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A pragmatic critique of Travis Corcoran’s libertarian zoning proposal

I set out to write a rebuttal to Travis Corcoran’s three-part essay on land use and zoning. But as I read his arguments, I found plenty I do agree with—so let’s call this article a critique rather than a full-throated denunciation. I won’t pretend to be deeply versed in 17th-century English common law, nor am I the most fastidious land-use liberalization wonk. But land-use policy is not merely academic; it affects real people in real places. I have every bit as much skin in this game as Travis does—perhaps more, since I’m thirty-one years old and hope to buy a home in New Hampshire soon, and I come from a family that’s lived here for generations.

Travis seems like a nice guy. We’ve crossed paths at NHLA meetings and see eye to eye on government transparency, open-sourcing data analysis, and the importance of individual liberty. But reading his recent series on how to reform land-use regulation, I came away skeptical that he’s captured the spirit of what most New Hampshirans want—or what’s even feasible on the ground.

Below, I’ll give a quick overview of what Travis argues, lay out some of my own experiences that shape my perspective, and then dig into his bold proposal for an “easement-based” land-use regime. In the end, I hope to convey why his ideas, while admirable in their intellectual ambition, may not be a practical solution for our ongoing struggles with New Hampshire’s housing crisis.

Part 1: Setting the stage—and where Travis goes astray

Travis rightly characterizes one side of the debate: a conventional “progressive” belief that extensive zoning protects neighborhoods and channels growth responsibly. Meanwhile, many libertarians push for near-complete deregulation, often arguing that nuisance law or tort suits would suffice to address conflicts. In fact, a newly energized pro-housing bloc mixes elements of both libertarian and progressive approaches: these are the reformers who want to allow more density, reduce red tape, and lower barriers to building.

Travis’s narrative goes astray, however, in how he portrays these reformers. He suggests they’re out to do a “good thing in the worst way possible,” that they’re opening the door for “defectors” and “newcomers” to profit at the expense of people who have engaged in “pro-social behavior”—that is, people who bought large parcels and now prefer not to see them change. In his telling, existing landowners—especially those who moved in recently themselves—are portrayed as guardians of stability, while prospective builders or younger buyers are irresponsible opportunists.

But what if the opposite is true in many towns? For instance, I’ve lived in NH longer than Travis has. My family goes back several generations in New Hampshire; he is the relative newcomer by that measure. If someone from out of state buys a big plot of land, then leverages zoning laws to lock in large-lot exclusivity, how does that square with long-term locals who—thanks to rising property prices—can’t afford to stay in the towns where they grew up?

I’ll offer a personal example. I was raised in Hollis, one of the wealthiest towns in the state, full of historic farmland and large properties (three-acre lot minimums, in many cases). The old mills, taverns, and walkable neighborhoods disappeared decades ago. The restrictions might have worked for the families who could afford big parcels, but it closed the door on a host of housing opportunities for younger generations, service workers, and middle-class buyers trying to stay local. It’s hard to see how that kind of “pro-social” policy squares with a genuine desire to sustain vibrant communities.

The New Hampshire tolerance for quirky neighbors, even autistic ones

One of Travis’s key arguments is that our current system tries to prevent “nuisances,” but in practice, it’s not so straightforward. My own upbringing in Hollis and around Lake Sunapee was full of minor nuisances. We had a neighbor who loved hoarding junk—he practically lived at the town dump. Another neighbor loved firing blackpowder muskets in his backyard. Then there were times that a rental tenant up the street drove monster trucks at all hours, doing burnouts. At Sunapee, we had an alcoholic neighbor that would ram his boat full of Ukrainian escorts into the dock. (He managed to sink his boat multiple times next to the dock.) Then there were teenagers on the other side of the neighborhood that would set off fireworks in the middle of the night.

All of these scenarios were annoying, and sometimes the town got involved. But was that a reason to impose more blanket mandates? Traditionally, New Hampshire towns often gave people wide latitude on their own land, stepping in only if things got truly out of hand. In my view, nuisance can be handled case by case—often through direct negotiation between neighbors or, if truly unavoidable, via the courts. Resorting to heavy-handed zoning that predetermines everything neighbors can do with their property feels contrary to New Hampshire’s traditional spirit of “live free or die.” If anything, our existing system already can handle a wide variety of nuisance.

Travis closes his Part 1 by stressing that naive libertarians often misunderstand what property rights truly are. Fair enough. But from my perspective, if your threshold for what counts as an intolerable nuisance is low, maybe a big farm in Weare (like Travis has) is exactly where you should be. There’s a case to be made that, for the rest of us, gentle density is healthy: it preserves the tradition of close-knit towns, fosters a sense of community, and curbs sprawl. Just look at the old cottages in my family’s neighborhood on Lake Sunapee—most are less than ten feet apart. You couldn’t build them today under strict modern zoning—but no one would deny the charm and livability our community enjoys.

Part 2: Travis’s easement proposal—and my reservations

In Parts 2 and 3, Travis lays out his grand plan: convert every existing zoning restriction into a network of tradable easements. Under current zoning, certain activities—like subdividing lots or building multifamily homes—are simply forbidden in certain districts. In his scheme, those “forbidden” aspects become discrete property rights owned by the neighbors. If you want to subdivide, you’d have to buy out each neighbor’s “veto” easement. Over time, this creates a market in which property owners who want to allow development can “trade” or sell their easements to developers or homeowners who stand to profit from building. Everyone (theoretically) comes out better off, because each sale is voluntary.

