 On Point Vincent Carroll, editor of the editorial pages, writes his On Point column most weekdays. He is also an author and freelance writer. Reach Vincent Carroll at carrollv@RockyMountainNews.com. |
Carroll: More fables of sprawl
Anti-sprawl crusaders so dominate public debate on metro Denver’s future that they are free to say almost anything without fear of challenge.
They sometimes claim, for example, that we face a choice between growing outward or growing vertically, when in fact we are doing both.
They blame sprawl on the automobile or distinctly American attitudes toward mobility, when a transition to lower densities was well under way in cities around the world decades before cars were widely embraced.
They regularly cite Los Angeles as the sum of all sprawl, when its full urban area, at 7,000 residents per square mile, is more dense than any other city in America — and vastly more dense than Denver.
I explored these myths of sprawl in my most recent column (“A new look at sprawl,” July 31) while quoting extensively from Professor Robert Bruegmann’s superb book, Sprawl, a compact history. Today we’ll continue hacking our way through misinformation. Such as: higher densities equal “less congestion.”
Boulder County Commissioner Will Toor made such a claim in a Rocky Mountain News article (“Metro area studies expansion scenarios,” July 28), but he’s only one voice in an army that regularly takes up this chant.
When you stop to think about it, equating higher densities with unsnarled traffic is, well, strange. Don’t these people visit other cities?
“In general, and quite logically,” writes Bruegmann, “congestion and commuting times tend to rise, not fall, with density. Certainly all the evidence suggests that residents of very low density Kansas City, Mo., or Oklahoma City can get around their metropolitan areas much more easily and quickly than those of relatively high density New York or Los Angeles or Tokyo.”
When anti-sprawl advocates link density with an easing of congestion, they seem to be describing an imagined day when greater density allows us to break free of “auto-dependence.” But cities with far greater densities than Denver have not shaken auto dependence. As a percentage of total trips, auto use has grown in nearly every major metropolis in the world in recent decades. Why would anyone suppose Denver will buck that trend? Even people moving into new developments near light-rail stations expect parking for their cars — because, of course, they are frequent motorists, too.
What galls me most about the anti-sprawl agenda is its elitism, its insistence that others know best how you should live. Bruegmann repeats an amusing quotation by the Duke of Wellington, who opposed the construction of railroads in the 19th century because they would “only encourage the common people to move about needlessly.” Today’s elites are equally begrudging when it comes to other people’s dreams of privacy and space at an affordable price.
“The history of sprawl suggests that the two factors that seem to track most closely with sprawl have been increasing affluence and political democratization,” Bruegmann writes. “In places where citizens have become more affluent and have enjoyed basic political and economic rights, more people have been able to gain for themselves the benefits once reserved for wealthier citizens . . . ..”
Heavy-handed anti-growth regulation pushes up prices and punishes, in particular, the lower middle class — a fact now recognized, Bruegmann tells me, even by Britain’s Labor Party. Indeed, he said, anti-sprawl platitudes are much more likely to be challenged by the political left in Britain, Canada and Australia than in the United States.
As I noted here Tuesday, the emptying of America’s cities has actually halted in many cases and even reversed, with densities rising while the total urban footprint continues to grow. That describes Denver, too, which is why current fears over whether we break an arbitrary “urban growth boundary” are misplaced. We don’t need planners to force-feed us density. We’re choosing it, but at our own pace.
“It is quite possible that sprawl could recede everywhere as more citizens become affluent enough to live like the residents of the Upper East Side or the sixteenth arrondissement of Paris . . .. ,” notes Bruegmann. “It is also possible that this increase in density in the city might be counterbalanced by a growth in housing elsewhere as a larger number of citizens decide they would like two or three dwellings, for example, a condominium in a high-rise in the city, a house in the mountains, and a time-share unit at the beach.”
An attractive image, except for one thing: It will give critics of American housing patterns yet more reasons to badger us.
Reach Vincent Carroll at carrollv@RockyMountainNews.com.
