Ghost Light

Hubble Sees 'Ghost Light' From Dead Galaxies

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has picked up the faint, ghostly glow of stars ejected from ancient galaxies that were gravitationally ripped apart several billion years ago. The mayhem happened 4 billion light-years away, inside an immense collection of nearly 500 galaxies nicknamed “Pandora’s Cluster,” also known as Abell 2744.

The scattered stars are no longer bound to any one galaxy, and drift freely between galaxies in the cluster. By observing the light from the orphaned stars, Hubble astronomers have assembled forensic evidence that suggests as many as six galaxies were torn to pieces inside the cluster over a stretch of 6 billion years.

Computer modeling of the gravitational dynamics among galaxies in a cluster suggests that galaxies as big as our Milky Way Galaxy are the likely candidates as the source of the stars. The doomed galaxies would have been pulled apart like taffy if they plunged through the center of a galaxy cluster where gravitational tidal forces are strongest. Astronomers have long hypothesized that the light from scattered stars should be detectable after such galaxies are disassembled. However, the predicted “intracluster” glow of stars is very faint and was therefore a challenge to identify.

“The Hubble data revealing the ghost light are important steps forward in understanding the evolution of galaxy clusters,” said Ignacio Trujillo of The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain. “It is also amazingly beautiful in that we found the telltale glow by utilizing Hubble’s unique capabilities.”

The team estimates that the combined light of about 200 billion outcast stars contributes approximately 10 percent of the cluster’s brightness.

“The results are in good agreement with what has been predicted to happen inside massive galaxy clusters,” said Mireia Montes of the IAC, lead author of the paper published in the Oct. 1 issue of the Astrophysical Journal.

Because these extremely faint stars are brightest at near-infrared wavelengths of light, the team emphasized that this type of observation could only be accomplished with Hubble’s infrared sensitivity to extraordinarily dim light.

Hubble measurements determined that the phantom stars are rich in heavier elements like oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen. This means the scattered stars must be second or third-generation stars enriched with the elements forged in the hearts of the universe’s first-generation stars. Spiral galaxies – like the ones believed to be torn apart -- can sustain ongoing star formation that creates chemically-enriched stars.

Weighing more than 4 trillion solar masses, Abell 2744 is a target in the Frontier Fields program. This ambitious three-year effort teams Hubble and NASA’s other Great Observatories to look at select massive galaxy clusters to help astronomers probe the remote universe. Galaxy clusters are so massive that their gravity deflects light passing through them, magnifying, brightening, and distorting light in a phenomenon called gravitational lensing. Astronomers exploit this property of space to use the clusters as a zoom lens to magnify the images of far-more-distant galaxies that otherwise would be too faint to be seen.

Montes’ team used the Hubble data to probe the environment of the foreground cluster itself. There are five other Frontier Fields clusters in the program, and the team plans to look for the eerie “ghost light” in these clusters, too.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., in Washington. 

Titan's north polar seas

Specular Spectacular

This near-infrared, color mosaic from NASA's Cassini spacecraft shows the sun glinting off of Titan's north polar seas. While Cassini has captured, separately, views of the polar seas (see PIA17470) and the sun glinting off of them (see PIA12481 and PIA18433) in the past, this is the first time both have been seen together in the same view.

The sunglint, also called a specular reflection, is the bright area near the 11 o'clock position at upper left. This mirror-like reflection, known as the specular point, is in the south of Titan's largest sea, Kraken Mare, just north of an island archipelago separating two separate parts of the sea.

This particular sunglint was so bright as to saturate the detector of Cassini's Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) instrument, which captures the view. It is also the sunglint seen with the highest observation elevation so far -- the sun was a full 40 degrees above the horizon as seen from Kraken Mare at this time -- much higher than the 22 degrees seen in PIA18433. Because it was so bright, this glint was visible through the haze at much lower wavelengths than before, down to 1.3 microns.

The southern portion of Kraken Mare (the area surrounding the specular feature toward upper left) displays a "bathtub ring" -- a bright margin of evaporate deposits -- which indicates that the sea was larger at some point in the past and has become smaller due to evaporation. The deposits are material left behind after the methane & ethane liquid evaporates, somewhat akin to the saline crust on a salt flat.

