WHAT’S BEHIND “THE VISION” in YOUR TOWN?

Advance Bulletin ^ | Feb 15, 2005 | Susanna Lynton Jennings

[hedgetrimmer]

The visioning process includes: “values” research, how to run "facilitated" workshops and to how to use “consensus building” to create scenarios for area “change”. When public officials and NGO's (non-government organizations) use the term "visioning" it really means Agenda 21 principles are being implemented.

Television makeover programs that transform men and women from sloppy to slick are popular. Makeup artists, hair dressers and clothing specialists remake their passive subjects and the new look is shown off to gasping friends and family. Transformational changes are not limited to people these days. American neighborhoods, swarming with central planners and government funds are getting made over too.

America’s new look starts with federal and state funded “visioning councils” who impose their plan utilizing compliant politicians, compliant business people and paid representatives from foundation and tax-funded non-profit organizations. The unsuspecting public becomes the recipient of a vision that implements “Smart Growth.”

Smart Growth restricts housing construction to high-density subsidized (cost-shifted) apartments or condominiums. Cities are “filled in” by building vertically and cramming people together. Occupants living in these new developments are often subject to increasing rules and regulations administered by Associations or Housing Trusts. Cluster developments with purposely limited parking (near train or bus stops) are designed to take people out of their cars, thereby frustrating people’s ability to get around as they might choose.

Some planners in the Western United States learned their terminology and techniques from a group called “Envision Utah”. Through “Envision Utah” planners learned about the “visioning process.” Planners return from the “regional” visioning workshop with a mission in place. “Our visioning sets up a framework project for zoning,” says Gordon Garry, Director of Research and Analysis for the Sacramento Area Council of Governments.

Once the framework for zoning is in place, local governments, non-elected regional councils and public/private partnerships, begin to change residential neighborhoods to “mixed uses,” often utilizing processes that work outside constitutional governmental procedures. By transforming the “look’ of the town, planners and politicians are also engineering social changes that will negatively affect the lives and the lifestyles of existing residents.

If your town is working toward a “vision,” it’s best to understand the Smart Growth plan behind the façade.

[hedgetrimmer]

Here's how we get from free market housing to cost shifted centrally planned stack 'em and pack 'em soviet style housing blocs.

[hedgetrimmer]

You might be interested in this

[lodwick]

Another great wake-up call here. Thanks.

[hedgetrimmer]

Here's a couple of related articles

Community Plans Aim to Change Values
Community plans are specifically designed to reflect aesthetically the collective values they seek to impose -- at the expense of individual expression and privacy. Full text: Community planning (including growth management, comprehensive planning and smart growth) is suddenly all the rage. Just a few years ago, the words "charrette", "visioning council", and "consensus planning", were virtually unknown to most Americans. These words have been introduced to our neighborhoods by a coterie of community planners, who've fanned out across the country to confuse Americans into accepting a different political philosophy and a different way of living.

Freepers Beware of the Non-Meeting Meeting (Vanity)
Perhaps some of you who are veterans at planning issues have seen this, but the other night I witnessed my first community plan meeting that was moderated in the "Assets, Issues, and Solutions" format.

CA: Community Planning Case Study: Corralitos, California
An existing town that has excited the interest of community planners is the small town of Corralitos, located in an unincorporated area of Santa Cruz County, California. The Corralitos Valley Community Plan follows the same guidelines and values as groups like the Congress for New Urbanism and the Smart Growth Network whose stated goals are to reshape our values from an individual rights-oriented society to a "community" or collective rights society. "Visioning" plans use psychological and physical cueing designed to make residents change their views on the social value of private property and submit to rules and regulations of conformity required for a "community rights" oriented society to evolve.

[jusduat]

We have a plan called 'The Overlay' to reform our little burb into cluster.

[GOP_1900AD]

Another aspect of this we are seeing on the SF Peninsula is that they are subtly trying to move the existing detached housing stock in the direction of gay / single / DINK friendly (coincidentally, two of these subcultures tend to vote to the Left, en masse). Here's how they are doing it. Firstly, they are really emphasizing "picture postcard perfect" which means making the existing (typically too small) houses look more New Englandeasque (they don't like Spanish Style, in spite of our location and real history). They also make it tough to accomodate more than one or two vehicles by refusing to allow driveway - parking pad expansions. They stiffle additions by not allowing cuts and slope modifications in backyards and by having a 28 foot peak roofline to ground level height limit. And recently, they made it clear they don't like what they consider to be "rednecks" by banning parking of boats, RVs and the like in front of homes. Etc. Is it a conspiracy? As I mentioned on a related thread, I overheard, in a coffeehouse frequented by the "smart set" a couple of, shall we say, alternative lifestyle living, politically connected people, specifically scheming on how to use zoning to put pressure on "breeders" to move out. Any questions?

[hedgetrimmer]

Fight it with every breath you take.

This is not about providing housing for everyone, although its clear that it is an economic disaster when the government gets involved in housing.

Its about re-engineering Americans to give up their individuality and become good collectivists. Have you noticed that the clusters and "town center' developments pushed by smart growth resemble medieval European villages? That is on purpose, because if you've noticed Europe lately, it has become almost completely sovietized, or collectivized. When you force people to live in collective situations, its easier to engineer them into thinking like a collectivist and thinking that individualism and self government is bad.

This is the one-two whammy-- they are teaching our kids in school to be collectivists, then they rework our neighborhoods, towns and cities so that nothing is private, everything is public or the collective and poof! Suddenly America is just another regional consumer group buying products and living at the leisure of the globalist economy.

[hedgetrimmer]

Take this file and study it carefully. Here are the techiques used by the smart growthers, agenda 21 UN sustainable developers to steal property rights from the American people.

You might recognize some of the techniques the "smart set" couple were discussing. Not may of these 100 policies are constitutional or take into account the wishes of the American people to preserve their heritage and property rights.

Getting to Smart Growth, 100 policies for implementation

[Kay Ludlow]

Thanks! We've done visioning here - Vision2020. All the meetings I attended (and there were a number of them) were mostly government and NGO. At one, where they split us up into groups for discussion, I stated my opposition to the concept of government planning out the community for 20 years (after all, who do you know in government that's smart enough to predict accurately what the next 20 years will bring?). Someone in my group had the gall to ask me why I even came if I didn't believe in the process! I told them I believed that it was my responsibility as a citizen to go to these kind of events, and speak up on behalf of the majority that don't want government planning their lives for them. For some reason, those comments didn't get up on the flip-chart...

If any of you see notices for visioning meetings in your community, GO TO THEM! Speak up and say you don't agree with the process. Make the paid consultants lives miserable by having to face the opposition in person!

[Kay Ludlow]

We have a plan called 'The Overlay'

We had overlay district planning too. In our case, it was an attempt to transcend the boundaries of local government (who wouldn't support anything THAT radical) but "taking it to the people", getting a model ordinance written (which they did), then taking it to all municipalities to pass. They wrote the ordinance, but even here in planning crazy Centre Region I don't think any municipality adopted it. It was being sold as the way to prevent our community from ending up like Breezewood (at the interface between I-80 and I-79 in southern PA). As we stated repeatedly, there were already plenty of regulations in place that would eliminate that possibility - why add more? The model ordinance included things like what exterior coverings were acceptable on buildings in the overlay district (natural materials only); limitations on the quantity and reflectivity of glass; requirements on landscaping that would pretty much ensure that if you didn't know a business was there you wouldn't know it; sign restrictions so businesses couldn't put at readable signs to identify their hidden businesses, etc. I told people it was almost like they wanted to put out a "keep out, no strangers welcome" sign at every entrance to the region - LOL! It was ridiculed enough that it didn't pass though.

[hedgetrimmer]

For some reason, those comments didn't get up on the flip-chart...

Of course you know its because you were delphi'ed.

For the benefit of other freepers out there, thanks to freeper EdReform:

Using the Delphi Technique to Achieve Consensus - ( http://www.eagleforum.org/educate/1998/nov98/focus.html ).

The Delphi Technique — How to Disrupt It. - ( http://www.learn-usa.com/transformation_process/acf002.htm ).

About Consensus and Facilitation - ( http://www.learn-usa.com/transformation_process/~consensus.htm ).

What American Citizens Need to Know About Consensus and Facilitation - ( http://www.learn-usa.com/transformation_process/acf004.htm ).

“Consensus” and “Facilitation”: When You Hear These Words, Beware of Being Suckered - ( http://baltimorechronicle.com/consensus_oct02.html ).

[Fiddlstix]

Click the Pic J

[hedgetrimmer]

Here is what the department of energy is planning for youd. Do you feel claustrophic yet? You should because all those open spaces are OFF LIMITS to human beings (except NOAA employees, high members of the federal goverment and employees and families of the NGOs engaged in the public/private partnerships that exist off your tax payer dollars):

Conventional Design

Conservation Approach

New Urbanist Design

http://www.csc.noaa.gov/alternatives/views_3d.html

[hedgetrimmer]

Donuts----unghhhhhh....

[sageb1]

"When you force people to live in collective situations, its easier to engineer them into thinking like a collectivist and thinking that individualism and self government is bad."

hmmmmm...you mean like in college dorms?

[hedgetrimmer]

I would say in the case of the University of California, Santa Cruz-- yes.

If you look at the Congress for New Urbanism they say:

Planners acknowledge that America "remains a land of and dedicated to the individual" and that "rights talk" must be quashed and "community rights" and values promoted.

http://www.civic-strategies.com/library/planned_communities.pdf

[longtermmemmory]

Part of the problem mention above is that the local city commisions are packed with real estate brokers and agents who make profit by the devolopment of land they own.

They buy up houses and then use the fact they granted ONE variance to get their little clusters approved for micro condominiums/townhouses.

Real estate agents will become the new used care salesmen or lawyers as far as public scorn.

[sageb1]

I don't want to go off subject, but I'd like to thank you for bringing up the Hegelian dialectic and Delphi. People need to be very worried and very alert. The same tactics are being used in new psychotherapy techniques and in religion. My Roman Catholic Church uses the Hegelian technique in the new Purpose-Drive Life circle groups. I've stayed away.

[sageb1]

I don't want to go off subject, but I'd like to thank you for bringing up the Hegelian dialectic and Delphi. People need to be very worried and very alert. The same tactics are being used in new psychotherapy techniques and in religion. My Roman Catholic Church uses the Hegelian technique in the new Purpose-Drive Life circle groups. I've stayed away.

[PGalt]

Thanks for the information/links.

[EdReform]

BTTT!!!

[kitchen]

In Educating for the New World Order by Bev Eakman, the reader finds reference upon reference for the need to preserve the illusion that there is "Lay, or community, participation in the decision-making process, while in fact lay citizens are being squeezed out."

More over here.

[Dixielander]

I'm definitely interested in this subject. Thanks for the ping.

[Vision]

Did someone call me?

[newzjunkey]

The vision in San Diego is the same as the ruination of New York, Chicago, Detroit, L.A. and every other metropolis under the union's thumb. And the unions are all about power, not progress.

[hedgetrimmer]

No, we called your collectivist cousin, Visioning.

You're off the hook ;-)

[meadsjn]

Here are some Golden Oldies from the FR archives on this method of facilitated coercion.

The Delphi Technique

So, Have You Been Delphi'd?

[hedgetrimmer]

Thanks for the walk down memory lane.

Still, I hope folks reading this thread heed the call. The game is afoot, and visioning and facilitated meetings are one way to accomplish the goal of the collectivization of our society and the elimination of private property and property rights.

[meadsjn]

Back in the early years of college I worked in a convenience store when an epidemic of "short changing" was occurring. The simple solution was to adhere to a strict cash-handling process, and at the first indication that the customer was trying to pull the "short change" scheme, to shut the cash drawer.

People who have not previously observed such underhanded manipulative techniques are shocked that they could be duped in such a manner. Once they see it in practice, they realize that the honest person in the process doesn't stand a chance against the dishonest one.

The only solution is to teach the intended victims to recognize the scam, and to shut the process down before the cash gets into the crooks' hands.

The facilitated consensus process is even more manipulative and devious, and steals many gazillions of dollars, and untold liberties, from its victims. It is nearly impossible to inform the millions of citizens who are defrauded by NGOs, academians, and such each year.

[Gal.5:1]

This project , with its accompanying consensus/ Hegelian dialectic method, is being implemented everywhere- corporations, business, education, governments, even churches. It is a staple in the corporate business management systems world, a cousin of Total Quality Management. Do a search for 'Vision 2010' and you'll see that there is a lot of 'vision' going on.

[hedgetrimmer]

Did you see post # 13?

Its shameful the way our own government is crushing us into high density high rise developments. The big lie is that when the goverment builds your house, your town for you, that somehow that makes it better. The truth is that our own government is pushing a soviet style culture and lifestyle on us through sustainable development and smart growth.

Private property rights are more threatened these days than ever in the history of the United States. Anyone who has studied history and knows why Americans have been so blessed knows it is because of our right to private property. When its gone, so goes freedom.

[B-Chan]

You guys need to seriously consider decaf.

Suburban sprawl sucks. It was fine in 1950, when there were barely a hundred million of us and all those nice new roads were being built, but I fail to see how bulldozing even more of the landscape to build yet another concrete wasteland studded with flimsy tract housing (built at grade on guaranteed-to-crack concrete pads by illegal immigrants) is somehow more "American" than living next door to neighbors within walking distance of both the church and the liquor store. News Flash: the "America" of suburbs and superhighways was a historical anomaly, a special situation that existed for a very brief time during the Cold War. As a result, our cities were abandoned to the gangs, and are now ringed by fringes of decaying tract-home ghettos where the white folks lived back in the '60s and '70s. And the farther out the white folks move, the bigger these fringe ghettos become...

Suburbia was invented as a way for the upper middle class in turn-of-the-century urban America to escape those funny-speaking, garlic-eating types that had moved in. This was an innovation; it wasn't how most Americans ever lived, or ever would have wanted to live. The traditional American way of life was for competing ethnicities to live in neighborhoods within a single city until internmarriage and class-climbing, "Abie's Irish Rose" style, erased the boundaries between them. THAT is the American Way. As a traditionalist and an American, I support the traditional American way of life -- which means living in cities, getting along with the weirdos next door, and traveling by foot and by train instead of by car. What it doesn't mean is abandoning ship for the glassy-eyed "security" of Foxxe Bynde at Willowe Creeke (a Gated Community) fifty miles outside of town.

I repeat: suburbanization is contrary to the American tradition. There never was a Suburban Mouse in American folklore -- there was just City Mouse and Country Mouse. Up until the freeway era, City Mice -- people who wanted the conveniences of living in a city -- by God lived in a city, a real city, not some glorified freeway exit with a fancy name. Those who desired a rural lifestyle -- the Country Mice -- gave up the conveniences of city life and moved to the real country, out beyond the pizza shops and all-night grocery stores -- that shadowy land where the food comes from. The idea of driving fifty miles in traffic each way to get from home to work and back would have struck them as nuts.

I'm all for freedom, but let's be real: anyone who thinks that freedom equals traffic jams, tract housing, and treating what little open space we have left as if it were an unlimited resource needs a CAT scan, stat. A person who cannot live without owning a car is a slave -- to the machine.

[GOP_1900AD]

Hey punk. I live in an old, inner ring community of small (too small) houses. What is being discussed here is being applied to long standing communities. They are not simply trying to prevent sprawl. They are trying to tear down entire, well functioning, communities and cram individual land owners into beehives. Move to Europe if you think we are wrong.

[sageb1]

Guess what I woke up to this morning? A HUGE article in my local paper entitled "Sip coffee, stir conversation: Group meets weekly to pose public questions" by Jarrett Warshaw (jwarshaw@poststar.com)

"In between sips of tea and silent reflections, Socrates Cafe discussion facilitator Colleen Florio posed a question.

"What is the purpose of community?" she asked the 10 people gathered at the Ridge Street Coffee Co. for their weekly meeting.

Member Krista Reville, owner of the Glens Falls Gnosis Center on Ridge Street, took the topic into a slightly different direction.

"The central question for me is, "What makes a desirable community?" she said, while nursing a cappuccino.

After finishing his espresso and polishing off a raspberry tart, retired psychologist Steve Johnson weighed in with a sense of urgency, said the character of a city tends to suffer from the independent-minded citizens who aren't always respectful of the law.

"Maybe the people of Glens Falls are self-directed," he said. "They do what they want, and they go around the law if they want to."

A guidance counselor by day and Socratic supposrter by night, Renee Peattie focused on the conversation even more on specific details. Acknowledging South Street's cleanliness issues, she said shop owners could "adopt a block" where they'd be in charge of helping maintain their respective areas."

The goal of the group, unlike a Common Council meeting, is not necessarily to resolve an argument. Instead it is to get people thinking differently about what they assume to be the truth.

The concept for the cafe originated with the bokk, "Socrates Cafe: A Fresh Taste of Philosophy" by Christopher Phillips.

A lot of the topics the group covers - such as inquiries into whether true altruism exists or whether democracy is inherently good - don't always come from Phillips' writing. Often, the discussion begins with a recap of the previous week, spurring ideas that lead toward an overarching dilemma.

And both organizers and participants recognize the benefits that the examined life acn have for the community.

"Glens Falls is a part of your identity and you don't want to be like anyone else," Florio said.

The Socrates Cafe meets ever Tuesday night from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Call the Ridge Street Coffee Co. at (518) 792-3711 or Colleen Florio at (518) 321-2695 for more information.

I guess it's time for a new Letter to the Editor.

[sageb1]

apologies for the typos...was in a rush

[Pete'sWife]

Bump for later digestion.

[B-Chan]

"Hey, punk"? What the hell does that mean? What are you, the Dirty Harry of urban design? Spare me the macho posturing.

Like I said, try switching to decaf -- or, if that doesn't work, I suggest Haldol. Your spring's wound just a little too tight, friend.

[hedgetrimmer]

I support the traditional American way of life -- which means living in cities, getting along with the weirdos next door, and traveling by foot and by train instead of by car.

You're talking about the Soviet Union, not America.

If you look at the history of free people, they live where they like. They buy as little or as much land as they want and they build a house on it that suits them. I've had ancestors in this country for over 300 years. They fought to found this country and not one of them lived in a city with a weirdo next door.

Personally I don't know anyone who wants to live the way you live. With no land you can't build personal wealth. With no personal wealth you have no equity for investment. Living in the situation you describe, people have no resources that can be developed for their economic well being. In the type of housing you describe today, the planners building these "transit hubs" or "clusters" will decide what kind of job you will have and where you will work-- exactly in the style of the soviet union. The type of miserable living conditions you describe are that of a peasant who lives at the whim of his landlord, not of a free man exercising liberty to live as he pleases.

If roads and convenient transportation were just a fleeting whim of an era then this country is in bigger trouble than I thought. In the history of this country private transporation = freedom. Forcing everyone into public transportation directly affects their liberty and it antithetical to protecting individual rights.

[B-Chan]

With no land you can't build personal wealth.

Parson my asking this, but are you high? Ever been to the boyhood home of President Theodore Roosevelt? It's a brownstone in New York City not far from Union Square. He did all right in the personal wealth department. Besides, there's no reason a person who wants to own land shouldn't be able to. I'm not against rural living for those who want that sort of thing. What I'm against are is building more half-assed suburbs for people who want country atmosphere with city conveniences. I'm for people having to pick one or the other: country or city. Suburbs are neither, and as such, are nowhere -- places without identity. Is it any wonder they breed serial killers like rabbits?

What I'm against is the Cycle of Sprawl. It works like this:

1. Funny-looking brown people arrive in neighborhood. As funny brown folk population increases, renters outnumber owners. Property tax receipts in neighborhood drop, forcing city to allow roads, infrastructure to decay. White folks begin to move to suburb A, a former wildgrass prairie ten miles from downtown.

2. White folks needs houses. Prairie is bulldozed, destroying natural beauty. Zero-lot-line slab-foundation tract houses are built by the zillions. Illegal immigrants do the construction work, move into old neighborhood, creating further white flight.

3. White folks in suburb A grow tired of driving in traffic back and forth to city for retail goods and food. In response, more nearby prairie in suburb A is bulldozed to build strip malls, big box retailers, and fast-food joints. Country roads in suburb A are widened to five lines each way to accomodate growing population. Suburb A residents lobby state legislature for new highway to make commuting easier.

4. Companies employing Suburb A residents begin moving their headquarters from old neighborhoods to Suburb A. Old neighborhoods become wastelands as local ecomomies wither. Crime, drug gangs move in.

5. Suburb A is now a buatling city in its own right. Burgeoning population requires new roads, new schools. Property tax rates go up. Traffic gridlock becgins to be a problem. White folks begin selling their expensive homes in Suburb A to escape growing property tax bill.

6. Newly-vacated homes in Suburb A begin to fall apart due to their cheap tract-house construction. Unsaleable properties are converted to rental properties or bulldozed to build apartments. Funny-looking brown people arrive in Suburb A to escape crime, drug gangs in old neighborhood.

7. As funny brown folk population increases, renters outnumber owners. Property tax receipts in Suburb A drop, forcing city to allow roads, infrastructure to decay. As suburb A becomes a slum, white folks move to suburb B, a former wildgrass prairie twenty miles from downtown.

RETURN TO STEP ONE. REPEAT UNTIL ALL PRAIRIE HAS BEEN CONVERTED TO SLUM.

There's got to be a better way.

[hedgetrimmer]

First leave off with the insults and the racist comments, you demean yourself by talking that way.

Now.Did you see the pictures in post #13? Rural living is not an option for smart growthers. There are two hands to human habitation according to the sustainable development plans developed by the United Nations and enforced by the DOE, the EPA and other federal agencies. The first is the wildlands project-- run humans out of the country and force everyone to live in high density mixed use highly controlled cities. Then second is smart growth-- high density mixed use highly controlled cities where you are a renter not an owner of any property. To smart growthers all cities should be as dense as Hong Kong, all rural areas should be bereft of humans.

You can see by the new urbanist design where the visioning of communities are going. See how tightly packed the development is? What good is open space if humans are never allowed in it? How can humans be taught to respect nature and the earth if they are not allowed to freely move about on it? New urbanists like the idea of separating humans from the great outdoors, they want humans to be afraid. Thats why the visioners and planners for America's future are releasing wolves and mountain lions into areas where they haven't lived in a hundred years. They want ranchers and farmers to lose their animals when the wolves attack so they fail economically and give up their use of the land. They want to terrorize people living on the outskirts of the cities and be afraid that they, their children or their pets will become prey to mountain lions while playing in their own backyards. They stop irrigation and cut off water to those who farm the land so it will have to lie fallow and stop providing an income for its owner.

Humans that fear nature don't go out into it. That leaves rural land for the global thieves who want to lock it up with biosphere reserves and heritage areas and wildlands.

From some of the language you use, you sound like you've bought into this anti-human agenda. I wonder if you are an American citizen?

[hedgetrimmer]

Your idea of the good life?

[spodefly]

BTTT

[sageb1]

Bravo! You can add the APA (Adirondack Park Agency in New York State) to the list. This is pretty much what is happening here.

Just recently, a major company sold thousands of acres to a "sportsmen's organization with ties to U.N. affiliated NGOs. Also recently, the town surrounding our city dropped an attempt to rezone an certain area to 42 acres. Familes who'd lived there for decades would no longer have the option of leaving acreage to be split between their children.

[hedgetrimmer]

There's hope.

Wisconson villages pull out of smart growth"

[djreece]

Thank you for posting this. I have fought the visioning process at both city and regional meetings. However, I beg to differ that we currently have "free market housing." The current zoning and regulatory bureaucratic nightmare we endure is anything but. This whole process of "visioning" is in part government coming in with a "solution" to the mess it created in past decades.

Many of us would love to live in a neighborhood where we could work, live, and shop all within walking distance. That is pretty hard to find--especially in the West. I also think that such neighborhoods will become increasingly popular as the Baby Boomers age and have to give up their licenses as they grow too old to drive safely. I have known too many elderly people who are desperate to keep driving--even though they pose a great risk to themselves and others--simply because they are so cut off from life in modern residential-only zones. Either some genius is going to have to come up with a great solution to the elderly's transportation needs or communities that allow one to carry on life without needing a car will be in high demand.

[sageb1]

You may find this interesting:

The Crusade Against Urban Sprawl
Assaulting the American Dream

---

Presentation to the
MISSOURI REPUBLICAN ASSEMBLY
St. Louis
By Wendell Cox, Principal
DEMOGRAPHIA
27 February 1999

---

Introduction



It is a pleasure for me to speak to you today on the important issue of metropolitan development. While you are a partisan organization, my discussion today will be bi-partisan. I have been appointed to public offices by the late Tom Bradley, a Democrat who served as Los Angeles' mayor for two decades, and by former Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich, a Republican. Moreover, I will quote a Republican president and a Democratic presidential candidate.



My subject today goes by many names --- the "new urbanism," "smart growth," the anti-sprawl crusade and Vice President Gore's "livability agenda." By whatever name --- and I will call it the "anti-suburban agenda" --- it promises to fundamentally change the way we live. I believe that it could cripple our economy and that the price will be largely paid by the traditional "blue collar" and low income Democratic constituencies that tend to support anti-suburban agenda candidates.



The American Dream



For generations, Americans have pursued the dream of home ownership. It preceded the automobile, as upper middle income households moved to suburbs served by streetcar (tram or trolley) lines at the turn of the century. They were followed by middle and lower middle income households after World War II, who were able to afford houses and cars as the nation became more affluent.



The resulting suburbanization changed the urban landscape radically. There is no better example than St. Louis.


From 1950 to 1990, the population of the city declined from 857,000 to 397,000 while the land area remained the same. By 1996, the population had dropped to 352,000 --- a loss of 59 percent from 1950.



From 1950 to 1990, the population of the urbanized area (developed area) outside the city rose from 554,000 to 1,550,000, while urbanized land area increased by 219 percent.
Obviously, as the more and more people obtained homes and cars, traffic congestion worsened and air pollution became a greater concern. Thousands of square miles were consumed by the nation's expanding urban areas, raising concerns about the loss of valuable agricultural land. The anti-suburban agenda arose in response to these issues.



The Anti-Suburban Agenda



The anti-suburban agenda includes the following initiatives:




Drawing of urban growth boundaries, outside of which development would not be allowed.



Channeling urban development toward infill within urban areas.



"Transit oriented development" along urban rail corridors.



Higher residential densities (smaller lot sizes) and higher employment densities.



Little, if any, street and highway capacity.



Limitations on suburban retail development, such as "big box" retailers.



Regional government, or at a minimum less local control and more regional control.
Anti-suburbanists claims that these measures will reduce traffic congestion, reduce air pollution, reduce automobile dependency, reduce travel times and preserve needed agricultural land.



Evaluation Criteria



Today, I will review the anti-suburban agenda in light of the most fundamental principle --- that of freedom. It is my view, and I suspects yours, that people should be generally free to do whatever they want unless they inflict harm on their fellow citizens. As a free market economist, I nonetheless have a strong respect for the role of government in regulating harmful behavior, whether it is by outlawing murder or banning the sale of tainted meat. Unless it can be shown that further suburbanization will inflict irreparable harm on the community, then the draconian growth control measures of the anti-suburban agenda are not legitimate public policies.



Examining the Problems and Solutions



Now let us review the problems and solutions on which the anti-suburban agenda is based.



Traffic Congestion: Contradicting the anti-suburban vision, traffic congestion is worse, not better where population densities are higher. The US Department of Transportation's Roadway Congestion Index is higher in more densely populated urban areas such as Los Angeles and New York, and lowest in low densities urban areas, such as Kansas City and Indianapolis. The anti-suburban agenda would make traffic worse, not better.



Air Pollution: Higher levels of air pollution are also associated with higher densities, not lower densities. This is, of course, to be expected, since air pollution is so closely related to traffic congestion, which we have already noted is worst in the higher density urban areas. Anti-suburban policies will make air pollution worse than it would otherwise be.



Travel Times: Defying popular perception is the fact that average peak hour travel times have fallen in the United States over the past 25 years. According to the US Department of Transportation, one of the principal reasons for this is that more people are using cars instead of transit. Transit travel times are generally from 50 percent to 100 percent longer than that of the automobile, even where there are expensive urban rail systems. The anti-suburban agenda will lengthen commuting times.



Downtown Revitalization: A common theme among anti-suburbanists is an interest in downtown revitalization. Privately financed efforts of organizations like St. Louis 2004 are commendable, and St. Louis is fortunate to have such a committed and involved private sector.



In what might be considered the "Disneyfication" of downtown, the nation's central business districts are increasingly becoming tax supported regional amusement centers. But downtowns are no more deserving of public investment than any other part of the urban area, and they generally are already the recipients of inordinate subsidies. Favored treatment is not appropriate for anywhere --- downtown or suburban.



The Role of Transit: Based upon my quarter of a century experience in transit, let me disabuse you of any misperceptions about the role of transit in the US metropolitan area. Of course, transit plays an important role in providing mobility to low income citizens and the disabled --- in short, people who do not have access to automobiles. But transit's role outside of that is very limited. Transit carries approximately one percent of travel in the St. Louis area. If transit ridership were to increase four or five fold --- and it will not --- the impact on traffic congestion would be imperceivable.



The only place in the urban area that can be reached by convenient service from everywhere else is downtown. This is not just in St. Louis, it is the same in New York, Chicago, Seattle and every other American city. The problem is that downtown has, on average, less than 10 percent of regional employment. Worse, downtown is losing market share in relation to the rest of the urban area.



In St. Louis, 11 percent of downtown workers use transit, but only two percent use transit outside downtown. And non-downtown commuters have incomes 40 percent below average, suggesting that they use transit because they have no choice. If everyone who commutes by transit outside downtown were to begin using automobiles tomorrow, no one would know the difference (though they would get to work a lot faster).



New light rail systems like the St. Louis "Metrolink" are very attractive, but exceedingly expensive and ineffective. While proponents claim that light rail can carry the equivalent of six freeway lanes, the practical fact is that they tend to carry one-fifth, and that the average arterial street lane carries twice the volume of a light rail line. Nowhere in the United States, nor even in Europe, has a new rail system made a perceivable difference in traffic congestion. There is a simple reason why. In both Europe and the United States transit does not and cannot go where most people want to go. For the overwhelming majority of trips, people do not choose transit because there is no usable transit to choose.



Urban Growth Boundaries: Urban growth boundaries are a favored strategy of the anti-suburbanists. Urban growth boundaries seek to preserve open space, while forcing more dense urban development. But history suggests that, in any material sense, they will fail. Take, for example, London. In the 1930s, London established an urban growth boundary --- the "Green Belt." And while London is surrounded by 10 or more miles of Green Belt, it has not contained urban development or increased densities. London itself has lost more than 15 percent of its population. At the same time, three times as many people as have left London have settled just outside the Green Belt. The result --- much lower densities --- much greater automobile dependency.



The same is likely to occur in America. Some people may be forced to live closer together. I suspect that many more will decide to live elsewhere or live in previously rural areas beyond the urban growth boundaries. Urban areas yielding to the siren song of anti-suburbanism are likely to become less competitive.



Shopping: Anti-suburbanists are particularly hostile to suburban shopping centers in general and "big box" retailers such as Wal-Mart in particular. They mourn the loss of traditional downtowns with their smaller stores that have been driven out of business by the new suburban competition. But the proliferation of suburban shopping has brought lower prices to consumers. One has to ask, what is the purpose of an economy --- to serve consumers or to serve producers? Clearly, consumers are sovereign in the economy. Just as some mourn the loss of downtown shopping, others mourned the loss of horse drawn carriages and the Luddites sought to destroy the machinery of the industrial revolution. History proceeds, and the market changes. Retail establishments are justified by their ability to attract sufficient sales. To reverse course and favor one group of producers at the expense of another will only raise prices. The day could come that Americans, like Japanese and English, find their own products less expensive abroad. Moreover, limiting commercial construction will destroy jobs in construction and related industries.



More Dense Housing: Anti-suburbanism would require houses to be built on smaller lots, generally in already developed areas. Even Portland's anti-suburbanists metropolitan government anticipates that this will raise housing prices. Fewer people will be able to afford houses, and there will be fewer jobs in construction and related industries.



Regional Government: The anti-suburbanists are particularly concerned about the large number of municipal governments in most urbanized areas. They indicate concern about duplicative infrastructure, which they contend increases public costs. Yet there is no evidence that regional government or larger government are more efficient overall than smaller, more fractionalized governments. Indeed, larger municipal governments are more costly, as we found in a report for the city of Toronto in 1997. There are a number of reasons for this. Despite the large price tags, infrastructure is not the driving factor in local government costs --- it is rather labor, which represents 60 percent or more of annual budgets. Larger municipal governments tend to have larger staffs per capita and higher labor costs. Moreover, there are no economies of scale in larger municipal governments. Larger governments do, however provide economies of scale to special interests --- they are more susceptible to special interest control, which invariably drives costs up. These two factors --- larger payrolls and susceptibility to special interests combine with more complicated bureaucratic processes to make regional government less responsive to the people. Why should garbage collection be administered from St. Louis? Why should fire and police departments be centralized in St. Louis, Clayton or St. Charles. Where governments are larger, citizen and neighborhood interests are less important. Regional governments are necessarily less democratic than smaller municipal governments. To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln:




Government of the people, by the people and for the people is government that is closer to the people.
This is not to suggest that there is not a role for regional coordination and cooperation. Mandatory coordination is appropriate with respect to regional issues, such as air pollution. And, voluntary cooperation is appropriate with respect to other issues.



Agricultural Land: For decades, America has been becoming a more prodigious agricultural producer. Since 1950, eight times as much land has been taken out of production than by suburbanization. Yet, agricultural production has risen by more than 100 percent. Suburbanization is not consuming needed agricultural land.

To summarize, the problems the anti-suburbanists cite are not problems and the solutions they propose would impair the quality of life and the economy.



Portland's False Fronts



Let me just mention a few words about Portland, Oregon, the anti-suburbanist ideal. Portland's metropolitan government has adopted a number of anti-suburban measures, and its missionaries literally circle the globe with an evangelical zeal rivaling any found in the last century. They claim that Portland's urban growth boundary, adopted 20 years ago, has made Portland the attractive city it is today. But behind the false fronts of Portland's policies is found an urban area little different than any other, and the first evidence of serious consequences. As one who grew up in the Portland area and has visited often, I can tell you that the Portland of 1999 looks little different from the Portland of 1980, except for its having sprawled to a greater degree than any other major western city. Moreover, the urban growth boundary has not contained growth --- it was drawn so far from the city that it has only recently been approached. And, Portland has embraced the First Commandment of anti-suburbanism --- Thou shalt build no highways. Portland has decided that, on balance, it is better to have two million cars in 400 square miles than 500. They are already paying the price with rapidly increasing traffic congestion, and traffic congestion is likely to be worse than that of Los Angeles within 15 years. Moreover, Portland has been converted from a low cost housing market to one of the nation's most expensive.



The Decline of the Central City and "Push" Factors



Before discussing the probable effects of anti-suburban policy, it is appropriate to consider the issue of urban decay. Why is it that our central cities have declined so? Anti-suburbanists would like us to believe that it is because of the automobile the building of the interstate highway system and other public policies. But suburbanization was well on its way in the 1950s, before any significant part of the interstate highway system opened. Of course, as people have become more affluent, they have sought new houses on larger lots, in pursuit of the American Dream. But there are other factors --- what some have called "push factors."--- that have hastened the decline of the central cities. Examples include:



Higher central city public service costs, which have necessitated higher taxes.



Inferior quality services in central cities.



Special interest control of large cities and political corruption.



Poor central city education



Much higher central city crime rates.
Even so, however, similar demographic trends have occurred in virtually all major cities in the developed world over the past 30 years --- dense central city areas are losing population to the more spacious suburbs.



The American Dream is the Universal Dream



Anti-suburbanists often point to Europe as a model for US urban development. But, despite this perception and in spite of much more regulated economies, Europe and Japan, and virtually every other developed area of the world is suburbanizing, and automobile use is increasing.




The central city of Paris has lost 800,000 people in the last 50 years, while the suburbs have burgeoned to hold five times as many people as the city.



Over the past 50 years, all growth in London, Stockholm and Copenhagen has been suburban growth, as central city populations have fallen substantially --- just as in the United States.

Europeans have become nearly as dependent upon their automobiles as Americans, despite gasoline prices of $4.00 per gallon and more.



Automobile ownership and use is exploding in Japan.
The American Dream has become the Universal Dream --- and why not?



The Anti-Suburbanist Nightmare



The anti-suburban agenda addresses a problem that does not exist, with solutions that threaten the American economy. The anti-suburban agenda is likely to replace a the American Dream with a nightmare, characterized by:


Increased traffic congestion, air pollution and travel times, and a retarded quality of life.



Increased housing prices, putting home ownership out of the reach of millions of Americans.



Higher product prices, due to less efficient and less competitive retailing, lowering the standard of living.



Fewer jobs across the economy, starting in the construction trades, spreading to related industries and beyond.
The issue was framed quite effectively nearly 50 years ago by Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson as the 1952 Democratic Party Presidential candidate:

Our people have had more happiness and prosperity, over a wider area, for a longer time than men have ever had since they began to live in ordered societies 4,000 years ago. Since we have come so far, who shall be rash enough to set limits on our future progress.



Who shall say that since we have gone so far, we can go no farther?



Who shall say that the American dream is ended?

It would appear that Governor Stevenson's question has been answered --- the anti-suburbanists, including the Vice-President. It is expected that anti-suburbanism would be a major policy agenda of a Gore administration. Already, the US Environmental Protection Agency is underwriting the anti-suburban activities of hundreds of interest groups. Your money is being used against you.



Democratizing Land and Mobility



Anti-suburbanism could represent the most serious assault yet on the American Dream. It is, at its core, a threat to freedom that is not warranted by any genuine common interest. It is just the latest battle in a conflict between:


those who believe that government should plan our lives and



those who believe that we should be free to plan our own lives.
America's spacious suburban areas have brought many benefits.


Traffic congestion is less severe because of suburbanization



Air pollution is lower because of suburbanization



Travel times are shorter because of suburbanization



Housing prices are lower because of suburbanization.



Houses are larger because of suburbanization.



Yards are bigger because of suburbanization



Prices are lower because of suburbanization



There are more jobs because of suburbanization.



The economy is stronger because of suburbanization.
Through the American Dream, land use has been democratized. And, through the American Dream mobility has been democratized. These are not dishonorable deeds, they are sources of just pride. Our task is to expand the American Dream, not to draw a growth boundary around it.




(c) 2001 www.demographia.com --- Wendell Cox Consultancy --- Permission granted to use with attribution.

[GOP_1900AD]

I live in an old, inner ring community of small (too small) houses. What is being discussed here is being applied to long standing communities. They are not simply trying to prevent sprawl. They are trying to tear down entire, well functioning, communities and cram individual land owners into beehives. Move to Europe if you think we are wrong.

[hedgetrimmer]

Many of us would love to live in a neighborhood where we could work, live, and shop all within walking distance

If you were a cowboy living on a ranch maybe. But what if you work in a factory? Do you want to live next to it,with the 24/7 traffic, deliveries and movement of trucks? Would you want your kids to play in a front yard next to a factory? How about if you live next to a nightclub but your job makes you get up at 4 or 5 am in the morning? Would you be able to sleep? Would you get any rest on the weekends when everyone around you is drinking, getting rowdy and wants to party? What if you worked in an FedEx terminal. Would you be happy living next to such a busy airport? Some people like to hear planes, but if it was your job, would you want to keep listening to it after you got home from work? What if you worked at the train station. Do you think your kids would find good places to play next to the busy tracks while you are working there? What if you worked at a prison? Again, is this a good place to where you'd have kids playing in the yard while you went off to work? Would you feel comfortable with that?

[Gal.5:1]

The goal of the group, unlike a Common Council meeting, is not necessarily to resolve an argument. Instead it is to get people thinking differently ...
--
Bingo. Enter change agents and facilitators to achieve the desired outcome and 'transformation' (synthesis).

[djreece]

All of those are good reasons we as conservatives should work for a truly free market in housing as opposed to defending the suburban sprawl brought to us by government planning and zoning. I trust the individual to be able to make those choices in a free market.

The choice isn't, and shouldn't be, the old government way versus the new government way. There are many better options we creative and inventive Americans can come up with if government would get out of the way.

(For the record, there are all sorts of jobs from shopkeeper to banker where living near where you work would be quite enjoyable. Have you ever lived in a prosperous, busy urban environment?)