Tag: infrastructure

Cleaner Air, Higher Gas Prices?

  • The EPA is getting ready for smog season. (photo courtesy of USEPA)

The federal government’s tougher regulations on pollution might have consequences on prices at the gasoline pump. To meet the Clean Air Act, some areas might be required to use cleaner-burning fuels. That could make it tougher to get gasoline supplies where they need to be. And that could mean higher prices. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

The federal government’s tougher regulations on pollution might have consequences on prices at
the gasoline pump. To meet the Clean Air Act some areas might be required to use cleaner-
burning fuels. That could make it tougher to get gasoline supplies where they need to be. And
that could mean higher prices. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:


The Environmental Protection Agency says 31 states are not complying with the Clean Air Act.
The EPA indicates tougher standards for ground-level ozone make many areas that didn’t know
they had a problem in violation of air pollution laws.


John Mooney is an environmental specialist with the EPA. He says the government used to
check for ozone pollution for short periods… but started monitoring for longer periods and found
more instances of high levels of ozone.


“The other issue is that we’re changing the number of the standard from 120 down to 80 parts-
per-billion. So, it’s a lower level that we’re looking at. And we think that’s more reflective of
the health effects that are being caused by this pollutant.”


Ground-level ozone aggravates asthma. People with lung diseases can find it hard to breathe.
And those who work outdoors are affected by the unhealthy air.


Ozone is created when factories and cars emit volatile organic compounds. That chemical stew is
affected by sunlight and ozone can form. Cities that have had high ozone levels have worked to
reduce emissions from businesses, encouraged car-pooling, made announcements asking people
not to use gas-powered mowers on high ozone days.


And… for some cities… part of the solution has been reformulated gasoline. It’s gas that’s
cleaner burning. Different formulations are used in different areas. And… gas formulas change
from winter to summer. Refineries and gasoline suppliers have to empty their tanks and pipelines
before switching. That makes gas supplies tight for a while and that drives the price up. We
asked the EPA’s John Mooney about that.


LG: We’ve got several cities with reformulated gasoline right now and that’s put a strain on the
distribution system nation-wide. If more cities have to start using reformulated gasoline and each
city has to have a different formulation, that’s going to further strain the distribution problem at a
time when gasoline prices are at an all time high.


JM: “We’re extremely sensitive to the infrastructure issue and the energy issue and are trying to
promote clean-burning fuels that have environmental impacts without significant economic
disruptions. Having fuel shortages and price spikes and things of that nature don’t contribute to
the success of our mission to improve public health. And so, we’re going to be tied into the fuel
distribution issues and we’re going to be working with the oil refiners to make sure that the fuels
programs that are ultimately decided upon operate without significant disruptions.”


Significant disruptions that could cause gasoline shortages and high prices.


Bob Slaughter is the President of NPRA, the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association. He
says the government needs to work closely with gasoline suppliers to make sure that efforts to
make the air easier to breathe don’t make problems for the economy of an area.


“You know, you have to be very careful that you don’t have so many fuels in certain areas that it
becomes difficult to re-supply if there are problems, say, with a refinery or a pipeline in a
particular area.”


For instance, in recent years a fire at a refinery at a bad time meant shortages and higher prices.


But… even with lots of cooperation between government and the gasoline suppliers, the added
burden of different types of reformulated gasoline to the fuel distribution system might mean
spikes in gas prices.


(road sound, gas station)


We asked some people buying gas if they were willing to pay more if it meant cleaner air…


VOXPOP (voice 1) “Well, the gas prices are high enough. Uh, am I willing? I suppose so if it’s
better for the environment.” (voice 2) “Well, I think the federal government regulates everything
way too much right now. I think they do have a lot of safeguards in place right now to lower the
emissions in a lot of vehicles. Why do we have to make further regulation to control that?”
(voice 3) “I mean, I hate to – I hate to pay more gas prices. I really do. But, I guess for cleaner
air, it might be worth it.” (voice 4) “I haven’t thought about it too much. I pay what they make
me pay. I don’t care.”