The highest resolution data from this flyby -- the area seen immediately to the right of the sunglint -- cover the labyrinth of channels that connect Kraken Mare to another large sea, Ligeia Mare. Ligeia Mare itself is partially covered in its northern reaches by a bright, arrow-shaped complex of clouds. The clouds are made of liquid methane droplets, and could be actively refilling the lakes with rainfall.
The view was acquired during Cassini's August 21, 2014, flyby of Titan, also referred to as "T104" by the Cassini team.

The view contains real color information, although it is not the natural color the human eye would see. Here, red in the image corresponds to 5.0 microns, green to 2.0 microns, and blue to 1.3 microns. These wavelengths correspond to atmospheric windows through which Titan's surface is visible. The unaided human eye would see nothing but haze, as in PIA12528.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The VIMS team is based at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

Spacecraft Complete

NASA’s Orion Spacecraft Complete; Media Invited to Learn More about Its First Flight

NASA’s new Orion spacecraft received finishing touches Thursday, marking the conclusion of construction on the first spacecraft designed to send humans into deep space beyond the moon, including a journey to Mars that begins with its first test flight Dec. 4.

To provide more detail on what this first flight entails, NASA will host a preflight briefing at 11 a.m. EST Nov. 6 at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The news conference will be broadcast live on NASA TV and on the agency’s website.
The briefing participants are:

• William Hill, deputy associate administrator for Exploration Systems Development
• Mark Geyer, Orion Program manager
• Bryan Austin, Lockheed Martin mission director
• Mike Sarafin, Orion flight director
• Jeremy Graeber, recovery director
• Ron Fortson, United Launch Alliance director of mission management

U.S. media must apply for credentials to attend the briefing in person at Kennedy by noon Nov. 5. All media representatives must present two forms of legal, government identification to access Kennedy. One form must be a photo ID, such as a passport or driver's license. Badges will be available for pickup at the Kennedy Badging Office, located on State Road 405 east of the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. Hours for the Kennedy Badging Office are 6 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Media accreditation requests must be submitted online at:

https://media.ksc.nasa.gov

The deadline for international media to attend in person already has passed.

Accredited journalists who cannot attend in person may ask questions by phone by calling the Kennedy Press Site at 10:30 a.m. at 321-867-2468. Reporters also may attend remotely from participating NASA centers.

The assembled Orion crew module, service module, launch abort system and adapter will reside in Kennedy’s Launch Abort System Facility until its scheduled rollout to the launch pad, set for Nov. 10. At the launch pad, it will be lifted onto the United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket that will carry it into space for its uncrewed flight test.

“This is just the first of what will be a long line of exploration missions beyond low earth orbit, and in a few years we will be sending our astronauts to destinations humans have never experienced,” said Bill Hill, deputy associate administrator for Exploration Systems Development “It’s thrilling to be a part of the journey now, at the beginning.”

The December flight test will send Orion 3,600 miles from Earth on a two-orbit flight intended to ensure the spacecraft’s critical systems are ready for the challenges of deep space missions.

During the 4.5-hour flight, called Exploration Flight Test-1, Orion will travel farther than any crewed spacecraft has gone in more than 40 years, before returning to Earth at speeds near 20,000 mph and generating temperatures up to 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

Puget Sound Race sinking

From Sailing Anarchy

The Puget Sound racing community continues to drift along in shock at the loss of affable and experienced 46-year old Star sailor Jay Berglund (and the sinking of the Harmony 22 Gizmo, the boat he was on) during a race this weekend in the South Puget Sound. Three Sheets NW has a touching feature on Berglund, the thread has plenty of stories about him, and we encourage you to add your own memorial thoughts. For those looking to know what really happened, here’s a brave, honest, and detailed account from skipper and boat owner John Thompson. Props. Photo of Thompson and Berglund (crew) from Thera Black.

I was the skipper of Gizmo when she was lost this past Saturday. I was sailing with Jay Berglund and Peter Crossman. All of us have a full lifetime of experience sailing and racing. We are all in mourning right now for Jay. He was one of my dearest friends, and he loved little Gizmo easily as much as I did. Harmony 22s are phenomenal little boats, especially in light air. Jay was an experienced open ocean sailor and racer. He had his USCG Captains License, SOLAS credentials and all that. He has sailed all sorts of boats from Thistles and Stars up to his current ride on Artemis (a 50ish foot racing yacht out of Shilshole). He’s been my right hand man on Gizmo since I bought her in 2012.

