This skateboard economist suggests we need more skateparks and less capitalism: Planet Money : NPR

A young skateboarder rides in front of the Ferry Building on the Embarcadero in San Francisco, California.

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“The Skateboard Ethic and the Anti-Capitalist Spirit.” That’s the title of an unusual paper presented at this year’s annual meeting of the American Economist. The title is an apparent reference to a famous 1905 book by German sociologist and economist Max Weber, The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. I really want to know what this economist would argue, and even more so who he is.

This year's economic conference was held at hotels around Union Square in San Francisco. On the first day of the conference, it was raining heavily. I ran from the hotel to another hotel on the street to see the presentation of this paper.

Before the presentation began, I walked into a small basement conference room soaking wet. “Is this where skateboard paper is displayed?” I asked the room.

Sure enough, a Gen-Xer stood up wearing baggy blue jeans, Vans skate shoes, and a tweed blazer with elbow pads, the only fashion item that screamed “I'm a scholar.” “Yeah, I'm here to show skateboard paper,” he said.

The man in the tweed jacket and Vans is Thomas Kemp. He is an economist at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. Kemp said he has been skateboarding for 40 years and continues to skate every day (skating can be more difficult in the winter in Wisconsin, so Kemp said he skates too).

For a long time Kemp published fairly standard economic papers. Papers titled “The Impact of Water Clarity on Home Prices in Northwest Wisconsin” and “Estimating the Price Elasticity of Demand Products.”

“When I was a grad student, I was actually going to write something about skateboarding, but I was told 'that's not a good idea,'” Camp said. But Kemp is more mature now. In fact, he's the chair of the economics department, so he prefers to talk about the topics he's most passionate about.

Kemp's transformation began a few years ago, when he discovered the burgeoning academic literature on skateboarding. “I was just blown away, like, 'Wow, people are doing academic work on skateboarding,'” Camp said. That's when he completed a 180-degree kick flip.

“I literally dropped everything else I was doing and started writing my thesis on skateboarding,” Camp said.

The value of skate parks

Camp has now published a series of economic papers on skateboarding. A paper recently published in journal of economic analysistitled “Shred Central: Estimating user benefits associated with large-scale public skate parks.” Kemp estimated the consumer benefits to the Lauridson Skate Park in Des Moines, Iowa. At 88,000 square feet, it is the largest skate park in the United States.

One of the economic problems with skate parks is that they are often free to use, which makes it difficult to figure out their actual value. This is a common problem in public facilities such as parks, beaches, and recreation centers. Determining the value of a skate park is important in determining issues such as whether a community should build more skate parks and how large and decorated those skate parks should be. Despite the sport's popularity — it's estimated there may be as many as 9 million skateboarders in the U.S. — “public resources devoted to skateboarding lag far behind other recreational activities such as softball, tennis, or soccer,” Kemp writes .

Camp believes that distance skaters (as well as BMX athletes, roller skaters and other recreational enthusiasts) are willing to go to skate parks, which provides a good way to assess the value of skate parks. Travel costs time and money, so the distance a user is willing to travel can indicate how much they think a skate park is worth.

In “Shred Central,” Kemp surveyed skateboarders at Lauridsen Skatepark and found that they were “willing to travel long distances at significant cost to experience a high-quality park.” Based on park usage and travel distance, Kemp estimated the skate park's user revenue at “$61 per user per day, approximately $488,000 per year.” Such high estimates of skate park value indicate that there is a lack of high-quality skate parks across the country and that community leaders should build more of them. Rad!

“Skateboard Ethics and the Anti-Capitalist Spirit”

In his 1905 book, The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of CapitalismMax Weber believed that Protestant Christianity, especially Calvinism, promoted moral norms such as thrift and diligence, which helped foster the birth of capitalism and the rapid growth of the Nordic economy.

Camp believes that, like Protestants, skateboarders have their own set of moral codes that affect their economic lives. Moreover, in Camp’s view, these ethics may conflict with capitalism. For example, skateboarders have been known to skate in front of private properties and businesses in search of cool, skateable features. That's one of the reasons community leaders build skate parks: to encourage skaters to skate in sanctioned areas with less disruption to businesses.

Kemp sees a similar process in baseball and baseball history. During his speech, Kemp showed a photo of baseball legend Willie Mays playing baseball in the street as a young man. Like skateboarding, many leaders view baseball as a nuisance that disrupts business, Kemp said. Children would block streets and disrupt traffic to play the game. They hit balls, crash cars, break windows. Kemp said this “stimulus to business” inspired communities to start building baseball diamonds in community parks and institutionalize the sport into a more organized, less destructive baseball league.

Willie Mays played baseball with the Harlem kids.

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“It seems to me that the impetus for creating skate parks is similar to the trajectory we saw going into baseball,” he said. “That said, our skateboarding history is over 50 years old and so far skateboarding seems relatively immune to this institutionalization. Maybe seeing kids skateboarding in the streets and playing in skate parks Skateboarding is as common as ever.”

Camp was the last person to present a paper during the conference. The paper before him was less interesting, highlighting the physical and mental health problems plaguing our society, including increases in depression, anxiety and deaths of despair. The authors blame our economy and health system for making these problems worse by “putting profits over people’s health.”

In important ways, skateboarding is a product of capitalism. For decades, for-profit companies have developed and built better skateboards, skateboards and wheels. They have marketed the sport. They have popularized it. They make it more accessible. Kemp acknowledges this. But he also sees ethics in skate culture as something that can help people overcome challenges they may face in a capitalist society.

The skateboard ethic, Kemp said, is “an ethic of resilience. I fall, I get up, I'll do it again.” It's an ethic of “self-improvement.” Skateboarders are always trying to do another trick. They try to do the trick better with more styles. They try to do it in different places. They compare themselves to their friends' past selves, not necessarily other skateboarders. “It's an ethic that doesn't really care about competing with others. Skateboarding is a non-zero-sum game,” he said. “In other words, if I succeed, it doesn't matter if other skateboarders don't succeed.” I'm not competing with them. If I don’t win, they lose, or if I lose, they lose. “No, compared to our previous selves, we all win – hopefully.”

Kemp believes that skateboarding can help us become more resilient. It helps us develop a greater sense of pride in ourselves. It helps us fight isolation and build community. It can help us exercise, relieve stress, find happiness, and escape the grind of the 9-to-5 grind.

“Skateboarding shows us what life is like in these challenging times,” Kemp said.

It's fitting that Kemp's talk took place in San Francisco, which is widely regarded as one of the best and most hardcore skateboarding cities in the world. Skaters here will “bomb” the hills like a daredevil, reaching great speeds and doing incredible tricks. The city has really begun to embrace skateboarding. For example, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art currently has an exhibit on skateboarding called “Unity Through Skateboarding” (which my son and wife apparently enjoyed when I attended the conference).

“San Francisco is a legend,” Kemp said. “Of course, it's a work trip. But, hopefully I can skate here.”