The EPA is giving states and cities three years to get their ground-level ozone pollution problems
below the government’s new standards.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

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Destination Superstores Buy Up Farmland

  • Retail superstores, like this Cabela's in Dundee, Michigan, have become tourist destination sites. Environmentalists worry that these types of developments are adding to poor land use patterns. (Photo by Sarah Hulett)

Throughout the region, tourism is an important part of the economy. Families travel far and wide to visit historical sites, cultural institutions, and favorite recreation spots. But a relatively new part of the landscape is drawing people in for a single purpose: to shop. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports on how the trend is affecting land use patterns:

Transcript

Throughout the region, tourism is an important part of the economy. Families travel
far and wide to visit historical sites, cultural institutions, and favorite recreation
spots. But a relatively new part of the landscape is drawing people in for a single purpose: to
shop. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports on how the trend is affecting
land use patterns:


Brad Brinker is in Michigan for the day to take in the sights. He flew his plane from Pennsylvania
to Dundee, in the southeast corner of Michigan. Now he’s standing next to a waterfall that spills
into a pond filled with trout and aquatic plants.


“We were always impressed by the size of the mountain and the animals they have. That’s why
we’re here!”


The mountain is fake. The water? Pumped in. The animals? Stuffed.


This is Cabela’s – a 225-thousand-square-foot retail temple to the outdoors. It’s the home of 65-
thousand gallons of aquariums, dozens of game animals like caribou and mountain lions. There’s
a gun library, and acres of fishing equipment and hunting gear.


“Cabela’s considers itself a tourist attraction as well as retail. And in all of our major sites, we’ve
become one if not the major tourist attraction in the state.”


Steve Collins is the operations manager for Cabela’s. He says the strategy for drawing tourists and
shoppers hinges on careful placement of the store.


“What we try to do is make them destination stores, so people have to go out of their way a little
bit to get there. But once they get there they’re very easy to find. We’re not in the middle of a
mall. We’re not in the middle of town where you have to try and find us. Once you get down that
thoroughfare, we’re usually right at the exit. You can’t miss us.”


Michigan’s Cabela’s store IS easy to spot. You can see two 20-foot-tall bronze grizzlies from the
highway, locked in battle above a vast expanse of parking lot. The five-acre store was built to
look like a massive log cabin. It sits on a sweep of what used to be farmland. A U.S. highway
feeds thousands of cars a day onto its property.


It’s a familiar strategy for big-box retailers such as Home Depot and Wal-Mart. Land is generally
cheaper and easier to acquire in rural areas. And some of these superstores and outlet malls have
become destinations not just for shoppers, but for tourists. George Zimmerman directs Michigan’s
travel bureau.


“I think in the last ten years, on the national level, the Mall of America is an example of that.
Certainly the outlet mall boom is a big part of it. That certainly was a key point as far as retailing
as a destination, when those started popping up around the country.”


But superstores and outlet malls give environmentalists headaches. They say stores that set up
shop in undeveloped areas contribute to sprawl patterns that require expensive infrastructure.
They can also sap resources from nearby cities and towns. Although the business association near
Cabela’s Michigan store says the retailer has actually helped bring shoppers into the downtown
area, five miles away.


Victoria Pebbles works on sustainable development issues for the Great Lakes Commission.
Pebbles says there need to be disincentives for stores to locate in rural areas.


“If there are disincentives, for example, through farmland protection programs and protection of
natural features and cultural resources that are in our rural areas, then you can help to tip the
scales a little bit.”


Pebbles says right now, there are few restrictions on developing farmland into shopping malls.
Some states – such as Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania – have set aside money to help
local governments better coordinate land use planning. And Michigan recently set up a task force
that will make land use policy recommendations to its Legislature.


