It's a Sprawl World After All?

Tech Central Station ^ | 10/24/2003 | C.C. Kraemer

[farmfriend]

It's a Sprawl World After All?

By C.C. Kraemer

Is John Hieftje a saint or a sinner? Depends on whom you ask. According to the value judgment of Thomas Jefferson he's a sinner. The third president said that "To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical."

Despite the timelessness of Jefferson's wisdom and its universal relevance, to the eco-activists and anti-sprawl elitists, Hieftje, the mayor of Ann Arbor, Mich., is most certainly a saint. It is his role as a leader in a movement to establish a greenbelt -- an open, undeveloped space -- around his city for which he has been canonized.

It will be no surprise when many in Ann Arbor vote in favor of the greenbelt plan when it's offered on the ballot this Nov. 4. It is a university town, its culture dominated by academics who, no matter how overwhelming the facts are to the contrary, tend to support projects that appeal to the political left. When Hieftje defended the scheme in the Detroit Free Press, saying "There are a lot of open spaces around us and if they're all gobbled up, we've lost something big," his appraisal was no doubt widely met with knowing agreement across the city and the Ann Arbor township on the east and north.

To fund the project, landowners will be separated from $35 million of their money through a hike in property taxes. The voters who supported it will be voluntarily surrendering their money for a project they believe in. But what about those who didn't vote for it?

And what of those taxpayers elsewhere in Michigan and across the country who will be responsible for as much as $50 million in matching funds that the greenbelt supporters are expecting? How many will be forced, as well, to pay for something they don't approve of; the victims, Jefferson might say, of someone else's sin.

That sort of entangling of philosophy has never stopped lawmakers from raising taxes, though. Elected officials are guided by an almost universal arrogance that their ideas are so important that they can force others to fund them. In this case, the critical need that must be attended to is the perception that undeveloped land in Ann Arbor and elsewhere is losing a battle to the bulldozer and the builder.

It's not. There is a lot of open space around Ann Arbor. By the U.S. Department of Agriculture's estimate, half of Michigan's 36 million acres is forest. (In case anyone thinks the state is losing forestland, it has about 2 million more acres of forest than it did 20 years ago.) With less than 10 percent of the state urbanized, Michigan is, by a wide margin, rural.

Alarmists want the public to believe that development is quickly consuming open spaces. But they protest too much. As anyone who's taken a cross-country flight and made an honest observation of what's below in fly-over country can confirm, the U.S. is blessed with an immense amount of open space. In fact, only a small slice of the country -- less than 5 percent -- is developed. A smaller portion -- less than one-tenth of 1 percent, according to the National Association of Home Builders -- is used for housing.

If there's a "wave of development" that "will sweep over us," a fear Hieftje expressed in the Free Press, it's going to take a long time.

Consider that more U.S. land has been designated as federal wilderness area (106 million acres) than has been developed (98 million acres consumed for commercial, residential, industrial and transportation uses). Add other federally protected areas, the open space placed off-limits by state and local governments, and privately owned undeveloped land, then remember that it's taken more than 400 years for the country to reach 98 million acres of development, and it becomes clear that the smart-growth faction is embellishing its claims that open space is being lost at an unsettling rate. It might not like the way cities develop, but it has no more data to back up its fear mongering than it does the moral authority to dictate other people's housing preferences.

Hieftje just might get his wish to have taxpayers fund the greenbelt. But he and his supporters will find that their efforts will have an amusing -- though not to them -- effect. The Ann Arbor planners are likely to witness a repeat of what happened a few years back in Portland, Ore., where ambitious officials established a similar no-build ring around the city's perimeter. Undaunted families looking for bigger, newer houses with generous yards and home builders willing to provide them simply jumped the no-build zone and developed land outside Portland's jurisdiction.