This account of what happened is mostly my own obeservations, with a bit of second hand info to fill in the gaps.

Gizmo was participating in the South Sound Sailing Society Eagle Island Race when she was lost. We had completed about 25 miles of the 27 mile course. The weather forecast had called for high winds that day, but after 8:00pm and through Sunday. We were planning on being done long before then. As we passed Boston Harbor with the working jib up and full main in about 15 knots of wind, we could see the heavy white caps ahead in Budd Inlet. So we cleared the 150% off the foredeck and reefed the main before getting there. We quickly took in a second reef as the winds built to 30 knots steady with gusts probably to 35ish. In this configuration, I was just flogging the main, so we eventually decided to douse the main completely. With the dagger board so far forward on these boats, she actually sails OK this way.

We sailed two long boards back and forth across Budd Inlet keeping the boat at close to hull speed all the way despite the waves. We were still racing at this point and just looking forward to reaching the finish line so we could douse the sail. But on the third board, the waves built to 6-8′ making controlling the boat and holding her nose on the wind without the main very difficult. Halfway across the bay, the forehatch blew open creating an instant safety situation. At that point, both Peter and I reached the conclusion that we were in over our heads and decided to abandon the race. But before we could act, a gust measured at over 60 knots swatted her over. It happened so fast that there was no recovering from it. Harmony 22s have bilge ballast rather than a ballasted keel, so when they go beyond 90 degrees, they turtle immediately. And this is what happened.

I was actually under the boat in the cockpit when it came down on me. I had to swim down under her to get free. Jay and Peter rode the rail over and were free in the water when I emerged. We swam to the transom together so I could reach the VHF radio and call for help, but Jay said it was gone. I was still thinking that the boat would right itself, and she would have had she had bouyancy bags installed. Jay stayed with the boat. Thats what they always tell you to do in a situation like this. about 2-3 feet of the stern was sticking out of the water. Unfortunately, he wasn’t wearing his life jacket. Jay always wears a life jacket. I can’t for the life of me figure out why the one time he didn’t wear a life jacket, that when the shit hit the fan. I also wasn’t wearing a life jacket, which turned out maybe to be a blessing since I had to swim out from under the boat when it came down on top of me. I found the foam rudder floating free, so I used that to keep me up. Peter had his life jacket on and Jay was clinging to the boat.

Peter and I were quickly washed away from Gizmo and Jay. Four sailboats converged on the scene to assist within minutes. The first was a single-handed San Juan 24 with a roller furled jib that would not roll up all the way in the heavy wind so he was barely in control. He tried to pick up Peter, but didn’t have any way of getting him aboard so Peter finally gave up and waited for another boat. The next boat in was a S2 7.9 that was also barely under control with a full main up that couldn’t be reefed. The winds were still blowing over 40 knots with higher gusts. I swam over to her, grabbed the backstay and hoisted myself aboard over the transom. Somehow I ended up in control of the boat (maybe just because I was in the back of the boat and in the way I guess), so I steered over to try to pick up Peter and Jay. Gizmo was gone by this time. My intent was to park the boat to windward and drift down on them, but with the full main up and 40+ knots of wind thats no easy task. I drifted past twice out of reach. At that point, I noticed an Express 37 coming in under power already deploying their lifesling, so we were just in the way. The Express picked up Peter after a couple of passes.

At this point Jay was face down in the water and non responsive. The rescue boats were converging on the scene at that point, so they directed them to where they last saw Jay. I think he had sunk by that point, because it was exactly 24 hours later before he was found a long way from the scene of the sinking. My thoughts and prayers go out to Jay’s wife Ruth. Jay was a great guy and a great sailor.
 He was very focused on his sailing. When he trimmed the sails, they rarely ever got cleated. He was constantly paying atttention to the boat trim and sail shape. I’ve never met someone so focused. He loved Gizmo as much as I do. If I can raise her, it will be in his honor.
John Thompson, Skipper, Gizmo

NOTE: There will be a celebration of life for Jay on Sunday at 1pm. Out of respect for the family, it will be a dry event. The event will be held at the Everett Yacht Club (404 14th Street Everett, WA 98201). In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Olympia Yacht Club Foundation for the Junior Sailors program or to Save Our Wild Salmon. Cards can be mailed to: Ruth Elder c/o Hope Elder, 30105 2nd Place SW, Federal Way WA 98023. Email to rjelder@hotmail.com

VOR Update...