Where was Mr. Carroll when I needed him? I've tried for years to express the irrational relationship elitists spout between "new urbanism" (spelled "higher density") and the automobile ever since it was first espoused by the early elitists. I was, and still am, vilified as an old fossil who simply can't understand the "vision" of what was being brought to the great unwashed. Well...I think what all this higher density it really brings is a lot higher tax basis for municipalities. Mr Carroll is right. People are still going to want to travel about wether they live in a tiny loft atop hundreds of others or among sprawl. Of course cities are already figuring out how to tax that, too. HOV lanes...toll roads...etc.
Posted by steve holben on August 1, 2007 09:22 AMGet used to living close to where you work, or get a job where you can telecommute.
Gasoline is getting so expensive that soon, few people will be able to afford to drive long distances to work every day.
Adding more lanes to the highways is not a solution. It merely encourages people to commute further and further from their workplaces.
In the future, people are going to have to change their vision of the American dream. A house in the suburbs with a little white picket fence is a quaint picture -- but it doesn't make sense to commute so far every day. It's wasteful, and isn't good for the environment.
I work in downtown Denver, and many of my co-workers commute every day from Colorado Springs and Castle Rock. A couple guys even drive all the way from Cheyenne, Wyoming every day. I wonder how they even make enough money to afford to get to work and back home. It's ridiculous.
Posted by Environmentalist on August 1, 2007 04:25 PMHey Vincent. How stupid are you? You quote only one book and praise Los Angeles in both your articles. Bruegmann is not even an urban planner. He is a art history professor. So that really goes to show what kind of person who you choose to follow.
As I can see you never went to planning school nor visited any other cities from the sounds of it. Denver, like other sprawling cities are moving towards a more dense urban environment. If you don't like the urban lifestyle, then move to Idaho where you can live on your vast property where your neighbour would probably be a mile away.
Posted by Andre on August 1, 2007 04:34 PMwill moving into this town be like getting into a New York City co-op??
Posted by tj on August 1, 2007 04:44 PMThe increased urbanization is the result of long term trends of emptying out the rural areas. But, we are not developing Paris or London or even LA or New York. We are developing linear cities along corridors and a new set of rules to go with them. The in-migration to Colorado will not follow the patterns of the past and I believe neo-Coloradoans are about to create our own "fusion" culture. What is lacking in the urban core is decent schools for young families. The recent flight of hospitals also threatens to leave an even greater vacuum. Denver is on its own and might sink before it learns to swim. I would focus on Aurora and Lone Tree as the next models of what might be possible. The die is cast on dog-patch places like Parker. Fran Miller, Parker
Posted by Francis M. Miller on August 1, 2007 06:00 PMNote to Andre: Any time you start out with "How stupid are you", you've indicated that your arguments aren't worth paying attention to (I didn't read the rest). Mix some tact with your message.
Why are Liberals generally so cantankerous?
Mr. Carroll; your analytical presentation is a breath of fresh air on the stale sprawl concepts we are presented with from the elite thinkers. What next, an honest discussion of the greatest mass-transit vehicle in the history of mankind - the automobile?
Posted by Gene Herbert on August 2, 2007 08:12 AMThat Mr Carroll is exactly what environmentalists and anti-everything proponents are--elitists. They think they are right and everyone else is wrong. They are also arrogant and condescending where everyone else is using more than they are entitled to.
Who are these guys to say what and how much people are entitled to in our economy? It seems to me the users are paying for everything they consume. If they want to live in the burbs and spend an hour commuting that is a choice I may not make, but it is not costing me anything.
Basic supply and demand will determine the usage factor far better than the elitists. When gas becomes too expensive people will use mass transit or move closer to work or find a different job. How can these sky is falling people lack the vision to see that simple fact? The situation is they want to tell everyone how they should live according to their special opinion. I say spare us please our poor intellect is just not as expansive as their's.
People need to take responsibility for electing those who want to control everyting in their lives. Certainly a certain amount of control is necessary, but the extremism exhibited by the current crop of socialists needs to be checked at the polls. If you elect socialist control freaks, don't be surprised by the results.
Posted by Hogar De Vuelta (العودة) on September 21, 2007 10:11 AM