[getsmart-l] Why Smart Growth Isn't as Smart as it Thinks it is

[scott.lansche at utoronto.ca]

Hi everyone,

I found this googling 'Smart Growth Developer'.  While I do not agree  
with everything Smith has to say, he might be making a useful  
contribution to the discussion here.

Enjoy!
Scott.

WHY SMART GROWTH
ISN'T AS SMART
AS IT THINKS IT IS


Sam Smith

LIBERALS hate tweaking things until they work right. That's why the  
Department of Housing & Urban Development ended up as a corrupt,  
ineffective monster. That's why affirmative action didn't turn out the  
way it should have. And that's why smart growth isn't going to be what  
its advocates think.

I work on the Lucille Goodwin principle, laid down for me by public  
housing activist Goodwin when I was covering the War on Poverty in the  
1960s: "Anyone who comes into this neighborhood with nothing but good  
intentions is going to get their head knocked off."

Good intentions only get you as far as the bus stop. At some point,  
even the best notion has to be tested by experience. The reluctance to  
follow this logic may be related to the number of liberal leaders who  
were taught intellectual theories in college but never taught how to  
test them out.

Smart growth is a case in point. It sounds great but there are a  
number of things wrong with it:

- It disses the very people it is trying to help, disparaging the  
communities where they bought or rented as being places of "sprawl"  
and other disparaging characteristics. That's not a good way to go  
around helping people.

- It assumes that planners have the right answers and once they offer  
the right answers, those who oppose them are NIMBYs and worse. The  
problem is that what smart growth is trying to reform was actually  
designed by previous generations of planners and liberals. From the  
1940s federal housing policies that discriminated against urban  
dwellers, and blacks in particular, to the first urban renewal  
disaster approved by the Supreme Court in a decision written by  
William O. Douglas, liberals have stormed ahead on their planning  
crusades without listening the people involved.

As I noted in The Great American Political Repair Manual:

"The idea, Richard Sennett has written, goes back to the 1860s design  
for Paris by Baron Haussmann. Haussmann, Sennett suggests, bequeathed  
us the notion that we could alter social patterns by changing the  
physical landscape. This notion was not about urban amenities such as  
park benches and gas lighting or technological improvements such as  
indoor plumbing but about what G. K. Chesterton called the huge modern  
heresy of "altering the human soul to fit its conditions, instead of  
altering human conditions to fit the human soul."

"Eventually this idea would produce waves of urban renewal, freeways,  
convention centers, stadiums, subways, pedestrian malls, aquariums,  
waterfront developments. and, most recently, proposals for casino and  
riverboat gambling -- all in the name of urban progress and a happier  
tax base. Few of these schemes would ever come close to realizing the  
claims made on their behalf. Few were little more than a false front  
on a city's declining core and fraying soul."

- Smart growth advocates continue to emphasize mobility over access.  
Thus they continue to push the expansion of things like Washington's  
Metro, ignoring the subway's role in creating the very sort of  
development they don't like. They praise the virtues of mass transit,  
but ignore the fact that while the subway largely serves the suburban  
community, that community has not shifted out its cars much. A much  
higher percentage of transit users remain in the city who found their  
bus service deteriorate in order to buck up the poor finances of the  
subway. In any case, a true smart growth plan would emphasize ways  
people didn't have to move around so much.

Planning activist and writer Richard Layman notes that "the average  
suburban household conducts 15 separate out-of-home trips daily, most  
by cars, usually peopled by only one occupant. Most suburban  
households have two cars, a significant number have at least three  
cars, and the number of cars per suburban household is increasing  
still. By contrast, the average urban household resident combines  
tasks and errands into far fewer trips. DC residents have commute  
times at or under national averages, spend less money on  
transportation overall, and almost 40% of households do not own cars.  
DC has a higher rate of walking and bicycle trips than all but a  
couple other cities nationally."

- In other words, the capital already reflects important principles of  
smart growth. But you would never guess it from the way the city  
government and its smart growth supporters are infilling the place  
with ugly, soulless condos and office buildings. Says Layman, "This  
unholy alliance between lefty single-issue advocacy groups and the  
growth machine has me somewhat taken aback. I understand the smart  
growth-developer alliance, but why does someone . . . support adoption  
of a plan that, in practice, is more likely to provide discount luxury  
condos to law students than decent Section 8 housing for poor people .  
. . Sometimes I think that the non-profit world is so insular and that  
they face such obstacles that they can be very easily  
bought/manipulated. . .

