Planners must sometimes work under bad leadership. Here are suggestions for responsive planning in challenging political environments.

The term “conservative” literally means cautious and resource-efficient, such as less risky financial investments and reducing wasteful energy or water consumption. The new U.S. federal leadership is anything but. During their first week the Trump administration has demonstrated gross incompetence, announcing and then sometimes rescinding numerous unclear, irresponsible, wasteful and mean policies with little thought of their consequences; the antithesis of good planning.
Nonetheless, life goes on. The good news is that federal policies are just one of many factors that affect community planning — and generally not the most important. Even with bad leadership planners can support smart decisions that respond to changing community needs, as describes in my report, Progressive Planning in Ideologically Conservative Communities. It identifies basic principles defined by conservative thought leaders, and how they can be applied in planning, as summarized in the following table.
Conservative Principles and Planning Practices
Conservative Principles |
Conservative Planning Practices |
Caution and responsibility |
Support effective traffic safety policies such as lower traffic speeds with increased enforcement. |
Responsible government |
Support least-cost planning, which invests in the most cost-effective solution to problems such as traffic and parking congestion, including improvements to non-auto modes and TDM incentives such as decongestion pricing. |
Property rights |
Upzone and reduce parking minimums so property owners can build the types of housing that best meet their needs. |
Consumer sovereignty |
Planning decisions should respond to changing consumer demands such as the growing demand for compact housing in walkable neighborhoods, and for affordable and healthy travel options. |
Efficient markets |
Reform development policies to allow more compact infill, and apply efficient parking and road pricing to reduce traffic and parking congestion, and increase safety. |
Economic development |
Support local business districts with efficient parking management. |
Public safety and health |
Support public fitness and health by improving active travel conditions. |
Fairness |
Unbundle parking so households that own fewer than average vehicles are longer forced to pay for costly parking facilities they don’t need, and allocate transportation funding so that non-drivers receive a fair share of transportation investments. |
Protect vulnerable people |
Reform policies to allow lower-cost housing (ADUs, attached and multifamily housing) in walkable urban neighborhoods, complete sidewalk networks, and apply universal design standards so people with disabilities have independent mobility. |
Economic opportunity |
Increase affordable housing in high-opportunity neighborhoods, and improve affordable commute options that serve people with disabilities and low incomes. |
Conservatives should support planning practices that reflect their principles.
Progressive planners can use this framework to support better decisions in ideologically conservative communities, which now includes the whole of the United States.
For example, if working on residential development plans, planners can point out that upzoning and reducing parking minimums not only increases housing affordability and fairness, but also reflects homeowner property rights, and if working on a downtown plan can point out that replacing parking minimums with a downtown parking management plan supports local economic development and can create a more attractive traditional downtown.
Here are some examples relevant to the new federal administration.
Affordability and economic opportunity
Trump apparently won the election because voters trusted him to increase affordability and economic opportunity. It will be interesting to see if he succeeds. Many of the policies he is introducing, such as tariffs, worker deportations, and holds and reductions in planned government expenditures are likely to increase some consumer costs and reduce productivity in many industries.
Planners can help by supporting truly effective affordability and economic opportunity. Because they support automobile dependency and sprawl, conservatives often argue that the best way to increase affordability is to reduce automobile operating costs, such as fuel taxes, and to open up more land for urban fringe development, but my analysis suggests that those strategies will fail. Taxes only represent about 20 percent of total fuel prices, and fuel only represents about 20 percent of total vehicle costs, so cutting fuel taxes in half or in other ways reducing fuel prices by 10 percent will only reduce total transportation costs by a tiny 2 percent. For example, since U.S. state and federal fuel taxes currently average 53¢ and motorists consume an average of 650 gallons of fuel annually, cutting fuel taxes in half would save a typical motorist less than $200 per year.
Similarly, urban fringe development may reduce land costs but increase transportation and infrastructure costs; when all expenses are considered, compact urban infill tends to be most affordable overall, as indicated by Housing and Transportation Affordability Index maps, such as the one below.
Housing and Transportation (H+T) Affordability Index

As a result, true affordability requires lower-cost housing located in central areas where households can reduce their total transportation costs, as illustrated below.
Estimated Savings from Transportation Affordability Strategies