(bring up Cabela’s parking lot sound)


In the meantime, it looks as though retailers will continue to look for cheap land with easy access
to highways. Cabela’s plans to open its fifth store in the Great Lakes region this fall. Its
Pennsylvania store will be easy to spot, perched on a hundred acres right off I-78 and Route 61.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Sarah Hulett.

Small Water Plants Step Up Security

It’s been almost a year since terrorists attacked the United States. But the repercussions of that morning continue to ripple across the country. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Ann Murray looks at how security concerns are impacting the country’s 50,000 small drinking water systems. These utilities now find themselves scrambling for money, security training and equipment to keep their facilities and water supplies safe:

Transcript

It’s been almost a year since terrorists attacked the United States. But the repercussions of that morning continue to ripple across the country. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Ann Murray looks at how security concerns are impacting the country’s 50,000 small drinking water systems. These utilities now find themselves scrambling
for money, security training and equipment to keep their facilities and
water supplies safe:


The federal government started thinking seriously about domestic
security well before last September. Four years ago, the Clinton
administration examined the country’s infrastructure. And the results were
sobering. Water and wastewater systems were found to be vulnerable to
physical damage, computer hacking, chemical spills and radiological
contamination.


Recent CIA reports place large metropolitan water systems on alert as
potential targets for terrorist attacks. But some small system operators
think their plants are vulnerable, too.


(sound of water plant)


“I feel that they could make an example out of a small system that says,
‘Look here, we could do that to a small one. We could do it to a larger
one.'”


Barry Clemmer has run public water systems in western Pennsylvania for the
past 25 years. Before September 11th, he says his main concern was
vandalism – still the most likely scenario for a security breach. He walks
the fenced perimeter of his facility and points out new security devices.


“We have a camera on the side of one of our buildings that focuses
on the entrance gate. We monitor 24 hours a day. It’s hard to keep someone
out but it’s a deterrent and might slow them down from getting in.”


(sound of key in lock)


Although the front of the plant is now more secure, Clemmer continues
to worry about the intake system. That’s where raw river water is piped
into the treatment plant.


Clemmer: “Excuse me, I’ll open the gate.”


The river flows about 30 feet below the gated back of the facility. Clemmer walks down a wooden stairway to the unguarded riverbank. He shakes his head and says that terrorists could attack his plant from here.


“They could come up the river on a boat and hop out and go right
there and drop something in. It’d only take five minutes and our water
could be contaminated.”


Plans are in the works to secure the area where raw water is
taken into the plant. But Clemmer says that he still needs a security camera to
keep a close eye on the river. That will require additional grant dollars
because there isn’t money in the budget for security equipment and the
local community says it can’t afford the extra expense.


John Mori is director of the National Environmental Services Center, a federally funded technical assistance group. He says budget constraints are nothing new to small communities. It’s just that financial limitations have taken on an added dimension in this past year.


“Small systems historically have never gotten a share… an appropriate
share of federal dollars under the various loan programs. The point is there
are hundreds of thousands of Americans in small communities, medium size
communities and they need equal assurance that their water is safe and protected.”


Unlike metropolitan areas, Mori says smaller communities just don’t
have a big pool of qualified water personnel. So already overburdened
operators must now take on the responsibility of keeping their facilities
safe from terrorism.


“These are hardworking men and women who may have two or three or four
jobs in a community trying to do everything at once and make sure their
customers get good, safe water. So I think they’re determined about this. I
just think they need some help.”


Since September 11th, most help – in the form of new federal dollars
and security training – has gone to large water utilities. Metropolitan
water plants serve about 80 percent of the U.S. population. But Andy
Bielanski, with EPA’s newly formed Water Protection Task Force, says that the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is moving slowly but deliberately to also
help small water systems.


“What we’re doing is taking input and feedback from states, other
technical assistance organizations and agencies, on how best to approach
this problem. And we’ve been taking this all into consideration in trying
to provide security assistance to small systems.”


EPA and other agencies now face the daunting task of reaching more than
50,000 small water utilities. These utilities vary in size, customer base
and technical sophistication.


