Environment

It requires a lot of energy to move a person in a multi-ton metal box. Busses, although much heavier than personal vehicles, divide the transport energy requirements by many more people resulting in lower transport energy per person. If Maryland wants to reduce its Greenhouse Gas Emissions to be in line with what state leaders have been preaching, it would be hypocritical to not consider a statewide Bus Rapid Transit system as a means of doing so. New long range charter buses can get people across the state powered on renewable energy spewing less tailpipe emissions than if all those people were in personal vehicles. Not only does it reduce carbon emissions, it reduces air pollution along major arterials and dense city centers which has large health implications for people who live or frequently visit those areas. A BRT system would allow denser development in Easton & Cambridge preserving the farmland and nature reserves from human encroachment.

Economic Growth

Building out a statewide BRT system would have huge economic growth potential in areas with a stops. When everyone travels via personal vehicles, the end destinations need to have a tremendous amount of parking lots for car storage. Parking lots are economic losers, they require private and public money to maintain while generating 0 economic growth or revenue. Buildings on the other hand are economic winners. They provide jobs, tax revenue, space to do business and housing. A place can become wealthier by converting parking lots into buildings, but the transportation networks need to support this so everyone still has access to amenities. When people get off a Rapid Chesapeake Bus in Ocean City, they don’t need to park a car, they can walk or take local transit to their destination. This gives businesses more customers while not requiring parking to scale with the increased demand. A Downtown Salisbury station would allow students to freely travel between Salisbury University and Washington DC without the need to park at either destination, freeing up space and allowing both cities to become wealthier.

Traffic

Traffic follows the rules of supply & demand like most things. Building a new bridge span would increase the supply of available road space, but large infrastructure projects effect demand too. A single charter bus can hold the equivalent of 50 cars worth of traffic in a single bus. A fast and pleasant BRT system would get people out of their cars and onto the bus, freeing up road space and reducing the spatial requirements required to move tens of thousands of people a day. For drivers who have no plans to ever ride a bus, BRT would take cars off the road for them, reducing trip times. Adding supply without ever thinking of ways to alter demand will not result in reduced traffic. When the State of Virginia studied expanding a highway in Northern Virginia, they discovered that a decade and billions of dollars later, traffic would be just as bad as when they started. The concept of induced demand at work, where increased demand just fills the added supply of road space. Virginia opted to pour money into expanding the VRE Train system as a way to reduce demand for highway space. Getting cars off the road has a greater effect than expanding the supply of road.

Experience

A statewide BRT system can only work if people use it. Getting people to take intercity buses requires that the complete experience be at least on par with driving. When people make these decision they are usually considering a couple of factors: Cost, experience, speed.

Cost

With tolls, gas and parking costs all factored in, a bus ticket would be cheaper than driving for a single trip. No driving in circles in Ocean City or Washington D.C. trying to find a spot or parking at an expensive garage. The cost of trip is split among many more riders. Electric buses energy costs would be freed from the swings global oil markets allowing people to be freed from the necessity of car ownership. Living in Bethesda, MD, the only reason I still own a car is for monthly trips to Salisbury. A reliable and rapid cross-bay BRT system would free many people from needing to own cars at all, saving them an average of $9,000 per year. With gas prices at record highs with no signs of abating, the State should work to give citizens alternative modes of transport that render them less reliant on decisions of Saudi Monarchs and encourage more resilient household budgets.

Experience

Driving is comfortable, you get your own car that can take your from point to point on your own schedule. Frequency & reliability of buses allows the system to be flexible enough to compete with driving. Running buses every 20 or 30 minutes would be enough for lots of people to make the switch. Dedicated lanes and GPS tracking would increase reliability so people know their bus will arrive and leave during scheduled times. Using new Charter Buses that are clean and comfortable with onboard Wifi would allow a pleasant experience on par with driving. Riders could read a book or do some work instead of sitting through hours of bumper to bumper traffic. This would be an especially attractive options to part-time commuters who need to pop into the office in D.C or Baltimore a couple of times a month.

Speed

Cars can get you from point A to point B which makes them a very attractive transit option. They don’t have the last mile problem, where you have to get from the bus station to your final destination. In order for BRT to compete, the stops need to be located in dense walk-able areas near lots of final destinations. Having dedicated lanes where possible would allow it to make up for time lost to stopping putting BRT on parity with driving time.

