If you read the press from around the country, you cannot help but notice how the issue of sprawl has exploded into the national consciousness. From Portland to Washington, DC, from Georgia to Minnesota, commuters are suddenly noticing just how much of their own time is wasted as they are stuck in traffic, along with the realization, in many cases, that those commute times have increased enormously in a few short years. They also see new housing and other development in open space and farmland where they didn't expect it any time soon, if ever.
Citizens are angered about this issue. It is bad enough that people have to work long hours just to get by, but it is even more infuriating to see their shrinking personal time sucked up in worsening gridlock. And this issue crosses class lines — gridlock creates equal-opportunity misery, from BMW pilots to Chevy truck drivers.
In the 1998 election voters passed overwhelmingly the approximate 200 state and local ballot initiatives designed to contain sprawl. Politicians who pledged to hold the line on development and slow-growth were similarly successful. In California, seven communities approved urban growth boundaries.
While all this political activity is good news in a symptomatic sort of way, the reaction fails to take account of the cause. More houses are being built because there are more people needing a place to live. In this, the pro-growth National Association of Homebuilders is quite correct.
NON-CAUSAL REPORTAGE
Sprawl just happens, it would seem. Rather like spontaneous combustion, the unpleasant symptom occurs without warning and causes icky nastiness. Stripmalls and crowding and traffic … oh my!
At least that is what one would think from reading news reports on the subject. Using the recent-tourist-from-Mars standard as the ideal of objectivity, news stories describe community overcrowding with a dull amazement. How we got into this situation is almost never addressed.
And there are a lot of news stories. Regional papers are now frequently running tales of impossible commutes, subdivisions appearing on previous farmland, overcrowded schools with trailers for classrooms and America the Beautiful becoming America the Stripmall.
It is not surprising then that a problem that just happens would receive a solution that has no relation to the cause.
Policy wonks talk up the well-funded “smart growth” movement without addressing the basic question: “Will smart growth solve the problem?” That's because an honest answer is a resounding “No!” The highly vaunted “smart growth” only slows the rapid spread of development outward as it creates denser urban living.
It's true that a certain amount of urban infill makes sense. Current tax policies encourage the development of farmland and open space rather than the redevelopment of abandoned city areas which are wasted in non-use. But the inherent limitations of this approach should be obvious.
“SMART GROWTH” — STACKING THE DECK CHAIRS ON THE TITANIC
Environmentalists who should know better have hitched their wagon to the “smart growth” policy fad. But this planning approach — based on building more population density within cities and increasing public transit — is a band-aid on the Titanic. Maximum denial is the operative mode, with the word “population” rarely mentioned, much less “immigration.”
“Smart growth” advocates must be made to admit that their scheme is no more than a delaying action at best. And how long will “growth boundaries” around cities realistically last, with a near-doubling of U.S. population in 50 years? Just how happy will Americans be with Manhattan-level housing densities? Are we full yet?
Immigration reformers should be involving themselves in this winning issue whenever possible. Connect the dots where the media does not: Sprawl comes from population growth and population growth is mostly from immigration.
“Sprawl — it's population, stupid.”
— by Brenda Walker
