Index
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Smart Growth: Smart or not?
Debunking the myths of sustainable growth
"Smart Growth" is an
urban planning movement that encourages high-density development in urban
areas near transportation hubs in the hopes that suburban sprawl will be
discouraged and folks will use their cars less. The terms
"sustainable growth," "new urbanism," and
"transit village" are also used to describe this process that
hopes to achieve continuing growth that is pedestrian and community
friendly, while being environmentally "smart."
This is accomplished by "relaxing" zoning
laws, environmental impact reviews and other pesky regulations that might
impede growth. People living in the areas targeted for new high-rise,
high-density developments are often labeled "Nimbyís" (not
in my backyard) for demanding community control over planning. Most
residents who find massive developments circling their homes oppose the
loss of quality of life in their neighborhoods and feel powerless in the
path of this run-away train known as "smart growth."
Living next to a subway station and a redevelopment
project area (currently under construction: 10-story office tower,
240-room hotel, 20-plex theater, and a proposed "transit
village") gives a particular group, Neighbors For Responsible
Redevelopment (south of San Francisco, Calif.) a personal perspective on
what can go wrong with "smart growth." We understand firsthand
the necessity of protecting existing communities from economic
opportunism.
Land use decisions are a local matter, usually in the
hands of only a few individuals on City Councils (often serving a dual
role as Redevelopment Directors) who make the appointments to the Planning
Commission. Local politicians are often more in tune with corporate
interests than with their constituents, who have very little information
or access to the process and no vote on planning decisions. Developers
need only dazzle a handful of city council members to take over a
community. If there is anything smart about this plan, it is that big
business listened and learned from the call of environmentalists to
"Think Globally, Act Locally." Where power and money is
involved, the devil is in the details.
Redevelopment and smart growth often target our
lower-income, inner-city neighborhoods where we seniors, people of color,
recent immigrants and working class people live. Our area just happens to
be in the older part of town, near transportation hubs. Itís easy to put
a "smart growth" spin on developersí efforts to seize this
valuable land for private use. Redevelopment agencies are a likely vehicle
for carrying out the high-density, transit-related urban development
promoted by smart growth. Yet, redevelopment law does not insure methods
for fair land acquisition, adequate community involvement, or financial
oversight.
Equating public good and the use of eminent domain with
"economic vitality," "most viable use," or "smart
growth" opens the door to abuse. Redevelopment agencies can use
eminent domain to seize valuable property from residents and small, local
businesses to amass in larger parcels to deliver to developers for
high-rises. While cities can only use eminent domain for a clear public
purpose (such as a school or fire station), redevelopment agencies can use
those powers for any purpose.
Redevelopment agencies and city councils give public
funds as incentives to private, for-profit corporations without voter
approval. Public-private partnerships often have less to do with
increasing affordable housing, easing traffic congestion, or providing
good jobs for the surrounding community, and more to do with corporate
welfare and a large parcel land grab for big business.
The "pro-growth" scenario often proceeds as
follows: In the older, less affluent parts of a city, peopleís homes and
businesses are displaced by high-rise, mixed use developments, corporate
franchises, luxury apartments and upscale shopping areas. The trades and
family-owned businesses are replaced by chain stores with their minimum
wage retail and service jobs.
The locals didnít see it coming. Cities may require
mailed notices within only a few hundred feet of a proposed project that
will drastically change zoning. A handful of city council members cast the
deciding vote over the objections of residents. Suddenly a high-rise is
under construction next to our homes and everyone wonders, "How did
this happen?" A neighborhood is totally transformed. The local shoe
repair shop or Mom and Pop deli canít afford the rent at the new project
and they donít fit the new "tenant mix." New high-rise housing
is primarily market rate. The few (15% required) moderate-income units are
calculated on a regional basis, not on the lower income level of the
community where they are built.
In a redevelopment area, the consequences are worse.
