After heavy snowfalls in American cities, people dig out their parked cars, and some try to “hold” the cleared space with lawn chairs, trash cans, traffic cones, etc. The logic is familiar: I did the work, so I should get the benefit.
Last week, my neighborhood listserv lit up with complaints from people who had shoveled out their cars, left an object to reserve the space, and returned later to find another vehicle parked there. Then they described the inconvenience of circling the neighborhood, or adjacent ones, looking for another spot. One resident emphasized that this had happened multiple times and argued that, because they worked as a nurse in a hospital, convenient access to their vehicle was essential to their job.
Understandably, not everyone can work remotely, and reliable transportation matters. But these practical concerns don’t answer the underlying question at stake in these disputes: Does the act of shoveling snow create a legitimate claim to a public parking space?
The intuition behind “snow dibs” closely resembles a popular interpretation of John Locke’s labor theory of property. The basic idea (stripped of its qualifications) is that mixing one’s labor with something generates ownership. Clear a field, build a house, improve unused land, and the property somehow becomes yours. This intuition is powerful, and it feels fair. But the logic breaks down when applied to public space.
Labor alone does not create ownership, even in private property systems. Labor can justify ownership only within a legal framework that already recognizes title, boundaries, and exclusion. Clearing snow from a public street does none of those things. The street was not yours before you shoveled, even if you have a yearly parking pass, and your effort does not magically convert it into private property afterward.
These snow shovelers are applying private property logic to a public good. They treat public parking as a common resource that can be claimed through use or maintenance. They feel fairness demands compensation for effort. This is a moral claim, not a legal one. And they’re asserting a vernacular norm that conflicts with municipal law.
This is why the belief feels so compelling. Typically, effort and improvement are connected to ownership. Build a deck on your house, plant a garden in your yard, and those improvements become yours because the legal system allows it. But public space works differently. Use is temporary and non-exclusive. Just like a picnic table in a public park, no individual can legitimately claim ongoing control over a specific street parking spot.
Snow shoveling produces a hybrid situation. It is an effort combined with temporary use. It feels like ownership even though it is not. The result is a clash between two systems:
Municipal law says street parking is public and first-come, first-served. Vernacular norm says shoveling creates a temporary claim that others ought to respect.
Cities (which are typically too busy cleaning the snow from busy streets) often exacerbate this conflict through inconsistent enforcement. When rules against reserving public parking aren’t enforced, informal norms take over. Boston’s well-known (and unofficial) “dibs” culture is tolerated. Meanwhile, other cities explicitly ban chair-saving. In many neighborhoods, enforcement is inconsistent or nonexistent, leaving residents to negotiate (or fight – guns drawn or fired) these norms themselves.
This recurring dispute reveals a larger question: can labor generate claims to public space, and if so, who decides their scope and duration? Similar conflicts play out with street vendors claiming sidewalk space, graffiti writers and street artists putting their work on urban surfaces, or communities creating unsanctioned memorials, each asserting informal claims the city may not recognize.
The answer, legally speaking, is no. Shoveling snow does not create parking rights. But the moral intuition behind the claim is strong enough that people enforce it anyway through chairs, notes, social pressure, and occasionally real conflict.
Shoveling out a car after a major snowfall is hard work, and it feels unfair when that effort yields no lasting benefit. But fairness and legality are not the same thing. Public goods do not function like private property. Labor does not generate exclusive rights to shared space, even when it feels as though it should.
Until cities consistently enforce their own rules or neighborhoods settle on a shared norm, these disputes will recur every winter. For now, snowstorms turn street parking into a kind of urban Wild West, where moral intuition, informal norms, and public law will repeatedly collide.
Photo Credit
Photographer: Woody Wonderworks
Title: “Reserved Parking Space…Unfair?” (2016)
https://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/Screenshot-2026-02-09-at-12.40.01-PM.png9781524Jeffrey Ian Rosshttps://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/jeffrey-ian-ross-logo-04.pngJeffrey Ian Ross2026-02-09 18:30:092026-02-09 18:48:36Why Shoveling Your Car out of the Snow Doesn’t Create Parking Rights (But Feels Like It Should)
Periodically, academics seek and are given the title of visiting scholar. The designation sounds formal and flattering, and for many people it carries a great deal of symbolic weight.
But there is considerable variation and confusion surrounding these types of arrangements.
