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

[Terry Fowler]

I have been a great fan of Sam Smith for years. He really cuts through the 
crap. This is another excellent example. Like Scott, I don't necessarily 
agree with everything he says -- and there are some strictly American 
dimensions to the problems he raises -- but this is well worth reading. 
Check him out online at The Progressive Review, Washington's Most Unofficial 
Source.
Terry Fowler
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <scott.lansche at utoronto.ca>
To: "Ontario Smart Growth Network" <getsmart-l at list.web.net>
Sent: Tuesday, November 20, 2007 11:50 AM
Subject: [getsmart-l] Why Smart Growth Isn't as Smart as it Thinks it is


> 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.
>
>
>
>
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