Equity

Lots of people are unable to make the trip across the bridge that would love to do otherwise. Growing up on the Eastern Shore in Salisbury, my options of experiencing places in Western Maryland were limited by my parents capacity to drive. Teenagers would be able to take day trips to Washington D.C on their own increasing their independence and life experience. Many old people don’t have the ability to drive long distances across the bridge, limiting their ability to see family and friends and have independence into old age. Additionally disabled people and people without money for a personal vehicle have limited opportunity to travel across the state but a cross-bay BRT system would open up the chance for them to experience it.

Plan

A Cross-Bay BRT system could fit in perfectly with plans by County leaders to build a new 8 lane bridge, replacing the existing spans. One of the existing bridges could become a dedicated Bus Bridge. This would allow separation of traffic with emergency vehicles having access to the bus bridge. The existing spans maintenance costs would be considerably less as it wouldn’t be handling tens of thousands of cars a day. The reduced traffic load on the existing span would allow its lifespan to be extended.

The Eastern Shore should avoid making the same transportation and planning mistakes that Counties on the Western Shore have. Counties such as Montgomery & Prince George’s have realized that you eventually run out of space to endlessly expand sprawl and roads, and are now turning to policies aimed at reducing demand for driving and denser mixed-use development. Instead of building single-use sprawling residential sub divisions all over the Shore, mixed-use walkable neighborhoods should be legalized so residents don’t have to drive 5 miles to get a gallon of milk from the grocery store, freeing up road space and reducing traffic.

Beach season would be much more enjoyable without the stresses of a 4 hour traffic plagued journey across the Bay. A statewide BRT system would go a long way in avoiding the mistakes of the past and building for a more prosperous and sustainable future.

Source

Housing

Large houses use more energy than small houses. They use more energy to heat and cool as the systems have to pump more hot or cold air into a larger area while smaller houses don’t have as much square footage for their HVAC systems to cover. Detached houses lose hot and cold air through windows and walls causing HVAC systems to work harder to keep the house at a constant temperature. Attached houses such as townhomes are insulated by the houses next to them allowing the house to stay at constant preset temperature with less work than cooling and heating systems in a detached house. Shared walls keep hot or cold air trapped inside the unit rather than escaping outside.

When population density is high, people live in apartments and attached houses which are more energy efficient. Currently dense housing such as apartment and attached houses are illegal in the vast majority of land in Montgomery County. Regulations such as minimum lot sizes and multifamily housing bans cause extremely large homes to be built rather than smaller more energy efficient homes.

In East Bethesda an old small home was recently town down. In it’s place will go a $2.5+ million mansion that will likely be over 5000 sq ft. This home will take a large amount of energy to heat and cool. If it were legal to turn the home into a four-plex, the neighborhood’s average carbon footprint would be cut sharply. Montgomery County has rendered climate friendly housing solutions illegal via R-1 Zoning Regulations that prohibit multifamily homes on this lot.

In addition to certain physical structures being more climate friendly than others, land is a big source of carbon emissions. Since the plot in Bethesda will only remain as 1 house instead of 4, 3 additional houses will be built in outer-lying locations. It is likely that forests somewhere in the country will be cleared to make way for these new houses because they could not be built in Bethesda. When this forest clearing happens, carbon that was sequestered in trees and the ground will be released into the atmosphere.

If the County Council legalized small apartment buildings and attached housing county wide it would result in per capita residential carbon emissions dropping. Population density would increase allowing for a more energy efficient usage of land.

Transportation

Due to County land-use regulations on housing construction, population density is kept low. This causes everything to be far apart. In order to travel long distances we have to use energy to make the trip. The farther apart everything is, the more energy we have to use. This is why places with high population densities require much less per capita transport energy.

Since it is illegal to open small cafes, restaurants and grocery stores & gyms in residential neighborhoods, people must drive long distances in private vehicles to reach these amenities. The average American car is around 4100 lbs. It takes a tremendous amount of energy to move this heavy box of metal from point A to point B. When population density is kept low and residential and commercial uses strictly segregated, small shops can’t operate within walking and biking distance of enough business causing per capita transport energy to be high as people drive to the stores.