The big news of yesterday was the introduction of an ice gate by Race Director Jack Lloyd. Designed to take away the temptation for the teams to dive deep south in the search for better pressure and a better angle to Cape Town. The Ice Gate is placed at 42 deg South between 20W and 10W, seen on the screenshot below.

The Fleet, the ice gate and Cape town. With a rough outline of the fleets routes over the next few days

Over the past few days the weather models are now in better agreement, giving a more reliable forecast and therefore more reliable routing options for the teams. This allows them to commit to a certain path to dive South, although how far South is still unclear. In the screenshot below is an ensemble routing of GFS 1.0 deg, at 0600UT this morning. The top of the red box depicts the ice gate, to be left to Starboard. I made it into a box so it is easier to see.

The addition of the ice gate reduces the options for the teams, which is good news for the front runners and bad news for the teams behind. What we will likely see is the fleet sailing along this ice gate in order to be as far south as possible, in order to make the most of the left shift on Saturday afternoon.

Ensemble routings, GFS 1.0 deg, 0600 UT 29th October 2014. Almost all the routings are still taking the boats south of the ice gate to be left to Starboard. (Top line of the red box shown here)

An ensemble GRIB is a really useful tool for gaining confidence in a weather model and its reliability. Ensemble GRIBs are currently only available through the American GFS weather model, and gives the end user (i.e. the navigators on board) the breakdown of the 20 different forecasts that make up the end GFS forecast we all normally see, downloadable via Squid or uGRIB etc.

Once we have all 20 breakdowns we can then do routings on each one, as you can see in the screenshot above. If the routings are scattered, you have little confidence in the forecast, and therefore the best option is to stay middle of the road. To be conservative and with the rest of the fleet until the model becomes more aligned.

If the forecast is debating between two options, split with 10 routings going South and 10 North for example, then you know one of two scenarios are going to play out. Or like now when every single one says to get South within the next 100nm, you can be confident that this is the way to go. Over the last week Dongfeng and Alvimedica seem to have played this conservative, middle of the road game well, and in doing so have made gains on the front trio.

Fleet gybing South over the next 100nm

It is interesting to note how DFRT and Alvimedica made these gains. In the last blog I spoke about trying to cut the corner to Cape Town, sailing closer to the Saint Helena high, in lighter winds, but sailing less distance. Over the last few days we saw Abu Dhabi and Brunel make big gybes out to the West, accepting the loss and that they had gone too close to the High Pressure. This allowed the others to eat into their lead. It must have been a painful call for the navigators on board, sailing almost exactly 180 degrees the wrong way to Cape Town! Mapfre and SCA appear to have gone too far West, and paid the price for sailing too far. Who would be a navigator?!

SCREENSHOT – Fleet before they head South

We are now perhaps into the final plays of Leg 1 and its good news for us fans that we have 5 boats back in contention. Dongfeng and Alvimedica need the others to make mistakes and for them to time their gybes over the next few days perfectly to take the lead, but a podium is on now if they get these next decisions right. Alvimedica seem to have found some great pace over the last few days it is worth noting.

So keep an eye on the boats gybing South over today, and then crucially when they time their gybes back to the East to not infringe the ice gate, that is the major decision over the next few days. The boats out West are coming in hot, with Brunel currently leading the way to the East. If Brunel can make their shortcut stick (not gybing West as much as Abu Dhabi did) then they could hold the lead for the next few days. What is exciting for us is that with 6-8 days to go, the race is now a 5 boat contest!

Renewables

The energy myth that refuses to die: Why renewables are taking over in the developing world

Poor nations are embracing clean energy at twice the pace of rich ones, a new report finds

By Lindsay Abrams

People who oppose a global shift to renewable energy sure have some funny ways of trying to make their case. Just last night, for example, someone emailed me to defend Sarah Palin’s comparison of climate change to eugenics, and to, in turn, accuse environmentalists of endorsing … genocide. His logic? Climate policy necessitates denying developing countries access to electricity, that electricity consumption is directly correlated with life expectancy. Take away fossil fuels, and you’ll have blood on your hands.

