new hampshire - drewsview

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.

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!

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?

(Not so) E-Zpass

I had the pleasure of driving to Sunapee on Friday afternoon last week amongst the onslaught of northbound weekend traffic. The Everett Turnpike in New Hampshire has two express lanes for E-Zpass vehicles to bypass the traditional toll booths. The irony was that the normal toll booth lanes had little to no traffic, while the express lane was a parking lot. Being the clever person that I am, I went thru the old toll booth, which still accepted my E-Zpass, and I went about my merry way with little to no traffic.

This got me thinking. The express lane system that was designed with the intent to relieve traffic had completely failed. The majority of the vehicles on the road at that time had E-Zpass.

Wouldn’t there be a better way to allocate the scarce resource that is road capacity? Turns out there is a very old fashioned solution: market-based pricing. Be it tulips in 17th century Netherlands or airline tickets, they all have something in common, pricing based on the supply and demand. When market-based pricing is applied to roads, it means that as traffic demand increases, so do the tolls to keep traffic at an equilibrium.

A reasonable example of congestion-based pricing of roads is around Denver, Colorado, where instead of carpool/HOV lanes, there are toll lanes with variable pricing. The standard lanes are still free at the point of use. I propose taking this model a step further. All lanes should be tolled and dynamically priced, however the left lanes should be slightly more expensive, allowing vehicles that want to travel faster to be able to do so without more congestion. At the same time, this system would also encourage drivers to stick to the right-most lane as possible to avoid higher tolls. I hate getting stuck behind a slow, clueless driver in the left lane. Under my system, these clueless drivers would be dinged with higher tolls.

Lastly, there should be significant weight surcharges for heavier vehicles. Roads in the United States are heavily (intended) over-engineered for trucks, which put at least 6-8 times more wear on the road than a standard vehicle. We spend hundreds of billions of dollars subsidizing government roads for the benefit of long-distance trucking, which in many cases would be more efficiently served with private trains.

My first ski pass

I have early childhood memories, from around age 3, of riding up the J-bar with my father at Pats Peak in Henniker, NH. I really started learning to ski when I was 7 years old, when my parents put me in ski lessons at Mt Sunapee. In upper elementary school, the entire class would take ski lessons every Monday night under the lights at Pats Peak. In middle school, my family would take many ski vacations in Northern New England. In College, our ski club would go each weekend to a different mountain in Vermont and New York.

When I started working in New Jersey, I didn’t have good access to mountains. I would really only ski one or two times a season usually when I would visit family in New England. One time a co-worker took me to Blue Mountain in the Poconos in Pennsylvania. It wasn’t much bigger than the bunny hill at Pats Peak. The first time I ever skied out west was during an extended business trip to Colorado when I skied at Breckenridge. I was there for 2 months in the winter, so I skied nearly every weekend. A-basin was my favorite.

Winter of 21/22, I had just moved back to New England, so I skied a handful of times with friends and family. This most recent winter, I decided to finally break down and buy a ski pass. I chose an Epic Northeast Pass, which gave me access to about half of the ski areas in Northern New England. The other half are on the Ikon Pass, and a few stragglers on on the Indy Pass book.

I have to say it makes skiing much more pleasurable not feeling obligated to ski all day to get my money’s worth. I skied 16 days this season, which is a new personal record. Many of those days were just a few quick ski runs. I liked doing the ski pass enough to purchase a pass for next season. Maybe a trip out west is on the horizon for next season.

Another summer on the books

2022 in motion – drone shots

Loon Island Lighthouse onboard the dinner boat on Lake Sunapee

Liberty Forum NH native perspective

I had the pleasure of attending Liberty Forum a month ago for the first time. The annual event brings in speakers and liberty activists from across the country together in one roof. It’s also an impressive networking event for the liberty community. While spending my entire childhood in New Hampshire, I have loosely followed the big ambitions of the Free State Project, the organization which sponsors Liberty Forum.

I got a lot out of this event, but the most significant feature was the ability to interact with some of the most well-known and effective activists in New Hampshire politics. The event sponsored many dinner events, which were organized around a subject or a certain activist. On Friday evening of Liberty Forum, I had the pleasure of meeting Carla Gericke and her husband Louis Calitz. Both of them are from South Africa and have a remarkable immigration story, which Carla writes about extensively in her anthology of short stories “The Ecstatic Pessimist”. And no, Carla didn’t pay me to write that, but it’s a good book that I did read.

I’ve seen Carla’s name pop up in the news for many years and have more recently become acquainted with her online personality in social media and on the Free State Live podcast, which is live every Monday night at 8pm. Carla is a hoot, and she is every bit the same in real life as she is on TV. She had stories about clashing interactions with Governor Sununu and with some of the crazies in politics. She and Louis have a lot of fun helping liberate the Free State and I really enjoyed hearing their stories in person. I found it much easier to meet people and mingle in the small dinner settings. So right off the bat, A+ to Liberty Forum for these dinners.

The next evening, I went to the Crypto dinner and met even more young people around my age. And as somewhat of an aside, I think other than the fact that the FSP has been extraordinarily effective, something that royally frosts (bhahaha, that’s a pun because it’s also the political commissar of Dover’s last name) the progressives in New Hampshire politics is the fact that most of the Free Staters are young and will be around for years. They are just getting started. The rest of the political leadership in NH is a herd of fat-fingered dinosaurs.

I met some genuinely amazing people at the crypto dinner and they subsequently invited me back to the Quill, the liberty clubhouse in Manchester, which is place for people who believe in liberty to socialize. If your state doesn’t have liberty clubhouses, it’s doing it all wrong. Prior to observing the NH liberty community in first person, I wouldn’t say this, but there are many bonafide parallels to the FSP and the Zion movement of Utah and more recently that of Israel. Not only is the FSP bringing people to NH, but it is building a robust and decentralized community. Statists are on notice.

There is a big emphasis on agorism within the FSP community and a number of vendors had booths set up in the main room. Coffee, Liber-Tea, spices, goldbacks, realtors, you name it. Another interesting project I later learned about is the Independence Inn in Strafford, NH, where a group of Free Staters are restoring an old inn to be used to help prospective movers discover the state and also rejuvenate the local tavern. There are multiple housing projects, including one to build a large Free State apartment building. The Free Staters have established multiple interwoven networks that help ease housing and job searches so that basically if you want to move to NH in pursuit of liberty there should be no excuses.

Of course there were speakers at Liberty Forum as well, which, other than the networking, was the center piece of the event. Some of the highlights were Vermin Supreme’s lawyer, 3D printing activist Cody Wilson, and NH Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut. Martin Kulldorff, who co-wrote the Great Barrington Declaration, was an honorable guest.

The event finished with the State of the Free State address by Jeremy Kauffman, who mentioned some of the outstanding achievements of the FSP in the past year both inside and out of the government. There was high moral in the room for the future of liberty in the Free State. As a New Hampshire native, I don’t say this lightly, but this could be a turning point for a new era in New Hampshire.