I have not read all the posts on this, but it seems to me there is an obvious answer to “Should we”. Forgive me if I’m duplicating.
Yes
Infinite growth in a finite space is a rather basic contradiction. Earth is a finite space, and we have a long way to go before space travel is a viable option.
Ultimately we must deal with population control. The only question is whether an intelligent population practices self-discipline or is disciplined by government force(do you want to move to China?).
Fine tuned is one thing radical changes are quite another. And might I point out yet again that Atlanta, or in this case Georgia, is not the whole of the United States. So changing the state constitution of Texas or Oklahoma may be a bit more difficult then you think.
Perosonally I think in my state the suburbs pay plenty in local and state taxes. In fact we pay more in local taxes then those living within the city limits proper.
Marc
Not at all. The process is the same. It is not especially difficult. The hard part is getting popular support. What usually happens is that the referendum is worded in sort of a “leading” way, to get you to vote the way the drafters want you to vote.
Oh yes, and pardon me for not setting forth the procedures in all 50 states. I am familiar with Georgia’s procedure, I assume other states have similar mechanisms.
What is the procedure in your state?
Let me give you a little hint, MGibson
In other words, your constitution is amended by referendum, same as in Georgia. Satisfied?
Now, are you relying on the words of the anglican minister, Malthus, or the bug scientist who wrote “The Population Bomb”?
a) The projections are for a decline in population
b) Urban sprawl in the US is not a function of any population explosion
c) there is no indication that we are or ever will run out of land in the US.
d) the very things which cause sprawl (disposable income, a high employment rate, high paying jobs, industry) are the very things tht tend to decrease the birth rate.
From the link I provided above, there are 100 million households in the US. If each houshold were to occupy a one acre lot, it would leave 95% of the land in the country unoccupied. Not even the most unimaginable dire predictions call for the sort of population increase that would cause us to run out of land due to sprawl.
As to ammending state constitutions to centrally plan things, I can come up with a few good reasons that it’s an incredibly bad idea.
Even if it were to help with the relatively minor problem of sprawl, wouldn’t it be likely to exacerbate other problems?
Have you ever seen the effects of the urban planning schemes of the sixties? The ones that helped cause everyone to leave the cities they were trying to help.
When technology and society have changed at some point in the future, how easy will it be to change a system that was designed in every detail to meet the needs of a previous society?
Putting a single entity in charge of all development for an entire state, and the billions of dollars in construction contracts involved, is every corrupt politician’s dream.
People may have to be moved out of the way to accomplish these goals. Would the necessary property assesments be handled more fairly by a statewide agency or an agency familiar with the area?
How much will it cost to create several new statewide agencies that take the place of hundreds of city and town agencies? How many people would lose their jobs?
In a state where most of the people live in various suburbs, how would the city dwellers ensure that the suburbanites do not vote in politicians who will be even less likely to enact legislation that suburbanites object to?
I think that’s enough objections for now. When people talk about any kind of central planning, my mind immediately jumps to thoughts of the unintended consequences of their schemes. Society has never been well-served by central planning, and I doubt that it ever will be.
The ideas that I blatantly stole from the Cato Institute would provide a good first step for limiting suburban sprawl, by protecting property rights. Either you simply don’t respect property rights, or you should show how infringing on them will lead to better results. Without significantly superior results, I would always prefer the plan that is more respectful of my rights.
Y’all may trade barbs over reputible sources, but this argument seems to lack a few importantant considerations.
For starters, the market is often the primary motivating factor when urban and suburban growth is concerned. Many people simply want to live in stand-alone homes with big lawns no matter how socially irresponsible the New Urbanists may complain. So, developers respond to that market appropriately by building “McMansions” out in the hinterland which people buy happily.