The accusation of genocide was a nice flourish, but this is actually a fairly common argument: Those wedded to fossil fuels often call upon a concern for the poor (a concern that, strangely enough, tends to disappear when the conversation turns to, say, food stamps). Media Matters has compiled some of those so-called crocodile tears for the poor in conservative media, from Fox News calling climate politics a way for “rich people” to “deny” resources to others to Rush Limbaugh suddenly caring about the economic growth of third-world countries.

The rub, of course, is that these countries are often at the highest risk of suffering the consequences of climate change: of seeing their low-lying homes engulfed by rising sea levels; of changing temperatures and weather patterns threatening food security and harming agriculture-dependent economics. The costs of both mitigating their contribution to climate change and preparing for its inevitable impacts, according to an Overseas Development Institute report, threatens some of these countries’ very ability to pull themselves out of poverty.

A new report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance provides an even simpler and more immediate case for why climate policy isn’t at odds with ending poverty: renewable energy projects in developing nations are booming, it finds, occurring at nearly double the rate of those in developed nations.

The reason why China, Brazil, South Africa, India, Chile, Uruguay, Kenya, Mexico, Indonesia and Uganda are the top 10 countries ranked for their renewable investment opportunities and policies? Because, just as in developed nations, renewables are proving to be a cost-competitive – not to mention healthier — alternative to fossil fuels.

“Clean energy is the low-cost option in a lot of these countries,” said Ethan Zindler, an analyst for Bloomberg. “The technologies are cost-competitive right now.” He repeated that for emphasis: “Not in the future, but right now.”

This is only the latest in a string of studies to reach similar conclusions. Cleantechnica has the roundup:

January of this year saw a report from Navigant Research predict that demand for renewable energy in Africa and the former Soviet Union would allow wind energy to experience faster growth in these emerging markets, and another report from IHS announce that South Africa stood out as the world’s most attractive emerging solar energy country. 

In August, Bloomberg New Energy Finance reported that Sub-Saharan Africa would see more renewable energy come online in 2014 than had been brought online in the previous 14 years. 

A month later the Ernst & Young Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Index confirmed the importance of emerging markets such as China, India, Brazil, and South Africa, placing each of them in their top 10. 

“The significant movement in our index reinforces the view that attractive renewable energy prospects are no longer the remit of only a few mature markets – they are truly global, providing opportunities in both developed and developing markets,” said Gil Forer, EY’s Global Cleantech Leader. “This shifting landscape will drive corporations and governments to review their energy strategy to ensure long term competitive advantage.”

Despite a number of promising examples of how developing nations are using renewables to improve energy access — it cites Tanzania as an example of how small-scale renewables “offer the most efficient way to provide energy access to vast numbers of people living without power” — the report asserts that it’s going to take a lot more investment for clean energy to live up to its potential. But as a first step, we can say that it’s long past time for the myth that this isn’t in everyone’s best interest to be put to rest.

Fox Crazy...

Fox News Doctor Calls for ‘American Jihad’

By Jonathan Chait

The Obama era has seen a resurgence of conservative constitutional fetishism — the belief that the Constitution not only requires the Republican domestic agenda, but is figuratively or even literally divine. Fox News columnist and television personality Dr. Keith Ablow has taken this premise and applied it toward American foreign policy. The result is a remarkable column calling for what he calls “American Jihad.”

Ablow’s argument, at least conceptually, is extremely simple. The United States, like Al Qaeda, has a sacred document: “Our Constitution is a sacred document that better defines and preserves the liberty and autonomy of human beings than the charter of any other nation on earth.”

Therefore, every person on Earth should enjoy its blessings: “An American jihad would embrace the correct belief that if every nation on earth were governed by freely elected leaders and by our Constitution, the world would be a far better place.”

Note that Ablow is not merely endorsing a civilizational war between the West and radical Islam, as extreme hawks are wont to do. He is endorsing a campaign of conquest aimed at literally every other country on Earth. Ablow is not satisfied with bringing democracy to those who don’t enjoy it. He proposes to bring the American Constitution to every country, even democratic ones. Because there may be other democratic forms of government, but Ablow thinks they all pale before ours:

We would urge our leaders, after their service in the U.S. Senate and Congress, to seek dual citizenship in other nations, like France and Italy and Sweden and Argentina and Brazil and Germany, and work to influence those nations to adopt laws very much like our own. We might even fund our leaders' campaigns for office in these other nations.

