Today, I’ll
resume my New Year’s “Intro to Urbanism”, an effort to provide a remedial urbanist
background for readers who’ve come only recently to this blog.
In my last post on the
“Intro”, I attempted to explain the fiscal reasons for urbanism. (Earlier, I had touched upon my reasons for the posts,
my attempt at definitions, and a presentation of the breadth of justifications for urbanism.)
Spotting
the Deer in the Brush: I was unsatisfied with my efforts in the last
post on the fiscal question. From years
of personal observation, and of reading the cogent thoughts of others, I’m
absolutely confident that the urbanism is the more fiscally responsible
approach to land use. However, it can be
a difficult understanding to impart.
Many years
ago, I was touring a proposed golf course with long-time golf pro and newly-minted
golf course architect Tom Weiskopf. As I
bounced an SUV down a rugged dirt track near the future 18th tee, Weiskopf abruptly
asked me to stop the car so he could observe a deer that was watching us from
cover.
Even with
the car stopped, neither the developer nor I could see the deer, but Weiskopf
carefully directed our sight, using trees and other backdrop elements as reference
points until both of us could discern the deer, half-hidden in sagebrush and
peering warily at us over a volcanic boulder.
The deer was indisputably real, but was hidden from sight to all but
those who had long history of spotting possible prey in natural settings.
The grasp of
fiscal urbanism is similar. Years of practice
at spotting the flaws in suburban land-use justifications makes them easy to
spot, even from a bouncing SUV. But
training others to see them as easily isn’t a trivial task. Perhaps the best I can do is to provide hints,
through an example and a pattern, about where to look.
A
Hypothetical Example: This example isn’t based on any particular
project, but has much in common with a great many infrastructure improvements
over the last half century or more.
Faced with
traffic congestion in a growing area of town, the town officials identify a
possible fix, a new arterial. The state
and federal governments support the solution and are willing to provide 90
percent of the funding through various programs. If there are any skeptics is in the town hall
who question how the town will maintain the new road, they’re quickly swept
away by the civic boosters who point out the construction jobs that road
building will generate and the new growth, surely enough to pay for
maintenance, that will flow from the new road.
Moving ahead
twenty-five years, the skeptics were largely right. The road construction jobs are far beyond the
range of the rearview mirror. Although some
growth occurred in the area accessed by the road, the boom is now sagging and
the incremental property tax revenues aren’t enough to maintain the road. Even worse, the road is in worse condition
than it might have been because the tax revenues that could have maintained it
were diverted to other under-maintained roads.
A complete rebuild
of the road is perhaps justified by engineering parameters, but there are no
funds for the work, especially because state and federal funds are available only
for new road construction. So instead
the voters point fingers at the town council for poor management and the town
council points fingers at the citizens for not approving new taxes.
In a
draconian world, removal of the road might be an option, but towns don’t tear
up roads that serve taxpayers, no matter how sparse or unproductive the uses might
be.
At the very
least, the exercise should have been a lesson, right? Not even close. The flawed decision was made twenty-five
years earlier, which feels like a different lifetime to most town people. Meanwhile, the town hall has identified a
possible arterial in another part of town that could spur new growth, the state
and federal government are willing to participate, and the civic boosters are
lining up in support.
And the beat
goes on.
A
Pattern of Borrowing from the Future: The financial legerdemain used to
balance municipal ledgers against the costs of suburbia often includes
borrowing from the future. The example
above, where immediate construction jobs and short-term property tax gains were
secured in exchange for long-term maintenance obligations on future taxpayers,
is just one example.
As another
example, faced with infrastructure maintenance costs, a city might be unable to
meet the immediate salary demands of a public employees’ union. Instead, it offers improved pension benefits,
largely to be funded by future taxpayers.
As yet one
more example, a city might trade a long-term income stream for the cash to meet
an immediate cash crunch, thereby denying future generations of the income to
meet their needs. The City of Chicago
did this a few years back with parking meter revenues.
An image I’ve
occasionally evoked in this blog is that of an adult sneaking into the room of
a sleeping child or grandchild and slipping coins from a piggybank to make a
payment on the SUV. Yes, it’s an
objectionable image, but it’s often the way that municipal finance works in the
21st century.
(By the way,
I don’t have kids. But I have a lifetime
of collecting nieces, nephews, and the offspring of long-time friends, about
all of whom I care. And I don’t wish to
leave them with the debts of my generation.)
Summing
Up: Have I convinced anyone of the fiscal justification for
urbanism? Perhaps not. But, in alerting readers to watch for overly rosy
economic projects, unfunded maintenance needs, and schemes to push costs onto
future taxpayers, I’ve laid the groundwork for readers to spot when they’re
being sold a bad idea, much like Tom Weiskopf tried to teach me how to spot a
deer in a thicket. And once readers have
begun honing and utilizing that skill, the realization that urbanism is a
better approach to land use will soon follow.
(To be clear, it’s not that urbanism avoids
the fallacies behind bad infrastructure decisions. We sometimes allow ourselves to be seduced by
bad ideas regardless of the land-use paradigm.
One could argue that our problem is more human nature than land-use
form. But with urbanism, the costs of the
infrastructure improvements are likely to be more modest and the assumptions about
the resulting economic activity are more likely to be met. So, when we make our inevitable bad decisions,
urbanism limits the depth of the hole we dig.
And we’re likely to dig fewer holes.)
I’ll stop
here, with a strong recommendation that readers check out the StrongTowns
oeuvre. The StrongTowns staff and the
advocates that have attached themselves to StrongTowns lead the way in pointing
out the fiscal logic for urbanism. Or readers
could keep reading this blog after the Intro is complete. I rarely go more than a couple of weeks
without mentioning StrongTowns.
Next time, I’ll
touch on the environmental grounds for urbanism. I may state a few facts that some will find
controversial, but overall the environmental arguments for urbanism are less murky
than the fiscal.
As always,
your questions or comments will be appreciated.
Please comment below or email me.
And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)
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