Center for Local and State Solutions
Other Resources--Neal Peirce Column

Category: Article (Journal or Newspaper)
Jurisdiction: City/County Government, International
Management Issues: Catalytic Government, Community Based Strategies, Community/Economic Development
Policy Area: Cities/Counties

For Release Sunday, December 17, 2006


© 2006 Washington Post Writers Group

HOW DO WE DEVELOP
IN A RADICALLY ALTERED WORLD?

By Neal Peirce

WASHINGTON -- How do some of America’s best minds in the real estate and urban development game -- leaders and friends of the Urban Land Institute -- react to projections of 100 million more people by 2043?

They agree the growth won’t just spread out to all regions and areas in any equal way.  Or as Robert Lang of Virginia Tech’s Metropolitan Institute noted at the ULI’s Larson Forum here last week, at least 60 million of the next 100 million people will likely locate in 20 or so “megapolitan” chains of closely connected city and suburban regions, from Charlotte-Raleigh to Chicago-Milwaukee to the Houston/Gulf Coast area.  A common characteristic of all: high degrees of interregion commuting.

Notably, the development community’s reaction to coming waves of population isn’t just rah-rah for new money-making opportunities.  Instead, the ULI leaders and advisers focused on goals rarely mentioned in their circles a decade ago: sustainability (with special reference to energy and climate change challenges), equity (focused on the growing income gulf between American classes and races), and international competition (how our citistate regions can compete globally).

As one participant put it, we need a “triple-bottom-line” goal of economic profitability, social equity, and a healthy environment.

Without being hooted out of the room, several people asked: Isn’t it time -- for the first time since the Reagan political revolution -- to talk of federal leadership, of setting a national framework of critical priorities in developing our cities and regions?

The physical chessboard will be different.  Unlike the traditional city-suburb-”exurb” pattern of the 1950-2000 period, the emerging “megapolitan” regions show commuting patterns linking, “daisy-chaining” and filling in once-empty spaces between formerly separate places as much as 100 miles apart.  Employment is split among the historic downtowns and new suburban office centers.  Some people endure incredibly long commutes among parts of these regions, or, in a sure-to-grow phenomenon, telecommute from amazing distances, visiting their formal offices only occasionally.

But will the growth be as sprawling as development of the last decades?  Yes, quite likely in expansion-happy areas like Charlotte and Atlanta, said Lang, though even there, smaller cities in the path of the development surge could try to create more walkable downtowns and neighborhoods and less large lot subdivisions -- a pattern some of the ULI conferees called “refocused centralization.”

Conversely, very dense development is almost inevitable in such increasingly land-locked regions as Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Palm Beach and Los Angeles-San Diego.

Across all the regions, though, the ULI conferees saw tough problems -- trip wires in the way of sound development:

 * Energy/climate.  A worldwide energy crisis could paralyze the economy of the America’s regions – all heavily oil-dependent.   Hundreds of new coal-burning, greenhouse gas-emitting power plants are proposed this country as well as India and China.  Global warming threatens both our coastlines and the snow packs that provide the West’s water.  “Economically, environmentally, we have to figure out how to compete with but also collaborate with the world, in transformative ways,” said one developer at the ULI conference.

 * Splintered government.  Local land use regulations dictate lots of development choices -- often badly.  Example: green light approval for wasteful McMansions, barriers for compact units appropriate for today’s smaller family units.

But with huge regions of atomized units of government, it’s tough to see what will trigger important reforms -- for example building and zoning codes to encourage recycling land and more mixed-use development, “green” buildings, distinctive town centers, and a more democratic town-by-town mix of housing prices.

* Infrastructure -- and a will to invest. The United States is the only significant player in the modern world economy that’s not building high-speed rail -- the ideal way to bypass clogged highways and spread economic opportunity in regional clusters of citistates and their airports.  Energy-efficient freight rail is languishing, losing ground to trucks. 

* Schools.  Inner cities lack great public education; substandard schools repel many families who’d otherwise choose dense cities.  The No Child Left Behind program is apparently no magic cure.  The development community needs to play a role -- as one panelist put it: “The United States built its success with commitment to a vibrant public education system.  It created a much more balanced, just society than we have today.”

 * Regulatory takings.  Restrictions on eminent domain following the Supreme Court’s 2005 Kelo decision, the ULI conferees felt, throw a shadow over “important city regeneration projects.”  Even worse-- the regulatory “takings” measures on several states’ ballots last month.  The proposals give private owners sweeping rights to sue government if regulations purportedly reduce their property values. Three of four initiatives failed this fall, but ULI panel members fear they could return and “paralyze” planning for more careful and conserving future development.

The perplexing bottom line: sound 21st century development isn’t likely without government support.  But the Urban Land Institute doesn’t lobby.  The progressive development community needs the political voice it noticeably lacks right now.

Comments may be addressed to npeirce@citistates.com