sprawl - The Environment Report

Council Looks for Land Use Consensus

Governors and legislatures across the nation have been trying to figure out the best way to manage land-use in areas where urban sprawl is gobbling up open space and leaving behind deteriorating city centers. But finding a way to manage land-use is controversial. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports on one state’s attempt to tackle the problem:

Transcript

Governors and legislatures across the nation have been trying to figure out the best way to
manage land use in areas where urban sprawl is gobbling up open space and leaving behind
deteriorating city centers. But finding a way to manage land use is controversial. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports on one state’s attempt to tackle the problem:

The Governor of Michigan made it clear while she was a candidate that she wanted to tackle the problem of urban sprawl. Shortly after her inauguration, Governor Jennifer Granholm established what she calls a Michigan Land Use Leadership Council. It’s made up of home-builders, developers, farmers, environmentalists and others. The council’s job is to find a consensus on the best ways to make the best use of land in Michigan so that the state doesn’t lose any more farmland and open space than necessary.

Hans Voss was appointed to the council. He’s with the Michigan Land Use Institute, a group
advocating the principles of Smart Growth… getting government to take a more active role in
preserving open space and redeveloping blighted urban areas. He says he expects the council to come up with recommendations that everyone can live with… and still adhere to Smart Growth principles…

“And it’s not a regulatory approach. But, if you put real, substantive
financial incentive on the table by reallocating our existing state dollars,
we will then put together the local coalition to
actually implement the recommendations. It’s all about incentives.”

Voss says local governments too often encourage urban sprawl by putting the
wrong incentives in place for builders and developers. He’s optimistic that the
various interests represented on the
governor’s new council will find common ground and solve some of the problems.

Keith Charters is also a member of the council. He currently serves as chair of
the state’s Natural Resource Commission. He agrees the council will
find consensus and make good recommendations to the Michigan legislature.
But he’s concerned that much of the agreement
will be lost in the legislative process.

“The recommendations are not going to get through the sausage grinder of
the legislature overnight. It’s not a 30-day process and some of the
recommendations may take two or three
years. That’s a lot of time for the special interests to reconsider
some of the consensus they may
have already approved at the council level, to rethink it and come back
with a different attack on it.”

Further complicating the matter is a political consideration. Rick Johnson
is the Speaker of the
Michigan House of Representatives. He says term limits will hurt the chances
of getting more
complicated land use legislation through the process.

“You know, you’re only around for six years in the House. It’s real hard
to – you know, an issue of land use isn’t going to get done in a year, two
years’ time. It’s a more lengthy discussion.”

On top of that, Johnson says legislators have a hard time keeping the best
interests of the state as
a whole in mind when so many local constituents are pressuring legislators to
think local first.

“When you have a bunch of townships, city, county people saying
‘We don’t want that,’ you know. Or ‘What’s good for Detroit, I don’t care.’
Or, what’s good for Marquette, the legislator
from Detroit don’t care.”

Beyond parochial biases, there are philosophical biases. Senator Liz Brater
also sits on the governor’s land use council. She says the political reality
is that the council’s recommendations
won’t carry that much weight with some legislators unless they fit within
their existing philosophy.

“There’s a certain group of legislators that just embrace the whole Smart Growth
principles and would go forward with it. There are others that are concerned that we’re taking away property rights and the rights of homebuilders and developers to have economic benefit from land that they control. So, there’s a whole gamut and what we need is to identify the common ground.”

But… even if the legislators see some common interests within the Michigan Land Use
Leadership Council’s recommendations… many of the public comments indicate there are a lot of people who are skeptical about land use management. It’s even been called un-American. Senator Brater says if more people knew the issue better… there wouldn’t be so much concern and opposition…

“But, I think we have a lot to overcome in terms of this perception
that we’re trying to do some
kind of centralized, top-down state planning, which I don’t think anybody
really is talking about,
but that is a fear out there that we have to address.”

The Michigan Land Use Leadership Council will make its recommendations for managing land
use in just a few weeks… but whether anything like Smart Growth principles
become part of Michigan law or policy will depend on finding some common ground
between the different interests
and overcoming political biases of the state’s people and their elected representatives.

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

EDITOR’S NOTE: Audio for the piece was gathered at a People and Land conference.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium receives funding from People and Land.

