4 ms·

Where does this size argument arrive from because it comes up consistently on USA v elsewhere arguments? 95th percentile densities are no more than europe. The

by tomarr 8y ago

Where does this size argument arrive from because it comes up consistently on USA v elsewhere arguments? 95th percentile densities are no more than europe. The population of USA is more than 30x Finland and we are talking about laser scanning (by EPA or equivalent)

cabaalis 8y ago
The United States is comprised of literally thousands of sovereign, independent governments. There are even independent limits on what rules these governments can impose upon each other. It is not a "subordinate" type of situation. That's why the size argument comes into play so often. It's not really a landmass or even population argument as much as is it a complexity argument.
- mark_edward 8y ago
  People like to say that, but in practice it's not true and hasn't been for over a century.
  - dvdhnt 8y ago
    Yep. As an example, higher level governments will attach stipulations to grants or other types of funding in order to “encourage” lower governments to do as they’d like them to. Our tax system is such that this almost always works.
  - BurritoAlPastor 8y ago
    I sadly agree that federalism is de facto dead as a framework of policy and ideology. But as a legal and bureaucratic infrastructure, it has quite refused to die, for better or for worse. City, county, and state governments still do their thing, and anybody dealing with property, construction, zoning, etc in any capacity will still need to negotiate through each of those layers separately.
  - robohamburger 8y ago
    I know building permits do seem to work like this in the US. There is probably a separate db (if its even a db) for each county. It is very much a data cleaning nightmare from my limited experience.
    - king_magic 8y ago
      Way more granular than at the county level. Building permits in my village at at the village level. Dozens of villages in my county.
  - cmiles74 8y ago
    I have to disagree. For sure, there is a lot stuff that is centralized at the federal level, but there is still a great deal of data managed at the county municipal level and there is a wide variety in how this data is managed (or not managed) and what format it is in. In the town where I live, they looked up my birth record (in order to provide me with an official birth certificate) in a large bound book. Most permits for construction are managed (at least in part) by the town, who knows where that data is stored. Hopefully most of it is submitted up to the state level.
  - reaperducer 8y ago
    People like to say that, but in practice it's not true and hasn't been for over a century. It depends on the topic. When it comes to things like interstate commerce, you are correct -- the states don't each have treaties with each other. But when it comes to other things, like education, that's very much a local function. The feds set minimum best practices (enforced by the threat of removing funding), but it's up to the tens of thousands of local school districts to decide what to teach their children. Some of those local school districts are huge, on the order of 10's of thousands of students. Others can be as small as 15 or 20 students, or even one individual school. When it comes to the topic at hand -- GIS information -- It is pretty much a county situation. There are numerous competing GIS standards and products, and each county or municipality chooses the software that works for its needs, and budget. So, yes, there is creeping federalism in the United States. But claiming "it's not true and hasn't been for over a century" shows a lack of understanding of local civics.
    - afpx 8y ago
      Assuming that to be true, I would expect there to be localities within the US where laws differ so vastly that they resemble different countries when juxtaposed. Yet, I’ve traveled enough of the US that this would surprise me. (It would be very interesting to experience those two, though!) I think the US shows itself to be pretty homogeneous, with some differences between the rural, suburban, and urban areas, but not much.
      - ninkendo 8y ago
