This obituary of Garrett Hardin again brings up troubling questions: How can we manage those things which purportedly belong to everyone, but are threatened?

Techdirt: "A well-regarded think tank in the UK has come out with a report recommending GPS-based tolling and suggesting how it can be done (and how it can be used to increase toll revenue)."

The suburbs become denser without much construction, when sufficient pressure builds up to allow this to happen, legally or illegally. (In the case of Berkeley, Calif., I suspect much of it is illegal.)

P.L. Jacobsen: "It appears that motorists adjust their behavior in the presence of people walking and bicycling."

SF Chronicle urban critic John King, who is "not a fan of sprawl," nevertheless wrote yesterday that sprawl is environmentally wasteful, but then so is our culture, so don't blame sprawl for the wastefulness. I disagree. Controlling sprawl is like anger management; people can continue to be angry, but by controlling their behavior, many problems can be avoided. Sprawl is behavior. We can control behavior, but not the temperment of people. Managing sprawl is managing very harmful and hurtful behavior. It's up to us, culturally, to deal with it. Not to simply throw up our hands and maintain that any transgressions we commit because of our culture are okay, because to do anything else wouldn't be true to ourselves. The real truth hurts, sprawl hurts, and the media should either not take on the role of apologists, or avoid the topic entirely. True journalism comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable. It doesn't comfort the comfortable.