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Can't Smart Growth And Sprawl Just Get Along?

19 December 2005 - 7:00am
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Problems with nomenclature may prevent "smart growth" -- or high-density housing -- from being used appropriately, including targeting the right audience. If the vast majority of people want "sprawl", should they get it? Smart growth may only be appropriate for the minority willing to accept it, writes Rick Bishop, AICP.

Photo: Rick Bishop Let's run down the list of things people tend to frown upon. Serial killers. Earthquakes for sure. Dysentery. And, of course, there's high-density housing.

Forget about the occasional story in newspapers across the country that enthusiastically touts the "new" mixed-use projects popping up here and there. That high-density and mixed-use developments are even reported at all in mainstream media -- their "newsworthiness," in other words -- serves to exemplify how these developments are still a sort of novelty act. They are news because they are different. And forget about getting all excited about the institutional magazines, websites, and planning-oriented newsletters that glamorize and focus on this topic. They are only read by, well, people like us.

In spite of the increased hoopla, mixed-use and high-density developments are still the planning equivalent of the lizard-skinned man at the county fair. Maybe not quite at "freak-show" level, but still far from planning mainstream. Their prospects remain relegated to the redevelopment wing of urban planning, often seen only as an acceptable approach and safe risk for revitalizing areas that are underutilized and run down.

The lion's share of resentment for and wariness of high-density tends to be heaped onto the NIMBYs. But in recently attending a meeting of state and regional planning leaders discussing California's future, I was struck by the overall neutrality toward these planning approaches, particularly as they might be incorporated in greenfield development.

Part of the problem may be that issues surrounding mixed-use and high-density development have been sucked into a nomenclature vortex. Rather than simply touting the many benefits of high-density and mixed-use development -- reducing automobile trips, providing variety and affordability in housing opportunities, improving air quality, providing more opportunities for open space preservation and creating distinguishable city centers, to name a few -- we've spent extensive time disguising the term "high-density," packaging it instead as "transit-oriented design", "neotraditionalism", "livable communities", "new urbanism", "smart growth", or "urban villages". That effort has yielded questionable results, considering the various interpretations of these terms that have now developed in recent years.

In some cases we have ourselves to blame. I've attended more than one planning conference session entitled "Smart Growth" only to hear panelists focus on the use of urban limit lines to corral and/or slow growth. And if planners don't have a handle on how to interpret the term, imagine what a single swipe from a nationally-syndicated columnist can do. George Will once wrote that "The purpose of 'smart' 'coordinated' growth is to prevent the masses, in their freedom, from producing democracy's byproducts -- untidiness and even vulgarity. And the bland notion of 'planning' often is the rubric under which government operates when making its preferences and prophecies -- often meaning its arrogance and its mistakes -- mandatory." Great.

Too often planners, the public, and decision-makers seem to make smart-growth an "all-or-nothing" issue when discussing future development. In their simplest form, though, smart growth concepts should be one of many common and acceptable approaches utilized by jurisdictions to plan for and accommodate future growth. In western Riverside County, California, for example, we know through survey research that 85% of prospective home buyers desire to purchase a single family home in a suburban-style setting. Current development patterns in the subregion correspond to these desires, and there's nothing wrong with that. There's no need for smart growth efforts to be geared towards changing the preferences of the 85% who steadfastly seek suburbia. But what about focusing on the 15% of respondents who are looking for something else?

Planners and policy makers need to find ways to bring mixed-use and high-density development into the planning mainstream to meet these needs, both in rebuilding existing communities and, especially, in building new ones. Mixed-use and high-density developments deserve equal standing as we build our new cities; they shouldn't be viewed only as a way to revitalize the dead ones.

Rick Bishop, AICP, has over 20 years of intergovernmental planning experience in both the public and private sectors. He serves as Executive Director of the Western Riverside (California) Council of Governments, which includes 15 jurisdictions as member entities. The views expressed in this article are solely the author's, and do not reflect any policy of WRCOG or its member agencies.