This past May, Congress mandated water utilities with more than 3,300
customers to conduct vulnerability assessments. Operators must then create
emergency response plans to address not only terrorism but vandalism or
natural disasters. Before September 11th, many small systems didn’t have
workable emergency plans in place.


(sound of conference)


At a pilot seminar for small system security, Tom Sherman with Michigan’s
Rural Community Assistance Program says Michigan’s systems are just like
many other small water utilities: they’re beginning from scratch.


“It’s kind of like ground zero. We’re just starting out. It’s something we knew we
had to address and you just need the input to know you’re going in the right direction.”


To make sure that small water operations are heading in the right direction, the federal government is trying to improve its outreach to small and medium size communities. Some funds have already been distributed to help these communities evaluate the safety of their water systems and upgrade their security. More than $70 million additional dollars await the approval of Congress and the President.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Ann Murray.

Cities Tackle Regional Planning Puzzle

In the mid-1960’s, the federal government started requiring metropolitan areas to come up with regional plans in order to get government grants for everything from highways to housing. That forced officials from large cities and from the suburbs to sit down at the same table (in many cases for the first time) and think about what was best for the entire region; not just their own town. From this effort, sprang the regional planning movement, but things aren’t always easy, and certainly don’t always go ‘according to plan.’ The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports on one region’s attempt to plan for growth:

There are four major regional planning orgnizations in the Chicago metro area:

Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission
Chicago Area Transportation Study
Chicago Metropolis 2020
Metropolitan Planning Council

Transcript

In the
mid-1960’s, the federal government started requiring metropolitan areas to come up with regional plans in order to get government grants for everything from highways to housing. That forced officials from large cities and from the suburbs to sit down at the same table — in many cases for the first time — and think about what was best for the entire region, not just their own town. From this effort, sprang the regional planning movement. But things aren’t always easy and certainly don’t always go ‘according to plan.’ The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports on one region’s attempt to plan for growth:

If you were to gather around the coffee pot in the morning at just about any place of business in just about any suburb of just about any big city, the topic of conversation would probably not be the weather, or last night’s big game, or even politics. Nope. More than likely it would be about how long it took to get to work. Lots of people drive an hour, ninety minutes, or even longer to make the commute. So, why not move closer, you might ask. The answer could very well be “Can’t afford it.”

Housing costs in many suburbs are so high that the people who teach the kids, fight the fires, and fix the cars in the nice suburbs have to live in other less affluent communities where housing is cheaper. That’s because city officials in many suburbs encourage the building of expensive houses on big lots because it means a better tax base. But that also means many workers need to hop in their cars to get to work in those fancy suburbs.

Of course, when thousands of cars line up bumper to bumper to make the commute, you get traffic congestion.

“If you think it’s bad now, just wait. It’s gonna get worse.”

That’s Frank Beale. He’s the Executive Director of a group named Chicago Metropolis 2020. Metropolis 2020 put together a plan that looked at the Chicago area’s growth patterns and came up with some pretty dire forecasts. According to the study, if the Chicago region conducts business as usual, by the year 2030 there will be a 75-percent increase in auto miles traveled for work, shopping, and normal everyday trips. The time it takes to drive to work will be up 27-percent. And only about seven-and-a-half percent of housing units will be within walking distance of mass transit.

Beale says there’s seems to be a disconnect between local governments’ decisions to encourage big, expensive houses and the resulting need for more roads and additional lanes of traffic to handle all the commuters.

“More equitable
distribution of affordable housing and the employment centers would diminish the demand on the transportation systems. We seem to always only talk about roads. But, we only need roads because of how we’ve configured the land in the region.” Beyond the travel concerns, business as usual — according to the Metropolis 2020 study — means another 383 square miles of farmland will become subdivisions and strip malls in less than 30 years.

Organizations such as Metropolis 2020 are working together to try to educate and persuade the Chicago region’s 275 suburban mayors that the decisions they make will have an effect on the whole region.