Where do we draw the lines?

The first question is: who gets a claim on your property’s development? Just your direct abutters? The whole neighborhood? The entire town? If someone half a mile away believes your subdividing might affect “their” quiet, do they have a partial veto too? In a highly interdependent market—especially in a populous town—this might mean you have to negotiate with dozens or hundreds of people just to build an extra home on your parcel. As Travis acknowledges, you could add “squeeze-out” clauses, or single-price auctions, or specialized assurance contracts—but you can see how complicated it gets fast.

Does density really decrease property values?

Travis assumes that if you develop your property, your neighbors’ land becomes less valuable—hence they deserve compensation. However, it’s often the opposite: in many cases, the more homes in a walkable district, the higher each property’s per-square-foot value climbs. Cities like Nashua or Manchester often see higher appraisals than rural places not because they are pristine farmland but because the density fosters local commerce, shorter commutes, and stronger markets. Many farmland owners profit from proximity to denser towns. If that’s so, shouldn’t the neighbors pay me to increase density so that we all benefit from the amenities?

Of course, you can’t subdivide infinitely without limit. But empirically, it’s not as simple as “more homes = your neighbor’s property is devalued.” This robs Travis’s scheme of a neat, “everyone gets compensated for their loss” logic. In many places, the “loss” might be overshadowed by net gains. If so, how do we even set a price?

The billion-dollar nuisance problem

What if a neighbor demands a billion dollars for the noise he’ll endure while I build a house? Travis would respond with appeals to “rational” markets, but if just one holdout sets an outlandish price, the entire project can be blocked unless we get into forced buyouts. Then we’re nearly back to eminent domain by another name. Under a low threshold for what counts as a nuisance, we risk paralyzing development. And if we set that threshold high, then we’re basically using the same old court-based nuisance approach. So how much simpler is this, really?

The problem of “owning” a view

In New Hampshire, a lake view can be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars extra on your home’s value. But it’s a long-held principle here that you don’t own your view, unless there is some covenant or town height restriction. If your neighbor builds a taller home and blocks your sunrise, well, you can grumble, but you can’t claim that they owe you restitution. An “easement-based” system could upend that norm and let neighbors treat a scenic view as an owned commodity, with a veto priced at five million dollars. Suddenly, every scenic vantage is a potential check to development in the same way that bald eagle sightings can derail environmental reviews. This might enthrall real-estate speculators, but it hardly helps homebuyers or towns searching for practical solutions.

In short, I’m sympathetic to a limited version of Travis’s plan—for example, certain large or unusual projects might benefit from an easement-like approach. But imposing it universally for things as simple as building a garage or an in-law apartment sounds unworkable. We’d be better served by a simpler rule set that clarifies which inconveniences are serious enough to count as something beyond nuisance, then letting neighbors handle the rest through time-honored negotiation or the occasional court case.

Part 3: Towards a more balanced approach

So, should New Hampshire shift to a purely market-based scheme for land-use rights? Perhaps partially. As Travis says, property rights are more complex than “I own it; no one can say otherwise.” Where I part ways is the scope of how many small-scale annoyances we attempt to wrap into that system.

Gentle density, fewer mandates

Many of us pushing for zoning liberalization in New Hampshire do so because we want the option—not the requirement—to allow gentler, historically common forms of density. We’re not going to bulldoze farms in Weare and build favelas, nor are we going to force a five-story apartment building onto someone’s street in a single stroke. Typically, it’s more about letting a family subdivide or convert a big old house into two or three units. If that’s “offensive” to a neighbor, maybe a conversation—and existing nuisance rules—are enough. To me, forcibly requiring homebuilders to purchase a laundry list of tiny “veto” rights from across town is just more red tape by another name.

We don’t want New Hampshire to become New Jersey

Travis advocates for tight land-use restrictions because he believes they’ll prevent dense development and spare his town from ugly suburban sprawl. Ironically, New Jersey tried a similar top-down preservation approach starting in the 1960s through its “Green Acres” program, aggressively purchasing farmers’ development rights to lock in open space. At the time, many landowners took the payouts, but later realized they might have profited more by allowing new housing. The result is a patchwork of farmland abutting strip malls and sprawling, cookie-cutter suburbs—offering little of the “gentle density” many communities actually want. New Hampshire can learn from this cautionary tale, ensuring that any effort to protect rural character doesn’t simply freeze land in place or push development farther away.

Market mechanisms where they work best

There are contexts where applying a property-rights scheme—like tradable licenses—can work beautifully. For instance, wildlife management or private roads can benefit from clearer property allocation. Some areas already adopt a form of market-based approach to controlling fishing or hunting (permit systems). Out West, there are the concepts of mining rights and water rights, which can be bought or sold. But it doesn’t mean all of society needs to be carved into micro-easements. Taken to the logical extreme, this system could mean issuing easements for new neighbors to operate lawn mowers or air conditioners. For daily life in small towns—where folks simply want an accessory dwelling or a modest subdivision—there’s no reason to replace well-worn practices: neighborly negotiation and tolerance for minor inconveniences, all with minimal but coherent land-use rules.