Another consequence of the County limiting population density is that public transit systems cannot run as efficiently. Busses and trains are a great way of reducing transport carbon emissions, but the more full they are, the better for the climate they are as the energy cost of running the bus is spread among dozens or hundreds of people. When the vast majority of the county is kept low density, busses often run mostly empty and there are less viable bus and train routes.

In the above example of the torn down house in Bethesda, the lot is within a 15 minute walk of the Bethesda Metro and multiple bus routes. Instead of 4 families filling up the train and buses, there will be only 1 causing transport energy to remain high. If multifamily homes were legalized on that plot, then per capita transport energy usage would decline.

Moving Forward

The best thing the County can do for the climate is free of charge. It requires scraping old land use rules that were put in place before we knew the devastation that climate change is having on the world. If zoning and land use regulations were eased, then the market would naturally build houses closer together causing emissions to drop. The County could then run more bus and train routes allowing more energy efficient forms of transportation. Less energy spent on housing and transportation means less carbon emissions and dependence on oil.

On the supply side high prices are the result of Western Nations sanctioning Russia and its 7 million barrels of oil per day from the global market along with OPEC nations such as Saudi Arabia refusing to increase supply in order to profit from high prices.

On the demand side we’ve seen a return to pre pandemic levels of Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) in Maryland along with a global surge in oil demand as the world recovers from the Omicron Variant. But the States rush to enact a Gas Tax suspension for 30 days is premature. China is heading into a Covid wave which will reduce the global demand for oil and drive down prices. As of writing on Tuesday, March 15th, oil prices fell below $100 a barrel.

The current proposal to suspend the gas tax working its way through the state legislature shows a lack of economic literacy. Prices are high because supply is low and demand is high, a suspension of the gas tax would serve to increase demand causes prices to spike even higher. Subsidizing demand when prices are high is a common policy but as we’ve increasingly seen from other examples it fails to achieve its purpose. A notable parallel is housing where lots of state, local and federal governments subsidize rent for the poorest while doing little to increase supply. This causes rent prices to increase with most of the subsidy being captured by landlords. In a similar vain we’ve seen college tuition prices skyrocket because the Federal Government offer unlimited subsidy in the form of loans without doing anything to increase the supply of seats at the most expensive colleges. Suspending the gas tax will predictably cause the price of gas to go up even more while oil producers will capture as much as 30% of the subsidy.

The supply of oil is controlled by global corporations and dictatorships that decide how much they want to drill based on market conditions and is outside the powers of the Maryland State Legislature. But while the Legislature has no control over supply, it has influence over demand. Instead of enacting a gas tax suspension that would turbocharge demand, we should be looking for ways to reduce demand.

Maryland’s land use and transit policy has made it extremely sensitive to global price shocks in oil markets as the only way to get from point A to B in much of the state is to drive a car. Budget surpluses should go towards alternative transportation infrastructure such as bike lanes, pedestrian improvements and public transit. Giving people the freedom to choose the way they want to travel will make communities more resilient to future gas price increases. With a $7.5 billion dollar budget surplus expected, using $1 billion to blanket the state in protected bike lanes, expanded sidewalks, crosswalks, bus stops and electric buses would considerably reduce Marylander’s dependence on oil. Driver’s who have no plans to ever walk or take a bus would greatly benefit to. By giving people the freedom of choice in how they want to travel, lots of people would choose these alternatives dropping the number of cars on the road and decreasing traffic for people who prefer to drive. In addition to decreasing traffic, it would decrease demand for gas which would help with gas prices for drivers.

It’s true that many of the states poorest rely on a personal vehicle to get to work so any gas tax relief should be targeted towards those need it most rather than a blanket ban. Most people make a personal decision on the type of car they purchase. If an individual wants to drive an inefficient car such as a large truck or SUV that is their choice. But the State should not subsidize these decisions and should instead incentivize people towards more fuel efficient vehicles and Electric Vehicles.

