Over on the Strong Towns blog, Andrew Burleson describes the reaction that he and his compatriots get when they tour the country preaching their Minnesota brand of Boomergeddon, to wit: that human settlement patterns in many cities and towns are fiscally unsustainable; local elected officials need to re-think everything about growth and development; and communities should strive to achieve productivity, not growth.
“More than any other group, Conservatives tend to initially react very negatively to the Strong Towns message,” says Burleson in his recent blog post. Many conservatives don’t see a problem with current human settlement patterns. They tend to see “growth” as the key to prosperity.
When dealing with conservatives, Burleson makes the case that the way things are now is not the way they always have been. Indeed, today’s status quo is the result of decades of social engineering beginning with the not-so-conservative New Deal.
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Historically, mortgages were short-term instruments (5-10 years) for no more than 50% of the value of the property. The first fixed-rate, amortizing mortgages (20 year term, 20% down-payment) were created by government programs during the FDR administration, and sweetened into their current form (5% down payment) as part of an economic stimulus policy immediately following World War II.
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Historically, land uses were determined by the property owner with very little intervention from the government. Zoning was conceived of as a tool for relocating industrial pollution out of densely populated areas, but was rapidly adopted across the country as a tool for segregation. Even in places where racial segregation was not official policy, zoning was often intentionally wielded as a tool for keeping different socioeconomic groups separate, and continues to have negative socio-economic consequences.
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Historically, cities were built with highly connected street patterns, either as designed grids (most American cities), or organic street networks (see Boston). Starting in the FDR administration, grids were actively discouraged by the government in favor of superblocks and the traffic hierarchy.
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Historically, streets were seen as shared spaces where many activities took place, driving being simply one of those activities. Led by Ralph Nader and AASHTO, this view was dramatically changed in the 60’s and 70’s. The engineering community adopted a mindset that all streets should be designed according to highway geometries, the idea being that the road should facilitate high-speed driving while also “forgiving” driver error. This made the historic Main Street, with slow speeds and everything happening close to the street, a non-starter.
I love these guys. That is very much the message that I have been preaching (although, I’ll concede that I never made a connection between Ralph Nader and suburban sprawl — I guess I still have a lot to learn). Some conservatives are wedded to the status quo, but others understand that Business As Usual is fiscally unsustainable. Reality is sinking in and the thinking is beginning to change.
— JAB