People like the freedom and convenience of automobiles. So, people buy cars and eschew public transportation. Public transportation is not convenient so the freedom of the automobile is always the first choice. 45 minutes in air-conditioned and solitary automobile comfort is always superior to being jammed in a subway car because the car makes stops where the driver wants, not the urban planner. Making public transportation convenient is so wildly expensive as to be a fantasy. Put a light rail vehicle in every driveway and the New Urbanists might have a solution.
There is a psychological consideration as well. Urban areas are perceived as unsafe. Whether true or not, this perception drives settlement patterns. Suburban areas are perceived as safe. Do the math.
And here is one that most urban planners completely ignore: adults do not make real estate purchasing decisions, children do. Parents want communities that are “safe for my kids” (no minorities) and have better perceived educational systems. Parents feel that children need places to play which are close by (lawns) so they can be watched carefully without leaving the house. Suburbia is planned for kids and cars, just what the market wants.
Stopping sprawl is laudable in many senses. However, I sense that at the core of this movement is a shocking elitism that runs contrary to American values of independence and freedom. The “correct-thinking” intellectuals may poo-poo those values, but the great middle class of this country (those very people who make us so damned prosperous) still lives and breathes those beliefs and the urban planners must take that into consideration when formulated growth strategies. Better to let our values guide the planners and not the other way around.
There are also the laws of unintended consequences applied to urban planning. Limiting growth increases the cost of housing enormously which displaces the lower economic classes. The only response to that is to enact rent controls which historically have not worked particularly well. Consider the experience of Cambridge, MA and the de facto bounty system that resulted in very wealthy people living in rent controlled apartments. Small wonder rent control was recently scrapped in that community.
Just for the record, I have lived in suburban Boston, suburban Atlanta (Roswell), and currently reside in downtown Charleston, SC. I hold a degree in cultural geography so I am familiar with these kinds of issues from an academic point of view.
Then how do you propose we do it? Or should we just ignore the problem?
There are a lot of critics of so-called “urban planners” in this thread, but I don’t see the critics tossing out workable alternative solutions.
OK, that is a simplistic response to what we should do to stop sprawl, but it would probably be more effective than hurling an army of planners at the problem.
Believe it our not, by letting folks choose their own way of living, the marketplace will probably sort out the whole sprawl issue. When suburban traffic becomes unbearable, folks return to the cities. When urban living is too overbearing and dense with humanity, the move is back out to the 'burbs. The real estate marketplace does work as much I hate saying that.
Right how we are seeing a huge increase in suburbia because of the current demographics of home-buyers. They are all parents who are buying in the perceived best interests of their kids. Those demographics will change. However, there is now a remarkably fast-growing group of families without children who are selecting urban living over suburbia. This will help to counterbalance the sprawl factor. Witness the loft and condo boom in Mid-town Atlanta.
The New Urbanism planners should not be attempting to force us into patterns of living that feel unnatural. The planners should be working on a micro-scale, dealing with individual parcels of land, pockets of traffic congestion, etc. While I actually agree with many of the tenets of New Urbanism (building community, promoting more attractive places to live, etc), I would never have the hubris to believe that this planning movement should actually coerce people into ways of living that they simply don’t want. Are the contrived cities of the former Soviet Union not an excellent example of arrogant city planning?
:rolleyes: Great. The standard libertarian response to any suggestion that the government might need to take action. “That’s just the way the Soviets did it, Comrade.”
Yes, you got me there. I am obviously a communist because I believe that there is a place for government planning when it comes to growth. When the Revolution comes, we will surely send all of you suburbanites off to the gulag, where you belong.
Now please go back and read my posts before launching such juvenile attacks. I am not suggestion that the government design and build our cities for us (the Soviet model). What I am suggesting is that the government impose upon the suburbs the real costs of the burdens they place on the rest of the community. I am suggesting that the government should impose appropriate zoning restrictions. Do you think we should have no zoning laws? You might ask the good folks in Houston if that is such a hot idea.