A Gas Tax holiday is also in direct contradiction to the climate goals set by the State and legislative Democrats. Reducing vehicle miles traveled is critical to controlling transport carbon emissions. On one hand the State is pushing for solutions to climate change and on the other it’s trying to pass a policy that would increase carbon emissions. Reducing carbon emissions requires political courage and a gas tax suspension exposes a massive blind spot in the Legislatures understanding of climate change.

In addition to being bad climate and economic policy, a Gas Tax suspension will be a handout to the wealthiest residents of the State who consume considerably more gas than the poorest.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditure Survey, the top 20 percent of Americans by income spent almost three times more on gas in 2020 than the bottom 20 percent. They spent almost twice as much on gas as the second-lowest quintile.

Any suspension of the Gas Tax would disproportionaly benefit the wealthy who can comfortably afford higher gas prices.

In every crisis lies opportunity, and the Legislature should use this oil crisis as an opportunity to reduce the state long term dependence on oil rather than pass policies to make the problem worse.

Suspending the gas tax may sound good, but it’s a bad idea - Baltimore Sun

A Gas Tax Holiday Is a Terrible Idea - Slate

Suspending the Gas Tax Is a Mistake - Tax Foundation

Thrive 2050 already limits the amount of mixed use urban centers and states that it will “Concentrate growth in centers of activity and along corridors through compact, infill development and redevelopment to maximize efficient use of land”. At the beginning of the process, exclusive wealthy enclaves such as Potomac are excluded from the conversation. All of the growth with will forced into a small amount of land. What the OLO RESJ Review of Thrive 2050 got correct was that it will be expensive “to reside and/or work in in mixed-use, transit-oriented towncenters”, but reason is simple, there aren’t enough of them. The Planning Board’s response was also correct that the answer is to increase the supply of these types of places. If mixed-use development was abundant and ubiquitous, then there would be no gold rush to fill the few areas where it is legalized. This rush causes high prices because the land is still scarce and developers have to charge high rents to justify the cost of land. Thrive 2050 correctly attempts to increase the supply of mixed-use walk-able neighborhoods, but it’s fault is that it doesn’t go nearly far enough, causing growth to be inequtiable. That vast majority of single family exclusive land is left untouched causing all demand to flood into the areas development is legalized, often areas with large minority populations.

Changing a scarcity mindset requires a paradigm shift in a way of thinking. Instead of stuffing all growth into small urban centers, the County could simply legalize small commercial shops everywhere county wide. Instead of everyone fighting to live within walking distance of shops, everyone in the county suddenly lives within walking distance of shops. Taco Fresco in Bethesda, MD could seamlessly blend into any neighborhood in the county.

Minority entrepreneurs looking to open a new venture can start out of a garage or a small plot in their local neighborhood with low capital requirements, they wouldn’t have to rent out the large newly developed commercial shops only available in growth centers. Instead of citizens all clamoring to live within walking distance of a growth center, every neighborhood would have a taco shop in it allowing it to become mixed-use and pedestrian friendly. Scarcity will be replaced by abundance and growth will be spread equitably across the entire county. Abundant shops with lower square footage on cheaper, suburban land without the need to construct parking lots would lower the barrier of entry disproportionately benefiting minority communities.

A new paper by Shane Phillips at the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies lays out why this happens.

To combat this, many cities and states are now reversing course and upzoning to allow higher-density housing, usually in targeted locations such as individual neighborhoods or corridors. While these targeted upzones have increased housing production in some cases, they have also led to higher land prices that erode the affordability of new homes. I argue that improved housing affordability at a city-, metro-, or region-wide scale can only be achieved through “broad upzoning,” defined here as zoning changes that allow at least moderate density (roughly 6-10 units) on a large share of parcels (at least 25%-50%).

The reason broad, County wide liberalization of development restrictions don’t result in higher prices is because no parcel has a premium over any other parcel. Lower land prices mean lower rents. The way land use planning in the County work now, when denser housing or commercial structures are legalized on a parcel, usually via narrow sector plans, suddenly the value of the land goes up because all of the demand for mixed use dense housing begins to compete over the scarce newly liberalized parcel, driving up the cost. But if regulations in the entire county were liberalized at once, no parcel of land would have a premium value over another parcel, the market for land would stay relatively stable. Mixed-use dense neighborhoods would no longer be scarce, they would become abundant and affordable.