Larry Christmas was once one of those mayors. He’s also spent his career running or working for regional planning agencies. He says as a mayor, it’s hard to think about the larger region when you are working to bring good growth to your town. It’s especially hard when regional planners want you to give up local control of land-use for the betterment of the larger region.

“And that’s something the communities don’t want to give up lightly even if there’s a regional argument that the collective local decisions may add up to bad regional development patterns.”

So, those looking at the big picture have their work cut out for them. The regional planners spend a lot of time at meetings with local officials, putting together roundtables to explain plans and trying to schedule meetings between antagonists.

One of the partners of Metropolis 2020 is the Metropolitan Planning Council. Executive Director Mary Sue Barrett says sitting down with those different interests and getting them to consider the reasons for bending a little here and there to adhere to a regional plan can pay off.

“To put it in practical terms, if you can get an environmentalist and a homebuilder and a mayor to agree on something, you can probably go get it done. And that’s what we try to do.”

And the regional planners try to get the mayors to listen on topics ranging from fair and equitable housing, to public transportation, and even taxing systems that sometimes encourage bad development with tax breaks.

But given the kind of expansive sprawl that continues to plague the Chicago metropolitan area, there’s still one question you have to ask of people such as Frank Beale with Chicago Metropolis 2020. That is: who’s listening?

“Well, the general assembly, the legislators are listening, the Mayor, the 275 suburban mayors are listening. They don’t always agree, but they’re listening.”

And as long as they keep listening, the people looking for better regional planning will keep trying to persuade the cities in the suburbs there’s a better way.

For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

Small Towns Invite Sprawl

  • Eleven million acres of prime farmland were lost to urban sprawl in a 15 year period. Some small cities are embracing the growth and helping developers circumvent so-called Smart Growth restrictions on sprawl.

Researchers have found that small towns hungry for new tax dollars are making it possible for developers to get around Smart Growth plans. Often the result is urban sprawl that paves over farmland and natural areas. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham has the story:

Transcript

Researchers have found that small towns hungry for new tax dollars are making it possible for developers to get around Smart Growth Plans. Often the result is urban sprawl that paves over farmland and natural areas. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports.


Despite the best efforts of some politicians to slow down the pace of turning farmland into suburbia, the 2000 Census shows population growth is exploding at the edges of Metropolitan areas, and all those people need somewhere to live and shop. So, in the Midwest, often housing developments and shopping malls are built where corn or soybeans grew just the year before.


For example, Kane County, Illinois, as recently as the 1970’s was predominately farmland. Now with more and more people moving there, only about half the county is left for farming.


Randall Road cuts through the heart of the county, although housing developments and retail stores are starting to infringe on the country setting, on one side of the road you can still see rows of crops and pasture, and on the other side of Randall Road, it’s nearly solid shopping malls and subdivisions. But in the middle of all that development, there’s still one dairy farm. Mike Kenyon and his family still grow hay and corn, and milk cows here. But their fields are surrounded by three sprawling towns. Kenyon says Randall Road used to be the line where planners said urban sprawl would stop. They were so confident that they even said so in their planning document for the year 2020.


“And they drew a line in the county and they said ‘we want the growth to occur here and we want to maintain this as rural, as farms. Well, how did developers get around that? Well they go to a little village and they say ‘Well, we’ll put a big housing development over here. Please, annex us and this’ll be more revenue and they’ll even have a sewer system when we get done.’ So, that’s what happens; they kind of bribe the villages so they get around the 2020 plan.”


And that, Kenyon says, is what’s now happening on the other side of Randall Road where Kane County was supposed to remain rural. Kane County officials are trying to implement all kinds of programs to save the remaining farmland from urban sprawl, or at least keep urbanization to certain areas of the county. But at the town and village level, many local politicians see growth as nothing but good and are willing to expand their city limits to include developments. That’s because those developments help increase their tax revenue.


