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Posted February 25, 2000
Sprawl ForeverBy Jonathan Walters
The issue of open-space-gobbling sprawl seems finally to have worked its way onto the nation’s high-profile political radar screen. But that doesn’t mean the country is really any closer to figuring out how to deal with it.
The much-ballyhooed effort by Georgia Governor Roy Barnes to reign in growth in the Atlanta area has received a good deal of ink, but arguably much of the damage there has already been done; reversing it is probably impossible. Oregon’s celebrated success with urban growth boundaries represents a complete anomaly when considered in light of how the rest of the country deals with planning and growth: There’s little evidence that Oregon’s approach is replicable elsewhere in the country. Even in Vermont,
The latest place to sound the alarm is the Berkshire Mountains region of western Massachusetts, home to the internationally renowned Tanglewood Center for the Performing Arts and the Norman Rockwell Museum, as well as the Appalachian Trail and stands of old-growth New England timber. Each year, the Berkshires draw two million visitors to the region’s cultural sites and rolling mountains — as well as to its burgeoning blobs of retail and restaurant strip developments, malls, tract housing and time-share condominium developments.
The Berkshire Regional Planning Commission has just released a draft report, “Regional Plan for the Berkshires,” which warns against the potentially ruinous impact of unplanned development on the region’s farmland, hilltops, mountainsides and waterfronts. The report is aimed at helping local governments take a regional transportation and development view when it comes to figuring out how individual towns should grow.
As well-meaning and sincere as the regional planners might be, the document they have just released is, sad to say, dead on arrival, destined to be tossed onto the growing heap of abandoned regional plans nationwide. Already several of the towns covered by the plan have begun their sniping, arguing that any sort of regional planning will just represent one more layer of bureaucracy and regulation getting in the way of progress.
But make no mistake about it: This isn’t about the fierce independence of small town New England battling the insidious reach of Big Brother. This is about mainstream America’s view of planning and development: Most Americans just don’t care, and that translates directly into local elected officials who lack the vision and the backbone required to stand up to developers who would just as soon roll across the countryside unfettered by plans or regulations.
Until mainstream America evinces real and widespread concern about sprawl, areas like the Berkshires will continue to gradually disappear under a shag carpet of tar, tasteless building and cluttered tract development, and not even a library full of the the most rational, well-grounded regional plans is going to do anything to stop it.
Jonathan Walters is a staff correspondent for Governing Magazine.
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Reader Response:
SPRAWL SOLUTION: TAX LAND VALUE
Jonathan Walters’ article on urban sprawl highlights the unwillingness of our elected representatives to deal with this issue. But, why create more law and regulation directly impacting every move made for reasons of economic development? A proliferation of planners, bureaucrats, police and lawyers is not the remedy. There is a solution to sprawl of an indirect method.
I propose shifting taxes off property, income, sales, business, etc. to land value. A tax on land value would slow urban sprawl to natural growth since it would eliminate real estate speculation. It is not automobiles that cause urban sprawl but speculators holding tracts of land out of use, requiring people to move further away from urban centers.
People run from taxes and bad government, but where they settle is in large part determined by land available at the right price. These places are usually farther from cities beyond the speculators’ idle land. Not only does this pattern impact the environment, but it raises the price of infrastructure to reach these outlying communities.
Essentially, the value of land is determined by the community paying for roads, schools, police, sewage, etc. The value of land is not determined by the land owner. This value should be returned to the taxpayers prior to any levy on labor or capital. It is a just form of taxation and a solution with which environmentalists, laborers and businesses can find common ground.
Ronald Rosenberger
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