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HomeMy WebLinkAboutGrowing Better- Blanche BrickGrowing Better, Not Just Bigger – Thoughts on Growth by Blanche Brick, September 2017 “Men think that it is essential that the Nation have commerce, and export ice, and talk through a telegraph, and ride thirty miles an hour, without a doubt, whether they do or not; but whether we should live like baboons or like men is a little uncertain." Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854 “You see cities becoming obsessed with growth and it becomes growth at all costs. But if you’re not growing in a way that actually makes you wealthier, you’re just bankrupting yourself and that’s the crisis we see in cities all over the country.” Charles Marohn, founder of Strong Towns, 2008 Too often in the past, cities have accepted the rationale that population growth and the building boom it generates is the major indicator of a city’s health. There have been few who have questioned those who adopted the “bigger is better” view. Today, however, many mayors, elected officials and city planners are pointing out that it is important to grow better, not just bigger. In the September 2017 issue of Governing, an article on “Population Growth Means a City is Thriving, or Does It?” addresses some major issues related to the kind of growth cities should strive to achieve. “Growth in itself, doesn’t insure that you have a great community,” says Tommy Battle, Mayor of Huntsville, Alabama, a city that is projected to overtake Birmingham and Montgomery as the state’s largest city within the decade. “Being the largest doesn’t make your citizens’ quality of life better, doesn’t make their education better, and doesn’t make their commute time better.” Jeff Cheney, Mayor of Frisco, a city that has grown from 6,000 in 1990 to 150,000 today, where almost two-thirds of its land is developed states, “While we are one of the fastest growing cities in the country, we’re by no means trying to sprint to the finish. We’re looking to develop in the right way.” Paul Gottlieb, an economist at Rutgers University, argued fifteen years ago, that local officials should take a measured approach to population growth because metropolitan areas with stable or slow-growing populations are likely to have greater economic prosperity than fast growing areas. He labeled these areas “wealth builders” as opposed to areas he referred to as “population magnets,” which grew at the cost of greater congestion, pollution, and the loss of open space.” In 2012, Eben Fodor, a land use planner and urban consultant published an article in Economic Development Quarterly that compared annual population growth with three economic indicators: per capital income, poverty and greater income declines and more people in poverty. He found that the 25 slowest-growing areas outperformed the 25 fastest-growing areas across all three measures. In Fodor’s 1999 book, Better, Not bigger: How to Take Control of Urban Growth and Improve Your Community, he argued that instead of giving away tax breaks for new development, local elected officials ought to invest in existing parks, roads, schools and community centers stating “We need to get off the endless growth bandwagon.” He recognized that certain groups that profit most immediately have reasons to encourage growth, but he argued that “You’ve got costs associated with serving growth.” After factoring in the cost of building and maintaining the requisite roads, schools and other infrastructure, “rather than a windfall for local government, it actually ends up being fiscally negative.” Fodor suggests that local governments themselves face incentives to promote population growth because it generates immediate development revenue in the form of permit fees, utility fees, property tax increases and sales taxes. In the short term, developers shoulder the burden of building much of infrastructure, such as roads in new subdivisions, so the financial obligations cities will face are still years away. But when the bills come due, they often can’t afford it. The American Society of Civil Engineers has tallied up the unfunded liability for infrastructure maintenance across the country, and it’s more than $5 trillion. Charles Marohn, a civil engineer and founder of Strong Towns calls this a “growth Ponzi scheme.” “You see cities becoming obsessed with growth and it becomes growth at all costs. But if you’re not growing in a way that actually makes you wealthier, you’re just bankrupting yourself and that’s the crisis we see in cities all over the country.” It is for these reasons that the City Council of College Station in 2016 adopted water and road impact fees at very low rates to help pay some of these costs of growth. The Council also adopted a transportation maintenance fee to help maintain our existing roads and passed a 2 cent tax increase in 2016. And today Council is recommending a 2.5 cent property tax increase for 2017-2018. Water rates will increase by 6% in the fourth quarter of 2018 though this is far less than the 15% increase that would have been required had impact fees not been adopted in 2016. And due to impact fees, there will be no increase in wastewater rates. Without the adoption of impact fees wastewater rates would have increased by 18%. In all of these ways, the City Council has tried to find a way to pay for the growth we are experiencing in fair and equitable ways. But figures alone cannot tell the whole story. For this reason, Marohn has proposed a “strength test” for Strong Towns because “A lot of what makes cities work doesn’t show up in standard economic or demographic statistics. One of the signs of strength in a community is the sense of being part of something. That’s really hard to measure.” As Einstein explained this concept, “Everything that counts cannot be counted, and everything that can be counted may not count.” Sometimes, “Slower is faster” and “Patience is progress.” This advice can apply to building a city as well as climbing a mountain. Or, as Dr. Suess explained in The Lorax, “biggering” faster isn’t always the best way to maintain the quality of life in a community. The men and women who built the city of College Station built something that is worth preserving. They knew that it is important to grow better, not just bigger. We owe it to them, to ourselves, and to the next generation to carry on this tradition. Tradition matters.