Rather than allowing neighborhoods to grow and change over time in the
free marketplace, redevelopment agencies can force people out of their
homes and businesses by eminent domain and rapidly gentrify the community.
Businesses and homeowners who lose their property can challenge the
so-called market-rate price offered by the city as fair compensation, if
they have the personal resources to fight big developers and city hall in
court. (In California, less than 1% of the people who challenge eminent
domain are successful). Many of the people who lose their homes to eminent
domain may not be able to afford even the few lower income housing in new
developments.
Is smart growth really a vehicle for big business to use
the passion of environmentalists and the power of local government to
seize valuable, scarce private property that is owned by someone else?
Could the property owner be your 80 year-old immigrant grandmother who
spent a lifetime saving to earn a small parcel of the American Dream? Why
do we assume growth must be promoted at any cost? How can
"livability" and environmental protection benefit from a
"build it and they will come" mentality?
The assumption that community culture, quality of life,
infrastructure, and carrying capacity of the land will not be damaged by
unbridled growth is as false now as it was in the past century. We truly
need to examine the economic pressure behind these assumptions. Who is
benefiting from the growth and who is paying the cost? Each project must
be held to a litmus test to see if it is truly "smart" growth.
Is growth in the interest of the communities where projects are built or
in the financial interests of international corporations who wield a great
deal of political power?
In the year 2002, further development in already densely
populated urban areas is not sustainable. To use the term
"sustainable" and "growth" together is an oxymoron.
Unrestrained growth is not sustainable ñ itís as false as saying
"unlimited resources." We must insure that public scrutiny will
determine if further growth is possible or desirable.
Infill development and vertical sprawl are overtaxing
urban environments. Increased population places significantly higher
demands on limited natural resources and infrastructure. If
environmentalists have learned anything, itís the truism that someone is
always downstream. Unrestrained urban development will have its
repercussions on adjoining ecosystems.
Recent reports in California show that we may have
already built beyond the capacity of our water systems and the state
legislature is taking steps to limit growth to identified water resources.
And yet, in the San Francisco area, the Association of Bay Area
Governments is promoting a 50% growth influx to the area and calling their
plan "Sustainable." Can we assume that more affluent new
residents would rather drive their personal cars and further clog the
roadways? Placing housing near rapid transit may slightly increase
individual public transportation usage. However, If you dramatically
increase the communityís total population in high-rise buildings, you
increase overall congestion.
What do corporate franchises have to do with living
wage, and transportation efficiency? Mixed usually means
market-rate condos with minimum wage retail. In the San Francisco Bay
Area, will all this high-density housing supply an internationally
recruited workforce in abundance for corporations, keeping wages down and
competition among workers high? Will displaced working class folks be
commuting on the subway to run the espresso machines and clean the toilets
for the "new economy?" The regional need for affordable Bay Area
housing is often used by city administrators to mask an agenda to increase
sales tax by opening the door for corporate franchises in these
developments. It is a myth to say that most of these developments are
providing a living wage and keeping new, more affluent residents out of
their cars. Public transportation is more likely to be used to import
lower-income people from other areas to work at minimum wage retail and
service jobs in these mixed-use projects. These minimum wage workers are
forced to use public transport by economic necessity.
Can we plan reasonable growth without sacrificing the
environment, social justice, and community culture in urban areas? Can we
have truly affordable housing and progressive urban design? We must
safeguard the rights of vulnerable citizens and weigh environmental
impacts if we are to call this planning process just or smart. We must ask
ourselves: Smart growth? Smart for whom?
____________________
This was contributed to Culture Change
as a Policy Study by Neighbors for Responsible Redevelopment (NFRR), Daly
City, Calif.
Editor's note: A paving moratorium would not solve
everything, as we now see from the above analysis. Yet, if outward
expansion of the petroleum infrastructure can finally be stopped--a must
to conserve farmland, watersheds and endangered species--the pressure on
settled areas would at least bring about healthy debate such as on
"smart growth."
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