Conclusion

Travis Corcoran’s proposal is worth reading for its philosophical rigor and inventive approach to land-use reform. He correctly identifies that property rights are more nuanced than “my land, my rules.” I appreciate that he wants a Pareto-efficient outcome where nobody is left worse off. But turning every zoning rule into a tradable easement threatens to bog down small-scale projects in complicated buyouts, while also risking inflated or extortionate holdouts. It might freeze us into a de facto “status quo” more effectively than current zoning does.

If you’re like me—someone who cherishes (ha!) both New Hampshire’s independence and the prospect of building homes for the next generation—you want clarity, fairness, and a light touch of regulation that fosters (rather than forbids) gentle density. Traditional neighborhoods are evidence that living close together can be a joy, not a nuisance. We should keep nuisance in check, yes—but let it remain in the domain of direct neighborly negotiations or, if truly severe, the courts. Blanket mandates, whether in progressive-era zoning codes or in complex sets of micro-easements, rarely foster the vibrant, flexible communities I grew up in and hope to see flourish.

My stance: keep it simple. Expand permitted density; let people use their land in peaceful ways. Where real conflicts arise, rely on existing frameworks, modest rules, or case-by-case adjudication. And if someone really wants total control of their surroundings, they can buy a big farm out in the boonies (that word originates in New Hampshire) and enjoy an old New Hampshire tradition—living quietly on his own property, live free and let live. That, in its own way, is a deeply New Hampshire way to handle “nuisance.”

The Saga of Hydro-Québec ✊🏻⚡️⚜️

In the 1970s, the French Canadians bulldozed a few Inuit tribes off huge swathes of sub-Arctic land in order to make way for what was the largest hydroelectric project in the world at the time. This was the James Bay project, located 600 miles north of Montreal. Construction ensued several phases over 20 years, but when it was all said and done, the series of dams created a power capacity of 15 Gigawatts, which is the equivalent of 13 Seabrook nuclear reactors. All of this for a province with the population of 9 million, only slightly larger than Massachusetts. Rate payers in Quebec pay $0.05 USD/kWh while rate payers in New Hampshire pay a staggering $0.25 USD/kWh. Yes, Quebec’s electric bills are one-fifth of ours. Quebec quickly became the Saudi Arabia of electricity in North America.

⚡️Hydroelectricity and Quebec Nationalism

The plot gets thicker. Hydroelectricity and Quebec nationalism are heavily intertwined. A left-wing provincial government was elected in the early 1960s and a man by the name of Réné Lévesque lead the charge to nationalize the power companies across the province. The private electric companies were largely under anglophone management and the left-wing French population saw this as their chance to drive a wedge in English rule. The corporate elite in Quebec up until the 1980s were primarily English speaking. There had always been a French majority in the entire province since colonial times, but the English created many settlements after the French defeat on the Plains of Abraham in 1759 and the French-Québecois (pronounced: “ke-BEK-wa”) correspondingly have had a victim complex ever since. There were whole regions with English majorities in Quebec up until the 1980s, including the Eastern Townships around Magog, near the Vermont and New Hampshire borders with Quebec. The province increasingly instituted policies to encourage the English Canadians to move out.

Lévesque’s campaign was steeped in nationalist rhetoric. Slogans like “Maintenant ou jamais: maîtres chez nous” (“Now or never: masters of our own house”) adorned posters featuring fists clutching bolts of lightning. This channeled communist revolutionary symbolism also employed by the labor movement and Black Lives Matter. The campaign was a success, the public took the bait to nationalize the electric companies, and the Quebec separatist movement was launched into hyperspace. The province consolidated the nationalized electric companies in 1963 under a province-owned corporation named Hydro-Québec (French pronunciation: “EE-dro KE-bek”). Lévesque later became Premier of Quebec in the late 70s. Premier is the Canadian equivalent of an American governor. The name Réne Levesque is now immortalized on many buildings and street signs throughout the Belle Province.

⚡️The James Bay Project and Quebec-anomics

Robert Bourassa is another character in this plot line and he was also a Quebec nationalist. Bourassa was Premier in the 70s when policy makers considered nuclear for a hot second, but he gave the James Bay hydroelectric plan the green light. They even named a dam after the guy.

Hydro-Quebec is a crown corporation, which is a common scheme in Canada and European countries. The entity itself operates quasi-privately, but the government owns the shares to the corporation. Hydro-Quebec is also a cartel and Quebec is no stranger to cartels as—among many other price controls—they have a maple syrup cartel, no joke. The equivalent of the public utility board in Quebec works in cahoots with Hydro-Quebec to have tight price controls to ensure that electric rates domestically within the province are very low but all subsidized by market pricing for everyone else, including New Englanders and fellow Canadians. It’s surprising the rest of Canada allows Quebec to get away with this. Americans likely wouldn’t tolerate it. Yes, Alaska gives dividend payments to its citizens, but it’s three times smaller than the collective benefit Quebec residents receive from selling excess electricity, not even taking into account that electric rates in Quebec are extraordinarily low to begin with.

Electricity is so cheap in Quebec that most people heat their homes with electricity. Also keep in mind that, after taxes, gasoline costs $5 USD/gallon here.