The story is not unique to the Chicago region. It’s being repeated throughout the Midwest and the Great Lakes, as well as across the United States.
So much so that millions, yes millions of acres of prime farmland in the U.S. have been lost in a little more than a decade. Rich Green is a geographer at Northern Illinois University. He’s been tracking the fringes of the ever-growing Chicago Metropolitan area. He’s been adding up just how much former cropland has been turned into suburban lawns and parking lots.


“What we found is this: the nation between 1982 and 1997, that’s a 15 year time period, lost about eleven million acres of prime farmland, cropland, to urban development.”


Green also found, perhaps coincidentally, that an identical amount of land, eleven million acres of rangeland was plowed up and put into crop production during the same period.


“What we’ve been looking at is losing the nation’s best farmland in places like Chicago and other metropolitan areas in the Midwest, and replacing it with marginal lands in the arid West which requires more inputs, particularly water, irrigation.”


Green says shifting farming to less productive and more environmentally damaging land might not be the intent of the small towns that want to grow, but that’s the apparent result.


Just off campus at Northern Illinois’ Social Sciences Research Institute, Director Harvey Smith says Midwest states such as Illinois should take the time to better learn and weigh the costs of continued urban sprawl.


“Economically, Illinois relies very, very heavily on its agriculture. And, it is also the case that a lot of the very rich farmland is in the northern tier of the state which is closest to the moving fringe of the suburbs.”


Many times government at a more regional level, such as at the county level, is struggling with balancing development and farmland preservation. Even though it’s something of a contradiction, Smith says the people who move to the suburbs’ fringes causing further urban sprawl, actually want to preserve some of the farmland.


“The fact is that many of the people who move into the suburbs, while they like the sort of scenic quality of a farm or two over the hill, aren’t in a position to stop the disappearance of the farms themselves. It requires cooperation between local and regional governmental agencies to make a real effort to protect these qualities that are likely to disappear if they don’t.”


For some towns, it’s too late to recover the rural character and small town charm they lost to development, but for those at the fringes of the sprawling large metro areas with adherence to Smart Growth planning, some planners believe there’s still the opportunity to preserve a little of the setting of the suburbs that drew so many people there in the first place.

SMALL TOWNS INVITE SPRAWL (Short Version)

  • Eleven million acres of prime farmland were lost to urban sprawl in a 15 year period. Some small cities are embracing the growth and helping developers circumvent so-called Smart Growth restrictions on sprawl.

The U.S. has lost millions of acres of productive farmland in the last decade to urban sprawl. Researchers say state and county officials are seeing Smart Growth plans circumvented by politicians in small cities. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

The US has lost millions of acres of productive farmland in the last decade to urban sprawl. Researchers say state and county officials are seeing smart growth plans circumvented by politicians in small cities. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports.


Most states have passed legislation or are looking at doing so to reduce urban sprawl. Even some counties are working to restrict development to certain areas. But often developers approach small cities, promising increased tax revenues and infrastructure if the town annexes large areas of surrounding land for the developers. Rich Green is a geographer at Northern Illinois University. He says some small town officials don’t see past their own city limits.


“And in some respects, they may overlook the regional concerns to benefit their own territory, developers, shopping malls, retailers, playing one municipality off the other in terms of getting the best deal to locate.”


And so long debated plans to manage growth become nothing more than lines on a map, while natural areas and farmland are replaced by subdivisions and parking lots. Green says that’s led to eleven million acres of prime farmland being taken out of production in the fertile Midwest and East in a 15 year period due to urban sprawl. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

A Cure for Sprawl

Sprawl affects urban and rural residents of every Great Lakes state. Rapid development continues to swallow farmland and leave impoverished urban cores in its wake. But one Great Lakes mayor believes there’s still time to preserve land and revive cities. Mayor John Logie shares this commentary:

Transcript

Sprawl affects urban and rural residents of every Great Lakes state. Rapid development continues to swallow farmland and leave impoverished urban cores in its wake. But one Great Lakes mayor believes there’s still time to preserve land and revive cities. Mayor John Logie shares this commentary.