COUNCIL LOOKS FOR LAND USE CONSENSUS (Short Version)

States are concerned about the loss of farmland and open space to sprawling cities and suburbs… but it’s hard for legislatures to find practical political solutions. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

States are concerned about the loss of farmland and open space to sprawling cities and suburbs…
but it’s hard for legislatures to find practical political solutions. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Land use management is not simple. In some areas it means preserving farmland… in other areas
it means urban renewal… and in others it means building higher density housing instead of big
houses on big lots.

In Michigan, for example, the Speaker of the House, Rick Johnson predicts conflict between
legislators from urban, suburban and rural areas. He says getting legislators up to speed on land
use management and in agreement will be more complicated than many of the other issues
legislators face.

“Land use is going to be extremely harder because the focus is so immense and different
from different areas.”

A council appointed by the Michigan governor is working to send land use
recommendations to the legislature. Meanwhile, even during these poor economic times… rapid
growth at the edges of metropolitan areas on what was once open land continues with little
restraint.

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

The Right to Sprawl

Governments are trying to figure out the best way to deal with urban sprawl. Legislators and planners are considering all kinds of approaches to manage the growth of cities, but some say government really has no business trying to stop the market forces that are driving the rapid growth. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports on the deeper debate between property rights and land use protection:

Transcript

Governments are trying to figure out the best way to deal with urban sprawl. Legislators and
planners are considering all kinds of approaches to manage the growth of cities. But, some say
government really has no business trying to stop the market forces that are driving the rapid
growth. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports on the deeper debate
between property rights and land use protection:

Through the public process, states that are grappling with urban sprawl end up hearing from everyone involved. While the media and environmental groups tend to look at the
problems of congestion and loss of green space and farmland due to the rapid growth at the edges
of cities, others see the growth as driven by what people want – it’s natural growth, even organic. In
fact, many property owners, builders and developers, see government interference as “un-
American,” as testimony from this public hearing in Michigan shows.

“As an American, I strongly believe in our citizens’ rights to pursue life, liberty and property.”
“Centralized planning did not work in Russia, Cuba, North Korea or anywhere else they’ve
attempted it.” “Are we gonna mandate where they’re going to live? Is this gonna be America?”
“The land should be controlled by the individual who has paid for the land and pays the taxes on the land and should be able to do with that property what he wants to do.” “Our Constitution tells
us about the preservation of private property rights.”

There’s something deeply rooted in the American cultural ethic that bonds people to the land – or
more precisely – to their land. It might be leftovers of the concept of Manifest Destiny where,
in the words of one essayist, land ownership was associated with wealth and tied to self-
sufficiency, political power, and independent “self-rule.” This seems to be especially true of
people who live in rural areas, or are only a generation or two removed from the farm.

Amy Liu is with the think-tank, the ‘Brookings Institution.’ She says when states start looking at
growth management techniques, commonly called “Smart Growth,” landowners and builders
become suspicious.

“There is a belief that the government needs to get out of the way of the market. And so the idea
of having government intervene in the real estate market and consumer choice is considered un-
American.”

And property rights advocates quickly become dogmatic about their beliefs and resist any kind of
restrictions on use of land.

In the same way, some environmentalists consider sprawl to merely be a matter of greedy
developers and builders wanting to make money no matter what the cost to the environment,
green space, or farmland. They sometimes ignore the fact that consumer demand for larger lots
and larger houses, as well as convenient shopping, is much of the driving force behind urban
sprawl.

Liu says many on each side of the urban sprawl debate are inflexible.

“You know, I think that there are definitely reasons why the environmentalists can be extreme
and why the property rights advocates can be extreme.”

And generally, the two sides are talking right past each other.

Ann Woiwode is with the environmental group, the Sierra Club. She says the opponents of
“Smart Growth” say they don’t want government interference, but she says they don’t talk that
way when they’re in need of roads, fire protection, good schools, and other government services.
Woiwode says “Smart Growth” doesn’t mean unreasonable restrictions.

“I’m not trying to take anybody’s rights away and I don’t think that’s the appropriate approach.
What in any society part of being a society is that we collectively decide how we’re going to
make decisions that affect the entirety of the community.”

