Dumb Growth & Environmentalism?

Here’s an article from Andres Duany I was forwarded. Just posting it as something to think about…so please do feel free to post your thoughts about the article.

DUMB GROWTH & ENVIRONMENTALISM

A couple of years ago, at a Smart Growth conference in Atlanta, Ted Turner said that, on the whole, it
all sounded to him like ‘dumb growth.’ I publicly objected then, but I am now beginning to agree with his assessment. Smart Growth is devolving into an anti-greenfield-development campaign with the most important thing is to keep urbanism from spreading onto open land. As the thrust of a long term agenda this is simplistic. Anyone who thinks that development on greenfields can be stopped ‘does not know how sausage is made.’ Even Portland couldn’t do it (which is something that should be made clear). This dumbing-down is now taking hold within the CNU (Congress of the New Urbanism). We are becoming an organization of romantic amateurs.These are the realities:

1. The demographic need cannot be accommodated within infill areas as there will be nearly 50 million more households within 20 years.

2. The small increments of infill development, the unpredictable public scrutiny and the bureaucratic morass, preclude efficient development.

3. Unlike the rest of the world, Americans have preferences as well as needs. Many prefer their yards. This has been the ethos since Jefferson included ‘the pursuit of happiness’ as a natural right (unfortunately, or not, it took).

4. Most of the land proximate to cities, while looking like ‘greenfield’, is already zoned for development. The horse is out of the barn. Legal protection of such development rights is sustained all the way to the Supreme Court, and increasingly so last month’s decision was an example.

5. We are not ‘running out of land.’ If every American household were to occupy one acre, they would consume only four percent of the land of the continental United States.

6. Environmental laws already safeguard sensitive areas and endangered species. Manipulation of the criteria to forge anti-greenfield instruments merely distorts the science and diminishes the credibility
of environmentalism. Those who oppose growth on land that is not environmentally sensitive are manifesting their aesthetic preference, which is valid, but it is not science and they should say so.

7. It is arguable that the best modern metropolitan pattern is not the continuous urban fabric of the city but natural reserves between villages. The respectable literature of urbanism, from Howard to
Saarinen and Krier (with the formidable exception of Paul Murrain) supports this model.

Sprawl is not determined by development on greenfield or not, but its pattern.

(Oh, what does it take to make this clear?) New York City was built on greenfields, as was Boston and all the rest of our desired models. The pattern, the only sustainable one, is that of the neighborhood structure. What other pattern is there that is not sprawl, even if within an urban boundary? Why is the pattern not first and foremost in Smart Growth conceptualizations?

Yes, sprawl is affected by location. But that, in most places, is an uncontrollable variable, while the urban pattern is controllable by smarter codes and now-demonstrated market preferences. About 90 percent of what is currently built in this country is at the greenfield edge. Even if that ratio were to be reduced to half by Smart Growth policies it would still be the greatest of our national problems. That is ‘the head of the snake that we must nail’ as Douglas Duany put it.

If the New Urbanists withdraw their attentions, growth at the edge will continue unabated and in the worst possible pattern.The CNU may gradually become a green organization. If so, it will become just one more of the scores of existing environmental groups. This would surely distract us from our unique role which has been to build urban models that are both socially and environmentally virtuous, as well as marketable (and the equal to nature, no less).

As a social transaction, only the authentic urbanism can justify the loss of a greenfield. To lose a greenfield to sprawl is a downward trade. To lose a field and gain a village or a town is an even exchange. It has always been thus. Historically, as long as this country grew as ‘constellations of neighborhoods’ (Jane Jacobs’ phrase) we could sustain growth. Our political challenge is not to appease environmental groups but to show them how to assess and get behind great villages and towns.

If they disagree, we must confront them, because our work is rendered meaningless by those who cannot believe that the work of humans at their best has the capacity to be part of nature. The leaders of the CNU, all of which design for greenfield sites, must speak out and not be cowed by political correctness. We must recover that fearless, realistic discourse that has always set the CNU apart. If the CNU fails in clarifying this, Smart Growth will become a movement to nowhere. It will be discarded–one more broken spear of the planning profession.

Andres Duany