Urban sprawl is alive and well in Grand Rapids, my hometown. The term refers to the insidious way that webs of suburbs, manufacturing plants, etc., are expanding in unplanned, ever-widening circles around our city. Such sprawl results in longer commutes, pollution, and the loss of undeveloped land. The American Farmland Trust reports that 70% of the country’s prime farmland is now in the path of rapid development. On the list of 30 of the most sprawling cities in the entire United States, Grand Rapids, which has experienced a 48% increase in its urban area between 1990 and 1996, ranks right in the middle, behind such hyper-growth communities as Las Vegas, Austin, and Tucson, but well ahead of Cleveland, Chicago, and Portland in our rate of sprawl increase.


This Land-use change has rarely been done in a responsible fashion. Some sprawl apologists say what we’ve ended up with is that’s the American Dream, and any problems are easy to fix. They say there’s plenty of land left in America. They say congestion would go away if we just build more roads. But sprawl matters. Pollsters say it’s the most important issue in the Country.


Distress about urban sprawl arises from many factors: loss of open space, traffic congestion, economic segregation, a lack of affordable housing, and a lost sense of community. According to Harvard University political scientist Robert Putnam, the longer people spend in traffic, the less likely they are to be involved in their community and family.


To solve these problems, it takes a combination of land conservation and real free market economics, which can actually provide smaller lots for those who want them. However, many communities try to maintain what they believe are high property values by allowing only large-lot homes to be built. This effectively excludes several types of households, including singles, some empty nesters, single-parents, and the elderly, along with lower-income people. And the favored “middle-class family” with kids, today represents just 25% of new homebuyers. Only 11% of U.S. households are “traditional” families with children and just one wage earner. One size no longer fits us all.


Here’s what we need now.


We need smaller houses in walkable clusters, town homes in real “towns,” lofts in vital urban neighborhoods, and affordable housing just about anywhere. The development of compact communities that offer urban amenities and street life will show that the market actually supports more density and more housing diversity—not less. But we’re not building communities like those; communities that can help reduce many symptoms of sprawl, including traffic. Instead, we’re just building new roads. But for every 10% increase in new freeway miles, a 9% increase in traffic is generated within 5 years as sprawl continues. You just can’t build your way out of gridlock. More importantly, today we can no longer afford to keep building new freeways. The key is building more walkable communities. All this depends on promoting different land-use patterns, and not just building new roads.


Property rights advocates argue against regional planning, or any planning for that matter. They say that people should have a right to develop their properties as they please. As a historic preservationist, I have heard that for years. But what if one person’s development decision adversely impacts another’s property, or the whole neighborhood, or the whole region? What if certain choices require more public tax dollars to pay for infrastructure and services than others? At the regional level, it is public dollars that enable development on private property. Without highways, roads, sewers, water systems, and public services, development cannot occur. Therefore, we must use the tool of government spending appropriately – and seek out and implement the most cost-effective public investments which creatively and positively support growth, but discourage sprawl. My name is John Logie, I’m the Mayor of Grand Rapids, Michigan.

The Midwest Moves on High Speed Rail

Nine states in the Midwest want high-speed passenger rail. They might getit… but they’ll have to pay for most of it themselves. The Great LakesRadio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports… it’s not likely much help willbe coming from Congress:

Federal Proposal May Drown Farmland

It doesn’t happen very often, but for the last year, a republican
governor, the farming community, and environmentalists have been working
together to protect endangered wetlands, by taking certain farmlands out
of production. But now, a new federal proposal could be separating the
groups. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl has the story:

Grade Crossings a Problem for High Speed Rail?

While investigators are trying to figure out what led to an Amtrak
passenger train’s collision with a tractor-trailer truck in Illinois…
some proponents of faster trains say accidents like that one could be
avoided with upgraded service. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Lester Graham reports…high-speed rail supporters say faster trains would
mean safer tracks: