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Sunday, October 24, 2004
How our communities grow: A presidential issue?
Neal Peirce
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Highway congestion choking suburbs and cities alike. Lengthening commutes even in the face of skyrocketing world oil prices. Imperiled federal funding for "New Start" light rail lines. Possibly the worst housing affordability crisis we've ever seen. Predatory lending practices targeted at poor Americans.
OK, it's possible to downgrade and ignore those issues in a presidential election focused on mega-issues of war and peace, America's appropriate role in the world, and the fate of our deeply imperiled national treasury.
But is it really so smart to let Iraq and terror and red ink financing, with side squabbles over taxes and health care, eclipse so many of the critical issues that will determine how our cities and towns and their people fare in the years immediately ahead?
The blackout is, of course, not total. Bush boasts (like President Clinton before) about significant increases in homeownership, promising much more to come. The president raises the No Child Left Behind school legislation with unflagging frequency. Occasionally he alludes to the brownfield recovery assistance he's supported.
As for Kerry, community issues are rare when he campaigns -- unless you want to count his focus on stepped-up use of renewable energy and energy efficiency measures.
But Kerry has gone on record, far more than Bush, in promising community-friendly policies on housing, public transit, police, curbs on predatory lending, fuller school aid and economic stimulus measures for poor areas. His campaign even sums it up in a phrase -- "The Kerry-Edwards Metropolitan Agenda."
Kerry wants to revive a Clinton-era program to help entrepreneurs get started in poor communities. Like Bush, he talks up homeownership expansion. But he presses the fight for three strikingly successful programs imperiled by Bush-era cuts -- Section 8 housing rental assistance for poor families, the HOPE VI program to encourage mixed-income communities, and the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit to bring private capital into the assisted housing market.
Add it all up and Kerry comes substantially closer than Bush to the domestic priorities spelled out by the National League of Cities' "American dream" platform -- to "maximize access to affordable housing, strengthen public education, create opportunities to develop marketable job skills and build inclusive communities."
But is a collection of city-friendly programs all we need from our president? David Goldberg, the former Atlanta Journal-Constitution writer now handling communications for Smart Growth America, argues not. The way metro regions grow makes a huge difference, he argues. A national administration that took time to think through the impacts of Washington's spending and rules and regulations could do a lot of good -- save taxpayer dollars, insure a better economic deal for less privileged Americans, and create more livable urban environments, he suggests.
The savings could be gained from a "fix-it-first" strategy -- conscious policy to shift government infrastructure dollars, whether they're for roads or sewers or fresh water systems, so that they undergird places Americans already live rather than continuing to subsidize development on farms and open land. Not only are there brownfields and other inner-city lands to recycle, notes Goldberg, but older suburbs contain vast acreage of dead and dying shopping centers that could accommodate huge amounts of growth.
Closer-in development and expanded public transit services, he suggests, can also cut down on the long commutes that not only pollute the air and contribute to U.S. dependence on Middle Eastern oil but are sapping the incomes and family time of both low-income people and increasing numbers of middle-class teachers and public safety officers who find they can't afford to live in the towns where they work.
Borrowing development ideas from our great, older neighborhoods and building more walkable, convenient neighborhoods will also, Goldberg contends, let our kids walk or bike to school, cut energy use, and encourage all of us to reduce auto trips, walk more and likely start shedding pounds in times of a serious national obesity epidemic.
Today there is a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency arm quietly promoting smart growth practices. But EPA rarely coordinates with today's weak Department of Housing and Urban Affairs, or a Transportation Department perplexed by congressional stalemate on roads and transit funding.
So would Americans prefer a more coherent urban/metropolitan policy? Yes, argues Goldberg, citing a new national poll conducted for Smart Growth America and the National Association of Realtors. It shows 86 percent of Americans want government to fund improvements in existing communities over new development in the countryside. Significant numbers of us believe our communities have too little affordable low- or moderate income housing, insufficient public transportation or shops within walking distances, and not enough places to walk, bike or exercise.
Even in a nation of local decision-making, Washington could be nudging us toward coherent, dollar-wise, equitable, environmentally-friendly directions in how we use our land and shape our communities. The national payoff could be huge. How sad that presidential candidates still aren't saying so.
Neal Peirce's e-mail address is nrp@citistates.com.
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