Where things get very sticky: the large profits from Hydro-Quebec get funneled into government coffers so that they can prop up their social programs, which were quite large by Canadian standards, and especially American standards, even before the James Bay project went online. So anyone starting to think that nationalization was a good idea, think again. Hydro-Québec is the cheap food that feeds their monster of a welfare state. So yes, they have really cheap electricity, but they don’t have vibrant free-enterprise to use it on. It’s a difficult jurisdiction to do serious business in. The Québecois have enriched themselves only to further enslave themselves. Even minuscule market liberalization would do wonders for Quebec since they are already sitting on top of an electric goldmine. New Hampshire has the inverse situation. Any right-of-center economist would go nuts pointing out the flaws with Quebec’s economic model.

⚡️ The Quebec–New England Connection

Where this ties back to New Hampshire is the the Quebec–New England Transmission system. After partially waving the white flag on Seabrook, leadership in NH and MA looked to their French-speaking cousins to the north for more energy. At Faneuil Hall in Boston in 1983 with Premier Réné Levesque present, a deal was signed to build a 900-mile high-voltage direct-current transmission line from the NH/MA border near Nashua, in Ayer, to the Quebec sub-Arctic, next to the James Bay project. The system went online in 1990 and provides about two Seabrooks worth of power to the New England grid.

About 15 years ago, leaders wanted to add a second set of cables to Hydro-Quebec dubbed “Northern Pass”. This project would have added 1.1 MW of power or about 1 Seabrook to the grid. This was at the height of the Obama/Gore green-energy craze and environmentalists built a case against this project, even though many would consider hydro-power to be clean energy. The bigger issue ended up being eminent domain. Many affected property owners weren’t thrilled and honestly I don’t blame them. Northern Pass was officially dead.

Other than a few minor natural gas pipeline proposals, there hasn’t been a large-scale attempt to expand New Hampshire’s energy supply since. The quest to solve New Hampshire’s energy question continues.

⚡️ Further listening

This article was loosely inspired by NHPR’s 4-part miniseries called Powerline on the show Outside/In. It provides a detailed history of Hydro-Quebec and the Quebec nationalist movement, not without typical NPR bias, but it’s still well worth a listen.

RIP Evernote, onto Apple Notes

I was an Evernote evangelist for 15 years and I was a paying user for 10 years. Evernote was ahead of it’s time. It was a notes app, freeform database, and web archive tool. It even had optical character recognition 15 years before any other mainstream app, meaning you could search the text within an attached image.

I used Evernote to archive web pages, recipes, birthday gifts, receipts, random songs on the radio—before cell coverage and Shazam were reliable. Even some goofy article my high school gym teacher wrote for the Manchester Hippo made it into my Evernote file.

The app was also system agnostic. It worked on Mac, Windows, Android, iOS, and the web. The Evernote clipper plugin even worked on Linux. I was an Android user for my first 6 years of being a smartphone user. I used Ubuntu Linux for over 5 years as my daily driver operating system at work. Being system agnostic was something appealing to me—and still is.

When I got my first job after college, I decided to upgrade to the paid version of Evernote, which was roughly $30/year at the time. The yearly rate slowly increased, but somehow I managed to remain grandfathered-in to a modest pricing plan. Evernote got reorganized multiple times, and more recently got bought out by Bending Spoons, a European conglomerate. The kicker is that they were going to force me onto a $130/year plan. Forget it.

I’ve been slowly drinking more and more of the Apple koolaid. Truth be told, I’ve been using Macintoshes since I was 2 years old. When I was 6, in 1999, my parents got me one of the original G3 iMacs. Mine was green ☺️ That computer also will go down in history as one of the best pieces of industrial design ever.

Enter Apple Notes. It was one of the first iOS apps in 2008, but it was quite crude, despite the kitschy skeuomorphism façade. The font was MarkerFelt if I remember correctly and the background looked like a yellow legal pad. I never really considered it a serious note taking app until more recently.

Fortunately over the years Apple has added nearly all of my beloved features of Evernote. Optical character recognition, tags for notes, folders, device syncing (only among Apple devices), a web app, etc. I’ll add that the tagging feature in Apple Notes is better than Evernote: anywhere within the note, you can just use # symbols just like a tweet. Apple Notes also works much faster than Evernote, which was starting to get pretty slow in the new versions. Only notable omission is that Apple Notes does not have a web page clipping feature. This was nice in Evernote, because often webpages change or eventually get removed. Oh well. That feature wasn’t worth $130 for me.

I used this fantastic utility on GitHub called evernote-backup to archive all my notes in Evernote, which really are just rows in a SQLite database. The Evernote archive files can be imported directly into Apple Notes. After that I was off to the races. Vivat Apple Notes.

Portugal and Spain trip

The Iberian Peninsula is a major region of Europe that I had not been to prior to last month. It has a much slower pace than that of France, Germany, and England, but there is much to be appreciated. I spent 10 days total in Europe on this trip: 5 days in Porto and 5 days in Madrid.

Portugal

After a 30-minute layover in the Azores, a Portuguese
archipelago in the middle of the North Atlantic, I hit the ground running as soon as I arrived Saturday morning in Porto. This is the second largest city in Portugal, which is about a 3-hour drive or train ride from the capital, Lisbon. The most direct route from Boston to Porto is via the Azores.

I strolled across the Dom Luís I Bridge, right at the center of the city, and took a historic streetcar down to the mouth of Douro River, where it meets the ocean. The streetcars around Porto are more of a tourist attraction and prone to breakdown, but it was a fun way to initially take in the new city. Porto also has a modern light-rail system, which I did take to and from the airport.

