Bursting the Smart Growth Bubble

Ed BraddyDoubleTree Resort – Orlando, Florida

September 25, 2010

Gainesville City Commission

Author of “Everything I need to know I learned at an ADC conference”

Extremely Persuasive

Wake Up!

Two Terms 2002-2008

UF National Championships

Football

2006, 2008

Basketball

2006, 2007

Smart Growth Bubble

Could Get Messy

Consequences of Failure

The Appeal of Smart Growth

“In general, smart growth invests time, attention, and resources in restoring community and

vitality to city centers and older suburbs.” (Why Smart Growth: A Primer)

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• Increased Densities

• Mixed Uses & Compact Development

• Pedestrian & Transit Orientation

• Open Spaces & Urban Infill

Justification for Smart Growth

• Concerns about growth & change

• Desire for order & reliability

• Order + Reliability = Security

• Growth management as framework

• Smart Growth is a doctrine

Smart Growth Sells

Rhetorical Appeal

Catchy Slogans

Nostalgic Return

Element of Fear

Heroic Purpose

“Study calls Maryland smart growth a flop”

• “An innovative policy to fight suburban sprawl catapulted Maryland into the national spotlight a decade ago.”

• “Scholars at the National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education found that over a decade, smart growth has not made a dent in Maryland's war on sprawl.”

Washington Post, Nov. 2, 2009

Smart Growth Promises Congestion Relief

• Paris, France

• Light Rail-T3

• Avg trip length per car has increased 4 km

• Congestion worsened

• Carbon emissions increased by 3,115 tons

(Source: Objectif Liberté, Vincent Benard)

Bus Subway Walk Car

50% 33% 9% 2.7%

Heavy on the RegsThe Wharton Residential Land

Use Regulatory Index

• Local Political Pressure

• State Political Involvement

• Local Zoning & Project Approval

• Supply & Land Assembly

• Other regulations like Open Space

#15 – Florida(Source: University of Pennsylvania)

Other Notables

#1 Hawaii

#3 Massachusetts

#6 Maryland

#7 Washington

#9 California

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#29 Ohio

#30 Texas

#45 Indiana

#50 Kansas

Bursting the Bubble

Smart Growth Promises Affordability

• “And if people think that prices will continue to rise, they become willing to spend even more, driving prices still higher, and so on. In other words, the Zoned Zone is prone to housing bubbles.”

– New York Times, 2005

Thomas Sowell Stanford University

• “Are you for ‘open space’ laws but also for ‘affordable housing’? Don't be discouraged by the fact that severe building restrictions have sent housing prices sky-rocketing in community after community.”

Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize in Economics, 2008

Affordable Smart Growth

McUrbanism – Tastes the Same Everywhere!

Sincere Intentions

• “The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachments by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.”Justice Louis Brandeis

What is Good is Bad

• Debate Grows on Aspirin for Heart Risk

• “a new analysis suggests that aspirin's risks may outweigh it benefits in this population.”– Source: WebMD.com

& Yorkshire Post, UK

Transit Oriented Developments

• “In San Francisco, Transit Oriented Development is a Green bait and switch designed to promote developer profits while exacerbating the very conditions which lead to increased emissions, climate change, congestion and slower, less reliable surface transit.”Source: Fog City Journal Mar 4, 2010

San Francisco

Transit Oriented DevelopmentPortland, Oregon “Assessing the Social and

Environmental Achievements of New Urbanism: Evidence from Portland, Oregon”

• “Orenco Station, the award winning neighborhood touted as an ideal of mass-transit oriented New Urbanism, has failed to persuade a majority of its residents to use mass transit to get to work.”Lewis and Clark College July 15, 2009

What is Bad is Good

• Coffee: The New Health Food?

• “Coffee, the much maligned but undoubtedly beloved beverage, just made headlines for possibly cutting the risk of the latest disease epidemic, type 2 diabetes. And the real news seems to be that the more you drink, the better.”– Sources: WebMD.com& Harvard Health Publications

“Evidence to the Contrary”

Australian Conservation Foundation & Residential Development Council

October 2007

• “GHG emission estimates from the recently published Australian Conservation Foundation Consumption Atlas, indicate virtually the opposite of the generally held perceptions.”

Housing Form in Australia& Its Impact on Greenhouse Gas Emissions

• “The data shows that lower density areas, which rely more on automobiles, tend to produce less in GHG emissions than the high density, more public transport dependent areas that are favored by urban consolidation policies.”

Hostility to Our Preferred Lifestyle

Dom NozziSenior Planner,

City of Gainesville (retired)

• “The car is the enemy of the city”– Gainesville Sun, May 18,

2008

James Kunstler• “These days, an awful lot of

people — the production builders, the realtors — are waiting for the ‘bottom’ in the real-estate industry with hopes that the suburban house-building orgy will resume. They are waiting in vain. The project of suburbia is over. We will build no more of it.”– New York Times, Aug 12, 2008

H. L. Mencken (1880-1956)

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the

populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them

imaginary.”

