Smart Growth in the Early 21st Century:
New Circumstances, Preferences, Policies and Politics
DRAFT of April 13, 2005
Robert Liberty, Metro Councilor, Portland, Oregon
Annual Symposium on Rethinking Growth Management
Interdisciplinary Ph.D. Program in Urban Design and Planning
University of Washington, Seattle Washington
April 14-15, 2005
Introduction
Growth management1 – as a conscious effort to shape how and where development,
redevelopment and conservation occurs - is in large part the product of policy. Policy is the
product of politics (which are shaped by circumstances and public preferences.)
It is certainly worthwhile to rethink existing programs either to find to find better ways of
achieving existing objectives or because we have changed our minds about appropriate
objectives.2 It is also worthwhile to think about how growth management is likely to
change because of changing circumstances and preferences in the world around us and the
politics that will respond to those changes. That is what this paper attempts to do, at least
in a modest way.
Looking Backward
The dominant pattern of development in America for the last half of the 20th Century was
far more the result of circumstances, politics and the resulting policies, than the
consequence of any “free market.”
1
Growth management is normally discussed in narrow contexts – the adoption and execution of urban design
or rural landscape management programs or policies over the course of a decade or two, at the municipal,
regional or state level.
In fact, the management of growth (including the package of policies and programs denominated Smart
Growth) applies to many more activities and efforts. Growth management is carried out directly, indirectly
and unintentionally. It operates at different physical and temporal scales. Growth management can be
expressed at the scale of the individual building and lot, at the scale of the neighborhood, the city, the
metropolitan region, at the level of states and multi-state regions, nationally and even internationally.
Temporally it takes place every hour as local officials and private parties make decisions regarding
development or conservation of land. It can also span generations, as cities or rural regions of a nation, or an
entire nation, experience growth and decay.
2
This paper is written from the perspective of someone who supports Smart Growth policies, in general.
The economic and social circumstances that laid the groundwork for the growth
management policies of the mid-20th century included:
Fifteen years of deferred urban infrastructure investment during the Depression and
World War II (1930 to 1945) that resulted in urban decay and reinforced the desire
to leave the cities.
Fifteen years of reduced (deferred) childbirth, that led to the Baby Boom of the
1950s and 1960s.
The Depression, which led to the election of a liberal Congress and the passage of
progressive reforms, including those that fueled sprawl later in the century.
World War II, which provided jobs and promoted savings (both through bond
purchases and because of reduced opportunities for consumption);
Defense spending during World War II, which spurred growth in the West and
South.
The devastating impact of World War II on Europe, the Soviet Union, Japan and
Asia, which left the US as the mightiest and unchallenged economic power in the
world.
These circumstances led to the politics and then the much-discussed policies that created
and promoted the “Ozzie and Harriett” pattern of suburban development. These include:
Federal transportation investment strategy focused on building infrastructure for
only one kind of transportation, the automobile, regardless of urban or rural context.
We socialized the roads and highways while railroad and transit tracks remained
private.
The spread of suburban zoning dictated a one-size fits all pattern for new suburban
growth that separated uses and people and that suppressed demand for density.
Federal home mortgage insurance which allowed for much easier financing for
home purchases.
The Federal home loan appraisal manual plus urban renewal programs devalued and
displaced low income citizens, especially people of color, accelerating urban
polarization and decay.3
3
I am skeptical that the deductibility of home mortgage interest had more than a slight net effect on
home ownership. Because it put more money in the hands of the home-buying part of the
population it undoubtedly increased prices simultaneously. I also doubt that the deductibility of
mortgage interest necessarily resulted in low-density suburban style development.
2
Various Federal tax policies favored building anew instead of reinvesting and
renovating.
Our nation’s cities, town and landscapes reflects those policies from fifty years ago and
differentiate our places even from the country most like us, Canada.
Today
We are a very different nation than we were 50 years ago. We are nation of 300 million,
instead of 150 million, occupying the same land area. Our nation is more polluted and our
cities and lands more degraded, and we are more aware of it.
The nation is much more metropolitan (most people live in metro regions with populations
of 1 million or more4) – but less urban - older, more Southern, more Western. Many of us
are richer, with bigger houses and cars.