Food

Food tends to be a highlight when I travel and this trip was no exception. The most popular local dish is called Francesinha (“little French girl”), an adaptation of a French croque monsieur, but with linguiça sausage plus a tomato beer sauce. It’s quite good. I indulged in an assortment of pastries. The local delicacy is a Pastel de Nata, which is small flakey pastry cup shell filled with custard.

I was also happily surprised by how affordable the food is relative to New England. A basic meal in Portugal can be found for under €10, which is not the case in Spain.

Douro Valley

This was the most scenic part of my trip. I took a wine tour on a bus from Porto up the Douro Valley, which is painted with vineyard terraces as far as the eye can see. The Douro River starts in the mountains in northeastern Portugal and ends in the ocean in Porto.

Braga

The Boston friend that I rendezvoused with in Porto was there on a business trip, which was part of my excuse for going. My friend recommended that I take a train one day up to the City of Braga, which is an hour north of Porto. The historic city center was significantly less touristy city than Porto, which I found authentically charming. Lots of tile covered sidewalks and beautiful pavilions.

The highlight of the day was that I took a Bolt taxi (the Iberian version of Uber) up a hill to visit the Sanctuary of Bom Jesus do Monte, which is a Catholic shrine. Beautiful views from the top and ornate stonework on the building and especially the staircase leading up the hill in front of the church. The stairs are deceivingly far and the pictures make them look small. I made the trek down the stairs and then took a Bolt back to the main city square.

Spain

A good friend of mine moved to Madrid, so for the second half of the trip, I stayed with him. Madrid is one of the largest cities in Europe and likewise it has all the amenities you’d expect from a major metropolis. Parks, museums, discotheques that open at 4am, you name it. It’s clean, it’s pretty, but It didn’t have the same level of old-world charm that Portugal had. I had fantastic stay none the less.

Food

The Spanish are big into tapas, but the dish that I found most interesting was one called tortilla. Nothing to do with the chips that Americans are familiar with, but rather thin quiche-like egg crust around a meat filling. Quite good.

Art museums

I went to a couple art museums. The most interesting one was the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, which had a large collection of impressionist pieces that I enjoyed. They even had a Bierstadt scene of New England, ha!

Segovia

On my last full day in Madrid, I wanted to do a day trip to a town outside of Madrid to get a taste of the countryside. The first choice would have been to go to the City of Toledo, but the trains that day were booked up and we ended up going to the City of Segovia, about 30 min by high speed train north of Madrid.

The scenery on the train at the city limits of Madrid quickly turned into high mountain desert with mountains in the distance, reminiscent of the American West. The train approached a large mountain range and then suddenly descended into a dark tunnel. Mind you, we were going 200 mph, so everything happened rapidly. After shuttling 15 minutes through a mountain range, we came out the other side into Colorado. No seriously, I had to double take looking out the window to assure myself I wasn’t in the front range of the Rockies near Boulder, Colorado. The geography and vegetation was a near carbon copy.

The train station for Segovia was at the other end of the tunnel and we got off and boarded a bus bound for the center of town. The entrance to the historic area of Segovia is guarded by an original Roman aqueduct. All these years of traveling thru Europe and this was the first time I had ever seen one. It’s striking to see such an old and well-constructed piece of civil engineering.

Romulus and Remus founded Rome and were raised by wolves. Sic, Magistra! I paid attention in high school Latin class.

Segovia also features a beautiful castle that towers at the edge of town next to a very large cliff. Lot of beautiful tiled mosaics inside. The Moorish influence on the architecture was evident.

We had some coffee, pastries, and then we plowed over a gaggle of Spanish tourists to get back on the last bus back to the train out of town.

This was a great trip and the only full week I took off from work this year. Portugal definitely was more compelling from a tourist perspective. It had more old world charm, and they’ve slowly built up a tourism industry around it. It also doesn’t hurt that the dollar goes a long way there. Would I go back to Portugal? Sure. I think I’d want to go to a beach during the warmer months.

New Hampshire urban village design

When you walk down any street in the Netherlands you never feel claustrophobic, yet the Netherlands is the most densely populated country in the western world—not including micro-states. Zoom in even more, Amsterdam is one of the most prominent cities in Europe, yet the urban experience when you walk around doesn’t feel anymore overwhelming than that of Portsmouth, NH. The streets are lined with narrow brick four-story buildings with cheese shops at ground level and apartments above. You can’t say the same thing about other cities: London, Paris, Los Angeles, and especially not New York.

Conversely, another datapoint I will preface this article with is that the State of New Jersey—by far the most densely populated American state—is only slightly less densely populated than the Netherlands. Yet when you drive around the average town in New Jersey, you are overwhelmed with traffic, rude drivers, strip malls, jug handles, Jersey barriers (they are called walls in NJ), and parking lots as far as the eye can see. What went wrong?

The answer is bad design and the abandonment of traditional development principles all reinforced by ridiculous land-use codes. The turning point in the United States was when Euclidian zoning (i.e.: separated residential, commercial, and industrial zones) was ruled constitutional in 1926 by the Supreme Court case Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co. The situation was exacerbated after WWII with massive population growth and massive socialized highway projects.

As an aside, ironically, the namesake of Euclidian zoning is not Euclidian geometry, but rather a village in Ohio. Euclidian geometry is the study of flat surfaces, lines, and angles.

The US and Canada have been stuck with Euclidian zoning for the past 100 years. Everywhere else in the world, zoning allows for some level of mixed-use development, but your mileage may vary.