 


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towards a nodal metropolis?

Submitted by Sandy Smith on Thu, 12/22/2005 - 07:02.

A note before the comments proper: I originally posted these remarks to the transport-policy list, with which some of you are familiar. I use here at least one term that is AFAIK unique to that list: "OPAC", or "Older Pre-Automotive City" (or as its inventor had it, "Obsolete Pre-Automotive City").

I will also make one perhaps obvious statement: The problem with an urban environment that combines intense activity in a small space with a reliance on distributed transport (i.e., personally owned vehicles) as opposed to collective transport (mass transit) is that the space required to store the vehicles eventually overwhelms the space required for the activity itself. Anyone who manages to do away with this problem will doubtless be worshipped as a god.

Now, my remarks:

Actually, what is being suggested here strikes me as quite similar in concept and spatial arrangement to an urban settlement pattern Robert Cote described with the term "nodaltopia."

The idea is not that difficult to grasp; in fact, most of our large metropolitan areas already display some of its characteristics, especially those that have one or more robust "edge cities" in their suburban ring.

Thinking back to some other formal and informal surveys I've seen, that 85-15 split sounds about right, though any given individual's preference is likely to oscillate according to their stage in life (college years and young adulthood: bright lights, big city; time to raise the kids: find lots of green space for them to play and good schools to attend, which usually means head for the 'burbs; after the kids are gone: it could go either way, depending on one's leisure preferences). And just as our older urban cores are now built to handle far more than the 15 percent of the population that strongly prefers them, the suburban ring makes little or no provision for that same 15 percent.

If we were to follow Rick's advice, the end result would in all likelihood be an archipelago of dense urban cores surrounded by swaths of green suburbs. Within the boundaries of the older cities, the suburbanization would be accomplished much as the Philadelphia Housing Authority is accomplishing it in that Inquirer series posted about on this list: by demolishing older, denser residential districts and replacing them with more spacious homes on even more spacious plots of land. (Note for Planetizen readers: The Philadelphia Inquirer ran a three-part series two weeks ago on the quiet revolution in Philadelphia's public housing that has taken place under the current leadership of the Philadelphia Housing Authority. High-rise apartment blocks that had been notorious havens for crime and drugs have been leveled all over the city; in their place now sit developments filled with mixed-income housing that resemble contemporary suburban subdivisions. Eligibility standards have been revised to encourage working families to rent or purchase units. Residents are thrilled with the improved conditions, and the neighbors are also happier on the whole; the one problem is that there is a huge waiting list for low-income housing, as the total number of units under PHA management has dropped significantly as a result of this transformation.)

Meanwhile, the Edge Cities would evolve from commercial monocultures to true 24-hour zones by adding residents in place. It might require converting some of those glass boxes from office to residential use or building residential infill where parking lots now stand. But either way, these areas would end up becoming denser than they are now.

Such development would also lend itself to good, high-capacity transit service from node to node, with some provision for intermediate stops in the internodal suburban territory to serve those who prefer living there but want to work in the nodes. Vehicle storage would be encouraged at the suburban end and discouraged at the urban end.

I think this vision is something both us OPAC-huggers and the suburbia-über-alles crowd could even manage to agree on.

(Postscript: After reading the comments upstream from this one, it looks like the only people who might be able to agree on this vision--which, I will grant, probably represents only a slight evolution from our current metropolitan landscape--are Rick, Robert and myself.)

Sandy Smith, Exile on Market Street, Philadelphia
"There is only one thing worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." --Oscar Wilde

yes and no

Submitted by Michael Lewyn on Thu, 12/22/2005 - 09:08.

It seems to me that there should certainly be variations in regional density; there should be dense cores where jobs are, and less dense areas where families tend to live. But I would add that even the "less dense areas" can take a wide variety of different forms. There is no reason these kind of areas can't look like Narberth or Haddonfield instead of like typical late 20th-century sprawl.