We have far more ethnic and racial variety and attitudes toward race and ethnicity have
changed. Women have made great advances in social and economic opportunity as they
entered the workforce and this change has shaped our culture, our neighborhoods and our
transportation system. Attitudes toward marriage and family have changed dramatically
and this has changed the size and variety of households. Fewer of us work in
manufacturing or belong to unions.
In this changed world, the communities of the 1950s no longer make as much sense. se
policies have also created some of the problems that are inspiring re-evaluation and reform
of the explicit and indirect growth management policies of the mid-20th Century.
Because of the growing between the world today and the places shaped by the policies of
50 years ago growth management has rapidly matured as a field of public interest and
academic study. It has broadened rapidly in scope in the last 20 years, to encompass topics
as diverse as race relations, public health, ecology, digital data analysis and energy policy.
“Smart growth” has emerged as the leading normative expression of growth management
and has achieved many of the aspects of a movement.
Changes in Federal, state and local government policies in the last 15 years are enabling
and promoting Smart Growth. These new policies include:
A significant change in Federal transportation investments beginning with ISTEA
(1991) and continuing with TEA-21 (1997).
4
Although we seem unaware of it. Most people would be surprised to learn that metropolitan Portland
Oregon-Washington has a bigger population than Stockholm or Prague and is about the same size as Vienna.
The population of metropolitan Los Angeles is larger than any city in Europe. However, the population of
our metropolitan regions are rapidly being eclipsed by urban areas in Asia, Africa and South America.
3
Passage of major transit funding measures around the United States in the last
decade, including $5 billion for transit in Denver (passed in 2004 with 20%
margin), $5 billion in Phoenix (passed in 2004 with 20% margin).
Passage of many ballot measures to fund the acquisition of parks and open space.
Passage of initiatives establishing urban growth boundaries or the equivalent, in
many communities in Northern and Southern California.
Bi-partisan gubernatorial support for Smart Growth policy efforts in Michigan and
Massachusetts.
Defeat in 2003 of effort in Congress to eliminate the community enhancement
provisions of the Federal transportation legislation.
Regional planning efforts that appear vigorous (although they have yet to translate
into changes on the ground) in a few metropolitan regions, including Salt Lake
City, Denver, Atlanta.
These changes in policy and changes in circumstances are reflected in, and help promote,
changes in American cities and citizens’ choice of housing, neighborhoods and travel.
Looking Forward
The continuation of late 20th Century American demographic trends and new circumstances
will shape growth management in the early 21st Century in the US. Many of these
circumstances and trends are working in favor of Smart Growth policies. At the national
level they include:
Rising gas prices, which many observers believe will continue over the long term
because of rising demand and level or falling supplies.
Federal gas tax revenues likely to rise only slightly, stabilizing the amount of
money available for new roads and highways.
Leveling off of per capita vehicle ownership.
Looming crisis in maintaining or replacing many urban roads, highways and sewers
now nearing the end of their useful life. The necessity of repairing and replacing
these facilities is likely to result in “fix it first” policies rather than on adding new
capacity that supports more sprawling development.
Continuing large number of childless families (pioneers in urban resettlement.)
Aging of the Baby Boomers, many of whom are seeking urban locations served by
transit for their retirement.
4
Continuing decline in the intensity of racism5 and increase in numbers of persons
and families preferring racial and ethnic diversity in their neighborhoods.
General rise in support for environmental policies, although there are still secondary
values not strong enough to influence the outcomes of most elections.
GIS and more sophisticated computer modeling are giving more power and
precision to planning analyses. The next generation of digital, integrated, traffic
management systems, could squeeze more efficiencies out of the existing road
network, which should yield less sprawl than managing traffic through expanding
the road network.
Many more examples of mixed use development, higher intensity uses for
consumers to see and for banks to use as comparables for financing.
Many (but not all) immigrants for reasons of choice and necessity will live in urban
centers.
Growth of national, state and regional Smart Growth advocacy groups and
coalitions and the creation of various academic and think-tank institutions to
devoted to Smart Growth, that mark its coming of age as a policy subject.
Significant changes in professional understanding and training in the fields of urban
planning, design and landscape design. (Less change in the field of architecture.)
This heralds changes in the future form of development and redevelopment.
Significant downtown revitalization occurring in a growing number of cities,
including New York, Boston, Washington, Providence, Chicago, Denver, Los
Angeles, San Diego which, with the right circumstances, will spread to other cities.