Clearly you are correct again. I see how well the market has solved the problem in Los Angeles. :rolleyes:
Sorry, but the “marketplace” (which seems to be the libertarian equivalent of a magic word) does not solve this problem. Why? For one thing, the marketplace shifts too slowly. By the time the market forces you describe even begin to act, the environment has already been terribly degraded.
I think most people would prefer a government that sees the problem coming in advance, and tries to stop it before we reach such a sorry state. Your way is wait until a city has gone to hell, and then to say “Well gosh, we’ve sure made a mess of this place, haven’t we? Let’s move somewhere else!”
What exactly are these costs and how would you suggest charging the burbanites?
The comparison to the failed urban planning policies of the former Soviet Union is not meant as the “it is like Communism it therefore it must be bad” argument. It is an appropriate counterpoint to the impetus behind our own large-scale urban planning. Urban planning has not succeeded particularly well on a macro scale here or almost anywhere on the planet. On a micro-scale such as zoning laws, urban planning is extremely beneficial.
So do you think Los Angeles is a failure? Yes, it has a myriad of problems as does any metropolitan area. But here is the amazing thing - it continues to grow. People still move there. People stay there. There is obviously something about LA that works because houses continue to be built and sold and parents continue to raise children there. If it were indeed a failure, the mass out-migration would be phenomenal.
While I can’t figure out why anyone would actually WANT to live in the suburbs, their cost to the cities escapes me. Is a suburb truly a middle-class parasite to the accompanying urban area? The economic and social relationship between core and periphery is very mutual and always has been historically. Lewis Mumford is an excellent scholar in that department. As well, with satellite cities growing up in the 'burbs, the traditional relationship between urban and suburban is changing drastically and perhaps too fast for government to react.
As for the real estate marketplace reacting slower than government, please, that is highly unlikely. Government moves slowly all the time because it cannot act without appropriate study and input from the citizenry and experts. That is the way it should be lest it become too arrogant. I would rather be able to make my own decisions on where I wish to live rather than a well-meaning but all-powerful government entity forcing those decisions on me. The government is absolutely vital in protecting the environment and ensuring that the basic needs of its citizens are met. But government urban planners designing a quality of life by inventing urban and suburban geographies on a large scale? That is scary because it has rarely worked.
spoke-, excellent job ignoring the seven major problems I found with your proposed solution.
As I see it, the problems associated with suburban sprawl would be better dealt with by the market than with central planning. The market forces involved have been fucked up by government involvement. For example, the government provides interstate highways for free, thus negating a major disadvantage to living in the suburbs. The suburbs themselves also often refuse to allow higher density development with their zoning laws. In short, one of the major factors in making sprawl a problem were the result of people using the government to get something they wanted for free.
Really? You don’t think the “marketplace” moves more slowly than the government on environmental issues? How, exactly would “the market” have saved bald eagles from extinction, for example? (I’ll save you the time. It wouldn’t have. By the time the knowledge that DDT was killing them off saturated the marketplace–even making the bold assumption that the knowledge alone would have kept corporations from using the stuff–the eagles would have been gone.)
water2j wrote:
Sigh. I can’t spend my days responding to every lame argument that every libertarian yahoo decides to post. Sorry if that bruises your ego. But if it’ll make you feel better:
First of all, the government doesn’t provide anything for free. It’s paid for by the citizens through taxes. (TANSTAAFL, remember?) What the government has done is to subsidize suburbs on the backs of non-suburban-dwelling citizens by not imposing upon suburbanites the full costs of such things as road and sewer improvements. Which is exactly the point I’ve been making. End the subsidy, sez I.
Exactly. Which is why I’m saying that zoning should be handled on a regional basis rather than a local basis. Take away the power of the local governments to create these sprawling monstrosities.
Would y’all please stop setting up the straw man of (cue ominous music here) “centralized urban planning”? I am not talking about government-constructed housing, or even government-sponsored housing. What I am talking about is wiser utilization of zoning laws and tax laws to discourage sprawl.