Physically and economically disadvantaged households tend to be economically better off living in compact, multimodal neighborhoods where it is easy to access services and activities — healthcare, affordable shopping, jobs and schools — without driving. Even households that own a car benefit from cost savings and the economic resilience of having alternatives when their vehicle is unavailable.
New research sheds light on factors that affect economic opportunity. For example, the Equality of Opportunity Project investigated geographic factors affect economic mobility, the chance that a child born in poverty earns more than their parents as an adult. These studies find that living in a compact, multimodal neighborhood significantly increases intergenerational mobility. The study, “Does Urban Sprawl Hold Down Upward Mobility?” finds that as compactness doubles, the likelihood of upward mobility increases about 41 percent. Progressive planners can help by learning about these factors that affect economic opportunity and mobility, and using this information to guide planning decisions. For example, planners can help ensure that affordable housing becomes available in high opportunity neighborhoods where physically and economically disadvantaged families, and their children, have the greatest opportunities.
Multimodal planning
During the 20th century, automobile travel grew from almost zero to an average more than 10,000 annual vehicle miles per capita, as illustrated below, and current demographic and economic trends (vehicle travel saturation, aging population, rising driving costs, increased concerns about affordability and public health, changing consumer preferences, new technologies, etc.) caused vehicle travel to peak and are increasing demand for non-auto travel.
U.S. Annual Vehicle Travel (FHWA Highway Statistics)

