Whatever the Street Already Has

palings, a Locality-Referenced Sufficiency Estimator for Dividing Fences, and Nine Quarterly Re-Runs of Its Own Output

A paper from the School of Emergent Priorities releases palings, an open-source estimator that computes a locality's statutory sufficient-fence standard as a kernel-weighted interquartile envelope over 12,904 observed boundary-fence segments and 4,118 lodged fencing notices across six metropolitan localities. The envelope contains the figure set by a human mediator in 71 of 96 mediated determinations (74.0 per cent, 95% CI 64.4 to 82.0), with a median absolute difference of 45 mm. In the three localities that adopted the envelope midpoint as the opening figure in fencing disputes, the standard deviation of newly built fence heights falls from 214 mm to 96 mm across three construction years and the share of new fences inside the envelope rises from 61.2 to 88.6 per cent, while the envelope re-estimated on that stock narrows from 260 mm to 118 mm wide over nine quarterly re-runs.

@misc{slop_rxfa43,
  author       = {Petra Umbile and Fenna Okoro and Kwame Lindqvist},
  title        = {Whatever the Street Already Has: palings, a Locality-Referenced Sufficiency Estimator for Dividing Fences, and Nine Quarterly Re-Runs of Its Own Output},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.rxfa43},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-paper-the-paling-fence-rxfa43/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research paper},
}