To put it another way, our suburbs can look like this:

http://atlantaphotos.fotopic.net/p15273121.html
http://atlantaphotos.fotopic.net/p15713478.html
http://atlantaphotos.fotopic.net/p15273666.html
(pedestrian friendly but clearly not a center city or edge city)

or this:

http://atlantaphotos.fotopic.net/p15220534.html
(Levittown- or as I call it, sprawl with a human face).

or this:

http://atlantaphotos.fotopic.net/p14010329.html
http://atlantaphotos.fotopic.net/p14010330.html
http://atlantaphotos.fotopic.net/p14010301.html
(parts of suburban Atlanta with essentially zero accommodations for pedestrians).

who is high density a probelm for?

Submitted by vivianafranco on Wed, 12/21/2005 - 09:49.

This article begins with a very clear sense of who we speak about when it comes to the trouble with high-density housing. Who exactly are the "people" who tend to frown upon" high density housing? You see, in large urban areas, high-density housing is not an issue about providing adequate housing for the 20-something, bohemian. This housing is for low to moderate income individuals priced out of the current housing market. What people frown about high density housing? Current homeowners whom wish to keep their communities as people free as possible? The affluent who wish to keep their communities as color free as possible? And by color, I am not refering to swatches.

Where I live, high-density housing is begged for. It is applaudded when developers can creatively mix uses and create walkable neighborhoods with effective mass transit solutions. But most importantly, it is needed. People are fighting to get more housing. And currently they settle for the new affordable housing: weekly motels.

So I do agree that provding smarter communities and mixed-use developments should be taken on a case-by-case. They are wonderful solutions to revitalize neighborhoods, they are not the only solutions. However, these are also beautiful alternatives for communities that do not necessarily need revitalizing, but could stand to be guided towards a road of less isolated spaces more liavble palces.

*note on affluent and high density: I should mention that Beverly Hills, Ca. has a ratio of roughly 60/40: 60% of its housing is multi-family dwelllings. An exception to the rule?

viviana
Urban Planner
Los Angeles, Ca.
www.fromlottospot.com

Regardless of what we think...

Submitted by David Renkert on Mon, 12/19/2005 - 18:20.

‘Sprawl’ exists due to the nearly infinite decisions made by individuals over the course of time. This will continue until either, a) we run out of land or b) governments’ restrictions become so onerous as to prevent development in greenfields. It’s human nature. Just as it is argue...

A new alternative is developing... market-based regional planning via Landpooling. To see how it can work in your area, follow the steps below.

1. Fire up your GIS basemap

2. Erase parcel and political lines.

3. Perform basic economic and ecological analysis to determine planning areas.
- Planning areas are effectively groups of properties that ‘should’ be planned as a whole according to how they act economically and ecologically.
- Locally appropriate sizes – urban redevelopment may be an acre to 5 acres or more; rural areas landpools may be 10 to 50,000 acres or more.
- Determine landscape carrying capacity
- Estimate market demands and absorption rates

4. Talk with every land/property owner in the proposed planning area
- Determine specific needs and interests of property owners, looking for win-win opportunities and common interests/bonds among them.
- Remember, visions are not plans. Visions must be translated into plans through specific actions built upon specific information.

5. Take the information learned from the property owners and compare it to what was learned earlier from the landscape and markets. If the property owners’ needs and interests do not outstrip the opportunities and constraints presented by the market and landscape, begin talking with them about creating specific plans. If it does overwhelm existing opportunities, tell them that as well.

6. Bottom line - Whatever you do, begin the conversation.

David Renkert, Founder
Landpool Partners
www.landpooling.com

No, Smart Growth and sprawl can't just get along. Period.

Submitted by Wells on Mon, 12/19/2005 - 12:22.

Sprawl does not exist in a vacuum. The needs of its residents can only be met outside its fenced confines. And only one means of travel can be arranged to meet the needs of suburbanites - cars. The costs of massive roadway infrastructure required to handle the marauding hoards of suburban motorists are displaced onto freight carriers and the general public. And within higher-density, mixed-use neighborhoods and districts, automobiles are an impediment and a danger to those whose travel choices include walking, bicycling and mass transit.