Zoning is largely done at the national-level in many European countries. It’s very rigid, but it does allow for better mixed use and missing middle development than that of North America. Japan has a mix of national and local control for zoning and is by far the best zoning model in the civilized world in my opinion. Their system demonstrates how standardized zoning can actually increase freedom, affordability, and development options, rather than restrict them.

There are 12 different zone types in Japan and they are standard throughout the country. In New Hampshire, by comparison, each town decides their own respective Byzantine zone types and it’s a mess. Japan also has a great deal of local control in the sense that local authorities get to decide where to apply each of the 12 zone types. Where Japan gets even more compelling from a libertarian perspective is that, for the most part, each level higher in zone type allows for land use permitted in any of the previous zone categories.

For example, industrial zones have the highest zoning level and are the most permissive zones. Not only can you build a factory in an industrial zone, but you can also build mixed-use residential-businesses and detached single family homes. The lowest category of zoning is light residential. Interestingly even in that zone type, Japan allows home owners to designate up to 50 square meters (500 sqft) to operate as a commercial storefront. So even in the most restrictive neighborhoods, people can operate small boutique shops and small markets. Most towns in Japan designate most of their land as industrial zones to allow for free-form libertarian development.

When it comes time to build on land in Japan there isn’t a Byzantine permitting process, as long as the building conforms to the national standards and set-back formulas, you are good to go.

Another limitation in North American development is fire codes. In anything taller than 2 stories, most North American jurisdictions require two stairwells for egress. Seattle is one notable exception. Most European countries allow for up to 4 stories with just one stairwell. This has a cascading effect basically causing developers in North America to not build many multi-bedroom apartments in town centers. Most new high and medium density development in North America is limited to studio and 1-bedroom apartments. Allowing for 1 stairwell allows for ergonomic layouts that make better use of building corners. Most middle class families simply don’t have the option to live in town and city centers in North America largely in part because of the fire code effects and the zoning regulations previously mentioned.

All of what I’ve outlined is not to say that my goal is to force everyone into shoebox, Soviet-style apartments. It’s quite the contrary. The goal is to increase availability of all types of housing, while also preserving open space, so that those who appreciate living out in the middle of nowhere aren’t inundated by sprawl, and so they too have more options.

My thesis is that the masses don’t want to homestead out in the middle of nowhere, don’t want to live in cookie cutter suburbia, and they don’t want to live next to the inner city projects. Rather, the masses would prefer to live in traditional New England urban villages that are similar to that of contemporary Japan and the Netherlands. These villages offer a proven model that combines density with livability, showing how we can build communities that people actually want to live in rather than just places they can afford to live.

Soapbox idol speech: The libertarian case for trains and urbanization

Why do so many libertarians hate trains? It’s like hating guns or free beer. Dagney Taggert would like to have a word. So, let’s talk about why trains and urbanization are wicked awesome.

First off, did you know a double-tracked rail line can move as many people as an 8-lane highway? That’s right! That’d be like squeezing Chris Christie and Lizzo into a smart car—ridiculously efficient and a bit hard to believe, but it’s true!

We live in a car-centric society. Sure, cars are great, but let’s be real: being stuck in traffic is the opposite of freedom. If freedom means yelling at Masshole drivers and crying over gas prices, I’ll take a train ticket please.

Now, trains—especially those powered by overhead wires from clean, cheap nuclear energy—are a sustainable alternative. Pollution from cars? Forget it! It’s a property rights violation! Over 50 thousand Americans die every year from respiratory illnesses caused by pollution alone. Trains can help reduce that, and guess what? They’re safer and faster.

Urbanization isn’t just for hipsters. It’s about creating ‘third places’ where people can mingle. You know, like the libertarian version of Cheers or PorcFest.

Contrary to popular belief, our car obsession isn’t a free market triumph. It’s because of restrictive rules that make other transportation options nearly impossible. And don’t get me started on zoning laws—they’re like the fun police or the Federal Reserve. They ruining everything.

I dream of a New Hampshire with greater supply of housing and walkable towns. This isn’t a leftist conspiracy. Towns like Portsmouth and Peterborough are popular because they developed without these silly restrictions. Picture hopping on a train in Nashua, heading to the White Mountains for a ski trip, and not worrying about getting into an accident in a snowstorm. You can read a book, sip coffee, and enjoy the ride.

Trains can be privately operated, but to make this viable, our socialized highways and roads need to be privatized too. Look at France—their entire highway system is privately operated and funded. Who knew we could learn something from the French?

Cars and trains complement each other. A highly developed society needs a mix of transportation options. And let’s face it, automating trains is way easier than automating cars, Elon Musk!

So here’s my call to action, libertarians, let’s start by privatizing parts of our road system. Let’s create a New Hampshire where multiple robust and private transportation options make us truly free and happy. And who doesn’t want that? Probably the same people that think Bernie Sanders should run PorcFest next year.

Total eclipse of the heart

Totality was an experience like none other. At the beginning of the month, I rented a cabin with friends at Tall Timber Lodge in Pittsburg, NH, at the tippy top of the state, where New Hampshire, Quebec, and Maine all meet. We spent the weekend driving around Northern NH and the Eastern Townships of Quebec (Estrie), which I will describe more after I talk about the eclipse.

