Today’s Daily Hampshire Gazette features a guest column written by Dennis Helmus and Adam Cohen, members of NSNA. The column, reprinted below, touches on a number of points we have raised in recent weeks. We have added links so topics can be explored in greater detail.
The hidden risks of ‘smart growth’
By Dennis Helmus and Adam Cohen
Smart growth, as reflected in the Sustainable Northampton plan, has been the subject of numerous debates across the country. Smart growth principles include mandating compact development, higher population densities, more multi-family dwellings, less suburban sprawl, and less auto driving – all with the best of intentions.
Before Northampton travels down this path, however, we can learn a lot from the experience of others. In some cities, smart growth has led to unaffordable home prices, the departure of families with children, increased traffic congestion, and even a kind of “leapfrog” sprawl.
The Portland, Ore., metro region is considered a smart growth pioneer, going back to the early 1970s. Portland adopted urban growth boundary restrictions to preserve open space outside the boundary. Transportation initiatives have emphasized public transit over road-building.
Problems emerged, however. With space restricted for building, home prices soared. By 1999, the Portland region was the eighth-least affordable housing market in America, according to the National Association of Home Builders. Pressures for development threaten the remaining greenspace within the boundary: 10,000 acres of parks, fields and golf courses have been rezoned for infill.
Many homebuyers, especially those with children, began to avoid Portland in their quest for affordable, conventional homes with yards. This ironically fostered sprawl (PDF) and traffic as people migrated to cities outside the region’s authority, such as Vancouver, Wash.
Portland discovered that people tend to hang on to their cars, even as density increases. The city’s population density is about 45 percent higher than the average of the largest 200 metro areas. Its “vehicle miles traveled” per square mile is 42 percent higher.
Besides hoping that people will stop driving, another critical assumption of smart growth advocates is that it’s cheaper to add density to existing urban infrastructure than to add infrastructure to new areas. Harvard researchers Alan Altshuler and Jose Gómez-Ibáñez find that the reverse is true. Portland, for example, needs a multibillion-dollar consolidated sewer outflow system to manage surface water accumulations from its dense development and the spread of impervious surfaces.
Smart growth-related problems have been seen in a variety of locales. Bozeman, Montana (population 35,000), is similar in size to Northampton.
Steven Greenhut, a columnist for the Orange County Register, is critical of its Portland-style growth controls:
Creating unattractive and high-density projects in a place awash in open space only pushes people farther out into the countryside. In Belgrade, eight miles away, one finds market-driven suburban-style subdivisions. That city does not have many restrictions, and those who cannot afford Bozeman or who want a bigger place simply move away, thus promoting the sprawl that Smart Growthers are trying to stop…We are not down on all aspects of Smart growth. We applaud the revitalization of urban brownfields, underused commercial parcels and dilapidated buildings. This is an area where government intervention can truly make a difference, helping to clean up contamination, secure funding, and relieve developers of legal and regulatory uncertainties.
Most appalling in Bozeman: The newcomers who sold their houses in the Silicon Valley and Seattle have plenty of money to buy the fancy log houses on 20 acres with views of the mountain ranges. Now that they are here they are doing everything they can to a) stop newcomers from coming; b) force anyone without their income levels to live in drab high-density housing. They get their piece of the Montana Dream, and everyone else can take a hike.
We have the sense, though, that structural problems with Northampton’s finances are a major force driving the desire for growth. As former mayor Mary Ford said at the Nov. 8 Sustainable Northampton hearing, without new growth, the city’s expenses exceed its revenues. It would be a shame if we irrevocably gave up major portions of our remaining in-town greenspace, and tried to impose unwanted densities on urban neighborhoods, just to patch up budget holes that will recur in the future. Before we transform the character of the city, we need to step back and evaluate why we need growth. If the task is to bring the municipal budget into balance, there may be better approaches.
Taking the long view, we are concerned that smart growth could gradually transform Northampton into a community that’s inhospitable to families with young children. It’s easy to see how they might pack up for Easthampton, Hadley, or other surrounding towns. Children do cost Northampton money, particularly when it comes to public education, but young families infuse the city with energy and variety, and children with fond memories and deep local roots grow up to be adults who will care for Northampton in the future. That, to us, is true sustainability.