Sharply rising demand for higher and high density residential development
(including soaring demand for high rise condominium developments in San Diego,
Seattle, Portland) which has recently led to the entry of traditional suburban
developers into condo market.
Transit use has been rising faster than driving or population.
Nonetheless, progress in achieving more policies to implement Smart Growth6is not
inevitable. There are many domestic circumstances working against or neutralizing Smart
Growth policies:
5
In America, the strongest expression of racism exists (asymmetrically) between Americans of European and
African ancestry and this is reflected in various ways spatially. Polling over time has shown a steady rise of
the number of Euro-Americans who would live in neighborhoods that are up to 25% African-American. A
much higher percentage of African-Americans are willing to live in neighborhoods that are 50% Euro-
American.
5
Institutional momentum behind sprawling patterns of development, including local
zoning, bank finance standards, professional standards for the design of schools,
universities, hospitals, roads, highways, and industrial parks. All of these
development patterns are set into concrete.
Fundamental failure to subordinate transportation investments to land use planning.
Glacial change, if any change at all, in the governance of metropolitan areas,
despite some efforts in the form of city-county consolidation (e.g. Louisville).
Instead we remain hobbled by political boundaries from one or two centuries ago
and the associated fiscal inequalities. Even England was able to change and
rationalize the boundaries of counties that had existed for 600 years.
Increases in automobile fuel efficiencies, including hybrid engines.
The development of competitive, small-scale energy sources; solar, wind power and
fuel cells, could spur even more rural sprawl.
Increasing per capita consumption of housing (bigger houses for smaller
households).
Accelerating decline in economic and social vitality of vast areas of older suburbs
and their decreasing desirability and suitability for 21st century families.
Consolidation of retail sector into fewer, more powerful and conservative
companies, especially Wal-Mart, which adhere to a sprawl-style development
6
Policies and institutional changes that could speed Smart Growth (included whether they are
currently political feasible or not):
Subordination and integration of transportation infrastructure planning and finance into
land use planning, beginning at the local level and working its way up to the metropolitan
and state level.
Putting transit and highway investments on an equal playing field with respect to matching
grant shares and impact analyses.
Reforming the composition of Metropolitan Planning Organizations to reflect actual populations and
providing for direct Federal block grants to MPOs for multimodal transportation investments that are
subordinated to a regional plan for redevelopment and development. Another alternative would be
to elect MPO members directly.
Shifting the burden of property taxes onto land and away from improvements (as proposed by Henry
George) in urban areas and the reverse in rural areas.
Prohibit class based zoning on a municipal level and discourage it on a neighborhood level.
Metropolitan tax base sharing.
6
pattern and which lead to the abandonment of downtowns, main streets and
commercial strips.
Consolidation and concentration of corporate headquarters leave smaller and
medium sized cities with a much smaller corps of enlightened business leadership
that can support civic re-investment.
Rising social polarization reinforcing class separation across most metropolitan
regions.
Density is still falling in many urban areas – metropolitan Los Angeles is now much
denser than metropolitan New York.
The No Child Left Behind program, which highlights inner city school failings
without providing funds to fix them, can accelerate the flight of families from inner
city and older suburban school districts.
Exurban sprawl (2 to 20 acre lots) is fundamentally and probably irreparably
fragmenting large areas around core urban areas, using up 5 to 10 times as much
land (in absolute terms) as urban growth.
Concentrations of poverty continued to lead to weakening of central city school
systems with resulting flight of middle class families with children.
The continuing struggle to maintain, let alone expand, high speed inter-urban rail
transportation.
Virtual communities are replacing actual communities as the subject for civic
engagement.
Growth management policies are pushed and pulled in different directions by these
changing circumstances. Sometimes the circumstances shape the politics and hence the
policies of growth management. But those policies are shaped by politics that often have
nothing to do with changes in economy, society or the environment.
For example, in the near term, Osama Bin Laden has probably had a more profound
influence on growth management policy than any think tank, change in demographics, or
the election or defeat of any governor or mayor. Osama Bin Laden’s October threat letter
may have been the decisive factor in the re-election of George W. Bush.
