The Decline of Urban Civilization:
The Sprawl Years
Ralph Nader
[Reprinted from the San Franciso Guardian,
May 1998]
THE NEXT time you are sitting bumper to bumper in rush-hour traffic,
pass by a blighted inner city neighborhood, or stumble upon a new
housing development replacing what was once farmland, remember this
word: sprawl.
These phenomenon are all different facets of urban sprawl, the
low-density, unplanned patterns of development that have largely
defined American life since the '50s. Sprawl lies at the heart of
urban decline, racial polarization, worsening air and water quality,
and the erosion of community.
Do not despair! The Sprawl monster can be contained. Many of these
detrimental trends can be reversed. Writer, thinker, and civic
philosopher David Bollier has just completed a new monograph, "How
Smart Growth Can Stop Sprawl." Bollier does a remarkable job of
examining this burgeoning problem and then outlining practical steps
that citizens can take to remedy them.
It comes as no surprise that one of the major factors exacerbating
sprawl is the automobile. Still, we subsidize the use of automobiles
with highway budgets and tax subsidies for parking facilities. We also
pay for automobiles with military expenditures that ensure the flow of
oil from foreign lands and underwrite the cleanup costs of gasoline
and oil spills that harm the ecosystem. Competition between local
jurisdictions in metropolitan regions also fuels urban sprawl.
"Favored quarter" suburbs are using zoning rules to keep
out low-income residents and minorities -- while reaping a
disproportionate share of government money for new schools, highways,
sewer lines, and public services. So while the city remains critical
to a region's economic fortune, competition among towns ends up
draining the city of its vitality and turning it into the region's
poorhouse. And people begin to move away. The end result? This exodus
forces outlying suburbs to build new infrastructures and raise tax
rates to crushing levels. According to Maryland governor Parris
Glendening, every new classroom costs $90,000; every new mile of sewer
line costs roughly $200,000; and every mile of single-lane road costs
at least $41 million. But that's not all. Farmland is being destroyed
as sprawl moves ever outward. Commuting times grow longer and longer.
The environmental consequences here are appalling. Governor Glendening
notes that 5,000 people left Baltimore in the first six months of 1997
-- and that during this same period over 3,000 new septic-tank permits
were issued in the Baltimore suburbs. This kind of growth creates more
water pollution from storm runoff; more flooding as pavement
interferes with natural water flows; and the faster disappearance of
plants and wildlife. Fortunately, citizens from Portland to the Twin
Cities are introducing some effective remedies.
- Regional tax-base sharing offers some hope for metropolitan
areas to more equitably share tax dollars and allocate
infrastructure costs, and thus to reduce the pressures propelling
sprawl.
- Site-value property taxation may also spark greater development
in cities by taxing land, not buildings. Unlike traditional
taxation -- which rewards developers who put up cheap, tacky
housing and strip malls -- site-value taxation gives developers
the incentive to build gracious, durable buildings. Allowances for
affordable housing, however, need to be part of site-value
schemes.
- Several Bay Area communities have adopted "Urban Growth
Boundaries" (UGBs) to channel new development into areas with
existing infrastructure, so that open spaces and farmlands can be
preserved. UGBs help force a community to set long-term priorities
and develop more rational approaches to development.
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