The Politics of Smart Growth Strengths

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• The Politics of Smart Growth Strengths
  Weaknesses
• Ed Braddy
• January 23, 2009

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About Us

• American Dream Coalition promotes market-oriented
  alternatives to urban issues such as
  transportation, land-use, and property rights
• We defend freedom, mobility, and affordable
  homeownership
• We believe markets, not mandates, are the best
  approaches consistent with free people living in
  a free society

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About Us

• Executive Director of the ADC
• Annual Conference Strategic Partnerships
• City Commissioner from 2002-2008
• Gainesville, Florida mid-size city (120,000)

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About Us

• Exceptionally Effective!

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Qualifications

• Not an economist
• Not a planner
• Not an engineer
• Not a developer
• Basically, I got here with nothing
• and I still have most of it left!
• Perspective is that of elected official who had
  to communicate with voters

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Smart Growth

• Why is Smart Growth politically popular?
• Why is it appealing?
• Strengths
• Emotional
• Rhetorical
• Weaknesses
• Emotional
• Rhetorical

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On its own terms

• In general, smart growth invests time,
  attention, and resources in restoring community
  and vitality to city centers and older suburbs.
  (Why Smart Growth A Primer)
• Downtown centered
• Transit pedestrian oriented
• Mixed uses commercial, housing, retail
• Open space environmental protection

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On its own terms

• Create a range of housing transportation
  choices
• Foster distinctive communities with an unique
  sense of place
• Make development decisions cost-effective
• Direct development towards existing communities
• Take advantage of compact building design
• Smartgrowth.org the Sustainable Communities
  Network

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On its own terms

• Utilizes comprehensive planning integrating land
  use, transportation, housing, infrastructure,
  conservation, recreation, and other elements
• In Florida, Dept of Community Affairs mandates
  10-year plans, allowing only two major amendments
  per year
• Characteristics urban growth boundaries, high
  densities, compact development, transit
  orientation
• Weapons Tools - road diets, impact fees,
  inclusionary zoning mandates, eminent domain

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Smart Growths Appeal

• Smart Growth is the doctrine of Stalinist
  activist urban planners but
• It is a political reaction to real concerns of
  average citizens
• Do people really want local government to greatly
  restrict property rights, increase congestion,
  escalate housing costs, damage the environment,
  and impose a simplistic one-size-fits all formula
  aimed at changing your entire way of living?

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Its the Sizzle,Not the Steak

• We know the effects (substance) of Smart Growth
• But Smart Growth is politically popular because
  of its intent
• Smart Growthers sell the sizzle to a hungry
  population
• Hungry for what?

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Smart Growths Appeal

• People desire order and predictability
• People believe in planning because they do it in
  their private lives
• People do not draw the distinction between public
  v. private planning
• See Randal OTooles Best Laid Plans

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Smart Growths Sizzle

• Smart Growth is a political promise that your
  community will grow in an orderly and predictable
  manner
• Smart Growth promises a dynamic economy, vibrant
  society, and healthy environment
• The growth of Smart Growth, despite its opposite
  outcomes, is proof of its sizzle (emotional and
  rhetorical appeal)

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By way of analogy
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By way of analogy
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Sexy Smart Growth
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Sexy Smart Growth
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Words Work

• Like any effective political movement, it
  utilizes rhetorical and emotional strategies
• Title Trump
• Smart Growth Whos for Dumb Growth?
• Alternatives Opposites
• Clever Slogans
• You cant build your way out of congestion
• If you fail to plan, you plan to fail

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Campaign Messaging

• Like any effective political movement, it
  utilizes rhetorical and emotional strategies
• Nostalgic promises pre-auto America
• Heroic purpose Help Save Planet Earth!
• Deceptions omission (housing costs) and
  commission (reduce congestion)
• Element of fear The suburbs sprawl is paving
  over the planet!

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The Politics ofSmart Growth

• Smart Growths stated goal is to stop sprawl
• The term sprawl has become a substitute for
  suburbanization
• Creates a negative image whereas, historically,
  suburbs do not
• By stigmatizing suburbs and exploiting our fears,
  Smart Growthers have legitimized excessive land
  use regulations
• Smart Growth is really about control in order to
  re-order society

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Political Indoctrination

• Not everyone is a control freak
• Sincere people get suckered
• Real Estate Principles college textbook
• Chapter 5, Learning Objective 1 Cite three
  reasons why the market system may not operate to
  maximize the net social benefits of land use
• 4 Identify three possible adverse effects of
  traditional zoning
• 6 Identify four tools of land use control
  widely adopted since 1970 and contrast new
  urbanism with traditional land use

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Smart Growth Weaknesses

• We need the sizzle!
• Rhetorical Emotional
• The numbers are on our side
• Weve got the big guns pounding the beachhead

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Smart Growth Weaknesses

• Put faces on the numbers
• Mom Pop Shops
• Minority Businesses
• Entrepreneurs
• Slogans
• You cant regulate your way into prosperity

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Smart Growth Weaknesses

• We need the sizzle!
• Rhetorical Emotional
• Its not just jobs!
• Theres a transaction at the end of every car
  trip
• Economic, social, cultural, religious,
  recreational, familial, educational, etc.

