Introductory Remarks
By Jonathan Z. Cannon
In framing the conference on growth management that informs this issue of the Virginia Environmental Law Journal, we sought to combine the philosophical with the practical. We believed that understanding the intellectual debate about sprawl could inform the selection of institutions and policies and that attention to institutional forms and tools could focus the philosophical inquiry. We also believed that having a broad-gauged conference would stimulate the greatest discussion among participants and increase the likelihood that people—scholars and practitioners and those of us who are somewhere in between—would leave feeling that they had been enriched by new insights and understandings. For those who were able to attend, the conference met that expectation. By reading the articles that have grown from the conference, our hope is that you may share that experience.
Sprawl has moved from the periphery to the center of political debate. As Trip Pollard describes in his excellent overview of smart growth in this volume, there were over 240 sprawl-related ballot measures in thirty-one states in November 1998 and another 140 such measures in the off-year elections in November 1999. Over seventy percent of these initiatives passed. Growth management has also emerged as an issue at the national level. The Clinton-Gore Administration has proposed a “Livable Communities” agenda to ease traffic congestion, preserve open space and clean up abandoned industrial sites. Americans increasingly identify sprawl-related issues among their top concerns.
But political currency does not make sprawl an easy phenomenon to understand, to assess, or to cure—assuming we decide that it is something that needs curing. The articles that follow address three sets of questions that loom behind the rising popularity of anti-sprawl initiatives. First, what is sprawl exactly, and why is it bad? What (and whose) values does the anti-sprawl movement reflect and what (and whose) values might it ignore? In what philosophical context should we view it?
In their article, Timothy Beatley and Richard Collins invite us to look at sprawl as a symptom of our deeper disregard for the physical and biological limits of our existence on the planet. They reject smart growth strategies as inadequate to deal with what they identify as the real problem: our unsustainable use of land and related natural resources. If we were serious about sustainability, they argue, we would demand more of ourselves, facing hard questions about whether we (and the earth) can afford our existing consumer-based economy, what to do about population and immigration, and how to ensure social justice.
In response, partly based on their assessment of the political feasibility of Beatley and Collins' sustainability vision, both Vicki Been and Gerrit Knaap offer more pragmatic visions. While not unsympathetic to Beatley's and Collins' concerns, Been argues that smart growth strategies—particularly the “demand that growth pay its own way and not rely on government subsidies”— may offer a way to address the true social costs of land use and consumption that avoids the polarizing effects of a sustainability debate. Knapp emphasizes smart growth as a “political process” among diverse interest groups seeking common ground. We shouldn't expect too much from it—certainly not the widespread substitution of an ecocentric world view for the now dominant anthropocentric one. However, it has the ability marginally to shape our future landscape, including more open space and more transit-oriented development.
A second set of questions turns on designing institutions to deal with growth management. Land use decisions by governments have traditionally been made at the local level. Given the urgency now ascribed to growth issues, should state or federal governments be more assertive regarding land use policy? Some argue that state and federal policies, including regulatory programs and highway construction and other subsidies, are already having major effects on growth, but these are effects that are not necessarily desired or intended. Does the public focus on sprawl provide a fresh opportunity to debate and rationalize those policies? Should we work to develop new regional organizations to deal with problems that cross jurisdictional lines, such as the problems of cities, regions, watersheds, and ecosystems?
Vicki Been and Robert Cervero and Hank Savitch address these issues. To remedy the parochialism often associated with land use decisionmaking by local jurisdictions, Savitch advocates regional authorities. However rather than committing, as some commentators have, to a particular form of regional institutions, Savitch identifies the diversity of arrangements that are possible and urges flexibility in tailoring regional institutions to reflect different regional economies, politics, and cultures. Based on his review of existing arrangements, he is clear that these institutions “may vary in the levels of interlocal cooperation they can bring about” and that variation is appropriate. Offering a pragmatic incrementalism, like Been, he envisions these fragile but less threatening institutions fostering policies that are not “too far ahead of popular opinion” and framed as advancing the common good.
The final set of questions addresses emerging strategies: what policy tools are available to us, where do they work best, and what can we realistically expect them to accomplish? The Sierra Club's recent report on sprawl concludes that the “best” states are using innovative tools like urban growth boundaries, controlled public investments, and mass transportation programs effectively to control growth. Can these tools work elsewhere, and what are the limits of their effectiveness?
Robert Cervero and Reid Ewing individually address these questions. Cervero draws from his extensive work on the relationship between land use and transportation alternatives. He surveys a range of means for reducing sprawl; some, like the Florida Growth Management Act, can be characterized as centralized “command and control planning,” others rely on pricing mechanisms (e.g., energy taxes) or local initiatives. Acknowledging the political difficulty (and perhaps the social undesirability) of appearing to dictate a preferred environment, he concludes that effective smart growth strategies should concentrate on “expanding choices and offerings in a free market context,” so long as those making the choice pay the true social costs, á la Been.
Ewing draws from his experiences with the 1985 Florida Growth Management Act. In two case studies of local responses to Florida's centralized statewide effort to direct transportation and land use policies, Ewing finds that success has varied with the willingness and ability of local jurisdictions to implement the state mandates. His findings suggest that state growth management laws, while potentially useful, are not sufficient to ensure high density residential and commercial development necessary for mass transit.