Voters did not vote on growth management but the result of voting on a particular approach
to counter-terrorism will have profound impacts on growth management policies because
the Bush Administration and national Republican leadership are in strident opposition to
various smart growth policies, including funding Amtrak and transit, public housing and
various environmental laws that indirectly help promote Smart Growth.
7
Some other political changes that could hinder Smart Growth policies in the coming years
include:
Polarization of Federal transportation policy would lead to the end of transportation
reform begun with ISTEA.
A revived “property rights” movement borrowing strength from its ideological
allies will slow Smart Growth policies.7
Ideological extremism by elected officials on the right will prevent the passage of
many Smart Growth proposals that actually have wide, bi-partisan support among
the electorate.
Political changes that could help Smart Growth policies in the coming years:
The embrace of Smart Growth principles by organized labor and minority
organizations will add weight to the efforts. The National Association of Realtors
has also begun to support various Smart Growth policies at the national level (while
opposition at the state level can be venomous, as in Oregon).
Candidates who entered local politics in the 1990s on a Smart Growth platform will
begin to shape state and local growth management policies over the next decade.
Continuing aging of the critical voting block of middle-class Baby Boomers who
will want to maintain an active life without cars or yards.
Continued public support at the ballot box for investments in public transit and open
space and parks, votes that send signals to elected officials in these areas.
However, a list of national factors and politics is not the sum total of important factual and
political influence on growth management in the early 21st Century. In addition to these
domestic changes, there are many international and global influences that will increasingly
shape how and where our nation develops, redevelops and conserves.
The rise of India and China as major manufacturing powers will continue the
process of emptying out old industrial communities. Just as the textile mill towns
of New England withered with the migration of these companies to the South a
century ago, the older cities and town which manufactured televisions, air
7
The widely accepted interpretation (by both the right and the left) of Oregonians’ passage of Measure 37 in
November 2004 is almost certainly incorrect because it assumes a highly sophisticated understanding of how
the content of the measure would hobble growth management efforts and further assumes that a vote for these
consequences represents a repudiation of formerly held values. Polling suggests that altruism and trust were
as important a factor for many voters supporting Measure 37 as self-interest and hostility to regulation.
8
conditioners and computers and other consumer goods of the late 20th Century will
go into decline.
International terrorism has generated a particular response from the U.S. Federal
government that is extremely expensive and will starve, or be used to justify
starving other programs that shape our patterns of development and redevelopment.
This includes the Community Development Block Grant program, Section 8
housing vouchers, HOPE VI and transportation funding.
The rise of other economic competitors to the US (China, India, Europe) coupled
with serious fiscal irresponsibility and declining national investment in research and
development means living standards and position in the world could decline.
The growth of international trade agreements and the rising power of the World
Trade Organization can threaten not just the economic viability of manufacturing
cities but of farming, ranching and silviculture. One treaty with Chile could wipe
out the pear industry for example. The Appellate Body of the World Trade
Organization is now considering and has the power to resolve a dispute between
Canada and the US involving subsidies for softwood production. Thus the WTO’s
decision could directly affect the economic viability of millions of acres of
forestland in Oregon and Washington. The alternate use for much of this land
would be large-lot home sites.
The rise of Chinese and Indian manufacturing is already putting many Mexicans
and residents of US territories and protectorates (e.g. Saipan) out of work. This
may spur a new wave of immigration.
Global climate change is already affecting our communities. Villages in Alaska are
being abandoned and moved inland. Rising sea levels coupled with increased
frequency and violence of tropical storms and the loss of barrier islands, means that
up to 50,000 residents of New Orleans could die from a hurricane. This rising
awareness of the risks posed by storms has begun affecting insurance and re-
insurance rates. Ultimately this may change coastal settlement patterns.
As this review makes clear, most of the changing international and global circumstances do
not favor Smart Growth outcomes in the United States. Overall, they could change the
national temperament from one of the dynamism and optimism of a youthful nation to the
fear and resentment of a declining empire. That atmosphere can be stifling to any kind of
policy reform.
Conclusion
After surveying this long laundry list of changing circumstances and preferences, it is
difficult to justify either great pessimism or great optimism about our national prospects for
replacing mid-20th Century sprawl with something better. However, there are many
different ways for growth management to respond to changed circumstances. Even some
9
of the more disturbing trends may provide the circumstances or the political opportunity for
better policy. That is one reason why regular efforts to rethink growth management are
worthwhile.
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