As a result, rational and responsive planning would shift resources (money and road space) from expanding roads and parking facilities to improving affordable and resource-efficient modes: walking, bicycling, e-bikes and public transportation.
There is no rational reason that conservatives should oppose these shifts; multimodal planning helps achieve many conservative goals including responsible government, consumer sovereignty, economic development, public safety and health, fairness, and economic opportunity. However, many conservatives seem to have not thought this through; their leaders and organizations generally support automobile dependency and sprawl and oppose multimodal planning and Smart Growth.
To address this, planners should provide information on how current economic and social trends are changing consumer demands in a particular community, the benefits of more multimodal planning that responds to these changes, and how they reflect conservative goals.
Public fitness and health
Republican leadership recently highlighted the economic costs of obesity, and Department of Health and Human Services secretary nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. advocates preventive health strategies, so the new administration seems poised to support healthy lifestyle policies. That’s great, but it is easy to choose the wrong policies. All too often healthy living strategies are presented as a commodity to purchase: supplements to eat and competitive sports programs and gym memberships to increase exercise, which are actually not very effective.
Sedentary living is actually a greater health risk than being overweight, and few people, particularly currently sedentary and overweight people, are likely to stick with competitive sports and gym exercise over the long term. Credible research indicates that community design that increases daily walking reduces residents’ body weight and increases health; you could either say that sprawl makes people fat and unhealthy, or put more positively, that compact, walkable neighborhoods improve public fitness and health in addition to their other benefits. It’s also worth noting that the National Association of Realtor’s Community Preferences Surveys indicate that a growing majority of U.S. households want to live in compact, walkable neighborhoods, but many cannot due to inadequate supply. Progressive planners can show that upzoning, reducing parking minimums, completing sidewalk networks and traffic calming help achieve conservative goals including public health and consumer sovereignty.
Helping families with young children
Another likely Trump administration goal is to help families with children. The new Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy just signed an order for the USDOT to give preference to “communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average.” Certainly, many families with children struggle, although this policy actually seems to be a cynical way to shift transportation funds from urban to rural and suburban areas, and it invokes the Soviet Union’s Order of Maternal Glory, which commemorated women who produced numerous children (First class: mothers bearing and raising nine children; Second class: mothers bearing and raising eight children; Third class: mothers bearing and raising seven children), and Margaret Atwood’s book, The Handmaid’s Tale.
I suspect that Duffy wants to build more suburban highways so hard-working dads can drive home faster in order to spend more time playing catch in the backyard, but abundant research shows that this is a waste of money. In fact, automobile dependency and sprawl are the main causes of excess travel time; workers living in central neighborhoods spend far less time commuting than those in urban fringe areas, and parents living in automobile-dependent areas must spend huge amounts of time chauffeuring their children and other non-drivers for trips that they could make independently given more multimodal planning.
Suburban living is inherently costly: single-family homes are more expensive to build and operate than multifamily housing, and sprawled areas require more expensive transportation and public services. Many families with children struggle financially. The best way to help many families is to provide more affordable housing and transportation options.
Progressive planners can promote truly family-friendly planning by showing how children and their families benefit from living in compact, multimodal neighborhoods, and how multimodal planning and Smart Growth development policies reflect conservative principles.
Responding to criticisms
Conservative media and their followers often criticize progressive policies with false or biased information; planners should be prepared with credible, evidence-based information framed to appeal to conservative priorities. The table below summarizes responses to common criticisms and identifies the types of analysis needed to support progressive policies in a particular community.
Responding to Conservative Criticisms of Progressive Planning
Criticism |
Potential Responses |
Required Analysis |
Americans want to live in single-family housing and drive. |
Demographic and economic trends are increasing demand for compact housing in multimodal neighborhoods. There is a shortage of such housing. |
Information on latent demands for compact housing and non-auto travel, and potential benefits of serving them. |
Planners ignore the benefits of automobile travel and roadway expansions. (Planners are leading a “war on cars”). |
Although auto travel provides benefits, current trends are increasing non-auto travel demands. Serving those demands benefits travellers and communities. |
How travel demands are changing and the many benefits of serving those demands. Multimodal planning success stories (particularly local examples). |
Motorists’ user charges (fuel taxes and vehicle fees) finance roadways. It is unfair to spend public money on other modes. |
Road user charges fund only about half of U.S. roadway spending, the rest is financed by general taxes that residents pay regardless of how they travel. |
Roadway funding, including cross subsidies by non-drivers. Infrastructure savings provided by shifts from driving to non-auto modes. |
Public transit is subsidized, costly and inefficient. |
Although transit requires public subsidies those are often smaller than total road and parking costs of auto travel to serve the same trips. |
Demand for transit travel. Total vehicle and infrastructure costs of automobile travel, including costs of chauffeuring non-drivers. |
Bikeways are not used and increase congestion and parking problems. |
In many locations, bikeways significantly increase bicycling and reduce automobile trips, which reduces traffic and parking problems overall. |
Bicycle travel demand, including latent demands. Bikeway costs and benefits, including affordability, health and reduced traffic and parking problems. |
Environmental risks are exaggerated, and emission reductions are costly. |
Smart Growth and multimodal planning are justified for many reasons, not just environmental goals. |
Economic and social benefits of Smart Growth and multimodal transport. |
Smart Growth reduces affordability by limiting development on inexpensive urban fringe land. |
Smart Growth can increase housing affordability by allowing compact housing with unbundled parking, and increase total affordability by reducing transportation costs. |
Costs of sprawl and benefits of compact development. Demand for compact housing and non-auto modes, and their potential savings. Total affordability analysis. |
Compact development reduces livability and ruins neighborhoods. |
Compact development can provide many livability benefits including increased affordability, walkability and local economic development. |
Identify specific ways that compact development will benefit neighborhoods and achieve community goals. |
Progressive planners should be prepared to respond to criticisms with appropriate analysis.
The challenge of good planning
Practitioners, you have my sympathy! Planning is difficult enough without working under bad leadership that makes rash judgments and irrational decisions. However, this too shall pass.
To be successful, planners must tailor their analysis to specific audiences. For example, both conservatives and liberals support social equity, but conservatives focus more on functional factors such as ability and income, while liberals focus more on categorical factors such as race and gender; but both perspectives can support policies that increase affordability and mobility for non-drivers. Similarly, conservatives tend to focus more on congestion problems while liberals focus on emissions, but both can support more multimodal planning and TDM incentives. Frame issues carefully. For example, rather than describing the costs of sprawl, which can make suburbanites defensive, describe the benefits of compact, walkable neighborhoods. Rather than promoting "Smart Growth," describe the American Association of Retired Persons' promotion of livable communities for aging in place.
What do you suggest? Please share your thoughts and suggestions for progressive planning in the current political environment, either in the Comments section below or email me at [email protected].

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