        Go to Las Vegas and then a dry county in Kentucky and note what you're allowed to buy and what you're allowed to do on the streets. I can smoke weed legally for recreational purposes where I am here. Where I grew up I'd be thrown in jail. Texas has no zoning laws of any kind. You can build any kind of building for any purpose anywhere (I'm sure there's still restrictions, but there's no zones per se.) States have wildly different speed limits on highways. Different levels of allowed alcohol. This is just off the top of my head without googling, I'm sure there's probably even bigger examples as well.
  - rz2k 8y ago
    Take a look at the US Census Bureau's methodology page for the Building Permits Survey.[1] They statistically impute the numbers from a subset of 20,100 building permit issuing authorities, because they cannot collect all of the distinct authorities in the country with different data collection and storage policies. Federal databases of postal addresses don't really have any reason to maintain data on the structures. Some fire fighting authorities have building layouts for recently built buildings. They may all have their own methods for storing the data, and the coverage is confusing enough that the bodies and budget authorities responsible for fighting any long lasting wild fire frequently change. Properties lines are usually recorded and maintained at the county level, and enforced by a county court and sheriff at their direction, but this too is not the case everywhere. It is not outlandish to think that there are multiple federal databases that include all of the data on buildings in the US, whether at the Department of Defense, or at multiple agencies within the Department of Homeland Security. However, it seems common that only data collected as a side effect of the regular course of doing government business are released to the public, but data sets created as part of some form of security-related goals are not released to the public. [1] https://www.census.gov/construction/bps/how_the_data_are_collected/ https://www.census.gov/construction/bps/how_the_data_are_col...
  - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
    > it's not true and hasn't been for over a century We just had a Supreme Court ruling affirming states’ anti-commandeering rights [1]. [1] http://www.scotusblog.com/2018/05/opinion-analysis-justices-strike-down-federal-sports-gambling-law/ http://www.scotusblog.com/2018/05/opinion-analysis-justices-...
reaperducer 8y ago
laser scanning (by EPA or equivalent) Why would the EPA laser scan buildings? The EPA handles clean air and water. The only entities that have any business laser scanning any building are the county tax assessor and the insurance companies.
- rebuilder 8y ago
  Does the US federal government not have a department that handles land survey?
  - herewulf 8y ago
    United States Geological Survey (USGS), Department of the Interior. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Geological_Survey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Geological_Surve...
  - objectivetruth 8y ago
    Not for buildings - thanks to federalism, that is the responsibility of the state, county, or local government entity. (But USGS does a great job for other things.)
  - reaperducer 8y ago
    Does the US federal government not have a department that handles land survey? Land surveying, yes - The USGS. Building surveying, no. It's the "private" part of "private property." Unless someone's committed a crime being investigated by a federal agency, the federal government has no right to know what's on my property. And even then there are limits. The feds can look down from a satellite, but so can anyone else. But the feds can't come onto my property and laser measure my house, as was the scenario proposed by the parent commenter. As I stated earlier, external-only building surveys can be done by the local tax collection agency for the purpose of assessing taxes in places where taxes are assessed based on improvements to the land. And your insurance company may also want to make similar measurements, but those are usually done only very rarely these days. They were more common in the past when structure fires were more of a problem. (Think Sanborn Maps† and The Great Chicago Fire.) † https://www.loc.gov/collections/sanborn-maps https://www.loc.gov/collections/sanborn-maps

