Posted on 04/24/2002 5:17:09 AM PDT by Phantom Lord
America's drive for acreage
By RICK MARTINEZ
RALEIGH - The problem with "Smart Growth" is that it's almost always smart for someone else.
Given a choice, most folks want what Smart Growth denies -- a big house with a big yard and at a bargain price. If they have to drive to a former cow pasture to get their piece of the American dream, so be it.
Espousing this position has earned me the title of urban neanderthal, but it appears I'm not the only member of this new species.
The National Family Opinion organization recently conducted a survey for the National Association of Home Builders and the National Association of Realtors. It would be shortsighted to dismiss this poll as providing the industry with preordained answers: the builders and real estate agents I know will build and sell anything anywhere, so long as there's a market.
The survey, conducted in January and released Monday, never mentioned Smart Growth. It simply asked 2,000 respondents who had bought their primary residence in the past four years what they considered important in a home and community.
In nearly every instance, big, roomy and cheap homes -- the upside of urban sprawl -- generally won out over the small, crowded and expensive housing that tends to be the end result of Smart Growth polices.
When asked to rate the importance of 16 aspects of a home and its location, "houses spread out" received top billing from 62 percent of the respondents. Highway access was selected as the top community amenity by 44 percent of the respondents. When asked what single factor they would change in their present home and community, lower taxes was the top choice.
Somebody get this survey down to the General Assembly.
Density lost out big time among these homeowners. Forty seven percent said they looked for a bigger home, and 45 percent wanted a bigger lot. Only a measly 10 percent wanted a smaller house, and 9 percent a smaller lot.
The open space most of these homeowners preferred was out in the country, not in the city. Living in a less-developed area and living away from the city were deemed significant quality of life issues for 40 and 39 percent of the respondents, respectively.
The most damaging survey result for Smart Growth came when respondents were asked to select their favored housing lifestyle option. The anti-sprawl notion of a small single-family home in the city, close to work, public transportation and shopping, was the choice of only 18 percent. Ouch.
Forty percent said they wanted a smaller home in a suburb closer to the city. Forty two percent said housing utopia for them was a large single-family home in an outlying suburban area with longer distances to work, public transportation and shopping. Urban neanderthals unite!
If this consumer survey isn't enough to make our civic leaders and planners take a second look at Smart Growth, I suggest they read a sobering scholarly study by Matthew E. Kahn of Tufts University, published in the Fannie Mae Foundation journal "Housing Policy Debate" (Volume 12, Issue 1).
Kahn's article, "Does Sprawl Reduce the Black/White Housing Consumption Gap?", warns that Smart Growth has the potential to squeeze minorities out of the housing market at a time when they are making their most dramatic gains.
"Affordability is likely to decrease in the presence of more anti-sprawl legislation. Such rules reduce the supply of new housing, which in turn raise the price of homes. This article has documented that such policies will have distributional consequences by limiting progress in minority housing consumption."
In other words, Smart Growth legislation tends to jack up the price of housing, which tends to lock minorities out of housing choices.
Civic leaders and planners need to confront a chilling question -- Is resegregation an ugly, unintended consequence of Smart Growth communities? There is a growing amount of evidence that it is.
There is nothing inherently wrong with Smart Growth. Southern Village in Chapel Hill is a good example of a such development done well. But as the housing survey and Kahn's study demonstrate, Smart Growth works best for everyone when it's a free market option instead of government policy.
Rick Martinez can be reached by e-mail at rickjmartinez@mindspring.com
Absolutely.
And we already have near zero population growth among existing Americans.
Most of America's population growth and resultant crowding stems from immigration.
Why waste a whole acre on four people?
Prisons need only 100 square feet for a "family" of two.
How strange to equate crowding with punishment and loss of freedom!
Actually, all we have to do is not let China and the rest of the world immigrate here.
Yes, the government should not be paying anyone to have babies but it shouldn't try to limit responsible people from having any number of children. We have too many single young drop outs having babies and who expect working people to provide a living for them.
Maybe some of the predictions are coming true. Look at Africa- millions of people have died the past couple decades and Middle Easterners who have 20 kids per woman are leaving their regions to invade others.
I don't believe in population control but it seems that the growth of the poverty stricken classes and middle classes everywhere are struggling. There are some quality of life issues too ---before Americans could go camping and enjoy the outdoors but now it takes a 3 month reservation to get a tent site in many parts of the country.
Guess why. Increase in lifestyles and quality of life. A larger middle class with more disposable income to spend on luxuries such as camping.
And what is killing millions in Africa? AIDS and war.
Ever checked the rural residential areas 50+ miles outside of cities ? You can make a killing there with your urban money.
Obviously. But you ignore the fact that if everyone lived in Texas, there would be the land mass of the 49 other states to produce the food and needed supplies.
My point being, the earths population is not to large to sustain. There is not a disaster just over the horizon that will wipe out 80% of the earths population as the zero population growth doom and gloomers are predicting and have been predicting for 30 years.
BS .... Go check the CIA fact book.
Continent : %Land considered wilderness
Africa : 28%
North America : 38%
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