In general, visiting scholar positions are courtesy appointments. Sometimes, a visiting scholar position is given to a professor who is on sabbatical. In other cases, the title is accorded to individuals who are between academic jobs. And sometimes the title is given to someone who also holds a full-time position elsewhere at research think tanks, governmental offices, or in private industry.
In most cases, the position is unpaid. The host institution may provide non-pecuniary benefits such as an office, a university ID, business cards, internet access, and library privileges. Occasionally, there is a modest research stipend or an expectation that the visiting scholar will contribute to work associated with a grant held by a faculty member or research center.
These material realities rarely align with the expectations many academics bring to the role. Some prospective visiting scholars imagine sustained engagement with eminent faculty, serious attention to their work, and a sense that their scholarship will finally receive “the recognition it so rightfully deserves.” Sometimes there is also the belief that the appointment might lead to a more permanent job, or at least confer an advantage should a position open at a later point in time.
Others focus on the symbolic value of the title itself. They anticipate the cachet it will carry on their CV and the status it will confer when they return to their home institution. In practice, this benefit is usually far more modest than expected.
Years ago, during one of my visiting scholar appointments, I met a younger colleague who held the same designation. They were frustrated because none of the faculty members had taken an active interest in him or his work, and he felt largely ignored.
We were both visiting scholars in the same department. While the department organized activities like brown-bag seminars, neither of us felt particularly integrated into the intellectual life of the faculty. My colleague expressed frustration that none of the faculty members had taken an active interest in him or his work.
I told him that what he was experiencing was not unusual. Many faculty members do not spend much time on campus. When they are present, it is often to teach a class or meet briefly with a student before leaving. Since the COVID pandemic, this pattern has become more common, with teaching and research increasingly conducted remotely. Chairs and faculty alike rarely have the time, or institutional incentives, to actively integrate visiting scholars into departmental life.
This pattern is not accidental. Some departments appear to accumulate visiting scholars almost by default, treating them as an unpaid academic reserve. There is a belief that a roster of visiting scholars enhances a department’s reputation, particularly when those scholars are international. Some institutions even mention these programs on their websites, including application procedures and points of contact. I have also heard of universities charging scholars for the designation. In other words, some departments treat visiting scholars as a revenue stream while providing minimal support in return.
This is why my colleague’s situation can be interpreted differently. What initially feels like neglect can also be understood as a form of freedom. Visiting scholars are largely released from the performative obligations that structure everyday academic life. There was no need to be chaperoned by a disinterested junior faculty member or by someone who had been sidelined within the department. They are free to conduct research and write, or simply play tourist. This lack of interaction was, in many ways, a blessing in disguise.
This reframing, however, only works if the visiting scholar adjusts their expectations and behavior accordingly. Waiting to be invited into the intellectual or social life of the department is usually a mistake.
The more productive approach is to be proactive. Make a list of people whose work genuinely interests you (either at that university, at nearby research institutes, or at other universities in the area) and reach out to them directly. Invite them for coffee or a drink. Some will respond, and others won’t. In my experience, the most meaningful interactions and connections often take place outside the formal departmental ecosystem.
If a visiting scholar waits for invitations to lunch, dinner, or informal gatherings, disappointment is almost guaranteed. But that’s not a personal failure, nor is it evidence that something has gone wrong. Visiting Scholar positions function exactly as designed. They are opportunities you should properly use to enhance your career and life. Adjust expectations accordingly, and they can actually be worthwhile.
Artist: William Hogarth
Title: Scholars at a Lecture (1736)
https://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/Screenshot-2026-01-31-at-11.11.29-PM.png9541522Jeffrey Ian Rosshttps://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/jeffrey-ian-ross-logo-04.pngJeffrey Ian Ross2026-02-01 05:03:022026-02-01 05:10:08Demystifying Visiting Scholar Positions
This past weekend, I saw The Honey Trap. The play centers on a former British soldier who lost a close friend during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Years later, while participating in an oral history project, he gains access to interview tapes and discovers that one of the interviewees may have been involved in setting his friend up for execution by the Irish Republican Army (IRA). He travels to Belfast to confront the woman who had posed as a “honeypot,” and to kill her.
The play dramatizes how memory, trauma, and narrative combine, forcing the audience to witness these components emotionally rather than analytically. The actors also do a great job in their respective roles, though a handful of aspects of the story strained credibility.