And while Woiwode and other environmentalists are in favor of making sure green space is
preserved, most of them acknowledge that growth is inevitable. They say they just want to make
sure it’s the right kind of growth.

Amy Liu at the Brookings Institution says not every growth management plan makes sense.
Some of them only look at benefiting the environment and ignore market forces, the desire that
many people have for a bit of land and a home to call their own.

“There are certainly growth management policies that don’t work, that strictly limit development-
growth boundaries and are therefore anti-growth. I think the growth management policies, the
Smart Growth policies that do work are those that really do try to anticipate and accommodate
growth in a metropolitan area in a way that is going to promote economic development, that is
fiscally sustainable, that is environmentally sustainable, and that actually allows low-income
working families and middle-class and upper-income families to enjoy that growth.”

And finding that balance in a world where politics and competing interests sometimes muddy the
best intentions will be the real trick, as states try to define what “Smart Growth” will mean for
people pursuing the American dream of owning their own home.

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

Building Demand for Green Construction

To the environmentalist, “green” refers to something environmentally friendly. When manufacturers refer to green, they usually mean money. But with an increase in the demand for environmentally sound buildings, manufacturers have the opportunity to combine the two definitions. For those who see the possibility, retooling to meet the demand for green construction could mean a large payoff in a burgeoning industry. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shula Neuman reports:

Transcript

To the environmentalist, “green” refers to something environmentally friendly. When
manufacturers refer to green, they usually mean money. But with an increase in the demand for
environmentally sound buildings, manufacturers have the opportunity to combine the two
definitions. For those who see the possibility, retooling to meet the demand for green
construction could mean a large payoff in a burgeoning industry. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Shula Neuman filed this report:

There’s an 86-year old abandoned building in a Cleveland neighborhood that was left for dead a
few decades ago. It’s a shame because inside the building are 26-foot high ceilings with ornate
molding, original Tennessee marble walls and wood trim. But recently, the building, which was
once the Cleveland Trust Bank, was identified by a coalition of local environmental groups as the
ideal spot for their offices. The Cleveland Green Building Coalition spearheaded the task of
converting the old bank building into the new Environmental Center. Executive director Sadhu
Johnston explains, the project is not your average renovation.

“What we’re really trying to do is to demonstrate to people that you can do green while
preserving and that’s often they are seen to butt heads and this project is showing that the two
movements have a lot in common.”

While touring the mostly finished building, Johnston points out seemingly endless
environmentally friendly features. First, there’s a radiant floor heating and cooling system. Then
there are the geothermal wells under the parking lot. They use insulation made from recycled
paper and cardboard. And the roof is divided into three sections: one part has traditional black
tar, another has a white reflective coating and the third segment is a living roof, which looks like
a garden.

Johnston says the layout is meant to demonstrate a more than 100-degree temperature variation
between the three surfaces. All of the different materials and methods used to construct the
Environmental Center, could signal a forward thinking manufacturer to see financial reward from
the burgeoning interest in green buildings. After all, green buildings tend to save money.

The Environmental Center is 67-percent more energy efficient than required by code. In fiscal
terms, that adds up to a half-million dollar savings over 20 years. This might make you wonder
why more people aren’t building green. Actually, according to U.S. Green Building Council
president and CEO Christine Ervin, interest in green construction has been increasing over the
past decade. Since the group established green certification standards three years ago, nearly 700
projects have registered to meet certification. And, Ervin adds, the increase in interest is not
exclusive to tree-huggers

“The diversity of the kinds of projects also is telling us that this is a serious trend that is moving
into the mainstream market. We have projects that are registered firehouses, small schools, FAA
stations. All the way up to manufacturing plants and convention centers.”

Several cities and government agencies are already mandating green construction on new
buildings, including the city of Portland, the General Services Administration and the U.S. Army.

David Goldstein is with the Natural Resources Defense Council and environmental group in San
Francisco. He says there’s a movement afoot to establish national incentives to build green. In
other words, the time is ripe for the construction industry to get with the green program.

“From the point of view of the manufacturers of the equipment and supplies, and of the expert
building designers who put all these things together, once these policies for green buildings are
there, that’s a new market opportunity for them. So it is in their interest to promote these kinds of
policies.”

Goldstein adds green regulations also have a coincidental social benefit. With 35-percent of
pollution coming from the electricity and gas buildings use, requiring green buildings is as much
a public health issue as it is an economic one.