The trouble here is that the citizens of some of these democracies have constitutions and parliamentary systems of their own that they regard with some fondness. Are they going to like the idea of Americans moving there, seeking citizenship, and working to change their Constitutions to make them like ours? Would the people of (to take one of his examples) France really vote for an American candidate who was funded by the American government for the purpose of imposing the American Constitution upon France?

I have my doubts. Ablow may not have total confidence in this plan, either, which would explain his proposal to “double the budgets of the CIA and our Special Forces” and “seek to fund an international mercenary force for good.” That kind of sounds a little bit like terrorism. But it’s okay because, Ablow writes, “we have a God-given right to intervene — because we have been to the mountaintop of freedom, and we have seen the Promised Land spanning the globe.” It’s not terrorism if God is telling you to do it.

Hard to live

Why Middle-Class Americans Can't Afford to Live in Liberal Cities

By Derek Thompson

On April 2, 2014, a protester in Oakland, California, mounted a Yahoo bus, climbed to the front of the roof, and vomited onto the top of the windshield.

If not the year's most persuasive act of dissent, it was certainly one of the most memorable demonstrations in the Bay Area, where residents have marched, blockaded, and retched in protest of San Francisco's economic inequality and unaffordable housing. The city's gaps—between rich and poor, between housing need and housing supply—have been duly catalogued. Even among American tech hubs, San Francisco stands alone with both the most expensive real estate and the fewest new construction permits per unit since 1990.

But San Francisco's problem is bigger than San Francisco. Across the country, rich, dense cities are struggling with affordable housing, to the considerable anguish of their middle class families.

Among the 100 largest U.S. metros, 63 percent of homes are "within reach" for a middle-class family, according to Trulia. But among the 20 richest U.S. metros, just 47 percent of homes are affordable, including a national low of 14 percent in San Francisco. The firm defined "within reach" as a for-sale home with a total monthly payment (including mortgage and taxes) less than 31 percent of the metro's median household income.

If you line up the country's 100 richest metros from 1 to 100, household affordability falls as household income rises, even after you consider that middle class families in richer cities have more income.

Rich Households = Unaffordable Houses?

The line isn't smooth—and there are exceptions—but the relationship is clear: In general, richer cities have less affordable housing.

But there's a second reason why San Francisco's problem is emblematic of a national story. Liberal cities seem to have the worst affordability crises, according to Trulia chief economist Jed Kolko.

In a recent article, Kolko divided the largest cities into 32 “red" metros where Romney got more votes than Obama in 2012 (e.g. Houston), 40 “light-blue” markets where Obama won by fewer than 20 points (e.g. Austin), and 28 “dark-blue” metros where Obama won by more than 20 points (e.g. L.A., SF, NYC). Although all three housing groups faced similar declines in the recession and similar bounce-backs in the recovery, affordability remains a bigger problem in the bluest cities.

Super-Liberal Cities, Super-Unaffordable Houses
"Even after adjusting for differences of income, liberal markets tend to have higher income inequality and worse affordability,” Kolko said.

Kolko's theory isn't an outlier. There is a deep literature tying liberal residents to illiberal housing policies that create affordability crunches for the middle class. In 2010, UCLA economist Matthew Kahn published a study of California cities, which found that liberal metros issued fewer new housing permits. The correlation held over time: As California cities became more liberal, he said, they built fewer homes.

"All homeowners have an incentive to stop new housing," Kahn told me, "because if developers build too many homes, prices fall, and housing is many families' main asset. But in cities with many Democrats and Green Party members, environmental concerns might also be a factor. The movement might be too eager to preserve the past."

The deeper you look, the more complex the relationship between blue cities and unaffordable housing becomes. In 2008, economist Albert Saiz used satellite-generated maps to show that the most regulated housing markets tend to have geographical constraints—that is, they are built along sloping mountains, in narrow peninsulas, and against nature's least developable real estate: the ocean. (By comparison, many conservative cities, particularly in Texas, are surrounded by flatter land.) "Democratic, high-tax metropolitan areas... tend to constrain new development more," Saiz concluded, and "historic areas seem to be more regulated." He also found that cities with high home values tend to have more restrictive development policies.