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The Cost of Smart Growth

• In 2007, the median price of a home was 219,000
• Smart Growth Cities
• Boulder, CO - 615,000
• Denver, CO - 400,000
• Minneapolis, MN - 415,767
• Portland, OR - 317,500
• San Jose, CA - 1,145,000
• Seattle, WA - 555,839
• Source National Association of Realtors

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The Cost of Smart Growth

• Smart Growth Cities
• Boulder, CO - 615,000
• Denver, CO - 400,000
• Minneapolis, MN - 415,767
• Portland, OR - 317,500
• San Jose, CA - 1,145,000
• Seattle, WA - 555,839

• Planning Penalty
• Boulder, CO - 117,440
• Denver, CO - 57,831
• Minneapolis, MN - 32,133
• Portland, OR - 60,460
• San Jose, CA - 513,002
• Seattle, WA - 132,965
• Sources Randal OToole, The Planning Penalty,
  ADC Publication

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• More faces, fewer numbers
• women and minorities hardest hit

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• Americans love the underdog!
• (Home of Edith Macefield who refused to sell her
  home to developers, even for a million dollars.
  She passed away at age 86.)

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Economics 101

• The affordability of housing is overwhelmingly a
  function of just one thing the extent to which
  governments place artificial restrictions on the
  supply of residential land.
• Donald Brash, Governor of the Reserve Bank of New
  Zealand.
• Source 4th Annual Demographia International
  Housing Affordability Survey (2008)

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Naming Names

• Planners are bureaucrats
• Most Americans have distrustful/disdainful
  feeling for bureaucrat but not for city
  planner
• Well, the citys bureaucratic planners are
  pushing light rail again.

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Sell the Sizzle

• Suburbia is good!
• Robert Bruegmann the preferred settlement
  pattern everywhere in the world where there is a
  certain measure of affluence and where citizens
  have some choice in how they live
• As cities have become economically prosperous,
  they have spread outward at decreasing densities.

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• Elitist know-it-alls love Smart Growth
• And Americans dont like elites!

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even eco-elites
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Play Emotional Hardball

• Smart Growth Is All About Groupthink
• Irving Janis, Groupthink Psychological Studies
  of Policy Decisions Fiascoes (1982) members
  striving for unanimity overriding their
  motivation to realistically appraise alternative
  courses of action.
• Characteristics holding defective beliefs
  concurrence seeking self-validation exclude
  challenges to core beliefs create in-group

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Play Emotional Hardball

• Planners find their validation in belonging to
  the planning profession
• They share a vision among themselves that is at
  odds with the people they occasionally interact
  with
• They believe regular people cannot understand
  their complex vision but will benefit from it

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Symptoms of Groupthink

• Illusion of invulnerability
• Belief in their inherent morality
• Collective rationalizations
• Stereotypes of out-groups
• Pressure on Dissenters
• Incomplete survey of alternatives
• Failure to reappraise
• In other words, this aint rocket surgery!

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Play Emotional Hardball

• Ridicule is a legitimate political strategy

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Hit em where they aint

• Smart Growth unique sense of place
• Reality Smart Growth is simplistic and formulaic
• No matter where, Smart Growthers always call for
  higher densities, mixed uses, compact design, and
  Starbucks orientation transit orientation
• Smart Growth fosters a Sense of Sameness

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Were Unique Just Like Everyone Else
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Why Not Call It McUrbanism?
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Franchising New Urbanism

• Think Im Kidding?

• McUrbanism

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Smart Growth Reality

• Urban Growth Boundary
• Mixed Use Development
• Common Areas
• Preservation of Open Space
• Walkable Neighborhoods
• Sustainable Energy Supply
• Wetland Restoration
• Unique Sense of Place
• What affordable McUrbanism looks like

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• Ed Braddy
• 7th Annual Preserving the American Dream
  Conference Bellevue, Washington
• April 19, 2009