But one comment caught my attention: the claim that the IRA used to whitewash graffiti on exterior walls so their snipers could better detect British soldiers on patrol and more successfully shoot them. It sounded plausible.
However, it’s also not true.
Even at a basic logical level, the claim falters. In urban conflicts, soldiers walk past and take cover against doors, windows, vehicles, and walls of many colors, so whitewashing graffiti alone would not meaningfully change visibility.
More importantly, there’s no credible historical evidence that the IRA or other republican groups whitewashed walls for tactical visibility purposes during the Troubles. More specifically, the IRA favored ambushes over sniper attacks. And most graffiti (not to mention murals) appearing in nationalist neighborhoods served a purpose. It marked territory, commemorated the dead, warned outsiders, and communicated political identity. Whitewashing those walls would have been politically counterproductive, not tactically useful.
But what interests me most is that the claim sounds believable. Not just to the playwright, but to audiences, and initially to me.
Why?
The general public (not to mention government officials) has sweeping, unexamined assumptions about graffiti: what it is, who produces it, and what its removal is supposed to accomplish. These beliefs are typically unsupported by empirical evidence, or else persist despite the availability of this research, which is ignored, misunderstood, or simply disbelieved.
More importantly, they believe that graffiti creates disorder, and removing it restores order.
With frequent appeals to the Broken Windows Theory, but little empirical work that supports these claims, the public believes that graffiti abatement reduces crime, improves property values, and increases public safety.
Thus, cities, counties, and businesses spend millions on removal. Money that can be better spent on more important prosocial initiatives.
Moreover, beliefs about abatement are so deeply held that a false tactical claim about whitewashing walls during a guerrilla conflict sounds instantly plausible.
The problem isn’t just that the whitewashing claim is false; it’s about how readily we accept claims about graffiti and abatement without consulting evidence.
We don’t actually know much about what abatement does (e.g., who it benefits, what it costs beyond the direct expenditure, what it erases beyond the markings themselves). We just assume removal is neutral, practical, and good. And until we start asking what we’re actually accomplishing when we insist walls or surfaces stay blank, we’ll keep accepting plausible-sounding stories that confirm what we want to believe.
https://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/Screenshot-2026-01-25-at-9.59.22-AM.png9941884Jeffrey Ian Rosshttps://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/jeffrey-ian-ross-logo-04.pngJeffrey Ian Ross2026-01-25 15:37:192026-01-25 15:37:19Whitewashing a Myth about Graffiti Abatement
Why Shoveling Your Car out of the Snow Doesn’t Create Parking Rights (But Feels Like It Should)
/by Jeffrey Ian RossAfter heavy snowfalls in American cities, people dig out their parked cars, and some try to “hold” the cleared space with lawn chairs, trash cans, traffic cones, etc. The logic is familiar: I did the work, so I should get the benefit.
Last week, my neighborhood listserv lit up with complaints from people who had shoveled out their cars, left an object to reserve the space, and returned later to find another vehicle parked there. Then they described the inconvenience of circling the neighborhood, or adjacent ones, looking for another spot. One resident emphasized that this had happened multiple times and argued that, because they worked as a nurse in a hospital, convenient access to their vehicle was essential to their job.
Understandably, not everyone can work remotely, and reliable transportation matters. But these practical concerns don’t answer the underlying question at stake in these disputes: Does the act of shoveling snow create a legitimate claim to a public parking space?
The intuition behind “snow dibs” closely resembles a popular interpretation of John Locke’s labor theory of property. The basic idea (stripped of its qualifications) is that mixing one’s labor with something generates ownership. Clear a field, build a house, improve unused land, and the property somehow becomes yours. This intuition is powerful, and it feels fair. But the logic breaks down when applied to public space.
Labor alone does not create ownership, even in private property systems. Labor can justify ownership only within a legal framework that already recognizes title, boundaries, and exclusion. Clearing snow from a public street does none of those things. The street was not yours before you shoveled, even if you have a yearly parking pass, and your effort does not magically convert it into private property afterward.
These snow shovelers are applying private property logic to a public good. They treat public parking as a common resource that can be claimed through use or maintenance. They feel fairness demands compensation for effort. This is a moral claim, not a legal one. And they’re asserting a vernacular norm that conflicts with municipal law.