First off sprawl ain’t no minor problem, but I won’t re-hash the whole thread here. Secondly, what “other problems”? I can’t refute your arguments if you are only going to hint at them.
I dunno… The many “planned cities” of Europe seem to have adapted to change rather nicely. Besides, who’s talking about planning “every detail”? Are you saying we shouldn’t plan at all? Hell, let people find their own water sources. Let 'em treat their own sewage. Screw the people downstream!
Oh yes, and local zoning boards are corruption-free paragons of virtue. :rolleyes: At least if you reduce the number of people making zoning decisions, you make it easier to keep an eye on them. As it is now, corruption is rampant. If I sit here real quietly, I can almost hear the sound of a hundred cash-filled envelopes being passed to zoning board members across Atlanta this morning. As far as state board politicians becoming corrupt is concerned, you fight that by putting strong financial disclosure laws in place, and making the politicians establish the source of any mysterious increases in their wealth. Much easier to do at the state level than the local level.
Let me get this straight. You want me to cry over zoning board officials losing their fiefdoms? Hang on…let me see if I can squeeze out a tear or two…
For the very reasons cited by suburbanites in this thread. People who already live in the suburbs want to put obstacles to other people moving there. Hell, use grandfather clauses if you have to, but let’s at least stop the suburban sprawl beast from spreading any further.
If I can put my $0.03 in (that includes state tax)…
I live in Woodbury, MN, which is a suburb of St. Paul. Woodbury is the burb most cited as being an example of sprawl, at least in the Twin Cities.
If this sprawl is bad, I don’t see it. I have the convenience of shopping, recreation, and healthcare without having to go into St. Paul, and the only time I have to go into town for anything is when I want to.
Fortunately, there is the attitude here that recreation opportunities and greenspace are important enough to plan for, and there are several recreation centers, parks, and a fairly OK public library that’s part of a county system. It is a fairly pleasant town in which to spend time and money, and I feel that my taxes are well-spent.
The downside is that public transit is almost entirely absent, and the traffic layout wasn’t designed to handle the kind of traffic that it’s getting now. I have about six traffic lights (literally, I counted) between my apartment complex and the shopping center a mile away. Some of them may be necessary (like the two that regulate traffic coming off a major highway), but it’s still a pain in the butt to sit in a snarl for fifteen to twenty minutes (during rush hour) and wait on lights.
Complicating the public transit issue is that the local public bus company, MetroTransit (which is planned and operated on a regional level), only operates commuter bus service to both downtowns. I can’t go anywhere without going thru downtown St. Paul or Minneapolis. I asked about a bus route to the Mall of America. Their response? “We don’t think there’s a demand for service to the Mall of America.” We don’t think??? I guess their research is a little old, because the people I’ve talked to think it’s a good idea.
Finally, yes, housing prices are unreasonable here. The median home price in the Twin Cities area is $145,000. Woodbury is at least one and-a-half times to twice that. It’s a new community, dating back thirty years or so, and it tends to attract professionals with money, so the concept of affordable housing isn’t really here yet. There are townhomes and smaller houses, but not very many. (Gotta keep the riff-raff out, ya know.)
For the most part, tho, if this is sprawl, bring it on!
Those are observations, not facts.
Robin
Um, spoke-, I wasn’t disagreeing with you on every point. While I consider the government providing roads that do not cost their users anything they hadn’t been forced to pay ahead of time to be pretty much free, my point was that the subsidy should be ended. The highways should have tolls to discourage people from clogging them as much.
I also agreed that the power of local zoning boards should be cut down. I simply proposed using a currently available legal remedy. The Fourth Ammendment guarantees just compensation for the taking of property. Overly restrictive zoning laws are considered a form of taking property, and developers can sue for damages. I see this as a preferable solution to centralizing zoning decisions for the state.
I think if you were to look up my posts, you would find that I am not generally a yahoo. I think you simply equate libertarianism with stupidity and are reluctant to give me any leeway bacause of it.