Menacing Hobgoblins

Suburban Development Sprawl

50 Year Planning

Beware of Hobgoblins Sprawl

Element of Fear

Unless They Are Exaggerating

Source: U.S. Geological Survey

Inconvenient Truths

• “All urbanized areas of 2,500 people or more occupy just 2.6 percent of the United States.”– U.S. Census Bureau

• “If every family in the U.S. built a home on a ¼ acre lot, they could all fit comfortably in Ohio.”– Randal O’Toole, Cato Institue Source: U.S. Geological Survey

Cruel Truths

• Transit is fiscally unsustainable

• Public transit is dependent on the automobile

• 2008-2009, Americans drove 11 billion fewer miles

• 2009-2010, transit agencies enact massive cuts

• Smart Growth will kill transitSound Transit

Copenhagen, Denmark

Compact Development Pedestrian Friendly

“Almost everyone here seems to walk, bike and use the metro.”

Pegeen Hanrahan

Gainesville Mayor

Viking Smart Growth

Chaos & Plunder Livability Charrette

Two Visions

European Pattern of Development

American Pattern of Development

Good Bad

Suburban Copenhagen

Vestegnen, Denmark

Transportation Mode Shares

United States European Union

Source: Panorama of TransportSource: National Transportation Statistics

Strategic Diminishment

• Consciously pursuing a future that is less than our current state

• Reducing Vehicle Miles Travelled

• Smart Growth promotes mass transit as superior alternative to automobile

• “Transportation choice” means diminished opportunities or smaller, crowded living

Strategic Diminishment – Defining Down Our Quality of Life

Threat to Property Rights

“There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual & silent encroachments of those in power than by violent & sudden usurpations.”

James Madison

Parris N. Glendening

• "The incentives are not strong enough, … but property rights are a heated issue. I don't believe the political realities allow you to go to a [stronger] system.“– Washington Post,

November 2, 2009

“Anti-Sprawl Laws, Property Rights Collide in Oregon”

• “The nation's strongest laws against sprawl are beginning to buckle here in Oregon under pressure from an even stronger, voter-approved law that trumps growth restrictions with property rights.”

• “Measure 37 is starting to unravel smart-growth laws that have defined living patterns.”

Washington Post, February 28, 2005

John Adams

• "The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the law of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence."

Justification for Smart Growth

• Concerns about growth & change

• Desire for order & reliability

• Order + Reliability = Security

• Growth management as framework

• Smart Growth is a doctrine

A Culture of Property Rights

• Voluntary Transaction

• Reliability

• Order

Houston, TX

A Culture of Planning

• 3rd Party Interference

• Arbitrariness

• Corruption

• Disorder

• Unreliable

• InsecurityPortland, OR

Another Contrast

• A Culture of Planning– Manipulation

– Arrogance

• A Culture of Property Rights– Merit

– Integrity

– Humility

Window of Policy Potential

MarketsMandates

Today

Window of Policy Potential

MarketsMandates

Today

GOOD

BAD

UGLY

Window of Policy Potential

MarketsMandates

Today

Tomorrow

Window of Policy Potential

MarketsMandates

Today

YIPPEE

BETTER

GOOD

Tomorrow

…the set of values, assumptions, and practices associated with a particular field, activity – i.e., the culture

Responsive Markets

Lightly Regulated

Decentralized Decision-making

Assumption: You can be trusted to do the right thing

Prescriptive Mandates

Heavily Regulated

Centralized Decision-making

Assumption: You can’t be trusted to do the right thing

Planning Culture

Property Rights Culture

…the set of values, assumptions, and practices associated with a particular field, activity – i.e., the culture

Prescriptive Mandates

Heavily Regulated

Centralized Decision-making

Assumption: You can’t be trusted to do the right thing

Planning Culture

Property Rights Culture

…the set of values, assumptions, and practices associated with a particular field, activity – i.e., the culture

Prescriptive Mandates

Heavily Regulated

Centralized Decision-making

Assumption: You can’t be trusted to do the right thing

Planning Culture

Property Rights Culture

Mission of the ADC

Property Rights

Culture

Planning Culture

Today

Tomorrow

To move the window of policy potential

American Dream Coalition• The ADC bridges the gap between scholarly research, elected

officials, community leaders & grassroots activists.

• Freedom in how people use their land and in what mode of transportation they choose.

• The ADC opposes coercive planning & command-and-control government at all levels.

• Our goal is to move the window of opportunity for market-friendly public policy.

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