When the residents of suburban sprawl go a-motoring, it is like an infestation of rolling metal exo-skeletons, an invasion of fools going nowhere fast.

Consider the Environmental Costs of Sprawl

Submitted by Charles Siegel on Mon, 12/19/2005 - 10:45.

This article says we should put sprawl and smart growth on an equal footing. We should give people what they want by building sprawl for the 85 percent who want to live in suburban homes and building smart growth for the other 15 percent.

But the 85 percent who say they want suburban homes are only thinking about what sort of neighborhood they consider most pleasant to live in. They are not thinking about the environmental costs of their decision: paving of open space and farmland, depletion of oil supplies, global warming, air pollution, and so on. Many of these environmental costs will be borne by future generations. If this 85 percent considered all the costs of sprawl, many would make a different decision.

By analogy, imagine someone who says that surveys show that 85 percent of all logging companies prefer to clear cut forests and only 15 percent prefer sustainable logging. Therefore, we should put clear cutting and sustainable logging on an equal basis and let each company do what it wants. The obvious flaw in this reasoning is that the clear cutters do not think about the environmental costs of their decision, which are borne by their neighbors and by future generations -- just as people who move to sprawl neighborhoods are not thinking about the environmental costs of their decision.

This article makes another obvious error by assuming that the 85 percent who want suburban homes necessarily want sprawl and not smart growth. There are many New Urbanist neighborhoods that are suburban but are not sprawl: neighborhoods of free-standing houses on 1/10 acre lots with shopping streets within walking distance. I suspect that most of the 85 percent who want suburban homes would be happy with this sort of smart-growth suburb. In fact, surveys by the CNU show that about 50 percent of Americans would prefer New Urbanist neighborhoods if they were available -- and that the number is growing.

Charles Siegel

What Are Those Costs?

Submitted by Robert Cote on Mon, 12/19/2005 - 11:06.

Once again the assertion is made. MUHD uses less open space, less farmland, less energy, reduces global warming, reduces air pollution and so on. Where is the evidence beyond assertion?

As to the CNU "surveys" I believe they were more of a charrete consensus process than an honest survey. Revealed preference is the survey that counts.

Evidence

Submitted by Charles Siegel on Mon, 12/19/2005 - 11:48.

Do you really need evidence that higher density development uses less land? It seems quite obvious that development at 100 units per acre or 10 units per acre uses less land than development at 4 or 2 units per acre.

There is plenty of evidence that lower densities lead to more driving, which means more energy use, more oil depletion, more global warming.

International comparisons by Peter Newman and Jeff Kennworthy show that doubling a city's density decreases per capita VMT by 30%. It should be quite obvious why this effect occurs. It means that increasing density 4 fold cuts per capita VMT about in half -- which is exactly what you would expect, since increasing density 4 fold cuts distances in half.

Comparisons of neighborhoods of different densities in the SF Bay Area by John Holtzclaw show that driving also decreases if just one neighborhood is higher density. Holtzclaw found that if a neighborhood is twice as dense, people drive 15 percent less. As we would expect, the effect of higher density in one neighborhood is less than the effect of higher density in the entire city. Again, it should be quite obvious that people who live in North Beach, where people walk to the store, drive less than people who live in San Ramon, where you cannot walk anywhere.

You say that "revealed preference is the survey that counts." But most municipalities in the United States have zoning laws that require low densities, so people don't have the opportunity to choose their preference. The fact that New Urbanist neighborhoods have a price premium of about 15 percent over conventional suburban neighborhoods is evidence that there is an artificial scarcity of New Urbanist neighborhoods.

Charles Siegel

VMT and Density

Submitted by Robert Cote on Mon, 12/19/2005 - 15:27.

Sielgel opines; "There is plenty of evidence that lower densities lead to more driving, which means more energy use, more oil depletion, more global warming."

