blather. Looking forward to Part 2!
Dick Hawkins says
It may be hubris and bald-faced arrogance but what is the option? Do we let our communities grow and change on a monumentally random basis? Hopefully we will find out in Part II.
rachel carter goss says
Welcome the The Spy, Kevin!
Steve Payne says
I’m looking forward to Pt. 2 also. The truth that is most often overlooked is that this state involvement in planning has been going on for years. It’s been done between the local and state agencies and the state want’s to formalize it now. The way it was rolled out made it sound like it was some new, big brother move by the state. It wasn’t.
My only problem with it is it doesn’t state clearly what the localities get, or don’t get if the go their own way. Oddly enough I agree with Sen Smigiel on this one thing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_Ld9O_cprk&feature=player_embedded
Lolli Sherry says
Actually, it would probably be easier to build a house yourself than to make a pencil, as many a pioneer proved. Why don’t we just try being pioneers in this important endeavor?
Steve Payne says
Building a house is fairly simple. Making a pencil is also simple. Some of the first pencils were made by carpenters that built homes.
Planning in also fairly simple. Smart Growth is common sense.
Michael Troup says
@Kevin – Any person who can invoke the battle cry for free markets that is “I Pencil,” and weave it into a series that touts the virtues of central planning has to be a complex fellow. I look forward to sharing this end of “The Spy” with you.
Kevin Waterman says
Michael,
Thanks! I’ve read through a few of your posts, and the feeling is most definitely mutual.
Lolli,
If you haven’t yet, I highly recommend reading the full essay or at least listen to a condensed version of the same lesson, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5Gppi-O3a8
Contrary to what may seem the case, I’m fairly confident that not even the pioneers were building homes entirely on their own. After all, the relied in large part on tools and supplies they brought with them. They employed the products of the knowledge and coordination of the people who created their saws and other building tools, the people that made their wagons, and countless others that made their expeditions westward possible. Without this unplanned coordination their pioneer homesteads never would have been possible.
Steve,
I’m not aware of anyone who is an expert on the mining and smelting of ore, the cutting and milling of lumber, the crafting of tools, the finer points of carpentry, the drilling and refinement of petroleum, the chemistry necessary to turn petroleum into vinyl siding, shingles, and a million other things that go into the building of a house. If you’re talking about a simple lean-to, then yes, one person could have the knowledge and make it a simple enough process.
But anything the least bit complex is going to require the coordination of many people, people whom will never know each other and very well might not care much for each other if they did meet. You can try and centrally plan that, but it’s been tried and it failed. Poor resource allocation due to the inefficiencies of central planning are a key part of what brought down the Soviet Union and the more efficient allocation of resources in economies that have opened their markets is precisely what has driven their growth.
Planning might be simple, but it doesn’t mean it will work. History and simple logic have shown us the overwhelming complexity that is the economy, we’d do well to heed that lesson and have some trust in the ability of people to spontaneously order their interactions through market processes.
Steve Payne says
Kevin,
My point is based on where we are now and recent past. To build a house people don’t need to invent siding again etc. Plan Md is just a formalization of a years long practice and the State planning dept. has been working with local jurisdictions for a long time. No reinvention of the wheel required.
I agree that planning doesn’t always work but when a mistake is made the market eventually corrects it.
If you need people that ” are experts in the cutting and milling of lumber, the crafting of tools, the finer points of carpentry” let me know. I know lot’s of em and I prefer Hardiplank siding over vinyl anyway.
I really do agree with you that local knowledge is the best for planning purposes. And history is a good example of it. Just look at Chestertown. It’s a downtown with lots of residential homes built around it. Sprawl didn’t come until everyone had cars and the highways got built.
I just don’t see anything to fear in Plan MD. I’d fire the person that named it however.