In its current form Thrive 2050 is a huge improvement over the status quo and will go a long way in reducing emissions and reducing the scarcity of nice places. But if it truly wants to be a transformative it needs to think past specific corridors and focus on county wide broad measures. Scarcity harms minorities and the poor, abundance benefits them. Scarcity makes lots of people compete over a small amount of land, with the wealthiest winning and profiting. Abundance gives every one the opportunity to develop housing or open a business at low cost.

We already know why Montgomery County is segregated and expensive, it’s because of exclusionary zoning and scarcity focused development measures. The Council should pass Thrive 2050 as is because it contains enough language to support an inclusive abundance agenda. The Council doesn’t spend time analyzing and debating the cost of putting off action. The cost of doing nothing increases as time is spent on analysis rather than action. Pass Thrive and then pass an abundance agenda for real equity & social justice.

The Federal Government, The State of Maryland, Montgomery County and Washington D.C. have collectively invested billions in dollars in the transit systems that serve Greater Bethesda. The dollars spent on the transit systems are public tax payer dollars. When a government spends billions of public tax payer dollars on transit systems, it has a moral obligation to let as many people as possible live near the public infrastructure. Bethesda, despite being an extremely connected transit center funded by public money, is surrounded by low density single family home neighborhoods enforced via County zoning ordinances. Another way to think about this is the Montgomery County government has explicitly banned thousands of people from using a public good that multiple governments spent billions of dollars and decades creating. Is it ethical to spend billions on public goods and then effectively ban usage of that public good?

Thinking about transit investment this way can illuminate how it is treated differently from other public goods. Would we be okay with a government building a public school but only allowing it to be filled to 50% capacity? Would we be okay aywith building parks but only allowing a small amount of people to visit them? Of course we wouldn’t. So why does the County limit the number of people who can live near public transit?

The Metro, Purple Line and Bus systems are forms of transit with a much lower carbon footprint than driving cars. The County and Greater Bethesda residents cannot claim to be in favor of solving climate change while fighting to ban people from living near low emissions transit and walkable neighborhoods.

3 Metro Stations and 2 Purple Line Stops with a 1.5 mile radius - Link

ZTA 20-07 introduced by Councilmember Will Jawando aimed to tackle this problem. It was a good start to the discussion but does not go nearly far enough. Small scale development near multi-billion dollar public infrastructure doesn’t confront the size of the issue at hand. A $10 billion public transit project cannot bow to arguments of “house scale” and “neighborhood character”. If Greater Bethesda wants to change its reputation from an elitist and exclusive enclave, the Council and Planning Board need to be bolder in their approach to up-zoning single family neighborhoods. “Gentle Density” will not do. The recent Silver Spring Downtown and Adjacent Communities Plan was encouraging but ultimately a very modest build out of an even more transit rich area. The correct amount of density is whatever the market will produce. If there is demand to build multiple 300 ft. apartment buildings on parcels with detached single family homes near the Greater Bethesda Metro and Purple Line stops, then the most inclusive response is to allow those buildings to be built. Otherwise the government is limiting the use of public goods from people who helped pay for it.

When the County uses other people’s tax money to pay for public infrastructure, the County has an obligation to make sure that infrastructure gets used as far and wide as possible. Otherwise it becomes and inefficient and unproductive use of money that only serves to make the wealthy homeowners in the land surrounding the stations even wealthier. The County cannot force people to take the Metro or Purple Line anywhere but it can stop banning people from living near the stops. Anything short of market maximum density is a failure on the part of Montgomery County residents and its leaders to address climate change, housing shortages and responsibly use public money.

It took decades and billions of dollars to create the stations, the county should be looking to maximize the utilization of these public goods. Federal tax payers from Alaska to Nebraska, Maryland tax payers from Garret to Wicomico and Montgomery County tax payers from Poolesville to Colesville paid for these stations. It is egregious to limit the use of the station to a handful of wealthy families who live in mansions. Opposition to building denser housing within a multi-mile radius of the station is nothing short of a hoarding of public money by the richest households in the state.