When Jefferson said it was sinful to compel a man to pay for something he didn't support, he was speaking in the context of religious freedom. But his conviction applies in the Ann Arbor case and all others like it. The anti-sprawl movement is not a recognized religion, but its zealous disciples, who worship at a green altar, have made it into one.

[farmfriend]

Rights, farms, environment ping.

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[SierraWasp]

"The anti-sprawl movement is not a recognized religion, but its zealous disciples, who worship at a green altar, have made it into one."

Yessssssss!!! And they suffer from ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT, themselves!!!

There's not one dang thing wrong with development if it's unique and appropriate! That's why they call a property with a home on it "Improved Property!" It's all part of the constitutional "Pursuit of Happiness" property right that recognizes ownership and CONTROL of one's land!!!

I tire of ranting into a whirlwind...

[farmfriend]

I think you, Carry and I are whirling in the same wind.

[Carry_Okie]

I think you, Carry and I are whirling in the same wind.

I'm not sure, but should we be hoping that it's a passing wind?

That kind of natural gas is an explosive issue.

[Carry_Okie]

...and if I keep up with puns like that it might be an expulsive issue.

[farmfriend]

Hahaha, you guys make this so much fun!

[Looking for Diogenes]

The Ann Arbor planners are likely to witness a repeat of what happened a few years back in Portland, Ore., where ambitious officials established a similar no-build ring around the city's perimeter. Undaunted families looking for bigger, newer houses with generous yards and home builders willing to provide them simply jumped the no-build zone and developed land outside Portland's jurisdiction.

It sounds like Ann Arbor is creating what may someday someday become a ring park, like Berlin has. No one is going to stop development without strangling a city - people need places to live. The best that municipalites can do is to try to channel that development in such a way as to make for a livable city. If the majority of Ann Arborites want a green belt, more power to them. But they shouldn't be surprised when suburbs spring up beyond that green belt.

[farmfriend]

Nor should they be surprised when housing prices sky rocket.

[Looking for Diogenes]

Nor should they be surprised when housing prices sky rocket.

Supply and demand.

[E.G.C.]

Oklahoma Agriculture Bump

[George Frm Br00klyn Park]

To fund the project, landowners will be separated from $35 million of their money through a hike in property taxes. The voters who supported it will be voluntarily surrendering their money for a project they believe in. But what about those who didn't vote for it?
================================

Guys, Folks who rent property in the area will also see their rent payments go up due to < sarcasm > the evil landowners < / sarcasm > having to raise rents to cover "operating" expenses. Or, go broke! That's the way things work.

"Limiting sprawl" = SOCIALISM!! Peace and love, George.

[sergeantdave]

To understand “Smart Growth” take a trip to Portland.

Smart growth is the latest snake oil cure-all peddled by urban hucksters who play with people’s lives and homes like tinker toys. It’s soviet central planning lite. It’s all the rage among socialist governors disguised as Americans. The main features are:

1) Pack people like sardines into small 20- foot boxes and pray they call it “home.”

2) Build nasty roadblocks, speed bumps, detours and no turn signs every 100 feet or so on all streets to destroy the automobile culture.

3) Erect an ugly, lumbering mass transit rail system that nearly everyone hates and is mostly haunted by bums, winos and socialist mayors.

4) Anoint unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats with unlimited power to control property.

5) Inflate the price of land so an 8 by 10 shack sells for $100,000.

6) With buildings and people packed tight like sardines, paint a big fat bullseye for terrorists on the entire city.

7) Now pollute the blazes out of the whole mess.

Welcome to smart growth. Chris DeMuth, president of the American Enterprise Institute, calls Portland’s smart growth disease “...government sprawl, or perhaps strip-mall socialism.”

Portland is a story of well intentioned citizens seeing their daydream become a nightmare. This is not about happy suburban homes with prim rose gardens, white picket fences and laughing children. This is “Invasion of the Home Snatchers,” without compensation, that will attempt to plunder a local community near you.