"The growth machine is smart enough and well-funded enough to be able  
to use people concerned with 'social justice' and 'smart growth' and  
'the environment.' Seemingly responding to their concerns ($50 for a  
block party, or a new computer for a local school helps too) out of a  
shared sense of social 'justice,' the growth machine yields a lot of  
value. . .

- The smart growth folks justify caving to the developers because they  
think that they are increasing density in a sound, and ecological  
fashion. But are they really?

A new draft Washington comprehensive plan includes some statistics  
hidden deep in its tables that deeply undermine such a conclusion, not  
only for Washington but anywhere the smart growth movement is trying  
to shove more ten story boxes into a community. The figures below are  
for three parts of DC: wealthy and white far northwest (NW), black and  
poorer Far NE and SE (NESE) and ethnically mixed Capitol Hill (CPH).

Percent black

NW - 6%
CPH - 57%
NESE - 96%

Persons per square mile

NW - 6,900
CPH - 17,800
NESE - 9,300

50+ unit housing as percent of total

NW - 42%
CPH - 4%
NESE - 5%

One unit row housing

NW - 11%
CPH - 54%
NESE - 27%

2-4 unit housing

NW - 3%
CPH - 20%
NESE - 15%

Now look at these figures and ask the following questions:

Which neighborhood is most integrated?

Which neighborhood has the most dense population?

Which neighborhood has the smallest percent of high rise structures?

And for extra points: which neighborhood recently got the city to  
downzone a major proposed redevelopment, is fighting several others  
and has been a leader in taking on city hall?. Which neighborhood has  
kept looking the way it does because it is filled with reactionaries  
who believe that good communities are worth more than big buildings?

The answer is Capitol Hill, where I lived in the 1960s and now do again.

And what great city planner is responsible for this remarkable  
achievement in smart growth?

Well, part of the credit can go to a guy named Pierre L'Enfant back in  
the 1700s but most of it goes to the blessing of having been largely  
completed as an unplanned community for everything from dairymen to  
shipyard workers before the advent of modern city planning.

Even the comprehensive plan admits this:

"In many respects, Capitol Hill is a 'city within the city.' . . . Its  
neighborhoods are united by history, architectural tradition and  
relatively consistent urban form, including a system of grid and  
diagonal streets that has remained faithful to the 1791 L'Enfant Plan  
for Washington. Much of the community has the feel of a small historic  
town, with block upon block of attractive late 19th century and early  
20th century row houses, well maintained public spaces, historic  
schoolhouses and corner stores, rear yard alleys, and traditional  
neighborhood shopping districts. . .

"As an older urban neighborhood, there continue to be small  
neighborhood commercial uses such as dry cleaners, beauty salons, and  
corner stores across the Planning Area. Capitol Hill is also home to  
Eastern Market, a lively and historic public market where independent  
vendors sell fresh meats, vegetables, flowers, and other goods to  
customers from across the city.

"The Capitol Hill area has an excellent transportation network, making  
auto ownership an option rather than a necessity for many households.  
The scale and topography of the neighborhood, as well as wide  
sidewalks and street trees, create ideal conditions for walking. . .

"Much of the community's distinctive character is protected as a  
National Register historic district; in fact, Capitol Hill is the  
largest residential historic district in the city and includes some  
8,000 structures mostly dating from 1850 to 1915. The historic  
district includes 19th century manor houses, Federal townhouses, small  
frame dwellings, Italianate row houses, and pressed brick row houses,  
often with whimsical decorative elements. Many of the row houses have  
rentable English basement units, contributing to neighborhood  
diversity and affordability. . ."

You couldn't ask for a much better definition of smart growth - mostly  
built by 1915 and on the historic register to boot. Essential to this  
has been the row housing and accessory apartments (including some in  
alleys). And preserving them.

There is much to be learned from places like Capitol Hill which is a  
neighborhood I once described as not one you moved to, but which you  
joined. The smart growth crowd, however, would rather cave in to the  
planners and the developers than learn from the smart growth of the  
past.