In the late morning of the eclipse, people began assembling outside by Back Lake, the small lake next to Tall Timber. The property faces the lake to the South, so we had an excellent front row seat to the eclipse. Multiple amateur astronomers had telescopes with solar filters set up. The head of the NH Astronomical Society was also there and was happily talking away about eclipses.

At around 14:30, the partial eclipse started, which was about an hour before totality. We put our eclipse glasses on and began to see the sun get chomped away bit-by-bit by the moon. We posed for some photos with the glasses, because of course if there wasn’t a picture, did it really happen?

About 30 min prior to totality, the light started to get noticeably flat, the air got cooler, and I put my jacket back on. T-minus 20 minutes is when things started to get noticeably eerie. The light got even flatter and even dimmer. It was as if I was wearing yellow filtered glasses. The shadows got very strange. A friend brought a cheese grater and you could even see crescent-shaped shadows from the holes of the grater rather than something more circular. Wild! The energy and build-up at this point was thru the roof. My heart was beating fast at this point.

Then it happened. Within 20 seconds, the light switch was turned out, the sun disappeared behind the shadow of the moon, and the corona haze of the sun dazzled around the outline of the moon. As an added treat, there was even a red speck visible with the naked eye, which I was later told was a solar flare.

The shadow bands were arguably the wildest effect. If you have a white sheet or a white background on the ground you can make out wild wavy rapidly moving shadows from the sun’s corona. This is extremely difficult to capture with a camera. The added bonus was that we were standing directly next to frozen lake, so the entire lake started to shimmer with shadow bands. Incredible! I’ll never forget it.

I won’t forget the drive too. It took 10 hours to drive about 160 miles, including a two hour stop. Oh well. The eclipse was still worth it.

The weekend leading up to the eclipse on that Monday was a fun time too. We stopped at Schilling Brewery in Littleton, which is perched next to the Ammonoosuc River in downtown Littleton, which is getting nicer every year. The brewery proudly does not serve any IPAs, but rather an excellent selection of German and European style beers. Good smash burgers too. Poutine was also on the menu, which was foreshadowing our venture into Québec.

Littleton is still only two-thirds the way up NH, it was still another hour plus drive through Coös County to our destination. The road meanders next to the Connecticut River up to Colebrook and then abruptly ascends further into the wilderness next to a small mountain stream. For the next 15 miles: no cell phone reception, no houses, just trees and French Canadian radio stations.

After bushwhacking 15 miles, we arrived in the town center of Pittsburg. Don’t blink or else you’ll miss it, as I once heard someone joke. Pittsburg is an outpost town and the result of a survey dispute. For many years, in the 1800s the town declared itself to be its own independent county, the Indian Stream Republic, before formally deciding to join New Hampshire.

Tall Timber Lodge is located on Back Lake, a couple miles outside the center of town. In season, which is Summer and Winter, they have a restaurant and cabins for rent. Early spring is their down season, so we were on our own for food. I’m told Tall Timber is a big destination for snowmobilers.

On Sunday, we drove across the border to Magog, Québec, which is a bit more cosmopolitan than the region on other side of the border. We loaded up on artisan cheese, espresso, and croissants. We also stopped at Bleu Lavande and Abbaye de Saint-Benoît-du-Lac, a beautiful modern cathedral nested above Lake Memphrémagog. The monks at the abby famously produce cheese and cider.

For dinner, we ate at the micro-brasserie la Memphré in downtown Magog. The appetizers included bread and a warm compote of cheese and caramelized onions. Delicious. I rounded out the meal with a glass of wine and more bread and fondue made with cheese from the abby. Bread and cheese are my comfort foods.

Afterwards, we made our way back into the woods of Pittsburg and prepared for the eclipse day ahead. Great weekend!

Newport & Portland: two weekends, two highlights

I’ve had a busy last couple months. Started a new role within my company and haven’t had as much time as I wanted to reflect and write, so I’ll keep this one brief. I did a work trip out to San Francisco and Napa in September that I’ll hopefully write about when I have a chance. This month, I’ve had two weekends back-to-back of good travels and good company with friends.

Newport

Two weeks ago, I went down to Newport, Rhode Island to visit the mansions and see the Christmas decorations.

1. Marble House Chinese Tea House

Chinese Tea House at the Marble House in Newport, RI

Marble House is pretty spiffy. It’s what you expect for a Gilded Age mansion, but what really surprised me was the the Chinese Tea House around back. I didn’t have a chance to go inside it and enjoy tea since it was close to closing time, but I will certainly be back. New England is very euro-centric and Asian architecture is extremely out of place, which made just walking around it a treat. I’m also a tea snob.

2. Cliff Walk

I’ve been to Newport many times over the years, but still hadn’t ambled the Cliff Walk. Access is not super well marked, but you can find the entrances on Google Maps. I parked near the Salve Regina campus. The Walk offers intimate views that meander in the backyards of some of Newport’s biggest mansions. It even tunnels under the corner of several properties through large dark tunnels.

Portland

Portland is starting to get over-run with bums and drug addicts, which is unfortunately a sign of the times, but it is still worth visiting.

1. Duck Fat

The restaurant called Duck Fat lives up to its rave reviews. I really liked this place. They cook everything in duck fat rather than cheap, unhealthy vegetable oils. We had poutine, milkshakes, sandwiches, and donuts. All four food groups.