One could attempt tying this together into a pat story—Rich liberals prefer to cluster near historic coastal communities with high home values, where they support high taxes, rent control, and a maze of housing regulations to protect both their investment and the region's "character", altogether discouraging new housing development that’s already naturally constrained by geography...—but even that interpretation elides the colorful local history that often shapes housing politics.

I asked Kahn if he had a pet theory for why liberals, who tend to be vocal about income inequality, would be more averse to new housing development, which would help lower-income families. He suggested that it could be the result of good intentions gone bad.

"Developers pursue their own self-interest," Kahn said. "If a developer has an acre, and he thinks it should be a shopping mall, he won't think about neighborhood charm, or historic continuity. Liberals might say that the developer acting in his own self-interest ignores certain externalities, and they'll apply restrictions. But these restrictions [e.g. historic preservation, environmental preservation, and height ceilings] add up, across a city, even if they’re well-intentioned. The affordability issue will rear its head."

Lobbyists will win either way.....

K Street’s Republicans hope for uptick in business

By ANNA PALMER

Senate Republican lobbyists have spent eight years on the K Street sidelines, watching their Democratic colleagues dominate because Harry Reid controlled the agenda.

GOP lobbyists and consultants are strategizing about landing new business and looking forward to advising clients if Republicans take control of the Senate — setting off rapid change in the political dynamics of Capitol Hill.

Several lobbyists said they expect a bump in business in the first half of 2015 when companies look to recalibrate their outside rosters to engage more heavily with Senate Republicans.

“There will be a burst of excitement and activity as a result of that change,” said former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), who now heads Squire Patton Boggs’ lobbying operation. “There is a lot of pent-up demand in the tax area, infrastructure, immigration, the budget and tax policy.”

Lott said he thinks it will be a shot in the arm to K Street with a much busier legislative agenda.
“There is going to be scrambling on K Street. … There might be some shifting around to more bipartisan or even Republican firms as a result of the change,” Lott said.

It won’t just be GOP-heavy firms that could take advantage of the gavel change.

“No matter what firm you are with, the business environment and the environment for business will be better because Fortune 1000 companies and small businesses alike might finally feel like there is a way to finally accomplish a few pro-business matters,” said one veteran Republican lobbyist.

GOP staffers and lobbyists have already been working behind the scenes to game out how they’ll approach putting together a budget and how the budget reconciliation process would work. Those efforts will be complicated by funding cliffs in the spring that the Congress will also have to deal with at the same time.

Senate Republican leadership’s promise to return the chamber to “regular order” would also create a lot of activity with bills going through committees and more amendments being considered.

“From my perspective, everybody both on the Hill and off the Hill are going to be working a whole lot harder with Leader McConnell and the Senate returning to regular order,” said Hazen Marshall, a lobbyist at the Republican firm the Nickles Group. “People are going to be working late. It’s going to be a brand-new world for staff on the Hill who haven’t gone through that in a long time.”

Those shifts are likely to boost the lobbying industry’s revenues, which have been fairly flat over the past several years.

BGR Group’s Loren Monroe predicted that big-ticket legislation like a transportation bill will increase the importance of coalition building, especially as committees become more relevant.

“Assuming the GOP is in the Senate majority next year, there will be a huge increase in traditional legislative activities — such as hearings, markups, oversight and floor amendments,” Monroe said. “Coalitions will be necessary to be able to cover all the moving parts and to support passage of the backlog of major legislative items. Those coalitions are much more likely to be led by Republicans or Republican-leaning firms.”

It also will very likely increase the talent demand for staffers and K-Streeters who have ties to Republican leadership and key committees like the Senate Finance Committee.

“It is going to be just what the doctor ordered,” said Ivan Adler, a headhunter at the McCormick Group. “If the Senate switches, it is going to be fabulous for lobbying in general. Change is great for lobbying. Whenever there is uncertainty, people need them to tell them what’s happening in Washington.”

While most lobbying firms have gone bipartisan over the past decade, there are still a few GOP-only and Republican-leaning shops that are particularly poised to take advantage of a Republican-led Congress.

Several lobbyists pointed to midsized Republican firms like the Nickles Group, headed by former GOP Sen. Don Nickles of Oklahoma, and Fierce, Isakowitz & Blalock as shops to watch. GOP-heavy Crossroads Strategies founded by veteran lobbyists G. Stewart Hall and John Green is also likely to be a winner in the client shuffle if Republicans take the majority.

