Three hundred million strong, and growing, America continues to burst from the edges of its metropolitan areas in search of new places to build homes, and the businesses that support them. With this push outward comes the pull from central cities and inner suburbs to remain relevant and vibrant. Often, there is no one integrating these two forces into the overall vision for the regional community. Municipalities make land use decisions with little input, or even consultation, from neighbors. Each town acts as their own fiefdom, with little regard for the impacts their new projects may have on adjacent burgs. However, entire metropolitan areas, counties and states are increasingly entering the day-to-day role of reviewing and approving land development projects once reserved for towns and cities. This “regionalization” of land use springs from the negative impacts of planning decisions over the past half century.
Most of the mistakes made regarding land use over the last fifty years have been attributed to “sprawl,” or the low density, single-use development that requires the use of the automobile to perform even the most simple of tasks during one’s daily life. Some land use commentators, such as Joel Kotkin and Robert Bruegmann, contend that sprawl is a natural historical progression, and that if it were so bad for America, then Americans would not choose it as the predominant national land use pattern. Although such arguments at least question an abject denunciation of the phenomenon, sprawl does raise issues of resource allocation and costs (to one’s pocket book, to one’s health, to one’s well-being, etc.) that cannot be ignored. An hour and a half commute, each way, has real effects on the American way of life.
Many land use advocates have pointed to “redevelopment,” or the reuse of land in central cities and inner ring suburbs, as a critical tool in stemming the tide of sprawl. They see it as an answer to the problem that growth is a given, and it “has to go somewhere.” Nonetheless, for meaningful projects to locate in these areas, a developer must acquire a large enough parcel on which to build, the very problem New London, Connecticut used eminent domain to solve in the Kelo case. Municipalities must employ full-time staffs to: (1) track down property owners, (2) undergo quiet title actions when the owners cannot (or choose not to) be found, (3) find suitable relocation situations for tenants, (4) negotiate with owners who do wish to sell, and, if necessary, (5) conduct eminent domain actions with those owners unwilling to negotiate.
But the real question, as it was in the case of Kelo, is who should be at the controls of this process of “growth” that shapes our built-up environment? Some combination of development on the urban fringe, and redevelopment that will recycle previously-used parcels appears to be in order. But shouldn’t someone be keeping an eye on what’s going on all over a metropolitan region? Who should have the ultimate say? These are the same questions put forth in my last post, but now we’re closer to the answer with the foundation of the issue before us: namely, that regionalization seeks to curb the negative by-products of sprawl. Next time, we’ll explore some examples of regionalization that seek to look at the “big picture” whenever a new development application lands in the lap of a land use board, and figure out if these approaches really work.
Most of the mistakes made regarding land use over the last fifty years have been attributed to “sprawl,” or the low density, single-use development that requires the use of the automobile to perform even the most simple of tasks during one’s daily life. Some land use commentators, such as Joel Kotkin and Robert Bruegmann, contend that sprawl is a natural historical progression, and that if it were so bad for America, then Americans would not choose it as the predominant national land use pattern. Although such arguments at least question an abject denunciation of the phenomenon, sprawl does raise issues of resource allocation and costs (to one’s pocket book, to one’s health, to one’s well-being, etc.) that cannot be ignored. An hour and a half commute, each way, has real effects on the American way of life.
Many land use advocates have pointed to “redevelopment,” or the reuse of land in central cities and inner ring suburbs, as a critical tool in stemming the tide of sprawl. They see it as an answer to the problem that growth is a given, and it “has to go somewhere.” Nonetheless, for meaningful projects to locate in these areas, a developer must acquire a large enough parcel on which to build, the very problem New London, Connecticut used eminent domain to solve in the Kelo case. Municipalities must employ full-time staffs to: (1) track down property owners, (2) undergo quiet title actions when the owners cannot (or choose not to) be found, (3) find suitable relocation situations for tenants, (4) negotiate with owners who do wish to sell, and, if necessary, (5) conduct eminent domain actions with those owners unwilling to negotiate.
But the real question, as it was in the case of Kelo, is who should be at the controls of this process of “growth” that shapes our built-up environment? Some combination of development on the urban fringe, and redevelopment that will recycle previously-used parcels appears to be in order. But shouldn’t someone be keeping an eye on what’s going on all over a metropolitan region? Who should have the ultimate say? These are the same questions put forth in my last post, but now we’re closer to the answer with the foundation of the issue before us: namely, that regionalization seeks to curb the negative by-products of sprawl. Next time, we’ll explore some examples of regionalization that seek to look at the “big picture” whenever a new development application lands in the lap of a land use board, and figure out if these approaches really work.
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