Some manufacturers in the great lakes region have caught on to the possibilities. The Cleveland
Based Garland Company manufactures and installs roofing systems all over the country and is
responsible for the Environmental Center’s roof—its first in-town green job. Garland
incorporates recycled materials into about 80 percent of its products. Nathan Schaus, project
manager at Garland, says about 15 percent of their business comes from their green product line.
Schaus says the market for green materials will continue to grow, especially with manufacturers
pushing its benefits.

“It’s a two-fold education. You need to educate the buyer, the end user that what they’re buying
is a building solution for the long term. So the initial investment, you have to explain that cost
over its life cycle. With the incentives, it’s changing the mindsets of the people that regulate
government and electricity today.”

Government regulators may work even faster on establishing incentives when they see the
increase in demand for residential green building on top of the commercial market. According to
the National Association of Homebuilders, about 13,000 green homes were built last year – a
huge increase over any single year before that. If demand continues to increase at such a rapid
pace, those business that go green now may be making plenty of green in the future.

For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Shula Neuman.

What Is “Smart Growth?”

The rapid growth of suburban areas, what some people call urban sprawl, is getting renewed attention by states. New governors in several states are setting up commissions or task forces to address the issue and to find ways to adhere to what’s called “Smart Growth.” The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports that there’s a lot of interpretation of what “Smart Growth” means:

Transcript

The rapid growth of suburban areas, what some people call urban sprawl, is getting renewed
attention by states. New governors in several states are setting up commissions or task forces to
address the issue and to find ways to adhere to what’s called “Smart Growth.” The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports that there’s a lot of interpretation of what “Smart
Growth” means:

Many urban planners have been alarmed over the last couple of decades as metropolitan areas have
sprung up where farmland or wooded areas once stood. Following new subdivisions have been
strip malls, parking lots and fast food franchises in a not always attractive fashion.

Last year’s election saw a number of states with new governors and some of them are looking at
what can be done to control that kind of unbridled growth. Michigan’s Jennifer Granholm noted it
during her State of the State speech.

“We will develop a cooperative, common sense approach to how we use our land so we can protect
our forests and farms, prevent the sprawl that chokes our suburban communities and threatens our
water quality, and bring new life to our cities and older suburbs.”

Governor Granholm says she wants “Smart Growth.” It’s a popular term, but what is it? What
does it mean?

“I think that Smart Growth is really hard to – certainly hard to describe.”

Barry Rabe is a Professor of Environmental Policy at the University of Michigan’s School of
Natural Resources and Environment. He says “Smarth Growth” sounds great.

“I don’t know anyone who’s really against Smart Growth. But, you can spend a long academic
seminar or actually a lifetime in search of the one common definition of exactly what that means.
Again, it has sort of an intuitive appeal. It resonates. We can all think of examples that are not so
Smart Growth or dumb growth. But, I think clearly this is something that lends itself to differing
kinds of interpretations by different groups.”

And as you ask the people who’ll be sitting at the table debating “Smart Growth,” it becomes clear
that each one has a different definition.

Lynn Egbert is the CEO of the Michigan Association of Home Builders. He says “Smart Growth”
is a private citizen building a home wherever he or she thinks is an ideal site.

“Our basis continues to be and our primary focus is, and it will remain, that it’s private property
rights under the U.S. Constitution that have to be maintained and that is an individual right. It is a
citizen’s right. And we have to work with local and state government to make sure that that’s
achieved and balanced.”

Egbert says the culprit causing urban sprawl is not the choices that landowners make. He says it’s
too much government regulation. Egbert says, generally, municipalities that zone areas into large
lots stop home builders from building more houses on smaller plots of land.

Others also place much of the blame for sprawl on government, but for different reasons. Hans
Voss is with the Michigan Land Use Institute.

______________
“Landowners do have a right to live in the area in which they choose as long as they follow local
land-use regulations and pay the full cost of that lifestyle. And right now the taxpayers in the cities
and across the whole states are actually subsidizing that style of development.”

Voss says to implement “Smart Growth,” the government has to stop subsidizing urban sprawl by
building highways and sewer systems that all of us have to pay for with our taxes instead of just the
residents who benefit from them. He says that money could be better used to revitalize older
suburbs and the center of deteriorating cities.