The pieces generated by the conference and contained in this volume of the Virginia Environmental Law Journal embody a remarkable convergence of views from different perspectives. Apart from Beatley and Collins, who challenge us to rethink our ethical obligations to the land and to future generations, there is a consensus for intelligent innovation at the margin—innovation that is informed by sound economics, a contextual understanding of the range of institutional designs and management tools available, and a respect for democratic values and personal choice. We should be smart, as smart growth suggests, and pragmatic. At the same time, we should not become so immersed in what is immediately possible as to forget the fundamental questions that Beatley and Collins pose.
Sprawl has moved from the periphery to the center of political debate. As Trip Pollard describes in his excellent overview of smart growth in this volume, there were over 240 sprawl-related ballot measures in thirty-one states in November 1998 and another 140 such measures in the off-year elections in November 1999. Over seventy percent of these initiatives passed. Growth management has also emerged as an issue at the national level. The Clinton-Gore Administration has proposed a “Livable Communities” agenda to ease traffic congestion, preserve open space and clean up abandoned industrial sites. Americans increasingly identify sprawl-related issues among their top concerns.
But political currency does not make sprawl an easy phenomenon to understand, to assess, or to cure—assuming we decide that it is something that needs curing. The articles that follow address three sets of questions that loom behind the rising popularity of anti-sprawl initiatives. First, what is sprawl exactly, and why is it bad? What (and whose) values does the anti-sprawl movement reflect and what (and whose) values might it ignore? In what philosophical context should we view it?
In their article, Timothy Beatley and Richard Collins invite us to look at sprawl as a symptom of our deeper disregard for the physical and biological limits of our existence on the planet. They reject smart growth strategies as inadequate to deal with what they identify as the real problem: our unsustainable use of land and related natural resources. If we were serious about sustainability, they argue, we would demand more of ourselves, facing hard questions about whether we (and the earth) can afford our existing consumer-based economy, what to do about population and immigration, and how to ensure social justice.
In response, partly based on their assessment of the political feasibility of Beatley and Collins' sustainability vision, both Vicki Been and Gerrit Knaap offer more pragmatic visions. While not unsympathetic to Beatley's and Collins' concerns, Been argues that smart growth strategies—particularly the “demand that growth pay its own way and not rely on government subsidies”— may offer a way to address the true social costs of land use and consumption that avoids the polarizing effects of a sustainability debate. Knapp emphasizes smart growth as a “political process” among diverse interest groups seeking common ground. We shouldn't expect too much from it—certainly not the widespread substitution of an ecocentric world view for the now dominant anthropocentric one. However, it has the ability marginally to shape our future landscape, including more open space and more transit-oriented development.
A second set of questions turns on designing institutions to deal with growth management. Land use decisions by governments have traditionally been made at the local level. Given the urgency now ascribed to growth issues, should state or federal governments be more assertive regarding land use policy? Some argue that state and federal policies, including regulatory programs and highway construction and other subsidies, are already having major effects on growth, but these are effects that are not necessarily desired or intended. Does the public focus on sprawl provide a fresh opportunity to debate and rationalize those policies? Should we work to develop new regional organizations to deal with problems that cross jurisdictional lines, such as the problems of cities, regions, watersheds, and ecosystems?
Vicki Been and Robert Cervero and Hank Savitch address these issues. To remedy the parochialism often associated with land use decisionmaking by local jurisdictions, Savitch advocates regional authorities. However rather than committing, as some commentators have, to a particular form of regional institutions, Savitch identifies the diversity of arrangements that are possible and urges flexibility in tailoring regional institutions to reflect different regional economies, politics, and cultures. Based on his review of existing arrangements, he is clear that these institutions “may vary in the levels of interlocal cooperation they can bring about” and that variation is appropriate. Offering a pragmatic incrementalism, like Been, he envisions these fragile but less threatening institutions fostering policies that are not “too far ahead of popular opinion” and framed as advancing the common good.
The final set of questions addresses emerging strategies: what policy tools are available to us, where do they work best, and what can we realistically expect them to accomplish? The Sierra Club's recent report on sprawl concludes that the “best” states are using innovative tools like urban growth boundaries, controlled public investments, and mass transportation programs effectively to control growth. Can these tools work elsewhere, and what are the limits of their effectiveness?
Robert Cervero and Reid Ewing individually address these questions. Cervero draws from his extensive work on the relationship between land use and transportation alternatives. He surveys a range of means for reducing sprawl; some, like the Florida Growth Management Act, can be characterized as centralized “command and control planning,” others rely on pricing mechanisms (e.g., energy taxes) or local initiatives. Acknowledging the political difficulty (and perhaps the social undesirability) of appearing to dictate a preferred environment, he concludes that effective smart growth strategies should concentrate on “expanding choices and offerings in a free market context,” so long as those making the choice pay the true social costs, á la Been.
Ewing draws from his experiences with the 1985 Florida Growth Management Act. In two case studies of local responses to Florida's centralized statewide effort to direct transportation and land use policies, Ewing finds that success has varied with the willingness and ability of local jurisdictions to implement the state mandates. His findings suggest that state growth management laws, while potentially useful, are not sufficient to ensure high density residential and commercial development necessary for mass transit.
The pieces generated by the conference and contained in this volume of the Virginia Environmental Law Journal embody a remarkable convergence of views from different perspectives. Apart from Beatley and Collins, who challenge us to rethink our ethical obligations to the land and to future generations, there is a consensus for intelligent innovation at the margin—innovation that is informed by sound economics, a contextual understanding of the range of institutional designs and management tools available, and a respect for democratic values and personal choice. We should be smart, as smart growth suggests, and pragmatic. At the same time, we should not become so immersed in what is immediately possible as to forget the fundamental questions that Beatley and Collins pose.