The Yellow represents area zoned for Single Family Homes

It should be noted, billions of investment in transit systems is a fantastic thing. It’s one of the lowest carbon emitting forms of transportation that exists, it allows cities to thrive and economies to benefit from scale and agglomeration effects. Less space can be dedicated to parking lots and more dedicated to economically productive buildings when public transit exists. It is a testament to the perseverance and dedication of citizens that the transit systems do exist. But large scale public infrastructure projects only have justification if they are opened for use by as many people as possible. The amount of money spent per person within a 1.5 mile radius (10 minute bike ride) of the station is staggering if the County Government that goes through hell to build the systems then bans people from living near them.

The Montgomery County Council needs to think bigger and more inclusively in its approach to land-use regulation near major transit stops in Greater Bethesda. Banning everything except multi-million dollar mansions near multi-billion dollar transit systems weakens the case nationally for building more of them as they become seen as an amenity for the very wealthy. Democrats become hypocritical when they lecture Republicans about climate change and public transit investment at the Federal level but under-utilize public transit in their own jurisdictions. By-Right dense development needs to be allowed with a 2 mile radius of all MARC, Purple Line, Metro and BRT stops with 0 parking minimums, increased Floor to Area ratios and no height limits. Greater Bethesda is falling flat on its stated progressive values with most of the transit investment being restricted to the ultra-wealthy via land-use regulation. It is time for some change. The County Council should pass an amended version of ZTA 20-07 that makes sure we are getting the most out of our transit systems.

This argument is increasingly being proven incorrect. In a recent paper by Evan Mast of the Upjohn Institute, found that building market rate multifamily housing that caters to the top end of the market causes demand (and price) to loosen in low and middle income areas. This is because of the concept of moving chains. Moving chains are the process of movement when new market rate housing is built.

To explore this point we can break up all residents by their income quintile, the richest 20% are Q1, the next 20% is Q2, ..., the poorest 20% are Q5. When new market rate housing gets built, typically people in Q1 will occupy it. This is expensive and high quality new housing that many people correctly point out as unaffordable for people in Q2-Q5. But the existing housing that the people in Q1 move out of when they move into the new market rate housing is then occupied by Q2. So now instead of people in Q2 competing with Q1 for the same housing, they are only competing with Q2 which reduces the demand (and price) of Q2 housing. This process then repeats itself as people in Q2 move out of their existing housing and into the housing previously occupied by Q1, which frees up Q2’s existing housing for Q3 to then occupy. This moving chain quickly goes down the income ladder and in the short run Q4 and Q5 see demand (and price) loosen.

Another paper by multiple researchers at the VATT Institute for Economic Research in Finland found similar effects in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area. From the abstract

The supply of new market rate units triggers moving chains that quickly reach middle- and low-income neighborhoods and individuals. Thus, new market rate construction loosens the housing market in the middle- and low-income areas even in the short run. Market-rate supply is likely to improve affordability outside the sub-markets where new construction occurs and to benefit low-income people

This concept can be explored with an example of a wealthy family of 4. The family has 2 kids, a budget of $1.3 million dollars to purchase a minimum of 2500 square foot home and one parent works in Downtown Bethesda while the other works at the University of Maryland so living along the Purple Line corridor is must for ease of commuting.

In the case that 3 new construction market rate townhomes are built priced at $1.3 million on a parcel previously occupied by 1 detached single family home and within 1 mile of Downtown Bethesda, the family, along with 2 other families could move in without gentrifying or displacing anyone in other parts of the Washington D.C. Metro Region. The house they lived in before would be freed up for a marginally less rich family to occupy which would trigger a moving chain that would reach the lowest-income areas of the D.C. Metro Region quite fast.

But today in Greater Bethesda this type of housing is illegal on existing parcels due to a myriad of rules imposed by the County. Instead of fitting 3 wealthy families where only 1 can live right now, the family that can afford a $1.3 million dollar home will look east to Silver Spring. They will bid up the price of housing there because none was built in Greater Bethesda. They will win a bid forcing another family to look further east to Prince George’s County causing demand (and price) to increase fueling displacement and rising housing prices.