This is why the belief feels so compelling. Typically, effort and improvement are connected to ownership. Build a deck on your house, plant a garden in your yard, and those improvements become yours because the legal system allows it. But public space works differently. Use is temporary and non-exclusive. Just like a picnic table in a public park, no individual can legitimately claim ongoing control over a specific street parking spot.
Snow shoveling produces a hybrid situation. It is an effort combined with temporary use. It feels like ownership even though it is not. The result is a clash between two systems:
Municipal law says street parking is public and first-come, first-served. Vernacular norm says shoveling creates a temporary claim that others ought to respect.
Cities (which are typically too busy cleaning the snow from busy streets) often exacerbate this conflict through inconsistent enforcement. When rules against reserving public parking aren’t enforced, informal norms take over. Boston’s well-known (and unofficial) “dibs” culture is tolerated. Meanwhile, other cities explicitly ban chair-saving. In many neighborhoods, enforcement is inconsistent or nonexistent, leaving residents to negotiate (or fight – guns drawn or fired) these norms themselves.
This recurring dispute reveals a larger question: can labor generate claims to public space, and if so, who decides their scope and duration? Similar conflicts play out with street vendors claiming sidewalk space, graffiti writers and street artists putting their work on urban surfaces, or communities creating unsanctioned memorials, each asserting informal claims the city may not recognize.
The answer, legally speaking, is no. Shoveling snow does not create parking rights. But the moral intuition behind the claim is strong enough that people enforce it anyway through chairs, notes, social pressure, and occasionally real conflict.
Shoveling out a car after a major snowfall is hard work, and it feels unfair when that effort yields no lasting benefit. But fairness and legality are not the same thing. Public goods do not function like private property. Labor does not generate exclusive rights to shared space, even when it feels as though it should.
Until cities consistently enforce their own rules or neighborhoods settle on a shared norm, these disputes will recur every winter. For now, snowstorms turn street parking into a kind of urban Wild West, where moral intuition, informal norms, and public law will repeatedly collide.
Photo Credit
Photographer: Woody Wonderworks
Title: “Reserved Parking Space…Unfair?” (2016)
Demystifying Visiting Scholar Positions
/by Jeffrey Ian RossPeriodically, academics seek and are given the title of visiting scholar. The designation sounds formal and flattering, and for many people it carries a great deal of symbolic weight.
But there is considerable variation and confusion surrounding these types of arrangements.
In general, visiting scholar positions are courtesy appointments. Sometimes, a visiting scholar position is given to a professor who is on sabbatical. In other cases, the title is accorded to individuals who are between academic jobs. And sometimes the title is given to someone who also holds a full-time position elsewhere at research think tanks, governmental offices, or in private industry.
In most cases, the position is unpaid. The host institution may provide non-pecuniary benefits such as an office, a university ID, business cards, internet access, and library privileges. Occasionally, there is a modest research stipend or an expectation that the visiting scholar will contribute to work associated with a grant held by a faculty member or research center.
These material realities rarely align with the expectations many academics bring to the role. Some prospective visiting scholars imagine sustained engagement with eminent faculty, serious attention to their work, and a sense that their scholarship will finally receive “the recognition it so rightfully deserves.” Sometimes there is also the belief that the appointment might lead to a more permanent job, or at least confer an advantage should a position open at a later point in time.
Others focus on the symbolic value of the title itself. They anticipate the cachet it will carry on their CV and the status it will confer when they return to their home institution. In practice, this benefit is usually far more modest than expected.
Years ago, during one of my visiting scholar appointments, I met a younger colleague who held the same designation. They were frustrated because none of the faculty members had taken an active interest in him or his work, and he felt largely ignored.
We were both visiting scholars in the same department. While the department organized activities like brown-bag seminars, neither of us felt particularly integrated into the intellectual life of the faculty. My colleague expressed frustration that none of the faculty members had taken an active interest in him or his work.
I told him that what he was experiencing was not unusual. Many faculty members do not spend much time on campus. When they are present, it is often to teach a class or meet briefly with a student before leaving. Since the COVID pandemic, this pattern has become more common, with teaching and research increasingly conducted remotely. Chairs and faculty alike rarely have the time, or institutional incentives, to actively integrate visiting scholars into departmental life.