Some years ago, Portland citizens dreamed of a vibrant, clean, up-scale community surrounded by pristine mountains, lakes and forests, where haggard yuppies could watch the deer and the antelope play after a grinding day of rat racing. It seemed so idlyic...so perfect.

Then smart growth raided the town.

The socialist engineers pushing smart growth promised the innocent sheep in yuppiedom less congestion, clean air, no pollution, reduced infrastructure costs for sewers, transportation and roads, more affordable housing and protection of open space for the deer and the antelope to play.

“We Ain’t Building No Los Angeles” was their slogan.

So the good citizens went temporarily stupid and voted to create a soviet politburo with dictatorial powers called “The Metro.”

It seemed so perfect - a hulking soviet bureaucracy staffed by unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats would draw up the big utopian plan called “Smart Growth.”

This abominable bureaucracy is the malignant “Regional Planning Commission” loved by socialist state governors. The names change from state to state.

With power stripped from local governments, the soviet planners guaranteed the sheep that the buzzing hodgepodge of mishmash local zoning would be eliminated and the perfect yuppie playground would spring from the provincial weeds.

These city wreckers, now with citizens in their clutches, drew a haphazard line around Portland and its suburbs - 24 communities in all, covering 364 square miles.

Thus was born The Portland Iron Curtain in the United Soviet Socialist Portland Peoples Republic.

The Portland yuppies found their lives flipped upside down in ways they never imagined.

1) The Metro passed dictates to force the sheep into high rise multifamily dwellings or multibusiness complexes, while no trespassing and no building signs popped up on lands circling the city.

2) The taxpayers were forced to build mass transit that no one rides but gets ooohs and aaahs from collectivist city planners and socialist mayors.

3) Highway dollars were spent to create a “traffic calming” ambiance by reducing the number and width of driving lanes and reducing speeds with barriers or other obstacles.

4) The bureaucrats passed Byzantine laws on architecture so people would have to walk if they wanted to buy food, clothing, etc.

This is not what the people of Portland wanted - easy travel, lots of leg room, a birdie at every feeder and sweet mountain air. Instead the citizens found they had hired a bunch of doomsday euro-weenies who hate vehicles.

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!

[sergeantdave]

To understand “Smart Growth” take a trip to Portland.

Smart growth is the latest snake oil cure-all peddled by urban hucksters who play with people’s lives and homes like tinker toys. It’s soviet central planning lite. It’s all the rage among socialist governors disguised as Americans. The main features are:

1) Pack people like sardines into small 20- foot boxes and pray they call it “home.”

2) Build nasty roadblocks, speed bumps, detours and no turn signs every 100 feet or so on all streets to destroy the automobile culture.

3) Erect an ugly, lumbering mass transit rail system that nearly everyone hates and is mostly haunted by bums, winos and socialist mayors.

4) Anoint unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats with unlimited power to control property.

5) Inflate the price of land so an 8 by 10 shack sells for $100,000.

6) With buildings and people packed tight like sardines, paint a big fat bullseye for terrorists on the entire city.

7) Now pollute the blazes out of the whole mess.

Welcome to smart growth. Chris DeMuth, president of the American Enterprise Institute, calls Portland’s smart growth disease “...government sprawl, or perhaps strip-mall socialism.”

Portland is a story of well intentioned citizens seeing their daydream become a nightmare. This is not about happy suburban homes with prim rose gardens, white picket fences and laughing children. This is “Invasion of the Home Snatchers,” without compensation, that will attempt to plunder a local community near you.

Some years ago, Portland citizens dreamed of a vibrant, clean, up-scale community surrounded by pristine mountains, lakes and forests, where haggard yuppies could watch the deer and the antelope play after a grinding day of rat racing. It seemed so idlyic...so perfect.

Then smart growth raided the town.

The socialist engineers pushing smart growth promised the innocent sheep in yuppiedom less congestion, clean air, no pollution, reduced infrastructure costs for sewers, transportation and roads, more affordable housing and protection of open space for the deer and the antelope to play.

