Sowell on SF golf courses

Thanks to Thomas Sowell you can read about the it-would-be-sad-if-it-weren't-funny story of San Francisco's six municipal golf courses. Which are losing money. But which can't, of course, be shut down.

Liberals and government at their finest.

Comments

[IB a Math Teacher]

Perhaps they can sell their public parks as well.

[JorgXMcKie]

Hmmmmm. "IB a Math Teacher". Well, IB a Municipal Budget Teacher (grad level) and subsidizing golf at one course, let alone six, is just this side of malfeasance. It would be bad enough if the city were charging the appropriate going rate on its courses, but it's not. Why not subsidize polo or jet-ski racing? Why not subsidized fox hunting in the city parks?

Are you related to the commenter on betsyspage who claimed that it was the duty of city government to provide cheap places to golf? Of course, perhaps they could also hire some of the many homeless/street people in San Fran to caddy or be greenskeepers. That would at least help the balance.

How in the world can San Francisco be such a hotbed of Lefty kumbaya collectivist thought and also be so elitist at the same time?

[kyle8]

Perfect solution, turn them all into homeless non-shelters.

[IB a Math Teacher]

JorgXMcKie:

I'm not saying that the policy of having six public golf courses is a good one. In fact, I don't. But why should the good citizens of SF subsidize baseball fields at the public parks? At least the golf courses collect *some* user fees.

So, the question still remains - should the city sell the public parks which extract no revenue, or is it "just different"? For extra credit see if you can do with it without using lame "liberals are stupid" arguments.

[JorgXMcKie]

Where, exactly, did I *ever* say that I think subsidizing baseball stadiums (or football or 'soccer' or polo fields) with tax dollars is a good idea? In point of fact, I teach municipal budgeting to grad students, and I use such subsidies to demonstrate how cost/benefit analysis can be misused. I find public subsidies for professional sports arenas to be mostly efforts at lining the pockets of various elites (developers, unions, businesses, etc) with the tax dollars of the less fortunate. I also find that more Democratic administrations do this than Republican, but undoubtedly only because there are more Dem admins than Repubs in municipalities of size to make such subsidies likely.

You pose the wrong problem. In most city parks, all citizens and residents and even many others may partake of the park. Even in the case of baseball fields in public parks (we don't have those in my community, we have softball fields which are open to all part of the time and are supported by leagues which pay more than enough to cover the expenses of the fields) there are usually times when anyone can use them. Professional sports venues subsidized stadiums are different, and I'm *really* against them as worse than a waste of the public weal.

In golf courses, those who can take advantage of the subsidy are a much smaller portion of the public, and almost always one that needs the subsidy less than those who can't partake. I just find this an odd proposition for those supposedly supportive of the little guy and the downtrodden (how many of those play golf?) and progressive taxation can continue to support this blatant transfer of tax dollars from the poorer to the more well off. Would you care to tell me how you justify it? (I am assuming that the San Francisco government is basically left Democrats. Am I wrong in that assumption?) After all, you offer no reason here in either post, just snark.

Also, can you point to my 'liberals are stupid' remark, or are you reading comprehension challenged? My last point in my previous post was *NOT* an argument, it was a question (snarkily phrased, I admit, but as my wife said once, when challenged that she had used an ad hominem, "Well, he started it!"). I was responding to the implication in your opening effort.

C'mon big guy, answer the question. Or don't you have an answer?

[chipper]

Here is a link to the Green Fees schedule for Harding Park golf course: http://www.parks.sfgov.org/wcm_recpark/Golf/Golf184-06.pdf
Note the Standard Fee is well over $100.

Now go to Wikipedia and read the article about the Olympic Club: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Club
and note this private golf club with two of the golfing world's reknown courses charges less than $80. Seems SF is pushing the market about as far as it can.

Note also that of the six courses, two are essentially upgraded pitch and putts. All the courses within the City are in existing City parks. No NEPA or SEQA review would permit housing or any other commercial development, much less roads on exisitng park land.

The commenter that points out that golf courses on park lands at least create some cash flow is right, otherwise parks are just a tax eating public ammenity. And in the case of SF, ammenites with overwhelming voter support.

SF has lots of open space within its 50 sq miles and the electorate would not stand for any development on those lands. I'd be interested in hearing about in any city in the US that has converted parklands to comeercial use in the past 50 years.

[IB a Math Teacher]

JorgXMcKie:

I didn't accuse you of supporting stadiums at all - I was only pointing to baseball (or softball) fields on public parks. The rest of the paragraph I agree with you on, but, unfortunately, people still vote to support stadiums, and so we'll continue to make them. Here is Minnesota, we're going through this process once again.

As far as people making the point that golf courses are for rich people so shouldn't be subsidized and basketball courts at public parks are for poor people so they might as well be means drawing a line somewhere between haves and have-nots. I'm not sure where that line should be drawn. You are sure of where you stand on the issue, I'm less so.

The "hotbed of Lefty kumbaya" remark is what I was writing about. You admit it was "snarkily phrased"...that's all I was pointing out. See, we agree on quite a bit. As far as myself being "reading comprehension challenged", please try to find where I accused you of being all for subsidies of baseball stadiums and get back to me.

[JorgXMcKie]

My apologies. I thought it was unclear what you meant by 'baseball fields' in public parks. I wasn't sure that you did not mean professional stadia within city-owned public space. This is the case in several cities, and is used as part of the argument justifying them. What I am generally against (although I suppose in principle each example should be examined individually) is using tax money to subsidize a non-generalizable benefit that is realized mostly by those who are actually able to pay for it. Thus, public golf courses that operate at a loss, or that function primarily to allow wealthier citizens to obtain a below-market access should be gone. I then go on in the second paragraph to respond to the other possibility your post raised.

Public parks normally are a generalizable public good. They can fairly easily and cheaply be used by pretty much everyone. So, yes, it is 'just different.' And as for 'overwhelming voter support' I haven't seen any data on that, so I don't know. If it's true, then I would certainly take that into consideration. However, I would not, for example, support using tax dollars to subsidize, say, polo fields for the wealthy, on public park land, even if it had 75% voter support.

There are a few perfectly legitimate public golf courses that exist primarily to allow access to the less privileged, especially inner-city youth. Chicago has at least one, and I believe that Tiger Woods is part of a program to subsidize access to golf to inner-city children as part of an effort to enable their potential in many ways. The programs emphatically do not subsidize golfing by those capable of paying to play at privately funded courses.

Your first comment -- "Perhaps they can sell their public parks as well" is hardly responsive in any real way to Sowell's original article. Did you read it? Or did you ignore his argument? Or did you not understand it?

Besides, I still see no answer to any of the questions. Why should San Francisco continue to subsidize a public access that is *by it's very nature* limited to a select few? While not a 'liberals are stupid' point, I do find the obdurate unwillingness to actually answer a question or an argument to off-putting and somewhat indicative of either lacking a real counter-argument or some other essential problem. Care to clear that up for me?

If it makes you feel better about ducking the answer far be it from me to chastise you any further for wandering off point.