Other, smaller GOP firms like the Lugar Hellmann Group, Whitmer & Worrall and the S3 Group are also expected to see an uptick in business.

Downtowners with ties to McConnell are also expected to be a hot commodity. The Kentucky senator has a slew of former staffers who have gone through the revolving door, including former chiefs of staff Kyle Simmons at the Simmons and Russell Group, and Hunter Bates of Republic Consulting.

Not everybody is bullish, though, that a Republican Senate will produce a big spike in business.

“My view is it doesn’t have a huge impact,” said Dan Meyer of the Duberstein Group. “It’s a different team setting the agenda. There’s a different emphasis in terms of what gets considered, who is controlling committees, what hearings are called, but unlike the House, the minority matters in the Senate in trying to move or stop legislation.”

A tight spot...

The most wide-open Senate election in a decade

By TARINI PARTI

It’s the largest and most wide-open Senate battlefield in more than a decade: ten races, all neck-and-neck affairs headed into the final days of the campaign.

And it’s not only that there are more competitive races this time around; it’s how close they are that has made the 2014 midterms different from previous cycles. The 10 close contests this year are all separated by 5 points or less, according to RealClearPolitics polling averages as of Tuesday. Fewer races were that close right before recent midterms: eight in 2010 and five in 2006.

And in recent presidential cycles, there were eight in 2012, three in 2008 and five in 2004 that were equally tight.

Republicans have an edge in more than half of the competitive races, based on RCP averages, and are favored to gain control of the Senate. But many races across the country remain too close — with more contests coming down to the wire than in recent election cycles.

Based on interviews with a dozen operatives on both sides of the state of play, some of these tight races do lean toward one party or the other. Republicans — who need a net gain of six seats to win control of the chamber — are perhaps most confident about their chances in Arkansas, largely dismiss any trouble in Kentucky and remain somewhat nervous about Kansas. After a brief moment of panic in South Dakota, the state, along with West Virginia and Montana, is back to being considered safe for the GOP, as Virginia, Oregon and Michigan are thought to be solid for the Democrats.

Louisiana and Georgia — the latter has shifted slightly toward Democrats in recent weeks — are widely expected to go to runoffs. Republicans are confident they can win both in that scenario, especially since those states haven’t benefited from the Obama turnout infrastructure, but they admit that Democrat Michelle Nunn’s attacks on David Perdue’s remarks about outsourcing have changed the race.

At the outset of the cycle, Democrats saw Colorado, Iowa and North Carolina as their firewall against a GOP takeover. Today, those races are neck and neck — and Republicans are even bullish about their chances in New Hampshire. There remains some uncertainty among Republicans about Alaska, despite Republican Dan Sullivan’s edge in polls, because of a superior Democratic ground game and the difficulty of polling the state.

It all adds up to an unusually jumbled puzzle less than a week before Election Day. In 2010, Republicans won just three of the eight tight races — despite their national wave. But in 2006, Democrats won all five of the closest races.

“There are still a larger number of races in play,” acknowledged Tim Phillips, president of the conservative outside group Americans for Prosperity, which started airing issue ads against vulnerable Democrats in 2013 and is now reportedly spending $125 million on a field program.
“Here’s my sense,” said Phillips, explaining why so many races remain tight. “I don’t think it’s because this is an anti-Democratic year. It’s an anti-Washington year. The clear examples of that are in Kansas and to a certain extent in Kentucky.”

Both sides have also acknowledged that the efforts of Senate Majority PAC, and Democratic money in general, have played a key role in changing the dynamics. Democrats have for the first time in a midterm election since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in 2010 used outside money in a big way to protect their incumbents and respond to attacks against them in a way that they did not do in 2010, when they lost six seats in the Senate and control of the House.

Early spending from Democrats and their allies kept their candidates afloat and are getting more bang for their buck than the GOP’s investments at the end of the campaign.

“The fact that Democratic money was so strong and the Republican money was so late played a role,” said Brad Todd, partner at OnMessage Inc., which counts GOP Senate candidates Thom Tillis in North Carolina, Tom Cotton in Arkansas and Cory Gardner in Colorado among its clients. “A lot of outside groups got their donations late. Had Republican donors engaged earlier, we might have seen some of these races tighten earlier.”