“We Ain’t Building No Los Angeles” was their slogan.

So the good citizens went temporarily stupid and voted to create a soviet politburo with dictatorial powers called “The Metro.”

It seemed so perfect - a hulking soviet bureaucracy staffed by unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats would draw up the big utopian plan called “Smart Growth.”

This abominable bureaucracy is the malignant “Regional Planning Commission” loved by socialist state governors. The names change from state to state.

With power stripped from local governments, the soviet planners guaranteed the sheep that the buzzing hodgepodge of mishmash local zoning would be eliminated and the perfect yuppie playground would spring from the provincial weeds.

These city wreckers, now with citizens in their clutches, drew a haphazard line around Portland and its suburbs - 24 communities in all, covering 364 square miles.

Thus was born The Portland Iron Curtain in the United Soviet Socialist Portland Peoples Republic.

The Portland yuppies found their lives flipped upside down in ways they never imagined.

1) The Metro passed dictates to force the sheep into high rise multifamily dwellings or multibusiness complexes, while no trespassing and no building signs popped up on lands circling the city.

2) The taxpayers were forced to build mass transit that no one rides but gets ooohs and aaahs from collectivist city planners and socialist mayors.

3) Highway dollars were spent to create a “traffic calming” ambiance by reducing the number and width of driving lanes and reducing speeds with barriers or other obstacles.

4) The bureaucrats passed Byzantine laws on architecture so people would have to walk if they wanted to buy food, clothing, etc.

This is not what the people of Portland wanted - easy travel, lots of leg room, a birdie at every feeder and sweet mountain air. Instead the citizens found they had hired a bunch of doomsday euro-weenies who hate vehicles.

[SierraWasp]

"The bureaucrats passed Byzantine laws on architecture so people would have to walk if they wanted to buy food, clothing, etc."

You post some of the best replies!

A few years ago, another "Not-For-Profit-but-for-big-salaries-and-expense-accounts" organization opened up shop next to the 8,000 other lobbying organizations in Sacramento and to make it'self appear important, named it'self the "LOCAL GOVERNMENT COMMISSION."

Now it didn't matter that these self-annointed leftist-liberals hadn't been commissioned by anyone in authority such as duly elected local government officials... but here they came with a campaign called "PUTTING CALIFORNIA BACK ON IT'S FEET!"

They just think they're so cute trying to make people think they are officially sanctioned and at the same time using a cute double meaning for the name of their latest "smart growth" campaign.

They wanna fool ya, so they can rule ya!!!

[hedgetrimmer]

I thought you were describing Santa Cruz California for a minute!

Can I quote you? This is a very good post.

[Grampa Dave]

The Watermelons Jihadists who control Portland are killing the economy of that city and the immediate area. Your post describes what Portland has become.

They have driven away national and regional businesses because of their pro Enviral Whacko behavior and anti business behavior. A conservative business owner is seen as evil. An ELF jihadist, who burns vehicles and businesses is seen as a hero.

We talked to a friend who was up visiting the Portland area the last week in September. It had been about 5 years since he was last in Portland. He said the city has become a combo of the worse of San Francisco and Seattle combined. The remaining sane people are seriously wondering if they should escape now or wait until they lose their jobs or have to close their businesses.

He said this enviral anti economic disease is spreading into the communities around Portland. He advised his relatives and friends in the area to sell their homes while they could and get out while they can.

[sergeantdave]

From behind the Portland Iron Curtain, a brave soul smuggled in the Urban Mobility Corporation report that said, “...smart growth has nothing to do with improving people’s daily lives.

"Rather, it is an elitist anti-suburban, anti-automobile ideology that, in its single-minded desire to ‘prevent sprawl’ (and make open spaces safe for those who already inhabit them), would deny people the freedom to choose where and how they wish to live, and would deprive young families of an opportunity to share in the American dream of home ownership.”