Redfin Link

In the case that denser market rate housing types such as N-plexes, townhomes and apartments are legalized in Greater Bethesda, they act as a sponge soaking up demand from the top of the market. There is not just a housing shortage for people in Q5, but a housing shortage for people up and down the income ladder. More market rate housing improves the situation for people in the entire distribution of incomes. Currently Greater Bethesda does not permit anywhere near the multifamily dense construction that there is demand for, but if it didn’t allow the new market rate apartments and townhome developments that have been built, prices would have been even higher than they are now across the region. Developers will always target the top quintile that there is demand for, so in order to get the housing market to build new housing for lower quintiles, you have to let the top of the market build as much as possible to fulfill that demand. There is no better place to build it than Greater Bethesda which has a robust and underutilized public transit system, parks and amenities for new residents already in place.

Taking a walk around the neighborhoods of Greater Bethesda will yield a lot of “Black Lives Matter” and “No Human is Illegal” signs. To live up to these stated values residents and leaders of Greater Bethesda should support literally legalizing more humans via legalization of many housing types on all parcels to support more humans. Contributing new units to the housing market will do more to help the Black neighborhoods of the region thrive than any yard sign will.

The output of this industry has had an enormously positive impact on global public health with its impact being felt in every corner of the world. The reason that Montgomery County has such an outsized impact on global health is because of the economics of agglomeration. As Harvard economist Edward Glaeser describes

Agglomeration economies are the benefits that come when firms and people locate near one another together in cities and industrial clusters

When multiple biotech firms are located near each other, the networks effects of that proximity allow the firms to produce more than if they had been further apart. They have a larger talent pool to hire from, allowing the firms to compete for the best of the best. Workers at these companies are neighbors and talk to each other regularly over lunch, a child’s soccer game or while getting the mail about the latest research and techniques in their field. Glaeser continues

Hospitals that are surrounded by higher-quality hospitals tend to improve in quality. One interpretation of these results is that doctors in one hospital learn how to practice better medicine by interacting with doctors in nearby hospitals. If this is the case, then the flow of ideas across people in metropolitan areas is actually saving lives.

This is the same reason the majority of television media comes out of New York and Los Angeles. Getting lots of people within close proximity to each other creates innovations and ideas that would not have existed had those people been further apart.

Novavax, headquartered in Gaithersburg, recently began shipping the first doses of its locally developed vaccines to Europe. This is an achievement that should be celebrated, it’s a testament to what can be achieved when lots of smart people are allowed to live close together to innovate. The key ingredient to this success was people, so question must be asked. Why does Montgomery County put up so many barriers to building new housing and attracting more people? The population of Greater Bethesda, made up of the zip codes 20812, 20814, 20815, 20816, 20817, 20818, 20895 is 134,622. What could be achieved if that population were allowed to double? A staggering number of new scientists, doctors, engineers, researchers and thousands of workers who support these businesses would come together to create more new vaccines and research that would be distributed around the globe, saving millions upon millions of lives and powering Maryland’s economy. Smaller competitors would begin to sprout promising new innovations as employees at rivaling firms decide that they can do it better than their employer.

The chief barrier to an explosion in economic growth & productivity is the barrier to building new housing. When land is limited as such in Greater Bethesda, the market will build creative and attractive forms of new housing on a smaller footprint, but only if it’s allowed to do so. Currently via a Gordian Knot of parking, height, setback, density, zoning and other regulations, population growth it kept low and high housing prices become enforced via county regulation. High housing prices signal 2 important facts:

1. A lot of people would like to move here

2. A lot of people move elsewhere because it’s too expensive here

On aggregate this loss is immense. Every apartment project that is scaled back due to opposition at a community meeting is not just a loss of physical space, but a young graduate who dreamed of working the National Institutes of Health but moved to another city due to lack of housing in Bethesda. Every old home that is torn down and turned into a 7k square foot mansion instead of a row of 3 of town homes or small apartment building because of zoning laws is a loss of a potential human beings who could have discovered the next vaccine breakthrough. The lost human capital will be less productive because they weren’t around to cluster in an area brimming with activity and instead moved to a place with less opportunity. It’s a loss for the businesses that wanted an expanded labor pool to hire from, a loss for the county in tax revenue, and a loss for the world in innovations that were never made.

It’s time for the Montgomery County council to recognize the limits it’s set on itself with burdensome land-use regulations and let more people move here for the benefit of the world.

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