by tomarr 8y ago

cabaalis 8y ago

The United States is comprised of literally thousands of sovereign, independent governments. There are even independent limits on what rules these governments can impose upon each other. It is not a "subordinate" type of situation. That's why the size argument comes into play so often. It's not really a landmass or even population argument as much as is it a complexity argument.

mark_edward 8y ago
People like to say that, but in practice it's not true and hasn't been for over a century.
- dvdhnt 8y ago
  Yep. As an example, higher level governments will attach stipulations to grants or other types of funding in order to “encourage” lower governments to do as they’d like them to. Our tax system is such that this almost always works.
- BurritoAlPastor 8y ago
  I sadly agree that federalism is de facto dead as a framework of policy and ideology. But as a legal and bureaucratic infrastructure, it has quite refused to die, for better or for worse. City, county, and state governments still do their thing, and anybody dealing with property, construction, zoning, etc in any capacity will still need to negotiate through each of those layers separately.
- robohamburger 8y ago
  I know building permits do seem to work like this in the US. There is probably a separate db (if its even a db) for each county. It is very much a data cleaning nightmare from my limited experience.
  - king_magic 8y ago
    Way more granular than at the county level. Building permits in my village at at the village level. Dozens of villages in my county.
- cmiles74 8y ago
  I have to disagree. For sure, there is a lot stuff that is centralized at the federal level, but there is still a great deal of data managed at the county municipal level and there is a wide variety in how this data is managed (or not managed) and what format it is in. In the town where I live, they looked up my birth record (in order to provide me with an official birth certificate) in a large bound book. Most permits for construction are managed (at least in part) by the town, who knows where that data is stored. Hopefully most of it is submitted up to the state level.
- reaperducer 8y ago
  People like to say that, but in practice it's not true and hasn't been for over a century. It depends on the topic. When it comes to things like interstate commerce, you are correct -- the states don't each have treaties with each other. But when it comes to other things, like education, that's very much a local function. The feds set minimum best practices (enforced by the threat of removing funding), but it's up to the tens of thousands of local school districts to decide what to teach their children. Some of those local school districts are huge, on the order of 10's of thousands of students. Others can be as small as 15 or 20 students, or even one individual school. When it comes to the topic at hand -- GIS information -- It is pretty much a county situation. There are numerous competing GIS standards and products, and each county or municipality chooses the software that works for its needs, and budget. So, yes, there is creeping federalism in the United States. But claiming "it's not true and hasn't been for over a century" shows a lack of understanding of local civics.
  - afpx 8y ago
    Assuming that to be true, I would expect there to be localities within the US where laws differ so vastly that they resemble different countries when juxtaposed. Yet, I’ve traveled enough of the US that this would surprise me. (It would be very interesting to experience those two, though!) I think the US shows itself to be pretty homogeneous, with some differences between the rural, suburban, and urban areas, but not much.
    - ninkendo 8y ago
      Go to Las Vegas and then a dry county in Kentucky and note what you're allowed to buy and what you're allowed to do on the streets. I can smoke weed legally for recreational purposes where I am here. Where I grew up I'd be thrown in jail. Texas has no zoning laws of any kind. You can build any kind of building for any purpose anywhere (I'm sure there's still restrictions, but there's no zones per se.) States have wildly different speed limits on highways. Different levels of allowed alcohol. This is just off the top of my head without googling, I'm sure there's probably even bigger examples as well.
- rz2k 8y ago
  Take a look at the US Census Bureau's methodology page for the Building Permits Survey.[1] They statistically impute the numbers from a subset of 20,100 building permit issuing authorities, because they cannot collect all of the distinct authorities in the country with different data collection and storage policies. Federal databases of postal addresses don't really have any reason to maintain data on the structures. Some fire fighting authorities have building layouts for recently built buildings. They may all have their own methods for storing the data, and the coverage is confusing enough that the bodies and budget authorities responsible for fighting any long lasting wild fire frequently change. Properties lines are usually recorded and maintained at the county level, and enforced by a county court and sheriff at their direction, but this too is not the case everywhere. It is not outlandish to think that there are multiple federal databases that include all of the data on buildings in the US, whether at the Department of Defense, or at multiple agencies within the Department of Homeland Security. However, it seems common that only data collected as a side effect of the regular course of doing government business are released to the public, but data sets created as part of some form of security-related goals are not released to the public. [1] https://www.census.gov/construction/bps/how_the_data_are_collected/ https://www.census.gov/construction/bps/how_the_data_are_col...
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > it's not true and hasn't been for over a century We just had a Supreme Court ruling affirming states’ anti-commandeering rights [1]. [1] http://www.scotusblog.com/2018/05/opinion-analysis-justices-strike-down-federal-sports-gambling-law/ http://www.scotusblog.com/2018/05/opinion-analysis-justices-...

reaperducer 8y ago

laser scanning (by EPA or equivalent) Why would the EPA laser scan buildings? The EPA handles clean air and water. The only entities that have any business laser scanning any building are the county tax assessor and the insurance companies.

rebuilder 8y ago
Does the US federal government not have a department that handles land survey?
- herewulf 8y ago
  United States Geological Survey (USGS), Department of the Interior. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Geological_Survey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Geological_Surve...
- objectivetruth 8y ago
  Not for buildings - thanks to federalism, that is the responsibility of the state, county, or local government entity. (But USGS does a great job for other things.)
- reaperducer 8y ago
  Does the US federal government not have a department that handles land survey? Land surveying, yes - The USGS. Building surveying, no. It's the "private" part of "private property." Unless someone's committed a crime being investigated by a federal agency, the federal government has no right to know what's on my property. And even then there are limits. The feds can look down from a satellite, but so can anyone else. But the feds can't come onto my property and laser measure my house, as was the scenario proposed by the parent commenter. As I stated earlier, external-only building surveys can be done by the local tax collection agency for the purpose of assessing taxes in places where taxes are assessed based on improvements to the land. And your insurance company may also want to make similar measurements, but those are usually done only very rarely these days. They were more common in the past when structure fires were more of a problem. (Think Sanborn Maps† and The Great Chicago Fire.) † https://www.loc.gov/collections/sanborn-maps https://www.loc.gov/collections/sanborn-maps