Sorry, no. Density and VMT are weakly negatively correlated at best. What is very strongly correlated is congestion and density. It is that congestion that is energy consuming and any of the other negative consequences real and imagined you cite. I would have thought the FHWA HM series data would have been familiar to you as they show quite plainly that Newman Kennworthy does not work for an urban area as opposed to city boundaries. Neither they nor Holtzclaw control for self selection either. Holtzclaw also cheats. He doesn't count transit as being person miles travelled as if the bus or trolley is some magic carpet immune from the laws of physics time and chemistry.

Finally zoning laws exist to protect people from having others come in and change their prefered density without their consent. Shock, surprise, so undemocratic don't you think?

Your Claims Are Not Plausible

Submitted by Charles Siegel on Tue, 12/20/2005 - 11:06.

Of course, I was talking about zoning of greenfield land that requires sprawl, not zoning of already developed areas. It is very hard to convert areas that are already sprawl into walkable neighborhoods, because the streets are laid out incorrectly, so this is not an issue. Zoning of greenfields to require sprawl is a major issue that many New Urbanists talk about.

I am afraid that you cheat in your comments on Holtzclaw, by suddenly shifting from Vehicle Miles Travelled to Person Miles Travelled. If you stick with VMT, transit use does not make much of a difference, because there are many people on one vehicle. VMT is what is important environmentally.

Your claim that density and VMT are "weakly correlated at best" simply is not plausible. Imagine two metropolitan areas, both with the same population and similar economies but with one major difference: area A is four times the density of area B. For simplicity, imagine that A is a square of 10 miles by 10 miles, and B is a square of 20 miles by 20 miles. The average person in A will be half as far from the center of town and from the big-box stores on the edge of town as the average person in B; trip distances generally will be about half as great in A as in B. This is consistent with Newman and Kenworthy's findings that, because of this difference in density, people in A would drive about half as much as people in B.

Your earlier claim that there is "no evidence" that high density development conserves land is even less plausible, since higher density uses less land per person than lower density BY DEFINITION.

I am not going to waste any more time on this thread, since most of your comments are hostile sniping rather than serious discussion -- as evidenced by your bitterly sarcastic but totally irrelevant comments about zoning and democracy, about Holtzclaw thinking that transit is a "magic carpet immune from the laws of physics" (though Holtzclaw was originally a nuclear physicist!!), etc., etc., etc. This sort of petty sniping generates more heat than light, and it does not make for interesting discussions.

I expect you will write a response to this post filled with the same sort of embittered, hostile, irrelevant comments. If so, I will not waste my time replying.

Charles Siegel

Another Example of Civil Discourse

Submitted by Robert Cote on Tue, 12/20/2005 - 12:56.

"Zoning of greenfields to require sprawl is a major issue that many New Urbanists talk about."

Ahh the truth comes out. New Urbanism needs to be a greenfield process thus the original claim of preserving open space and farmland is dispensed. Thanks.

"VMT is what is important environmentally." No, not hardly. Classic blind hatred of the auto does not change the facts. Would a 6 lane freeway where demand dictated a 2 lane road be considered an efficient use of space? Why then is a light rail couplet that carries less than 1/5 the passenger volume of two freeway lanes considered anything less than an abomination? What form of VMT is also important. A transit bus gets 3.6 mpg on diesel and is exempted from particulate emissions standards. Hardly the zero impact Holtzclaw assumes. Holtzclaw isn't even the worst despite his long standing association with the Sierra Club's most radical elements. The most recent TAMU TTI congestion studies have been similarly tainted by "transit math." Without the transit credit Tim Lomax grants in his APTA sponsored formula here is the truth of the data:

Congestion:Population Density 0.51
Congestion:Population Growth 0.01
Congestion:Urban Growth -0.14
Congestion:Lane Mile Growth -0.01

Population Growth:Lane Mile Growth 0.43
Population Growth:Urban Growth 0.71

See also; http://www.publicpurpose.com/hwy-2001intense.htm
(Included only because any mention of Cox is sure to cause a stir.)