There are a lot more ideas of what “Smart Growth” means… and there’s a bit of public relations
spinning because of the ambiguity of the term “Smart Growth.”

The University of Michigan’s Barry Rabe says we’ll hear a lot about “Smart Growth” for some
time to come.

“It’s one of these buzz words that everybody likes. But, to come up with a common definition of
it, much less figure out how that would be implemented in public policy is tricky.”

Ultimately, compromise will define “Smart Growth” as states grapple with trying to find better ways
to use land without losing so much farmland to sprawling subdivisions and paving over natural areas
for parking lots.

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

Study Outlines Threats to the Lakes

A four-year study on the health of the Great Lakes is halfway finished. So far, the biggest threat is private and commercial development along the region’s shorelines. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson has more:

Transcript

A four-year study on the health of the Great Lakes is halfway finished. So far, the biggest threat
is private and commercial development along the region’s shorelines. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Mike Simonson has more:

This 6-million dollar study funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency directs scientists
to find out what the greatest threats are to the five Great Lakes. Researcher Gerald Niemi says
Lakes Michigan and Erie are the hardest hit by contaminants from heavily industrialized areas
and areas with agricultural development.

Niemi says the biggest red flag for all of the Great Lakes is continuing development of
shoreland.

“They’re under quite a bit of pressure from
both residential and urban-type development, commercial development. We found that in many situations
when you remove the forests, for example, and remove the wetlands, then you have impacts and reduced
populations of birds, amphibians, etc.”

Niemi says the best solution is to put aside some shoreland as parkland and natural areas.

For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mike Simonson.

Threatened Snake Gets Hand in Recovery

The Lake Erie water snake is listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is developing a recovery plan for the snake – and people who live near the snake are also giving it a hand in recovery. Photo courtesy U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Many people are afraid of snakes. But along the shores of Lake Erie, residents are working to keep a threatened water snake in the neighborhood. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams has more:

Transcript

Many people are afraid of snakes. But along the shores of Lake Erie, residents are working to
keep a threatened water snake in the neighborhood. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Rebecca Williams has more:

The Lake Erie water snake was listed as threatened three years ago. The snakes are found only
on rocky limestone islands in the western basin. And they can grow up to five feet long.

Their numbers have dropped recently because people are building houses on their shoreline
habitat. And in the past, people have killed the snakes out of fear.

Megan Seymour is a wildlife biologist. She works for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
She says, over time, most people have stopped harassing the snakes. Some
landowners have even posted signs saying, “Water snakes welcome here.”

“I think the best tactic for me has been to kind of explain the biology of the snakes, explain how
they have their own personalities, sort of… The more people learn about the snakes, the more
interested they become, and the more they start seeing it as some kind of interesting animal
versus a gross snake.”

Seymour is writing the recovery plan for the snakes. She says most wildlife recoveries take many
years, but because the locals are showing concern, she thinks the snakes will recover more
quickly.

For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Hidden Costs of Sprawl

Economists and urban planners are beginning to look at the hidden costs of sprawl. They're finding many people pay, but only a few benefit from the costs. Photo by Lester Graham.

Even if you don’t live in an upscale suburb in a sprawling metropolitan area, you’re likely paying to support that suburb. Economists and urban planners find there are hidden costs that are not paid by the people who live in those suburbs. Instead, much of the costs are paid by the majority of us who don’t live there. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

If you just bought a home that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in a neighborhood of similar big expensive houses… you probably think you’ve already paid your fair share to attain the good life. The mortgage is a monthly reminder. And the real estate taxes are another. But the price you’re paying is just the beginning of the costs that make it possible for you to live there. Much of the rest of it is paid by people outside of your suburb; people who never realize the benefits.

Myron Orfield is the author of the book “American Metropolitics: The New Suburban Reality.” He says the people who live in the upscale suburbs get the advantages of the good schools and the nice roads… but they don’t pay all of the underlying costs. Much of that is passed on to others…

“Most of us don’t-aren’t able to live in the communities with 400-thousand dollar houses and massive office parks and commercial industrial. Only about seven or eight percent of us can afford to live there and the rest of the region really pays the freight for that.”

