Smart Growth For Conservatives

In an essay that has been adapted from a speech delivered at the 2012 Congress for the New Urbanism, James Bacon argues:

"Many conservatives perversely defend the institutional arrangements that have created contemporary suburbia, with its scattered, low-density, disconnected and car-dependent pattern of development. But that is a disastrous mistake. Conservatives need to systematically apply their principles to transportation and land use with the goal of creating smarter, more efficient patterns of growth."

Bacon takes a crack at enumerating what some general conservative transportation and land use policies might look like:

• Roll back government regulation of the real estate marketplace.
• Restore homeowner property rights.
• Encourage innovation in real estate development.
• Deregulate mass transit.
• Make growth pay its own way.
• Adopt user pays transportation.
• Prioritize by ROI.

Thanks to Hamilton Lombard