This pattern is not accidental. Some departments appear to accumulate visiting scholars almost by default, treating them as an unpaid academic reserve. There is a belief that a roster of visiting scholars enhances a department’s reputation, particularly when those scholars are international. Some institutions even mention these programs on their websites, including application procedures and points of contact. I have also heard of universities charging scholars for the designation. In other words, some departments treat visiting scholars as a revenue stream while providing minimal support in return.
This is why my colleague’s situation can be interpreted differently. What initially feels like neglect can also be understood as a form of freedom. Visiting scholars are largely released from the performative obligations that structure everyday academic life. There was no need to be chaperoned by a disinterested junior faculty member or by someone who had been sidelined within the department. They are free to conduct research and write, or simply play tourist. This lack of interaction was, in many ways, a blessing in disguise.
This reframing, however, only works if the visiting scholar adjusts their expectations and behavior accordingly. Waiting to be invited into the intellectual or social life of the department is usually a mistake.
The more productive approach is to be proactive. Make a list of people whose work genuinely interests you (either at that university, at nearby research institutes, or at other universities in the area) and reach out to them directly. Invite them for coffee or a drink. Some will respond, and others won’t. In my experience, the most meaningful interactions and connections often take place outside the formal departmental ecosystem.
If a visiting scholar waits for invitations to lunch, dinner, or informal gatherings, disappointment is almost guaranteed. But that’s not a personal failure, nor is it evidence that something has gone wrong. Visiting Scholar positions function exactly as designed. They are opportunities you should properly use to enhance your career and life. Adjust expectations accordingly, and they can actually be worthwhile.
Artist: William Hogarth
Title: Scholars at a Lecture (1736)
Whitewashing a Myth about Graffiti Abatement
/by Jeffrey Ian RossThis past weekend, I saw The Honey Trap. The play centers on a former British soldier who lost a close friend during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Years later, while participating in an oral history project, he gains access to interview tapes and discovers that one of the interviewees may have been involved in setting his friend up for execution by the Irish Republican Army (IRA). He travels to Belfast to confront the woman who had posed as a “honeypot,” and to kill her.
The play dramatizes how memory, trauma, and narrative combine, forcing the audience to witness these components emotionally rather than analytically. The actors also do a great job in their respective roles, though a handful of aspects of the story strained credibility.
But one comment caught my attention: the claim that the IRA used to whitewash graffiti on exterior walls so their snipers could better detect British soldiers on patrol and more successfully shoot them. It sounded plausible.
However, it’s also not true.
Even at a basic logical level, the claim falters. In urban conflicts, soldiers walk past and take cover against doors, windows, vehicles, and walls of many colors, so whitewashing graffiti alone would not meaningfully change visibility.
More importantly, there’s no credible historical evidence that the IRA or other republican groups whitewashed walls for tactical visibility purposes during the Troubles. More specifically, the IRA favored ambushes over sniper attacks. And most graffiti (not to mention murals) appearing in nationalist neighborhoods served a purpose. It marked territory, commemorated the dead, warned outsiders, and communicated political identity. Whitewashing those walls would have been politically counterproductive, not tactically useful.
But what interests me most is that the claim sounds believable. Not just to the playwright, but to audiences, and initially to me.
Why?
The general public (not to mention government officials) has sweeping, unexamined assumptions about graffiti: what it is, who produces it, and what its removal is supposed to accomplish. These beliefs are typically unsupported by empirical evidence, or else persist despite the availability of this research, which is ignored, misunderstood, or simply disbelieved.
More importantly, they believe that graffiti creates disorder, and removing it restores order.
With frequent appeals to the Broken Windows Theory, but little empirical work that supports these claims, the public believes that graffiti abatement reduces crime, improves property values, and increases public safety.
Thus, cities, counties, and businesses spend millions on removal. Money that can be better spent on more important prosocial initiatives.
Moreover, beliefs about abatement are so deeply held that a false tactical claim about whitewashing walls during a guerrilla conflict sounds instantly plausible.
The problem isn’t just that the whitewashing claim is false; it’s about how readily we accept claims about graffiti and abatement without consulting evidence.
We don’t actually know much about what abatement does (e.g., who it benefits, what it costs beyond the direct expenditure, what it erases beyond the markings themselves). We just assume removal is neutral, practical, and good. And until we start asking what we’re actually accomplishing when we insist walls or surfaces stay blank, we’ll keep accepting plausible-sounding stories that confirm what we want to believe.