See also:
Gazette: “Dire forecast for area municipal budgets” (12/12/07)
Up against their tax caps and watching health insurance, pension and energy costs far outpace their ability to raise revenue, communities around the region and across the state are eyeing a nightmare scenario…
Northampton used $1.2 million in one-time money to plug a shortfall, or structural deficit, in its current budget and is anticipating a similar scenario when it balances next year’s budget…
…service cuts are a real possibility next year if the financial picture in the commonwealth doesn’t change, [Northampton Mayor Clare Higgins] said…
‘The state doesn’t seem to be willing to move on local option taxes, which would be a huge benefit to us,’ Higgins said. ‘I’d like to see a local meals tax passed, and the state really needs to look at all its revenue sources and determine whether the mix of revenues makes sense.’
New York Times: “Vibrant Cities Find One Thing Missing: Children”
After interviewing 300 parents who had left the city, researchers at Portland State found that high housing costs and a desire for space were the top reasons…
Seeing Like a State: Planning Gone Awry in the 20th Century
Cities tend to be complex organisms, Scott observes, so planners are constantly tempted to try to simplify their task:
Once the desire for comprehensive urban planning is established, the logic of uniformity and regimentation is well-nigh inexorable. Cost effectiveness contributes to this tendency… [E]very concession to diversity is likely to entail a corresponding increase in administrative time and budgetary cost… (p.141-142)In Northampton, the simplification du jour appears to be a drive to segregate our open space to the periphery, while weakening greenspace preservation in the more urban districts where it is already scarce.
Large Lots Gobble Up Land in Massachusetts
…a relatively slow growth rate for single-family houses has been outweighed by a trend toward bigger home sizes and lots…
While infill will continue in selected submarkets, smart growth advocates should aggressively pursue higher-density, quality development at the periphery rather than the typical low-density suburban sprawl of the past 50 years (Danielsen, Lang, and Fulton 1999). (p.26-27)
Suburban ‘Raise the Drawbridge’ Sentiment Motivates Some Smart Growth Policies
In 1998, the Prince William County Supervisors approved the region’s first major slow growth plan. The Prince William plan set aside nearly half of the county land in a “rural crescent” in which future new home construction and other development will only be allowed on ten-acre plots. The result, predictably, is a major increase in land prices… [S]ix-figure income homebuyers – attracted by the large, secluded lots and gated developments – are moving to the county in droves. Many of these affluent new residents first sought assurances from the county that the land-use restrictions would continue to be enforced once they purchased their homes… Prince William newcomer Greg Gorham, a software developer, moved from another Virginia suburb because a builder constructed 20 townhouses on land next to him. “That was the thing I really didn’t want to have happen to me again,” said Gorham…
Randal O’Toole: “The Folly of ‘Smart Growth'”
The region’s cities and counties encountered major opposition when they tried to rezone existing neighborhoods to higher densities. One Portland suburb recalled its mayor and two members of its city council from office after they endorsed higher densities over local opposition. To meet their targets, planners turned to rezoning farms and other open spaces as high-density areas…
People who are disabled, too old, too young, too poor, or otherwise unable to drive have long been the major users of public transit… [I]nstead of building high-cost, high-capacity rail lines and then attempting to redesign cities to provide ridership, planners should focus on designing transit systems systems to serve low-density urban areas. That means using low-capacity jitneys, shuttle vans, and demand-responsive transit systems. It also means demonopolizing public transit, opening the door for private providers of transportation services…
“Sprawl and Smart Growth” (PDF) by Jane S. Shaw
Senior Associate, Political Economy Research Center, Bozeman, MT
Randal O’Toole, head of the Thoreau Institute, points out that according to Census Bureau surveys, 90 percent of commuters typically drive to work. Only when densities reach 5,000 per square mile (in cities such as Seattle, Chicago, and Boston) does the percentage of drivers start to go down from this high level…
…the net result of adding roads is less congestion. Studies show that metropolitan areas that have built more streets have seen less increase in congestion than cities that haven’t added as many…
Mary Riddel, “A Dynamic Approach to Estimating Hedonic Prices for Environmental Goods: An Application to Open Space Purchases”
One important outcome of the Boulder [Colorado] open space purchase program has been leapfrog development of areas outside the greenbelt. Many critics of the program maintain that development was not thwarted, but rather relocated. Our [research] results support this conclusion. In fact, commercial and residential expansion occurred because of the program.