Anyways, your original plan was to entirely eliminate citywide government, not just zoning boards. That was the notion I was finding so much trouble with (e.g. firing all city employees in every city, and the possibility of creating additional problems). As for corruption, I maintain that bribing a single group of people that control the whole pie is easier than bribing a number of different groups of people, each with a small slice of it.
In discussing the example of the sixties, I was merely pointing out the possibility that todays ideas of the correct solutions may turn out to be just as wrong.
The median is $230,000 in Denver. And the only housing below that is way out in the burbs. Stop sprawl and we will see prices reach what they are in the desireable parts of town: $300 per square foot.
Spoke: a) you are ignoring the problem of population density. Less space for growth + more people = crowding. I take it that living on top of each other is not a qaulity of life issue for you?
b) The cost of running electricity, schools, sewers, water lines, etc. are usually born by the individual towns. How on earth do you figure that the city is subsidizing the suburbs? you keep bringing this up but haven’t given a credible or reasoned answer. Sure there was your argument that the burbanites descend nightly uppon the city stealing its resources and ruthlessly dumping money in the business establishments…
c) not every city has a Virginia Highlands in the city. ANd I might add that houses there are completely unaffordable to any but the wealthy.
d) even if regional zoning is put into place and apartnment dwellers get to decide how houses are built, what are you going to do about the problem of making land even more scarce" Where would you put all the people?
Aw, heck. I know you’re not a yahoo. I’m just giving you “the business”. I should have tacked on one of those winking smilies at the end of my comment, I guess.
It is true that I am impatient with libertarians, and yes, probably even dismissive of them. This comes from years of debating libertarians. I know this’ll stir up another hornet’s nest but…
I find libertarianism to be a simplistic political philosophy. In that regard, it is in the same category as communism. It’s one of those plans for governing that looks good in the brochures, but then once you get into the nuts and bolts of it, you see its failings. “The Marketplace” is relied upon to solve every problem. Well, history teaches pretty clearly that markets don’t solve every problem. That’s how we ended up with all the laws we have. There was a problem, the market hadn’t solved it, so the government stepped in and made a law.
The other problem I have with libertarianism is its “Chicken Little” quality. (Cue "America the Beautiful…)Americans are living in the most powerful and prosperous nation in the history of the planet, at the very moment of its zenith. Sure, there are flaws in our system (as I am pointing out with this thread, I hope), but our government does not need a complete overhaul as libertarians suggest. Only some fine-tuning, which is what I am suggesting with this thread.
I was talking rather flippantly about eliminating local governments. They do serve some useful functions (e.g. police and court systems). My real complaint is with localized zoning and infrastructure decisions that ignore the larger picture. I believe decisions on development must be made based upon a view from a wider lens.
[Moderator Hat ON]
Posting this exchange for Mr. Zambezi and jusatwannano, since it accidentally got posted as a separate topic instead of in the thread it was supposed to post to.
06-15-2000 12:21 PM
Mr. Zambezi: spoke-- I saw a program on panama last night on Scientific American Frontiers. A geologist said that before Central America was created, the gulf stream used to flow between north and south america into the pacific.
When CA came into being, the gulf stream was forced to curve back to the north. Off the coas of Europe it split with part going to europe and part flowing down to Africa.
His theory is that this change in ocean currentts caused a change in the climate of north Africa.
Just thought you would like to know.
06-15-2000 02:33 PM
justwannano: Zambezi
Is this a misquote or did he really say the gulfstream flowed east to west?
“…the gulf stream used to flow between north and south america into the pacific.”
06-15-2000 02:44 PM
Mr.Zambezi: Nope, that is what teh show said. actually it was a diagram and it looked like it flowed more from the SE to the north west, going through the area that is currently (pun intended) Central America.
Actually, I meant to post this in the “Suburban Sprawl” thread and accidentally made it a topic. But, hey, feel free to debate.