VMT and density -are- weakly correlated. It is a claim supported by the facts referenced in the FHWA HM series and OHIM. All the theoretical guessing performed above are exactly the kinds of hollow claims so common in MUHD advocacy. MUHD does not exist in a vaccuum. The secondary and tertiary support infrastructure necessary to supply and subsidize high density conurbations conspire to make the claims of "reduced ecological footprint" unsupportable. It is not my job to prove a negative. It is the MUHD slingers who are on the hook to support their claims. Once again the technique is to attack any who dare question those claims.

And of course the final paragraphs; Devoted entirely to vicious personal attacks, insults, dismissive arrogance and the hubris of prejudging this reply of being unworthy of reply. You just keep replying. I'll keep posting data and asking polite questions and answering questions politely and the record supporting my claims will continue to grow. The funny part is the amazing self delusion that thinks it is I that is behaving badly in these exchanges when it is in fact frustration that I refuse to sink to the level of my attackers.

huh?

Submitted by Michael Lewyn on Tue, 12/20/2005 - 20:19.

I'm not sure I even understand Mr. Cote's latest points.

I read the Cox webpage Mr. Cote cites; it doesn't contain the correlations Mr. Cote cites (unless maybe he calculated them himself), or attack TTI.

Instead, it asserts that denser cities have more "congestion intensity" - that is, VMT per square mile.

But I am not sure this statistic means very much. Imagine a city where most auto traffic is downtown, and thus suburbanites lead congestion-free lives until they hit downtown. Presumably downtown would have plenty of congestion, and thus congestion would be quite intense by Mr. Cox's measurement- but regionwide traffic congestion could be quite low. Would anyone think of my hypothetical city as more congested than today's Los Angeles or Atlanta, where congestion is less "intense" downtown but has spread through the region? I think not.

And even if you like Cox's congestion measurement, they don't necessarily support sprawl-oriented land use policies. Although Cox's list of most intensely congested cities are more dense than Atlanta or Houston, they are still basically auto-oriented Sun Belt cities (with DC being the only possible exception in the top five- and even there, the central city is a much smaller element of regionwide population than in most other regions). More transit-oriented regions such as NYC and Chicago are far down on the list. So even if you do like Cox's criteria, all they show is that regionwide density alone is only a small part of the congestion picture: that is, that density without walkability isn't that helpful. They certainly don't show what Mr. Cote seems to want them to show: that any deviation from the True Path of automobile-dependency drags us into the Wilderness of Congestion, and that any return to their path brings us to the Paradise of Free-Flowing Traffic.

And I just flat out don't understand what Mr. Cote is trying to say about TTI. This is an organization that was founded by those flaming radicals at the Texas Highway Department, and is still part of the Texas government- not exactly one of the world's leading smart growth groups.

No Understanding but Plenty of Rebuttal

Submitted by Robert Cote on Thu, 12/22/2005 - 12:31.

"I'm not sure I even understand Mr. Cote's latest points."

Fair enough. On this we agree. You do not understand my points. Can we also agree that you manage to comment despite this knowledge/understanding gap?

The correlations are indeed my own which is why they have no external referent. Are we now to engage in peer reviewed analysis is the underlying methodologies? Apparently not since no one has bothered to even object to the recent spate of denigration. Some MUHD slingers clearly cannot afford to "elevate" any skeptic to a level worthy even of just a nasty reply.

In reply to the correlations of TTIs own data the rebuttal is of the form; "Imagine a city where..." This is exactly my complaint. Let us not imagine.

"And I just flat out don't understand what Mr. Cote is trying to say about TTI. This is an organization that was founded by those flaming radicals at the Texas Highway Department, and is still part of the Texas government- not exactly one of the world's leading smart growth groups.

