Taking a Lesson in Math to Limit Urban Sprawl

Mr. Fiscelli tells us that we should block development of land far from cities, properly charge for quasi-public goods, ignore NIMBY-heads, and make cities attractive places.

Properly pricing quasi-public goods is something that should *always* be done whenever possible. But suppose that his fourth step is achieved: Urban crime goes down, schools improve, and brownfields are cleaned up. Why, then, would we need to preserve land away from the city?

If public goods are properly priced and if barriers to moving to cities are removed, then if people still want to move to undeveloped areas it is because they prefer those areas to urban areas. It is a fact of life that forcing those people to live in cities by proscribing development of the hinterland will *necessarily* harm them.

Just as one person may have a preference for being an urbanite and having a forest to stay untouched, another person may have prefer to be a sub- or exurbanite and have no concern whether a forest has some development in it. If the second person if forced into an urban area by public policy, then she is being unambigiously harmed by said policy. It would be unethical to claim that her preferences are arbitrarily less valuable than the urbanite's preferences. The question then becomes: How do you intend to compensate the would-be suburbanite for the harm done to her through land-use policy?

I suspect that Mr. Fiscelli's first so-called "order of operation" is an implicit admission that urban areas, even ones with low crime and few brownfields, simply are unattractive to many people. There are plenty of people who simply prefer non-urban settings, and preservation programs are required to force those people into urban areas.

In order to maximize welfare, i.e. well-being, those people need to be compensated for the damage done to them by land-use policy. Mr. Fiscelli simply doesn't consider this possibility. He is not presenting a roadmap to a better world; he is presenting a roadmap to a world where people who desire to live in non-urban areas are arbitrarily forced to bear the costs that urbanites impose on them.

Mr. Fiscelli claims that he is "allowing markets to respond to these new policies," when in fact his very first suggestion is an anti-market intervention. Mr. Fiscelli offers no viable argument showing a market failure in land use, yet his first step to a brighter future is to assume that he is better able to determine the optimal distribution of resources than the market.

Here is a much better plan to deal with urban sprawl: First determine the market failures causing it. Second, correct or minimize them. Third, if there still is sprawl, accept sprawl as evidence that people are becoming happier and better off--restricting choice is *necessarily* welfare reducing.

...is what you are referring to. It's regional planning corollary would require eminent domain, therefore it's not likely. The market does offer a solution, though, properly put together regional planning can provide participating property owners with more money that if they were to act on their own. For those that do not care to participate, we pay for options and rights of refusal, to consolidate control, then we work with pension and equity funds to acquire their property at current market rates. The investors secure and earn a portion of the greater long term value.

Until we align the carrying capacity of the landscape, with the goals of the property owners in that place, and the demands and absorption rate of the market in that place, we will have sprawl. Control must be consolidate to a single entity, yes, but not a top-down agency. Control must be consolidated to the people in that place, enabling them to best manage the landscape for their future goals and needs and to retain the community values already in place. These values are why people are moving to the rural/suburban fringe, but as development removes existing relationships from the landscape, new dollars - in development parlance 'soft costs' - have to be invested for community building. The new community is not what brought consumers to that area in the first place and this, I believe, is a considerable factor in the general disappointment in suburban neighborhoods.

Given the opportunity to plan and manage for their own future, simple market economics will help them do the right things. My goal when working with landowners is to maximize the value of their lands. It just so happens that value maximization involves a balance of conservation, development, and redevelopment - all directed by the landscape and the market. Something to remember is that there are two kinds of value - particularly with landowners - financial and personal. Given the opportunity to exercise one set of values many are willing to forego some of the other.

I think this is a decent editorial. The comment about "land pooling" is a good one, and undergirds my one reservation. The reason that LR and TOD don't, in and of themselves, change a lot of things in the short run is because of the massive decentralization of regions and increasing land use and size of properties. Houses keep getting bigger, even as household size decreases. So do lot sizes, except in areas where land is especially pricy.

To me, the two "first orders of change" in advance of the five listed by Mr. Fiscelli, concern re-centralizing of activity in some sense. That probably comes from an urban growth boundary which would require development towards the core. A third change, Smart Codes instead of zoning, would also help, to ensure quality site design as well as quality design of individual buildings.

Note that LR and TOD reap extra-normal gains where there is already decent density, urban form, grid, and mixed use. OTOH, LR or HR being put in the suburbs of Salt Lake City isn't going to do much in the short, intermediate, or long term... Unfortunately, some LR systems are more political and development engines than sprawl reducers.

Changing fundamental policies is a starting point, however, I believe a real solution will only be found if we look further ahead (and a bit back in time as well.) Sprawl and natural resource fragmentation occur because our planning process is applied and amended parcel-by-parcel, project-by-project. Economically speaking, one must realize that each parcel only represents a portion of the area's market opportunity and, from an environmental perspective, recognize that the natural resources we aim to protect rarely reside fully within one parcel. Ian McHarg, as ever a bit ahead of his time, proposed a solution over thirty years ago. His 'Plan for the Valleys' is a premise upon which we are building our business. Using economic and ecological analysis, we determine which parcels most effectively control what opportunities and then help those property owners create a business together that maximizes value. By assembling control to one entity, of which the property owners are the shareholders and board of directors, we avoid the real fundamental problem with today's planning and development process - the 'tragedy of the commons'.