Wendell Cox: “METROPOLITAN DENVER AT RISK: How Densification Will Intensify Traffic Congestion, Air Pollution and the Housing Affordability Crisis”
Asian and European urban areas have far higher population densities than US areas. They also have much better transit systems with much higher levels of service. Yet, Figure #11 shows that traffic intensity is greater in nations with higher population densities. European traffic intensities are twice that of American urban areas. The same is true in the United States, where higher levels of traffic congestion occur where population densities are higher…
What is in vogue is not always correct…
Planners and architects in the 1950s thought that 20-story public housing projects were the answer — the same projects that are being imploded around the country today…
Metro Portland’s Long Experience with Smart Growth: A Cautionary Tale
Restrictive growth policies actually caused increased suburbanization in Portland, which now has the 10th greatest suburbanization rate in U.S. As home prices went up in the site-restricted metropolitan area, families moved further out to find affordable housing. Portland actually has rates of suburbanization that are close to that in metropolitan areas with so-called “white flight” and other central city problems. This phenomenon increases vehicle miles traveled as it lengthens commutes…
Denser multi-family housing requires more costly construction techniques, further increasing the cost of housing…
The notion that potential homeowners would prefer to pay the higher cost of high-density housing as an alternative to the traditional home/yard/neighborhood environment style of raising families is wrong. The percentage of families moving to the Portland area that buy or rent within the UGB [Urban Growth Boundary] has fallen dramatically since site restrictions were implemented…
…regional planners in Portland have been holding the line on the [Urban Growth Boundary] by assuming away housing market responses, and by opportunistically redefining the concept of capacity…
Small cities surrounded by developable land, like Eugene and Salem, now have housing prices that rival those in San Francisco Bay Area communities, when the purchasing power of local incomes is considered…
Planetizen: “Trouble in Smart Growth’s Nirvana” (6/30/02)
Densification is no more popular in Portland’s neighborhoods than it is in Berkeley, Boulder or Bozeman. As a result, a recent citizen’s initiative sought to limit Metro’s (the land use regulation agency) densification power. Metro feared passage so much that it placed a competing densification referendum on the ballot, which passed with 66 percent of the vote. The citizen’s initiative received a respectable 43 percent…
Berk
eley, California: Cautions on Infill
Citizen input into long-range planning is excellent—which is why citizens are so astonished when their plans are entirely ignored by the current Planning Division. Developers sometimes work successfully with neighbors to create good and popular developments, but a long list of appeals, lawsuits, and despised large developments indicates a major problem. Staff routinely stonewalls, obfuscates, refuses to respond, and ignores neighborhood concerns. In contradiction to our own ordinances, staff makes no genuine attempt to facilitate cooperation between applicants and neighbors. Instead, propelled by their simplistic “smart growth” philosophy, staff encourages developers to build the largest possible projects over neighborhood objections…
In 1990, 60 percent of New Yorkers said they would live somewhere else if they could, and in 2000, 70 percent of urbanites in Britain felt the same way. Many suburbanites commute hours every day just to have “a home, a bit of private space, and fresh air.”
Pictures of Northampton Streets at Various Densities
Northampton Redoubt: Urban Ecology, Planting Trees, and the Long-Term View
If we remove all of our in-town forested areas and wetlands they will likely be gone forever or at least a very long time. We would do well for posterity to err on the side of caution.
Syd Gernstein: “Brownfields Revitalization Cuts Urban Blight, Suburban Sprawl”
Gazette Guest Column: “Give residents a role in city issues”