Excellent. More enumerable criteria. Here's why I don't accept the TTI congestion data:

Car ownership in Los Angeles, known as "the car capital of the
world," is 1.44 per household, according to the 2000 Census. That is
lower than a number of other cities, including San Diego (1.65) and
Phoenix (1.61). The TTI didn't actually "find" this, the denied it for years and had to be forced to finally admit the truth and now they only half admit the truth.
The correlation for their congestion rankings with autos per square mile is 0.88. The correlation for population density is 0.51. Tim Lomax was so embarrassed by the urban
size issue that starting last year (2004) he split the list into Very Large, Large
and Medium Urban areas to obscure the issue. this is a case of the TTI being misrepresented as a study. The Urban
Mobility Report is actually a calculation of other studies. In this case the
congestion figures are derived from a formula that subtracts transit use
from roads use regardless of mode. It has no probative value.
3/4ths of the TTIs 2004 budget is grants, awards and gifts. Code for APTA, EPA and others in addition to, I'm sure, FHWA and usual transportation funding sources.

Every year I critique the TTI RCI and every year they "correct" for
my observations by hiding the identified issue. The RCI formula was found
to be flawed and the formula is no longer available. The APTA funding was
found to be suspect and the sources of funding are no longer listed. The
issue of "adding" lane miles was disproven and is no longer calculated. The
baseline unmet demand was exploded as myth and the baseline was sent back to
a theoretical 1982 to avoid the issue. No doubt this year Lomax will
read my latest comments and adjust the report to still reflect his biases
but with less transparency to evaluate the conclusions.

Lomax has been playing with his computer again.

He built himself a formula that -subtracts- time on public transit from
total time people travel. Guess what, more public transit use reduces
congestion. The formula says so. It's just incredible what you can
accomplish with a few assumptions, some bad math and an agenda.

If public transportation service was discontinued
and the riders traveled in private vehicles, the
85 urban areas would have suffered an additional
1.1 billion hours of delay in 2002. [Calculated
to be worth $20 billion in congestion savings.]

Nowhere have I ever seen support for the claim but even at that the $20
billion in savings is kinda wiped out by the $30 billion in subsidies. We
even have a recent example in the 2 month strike in LA. 11 million of we 13
million affected noticed NOTHING. Somebody has got to stand up and call the
TTI on this silly science.

Simple Question, Complex Answer

Submitted by Robert Cote on Mon, 12/19/2005 - 08:20.

Bishop writes; "Mixed-use and high-density developments deserve equal standing as we build our new cities."

Why, why do mixed-use and/or high-density -deserve- equal standing? Really, why? By what enumerable metrics do mixed-use-high-density (MUHD for short) show either personal or communal benefits equal to or greater than SMARTmode (Standard Municipalities And Regular Transportion Models)?

I hear all the time, in testimony, charettes, CNU propoganda that we can achieve reduced VMT, municipal savings, affordable housing and whiter teeth but I've yet to see this occur in practice. FAct is the MUHD slingers are not interested in "equal stading" aka "a level playing field." The CNU charter specifically acknowledges that -subsidies- are a necessary component of advancing alternatives to SMARTmode. SMUGling will -earn- "equal standing" when it demonstrates that it -deserves- such.

calculators ready!

Submitted by claytonm on Mon, 12/19/2005 - 12:38.

Mr. Cote,
You don’t strike me as a Big Picture sort of guy, so this post may be a waste of my time. Nonetheless, your one-track dronish call for “enumerable metrics” and the like has produced what my fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Melton, would call a “teachable moment”.
You, my dear friend, are a pure product of an Enlightment faith in the inevitable progress of knowledge produced by the confrontation of a disembodied Cartesian mind with a mechanized Newtonian universe. Knowledge is expressable in the language of mathematics and all else is opinion, humbug, and Popish nonsense.
Of course, science has made progress. Phlogiston has given way to oxygen. But not without sociological repercussions. Other disciplines have attempted to garner the prestige of science by coopting the language of mathematics. This is how economics has become the “jewel of the social sciences”. This is why traffic engineers are allowed to carve up downtowns - look at their spreadsheets!
The problem is that it takes wisdom to recognize what problems are amenable to number crunching. I don’t remember too many numbers in The Death and Life of Great American Cities, just careful observations and intuition. Planners are part architect, part sociologist, part economist, and maybe part statistician. City planning is not statistical mechanics, and when you accuse your opponents of being “technically unskilled” you just sound like a bitter wannabe physicist. As a math major from MIT I am not saying this out of fear of the technically skilled. I just find the idea of a wonkish planner flashing his mad “technical skills” to be funny, and a little pathetic.