“Eeeeeoooow,” said the yuppie sheep, checking their rearends to see how much they’d been sheared.

Having decided that Portland would look handsome as “LA North,” the euro-weenie, car-hating socialist soviet republic bureaucrats looked out over their vast utopia and said: “Hmmmm. This don’t look like LA - yet.”

“Okay,” they said, “all you yuppie sheep jump into boxes and we’ll pile you up high.” (And they weren’t talking medical marijuana.) “We will now make you into sardines,” said the central planners.

First the commissars rezoned single family homes, whole neighborhoods, in fact, into multi-family housing. Want to add a bedroom? No. No. No. And should your house burn down, you’ll be required to build an apartment on your lot.

The result? A pile of 20-foot wide, over-priced sardine apartments stacked one on top of the other that no one wants to call home.

Then dissidents smuggled in a survey by the National Association of Home Builders and made it known to the sardines. It found that 83% of respondents would rather live in a single-family detached home in an outlying suburb than in a townhouse in an urban setting.

“Eeeeeoooow,” said the commissars, trying to bury the truth. After all, common sense makes no sense when there’s a collectivist utopia to be built.

“No, comrades,” said the commissars. “We are building the road to socialist hell, and you are the peasant passengers.”

The central planners suckered in a developer to build sardine apartments along the light rail line. The politburo picked the taxpayers pockets for a cool $6 million in subsidies for the developer and $3 million worth of tax waivers.

He built ‘em, but did they come? No. Who wants to live on railroad tracks, other than bums and winos? The poor guy couldn’t find any tenants and went belly-up - bankrupt. The city agreed to steal another $3.4 million to finish the development, but the developer said no way.

As the construction of single family homes fell to the collectivist’s whim, prices for that white picket fence in the suburbs soared through the roof.

In 1989, Portland rated among the 50 most affordable housing markets in the country. By 1996 after the city had gotten really, really smart, Portland has ranked among the five least affordable housing markets. Why? The “No Trespassing” signs outside the city boundaries gobbled up all buildable land, of course.

These urban-growth boundaries have led to a sevenfold increase in land prices. The boundary has driven up the price of land to $100,000 an acre or more, depending on the zoning.

These absurd growth planners also hold membership in the nature worship cult. Citizens discovered they can’t build in designated viewsheds of scenic highways, or in the buffer zone of a Heritage River or a designated stream.

Two years ago, beast worshippers at the Sierra Club, living in sprawling homes on an acre or more, said an “efficient urban density” is a city containing 500 housing units to the acre.

“Eeeeeooooow!” said the Portland sardines. That’s 500 families living on an acre of land - 209 x 209 feet. That’s three times the density of Manhattan and twice the density of Bombay, India. Neighborhoods for the throat-slitting Kali cult? Eeeeeooooow!

“Smart growth Portland-style is simply a high church version of NIMBYism,” said Dr. Steven Hayward, a fellow of the Earhart Foundation, based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. NIMBY, or Not In My BackYard, is the ultimate snob neighborhood movement to keep out riff-raff.

The region’s largest homebuilder recently said it had enough. The builder is reducing its operations by one-half because the region is running out of buildable land.

“Planners are turning Portland into the congested, polluted, high-cost place citizens thought they were voting to avoid,” said Randal O’Toole, senior economist with the Oregon-based Thoreau Institute.

“Portland provides a lesson for city officials elsewhere: Smart Growth is the sensible policy only if their goal is to turn their cities into Los Angeles,” said O’Toole.

“Many now realize that smart growth’s true goals are to increase congestion, drive housing prices up, and develop as much urban open space as possible.”

[discostu]

On the drive home from Tombstone last week my wife and I were making fun of the anti-sprawl people, noting they really need to spend some time out in the Tombstone/ Bisbee/ Douglas area before claiming there's no empty room in this country.