2. Washington Baths

Washington Baths offers an exceptional Nordic sauna and hot tub experience right in New England. Really nice amenities and pealed many layers of stress right off. I would probably go back, but even the Europeans would laugh at how woke this business was.

First, they make everyone sign a waver acknowledging that the sauna is a “non-hierarchical” environment. Next, the attendant cleverly asks each guest if he or she would like a key to the men’s or the women’s locker room. And if that wasn’t dehumanizing enough, the door to the men’s area is only labeled as “Lockers 1-20” and the women’s “Lockers 21-40”. Mr. Orwell would like to have a word in Room 101!

The power of persuasion

When I was younger, I used to find myself debating people more often than I do now. As I’ve gotten older the more I realize that it’s extraordinarily difficult to change people’s minds. I’ve found that the best form of persuasion is leading by example.

When I’m in the ideological minority of a group, I’ve learned to hold back my thoughts, but if someone asks my opinion on an issue, I’ll provide an honest answer.

I have particularly strong convictions on economics. I see laissez-faire voluntaryism as immutably the optimal system for the allocation of scarce resources, which means to stay that just as the church should be separated from the state, the economy should be separated from the state. The government should have no business in interfering with agreements and exchange between individuals.

When I lived in New Jersey, I got in a debate about minimum wage with a housemate that I did not particularly like. This individual was a body piercing technician (?). He would commute two hours each way every day from Princeton to Brooklyn, made very poor financial decisions, and managed to total two brand-new Honda Civics in the 9 months he lived with me. I still use his Hulu account, ha! (The worst housemate, however, was an unemployed middle-aged carpet salesman that had two strokes on the floor and was an absolute jerk).

Long story short, he could not get over the fact that I believe that minimum wage laws cause more suffering for the poor than if we did not have them. This is also happens to be the prevailing view of most mainstream economists. I found out months later that my housemate was so upset after talking with me that he cried over it. It’s amazing to me that politicos have much of society lead to believe that the government has the power to bend gravity and that a planned economy produces better outcomes. Hint, hint: time and time again, price controls are proven to create more suffering. I respect people that disagree with me, but often they are woefully off-base.

Twice in the past week the topic of rent-control has come up among friends since it might be an upcoming ballot measure in Massachusetts. The principle remains the same: price controls directly cause more human suffering than without. Rent control causes developers to flee, thereby reducing the supply of housing, and greatly increasing prices to renters looking to enter the market. For people who already have housing, rent control discourages landlords from making vital investments in their properties thereby leaving apartments in states of disrepair. More suffering! Just because a supposedly altruistic policy like rent control or minimum wage sounds wonderful, does not mean it comes without horrendous ramifications for the human condition.

John Stossel does an excellent job explaining rent control in this video:

Rent control ruins cities

PorcFest XX in review

Franconia Notch timelapse

I zipped thru Franconia Notch last week descending into the Great North Woods. The weather, scenery, and culture largely change in New Hampshire as you pass thru the Notch. Some would say it’s like entering into Shangri-La. More accurately during the second-to-last week of June, it’s like entering Galt’s Gulch.

Last week marked my second PorcFest, so I was no longer a newbie to this festival. Many of the regulars assumed that I had been more times, which is probably a sign that I’m becoming a familiar face amongst the porcupines in New Hampshire.

For those who don’t know, PorcFest is the Porcupine Freedom Festival at Roger’s Campground in Lancaster, NH. It’s basically Burning Man for liberty-minded people in the White Mountains, or as I’ve also heard it described: “Woodstock for rational people”.

What I like the most about PorcFest is that everyone is pursuing their own ideal experience, which maximizes the amount of happy campers.

Last year, I felt more compelled to stick with the few people that I knew, but this year I felt like I could freewheel and choose more of my own adventure. I ended up meeting more people this way and I never felt alone. Of course I did merge back into my core friend group throughout the course of a day and often at the hub that I was camping at. The beauty of freedom and individuality becomes more apparent when its concentrated in a single village like PorcFest.

Other than some of the events hosted at the hub that I camped at, which already received enough publicity in the media, some of my favorite events and speakers were: RFK Jr, David Friedman, Comedy night, Matt and Terry Kibbe’s talk on Georgian wine, and Ian Underwood’s lecture on the Croydon affair.

The festival is very freeform and decentralized, so there are many smaller events that are organized at individual “hubs”, which are campsites. This is the single best organizational feature of the festival. The second best feature is that all the events from all the hubs get put on a giant calendar so that you can prioritize your time.

All walks of life attend the festival from families to dead-heads and from gay men to evangelical Christians. Despite the stark differences, we overwhelmingly get along peacefully in the closest thing to Galt’s Gulch that has ever existed.

Looking south at the Mt Washington and Presidential Range

It almost brought tears to my eyes seeing the mountains tower above the valley in the distance. I can’t believe how lucky I am to have been born in such a scenic and free place. Roger’s Campground faces right at the north side of the Presidential Range, so you’re staring right at the most prominent peaks in the East. Even while taking an outdoor shower at the PorcShowers you could see amazing views of the mountains. I grew up in the very southern part of New Hampshire, so prior to PorcFest, I never had an excuse to spend significant time in the Great North Woods.

True freedom shouldn’t have to exist for only one week out of the year, but its miles further than what is being achieved (or really just failing) in other locales. Will I be back to PorcFest? That’s an unequivocal yes.

Switzerland or New Hampshire?