That’s because the rest of the region pays the county and state taxes that make the roads and nice schools possible. Orfield says a residential area alone doesn’t generate enough tax revenue to pay the full costs.

“So we all subsidize that development and so when all the resources of the region concentrate in six or seven percent of the region’s population, it really hurts the vast majority of the people.”

And while the cost of supporting the upscale neighborhoods is substantial, that’s just the beginning of the hidden costs of sprawl.

In most cases, those nice suburbs are nice because they’re situated away from the hub-bub of the daily grind of work and traffic and hassle. The people who live there might have to drive a little farther to get to work, but, hey, when they DO get home, it’s a complete escape, worth the extra drive time. Right?

William Testa is an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank in Chicago. As an economist, he measures things by how efficient they might be. He says driving a little farther from the nice suburbs to work and back wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing.
“If people want to travel further because they can live better, then it’s their choice and they feel they live better with a longer commute, then we wouldn’t necessarily call that an inefficiency. When it can be inefficient is when people don’t pay
for the costs of their own travel.”

And that’s the rub. If you decide to drive 30 miles to work instead of ten miles, the taxes on the extra gasoline you burn don’t begin to pay the extra costs of that decision… Again, William Testa…

“The spill-over costs that they don’t internalize when you decide to get in your car and drive someplace, such as to your job, is environmental degradation, the cost of road maintenance isn’t directly paid for when you decide how many miles to drive, maintain the road, the police, ambulance services and the like. So, economists would say that driving is not priced correctly to have people efficiently choose how many miles they choose to drive.”

While urban sprawl’s economic costs to society are substantial, there might be larger costs.

When an upper-middle income family chooses to live in an enclave of others in their tax bracket, it’s a given that the people who teach their children, who police the neighborhoods, and fight the fires are not going to be able to afford to live there.

In fact, those who would work in the restaurants and at the service stations in many cases can’t take those jobs because they can’t afford the housing and they can’t afford the commute.

Emily Talen is an urban planner at the University of Illinois. She says
that’s a cost that can’t always be measured in dollars and cents. It’s a separation of the haves and the have-nots.

“Social cost is that fragmentation, that separation, that segregation really on an income level more than anything else.”

Talen says when people decide they can afford the good life in the nice suburb, the new American dream, they often only think of their own success, but not about the costs to others.

“This is what our nation is founded on. I mean, it is founded on the pursuit of happiness and I think that that has been kind of problematic for people thinking in terms of their own individual happiness rather than issues about the common good.”

And so, Talen says when a town decides it will only allow expensive houses to be built, it’s decided that all labor for its services will be imported from out of town. The expense of that decision is borne by everyone else… especially the lower-income people forced to commute.

William Testa at the Federal Reserve Bank in Chicago says in the end, that cost might be the greatest one to society at large.

“This, it seems to me, is un-American and very un-democratic and something that we ought to think about very seriously. Could we really live with ourselves in a society where there aren’t housing options available for people to make a livelihood, to follow the opportunity for their livelihood.”

The experts say there’s nothing wrong with pursuing the good life, as long as everyone is paying their fair share of the cost. They say right now, that’s not happening… and those who never benefit from a pleasant life in the suburbs are paying much of the cost for others to do so.

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

HIDDEN COSTS OF SPRAWL (Short Version)

Economists and urban planners are beginning to look at the hidden costs of sprawl. They're finding many people pay, but only a few benefit from the costs. Photo by Lester Graham.

Economists and urban planners are beginning to calculate some of the hidden costs of urban sprawl to society. The experts say those costs are often borne by people who don’t enjoy the benefits of living in the expensive new suburbs. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

When a town in a sprawling metropolitan area limits development to big expensive houses, that means the people who work in the service stations and the restaurants have to live somewhere else. They are forced to commute. That means a greater demand for roads. And that costs all of us. William Testa is with the Federal Reserve Bank in Chicago. He says an even greater cost is lost opportunity for those who can’t even afford to make the commute to the jobs…

“The higher costs may be on people in the inner-city – or wherever – in low-income areas who can’t afford to live close to the places where the job demand is, where the jobs are being created.”

Testa says developing suburbs should consider building affordable housing for workers. If that doesn’t happen, he says society should find a way for those suburbs to pay the cost of their decisions.

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

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.