Lesson Learned, (just not the one intended)

Submitted by Robert Cote on Mon, 12/19/2005 - 15:15.

So, the math major from MIT espouses that it is wisdom and not the FActs that justify applying the full force of government to enact arbitrary restrictions on the market forces that shape the built environment justified by faith alone. Faith based planning with guns! Excellent, at least honesty is in no longer in short supply as has been the case until now.

All I asked was for the enumerable criteria and for my troubles I am called small in perspective, unlikely to listen or learn, a one track drone. I've been marginalized and lied to, taken for granted, demonized, insulted, dismissed as unituitive, misquoted, accused of being bitter and a failed scientist at best.

Thus once again vinidacted in my low opinion of urbanist advocacy I think the issue is a settled one, there are no enumerable criteria anyone can imagine that supports the claims of the MUHD slingers. I hope everyone reading is proud of themselves. The silence is deafening. What was pathetic about asking for the measures used to promote mixed-use/high-density development? Why won't anyone honestly assess what's going on here and speak up? Perhaps the honest MUHD supporters find the language above acceptable? If so I'd be willing to adapt to the local norms. Of course I have no doubts whatsoever that were I to use the abusive language seen above that a double standard would apply. Face it all you silent readers; You know what's right and you know what's easy. Sleep well.

Mixed metrics

Submitted by Dano on Mon, 12/19/2005 - 19:49.

Mr Cote seems to think there is only one way of knowing. And, apparently, that market forces alone best shape the built environment. Well.

Surely you, Mr Cote, have data to show your implied point: sprawling environments are more efficient than dense environments.

I think I can picture what would happen next, judging from this thread, if Mr Cote were confronted with a data point - any data point: atomistic quibbling.

It would be best, I think, to rather examine built environments around the world that are dense. Do these environments provide metrics to say that they are more efficient than sprawling environments (is it scary to look at socialist built environments?)?

If not, what does?

Best,

D

Having it both ways

Submitted by Michael Lewyn on Mon, 12/19/2005 - 19:18.

On the one hand, Mr. Cote says "revealed preference" is the only thing that matters. On the other, Mr. Cote says that government should choke off any preference for smart growth in the name of NIMBYism - thus making it impossible for any preference for smart growth to be "revealed."

Mr. Cote excuses these dictatorial land use policies by claiming that people should not "have density forced upon them." But nobody is being forced to live in a high-density environment. If you don't like a house with a small lot, don't buy one. And if a developer two blocks down wants to build them, either buy the land yourself or don't complain- because it is NOT, repeat NOT, your property unless you have bought it.

In short, individual liberty is an argument for more smart growth, not for more sprawl.

Mr. Cote says density causes traffic congestion. Here's the kind of data he says he's looking for: over the past twenty years, as development has sprawled into the countryside, average delay per traveler increased from 16 hours to 47 (see Texas Transportation Institute studies, http://mobility.tamu.edu/ums). The growth of congestion has occurred not only in relatively dense regions like New York, but in sprawling regions like Atlanta and Houston.

In fact, New York City (certainly the most transit-oriented region in America, though not the most dense) has only the 18th highest level of delay.

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While previous street standards emphasized uniformity, the new street design manuals emphasize flexibility and choice for design professionals to arrive at solutions that reflect the needs of each place, and satisfy broad goals that call for "livability," "improved connectivity," and "enhanced environmental quality."
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