HEALTHY COMMUNITIES SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES

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HEALTHY COMMUNITIESSUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES

• EQUITY AND
• LAND USE PLANNING
• IN RICHLAND COUNTY

Maya Wiley, Director www.centerforsocialinclusion.
org
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Overview of Presentation

• About CSI
• Sprawl and Structural Inequity
• Combating Sprawl with Opportunity Structures
• Data on the Richland County and the Columbia
  Metropolitan Region
• Impact of Current Richland County Sprawl Control
  Strategies
• Possible Directions to ensure a healthy,
  sustainable future

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The Center for Social Inclusion

• WHO WE ARE
• Intermediary organization
• Dismantle structural racism to promote healthy
  communities
• WHAT WE DO
• Support advocacy strategies to promote structural
  reforms
• Partner with communities
• Conduct applied research
• Inform the public
• Convene stakeholders
• Nurture multiracial alliances

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STRUCTURES MATTER

• Policies, institutional actions and private
  actions interact.
• Often have unintended consequences
• Today, racial and gender disparities (higher
  poverty, etc.) are due to
• a history of discrimination,
• unintended consequences of todays structures

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HEALTHY SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES

• LWV recognizes the need for comprehensive
  long-range planning
• Requires consideration of many factors
• Environment,
• Public Health,
• Social and Economic Impacts of Proposed Plans
  and Actions

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Policies or actions that seem fair, may hurt
particular groups or communities.

• SSI neutral language. It doesnt say, men get
  treated one way and women another. But it
  operates to make many women poor in old age.
• Working women dont generally get any additional
  benefits for having paid into the social security
  system than women who never worked..
• The number of women who will qualify for benefits
  under todays rules (set in 1939) is going to
  fall significantly, leaving more elderly women in
  relative or even absolute poverty in the future.

7
Institutions interact.
Together, these institutions form structural
arrangements that are not treat groups
differently.
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Structural inequity started with racism.
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Opportunity Structures

• Resources and services that contribute to
  healthy, sustainable communities
• Good jobs
• Homeownership (asset wealth)
• Tax base to support services
• Transportation
• Quality education
• Healthy environment
• Health care

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Good growth, versus bad growth.

• Sprawl is BAD growth.
• Fractures opportunity structures Concentrates
  poverty and wealth in different communities
• Wealthy suburban communities have good tax base,
  but stress city resources to meet infrastructure
  costs of suburban growth
• Poor communities have weak tax base and dont
  receive necessary infrastructure while paying to
  cover infra-structure costs of wealthy suburban
  communities

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Persistent Racial Disparities

• Although racial attitudes are improving steadily,
  racial disparities persist on every level.
• Income, poverty, employment, health, crime,
  incarceration, education, assets, housing, among
  others.

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Sprawl results in disinvestment.
50 years after the Brown Decision
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Structural arrangements impact the health of
metropolitan areas.

• Structures and institutions create or block
  opportunities
• Poor communities environmental degradation
• Lack of affordable housing forces poor into
  ghettos
• Less political power to fight environmental
  insults/hazards
• Higher morbidity and mortality rates, in part b/c
  of poor environmental conditions
• Impact compounded by lack of health care
  facilities in poor communities
• Perpetuates sprawl

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Sprawl creates and recreates unsustainable
communities.

• Sprawl is driven by the desire to escape
  conditions produced by inequity
• Poverty
• Crime
• Bad housing
• Bad schools
• Sprawl also produces these bad conditions, by
  creating disinvestment from already impoverished
  communities
• Sprawl can only be stopped by reducing inequity

15
Percent Poverty by Race in 7 County Metropolitan
Area

• Blacks and other non-whites are
  disproportionately poor across the region

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Sprawl in the Metro Columbia Region

• The City of Columbia
• Population grew 2 (1970-2000).
• vacancy rates increased by 11
• poverty rates increased by 25
• The surrounding suburbs
• Grew by 83 (1970-2000)
• vacancy rates declined by 25
• poverty rates decreased by 50 in the surrounding
  suburbs
• Source Department of Housing and Urban
  Development. State of the Cities Database System.

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Richland County Population Change (1990-2000)

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Percent Population Change by Race

• Kershaw and Sumter Counties lost white population
  between 1990 and 2000
• Richland barely saw any increase in white
  population
• Fairfield and Newberry Counties saw lost black
  population between 1990 and 2000

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Blacks have less ability to move.

• 37 of Black households in Richland are
  overcrowded or paying more than they can afford
• 21 of White households face these housing
  problems
• 42 of Black renters in Richland County pay more
  than 30 of income for housing
• Source HUD CHAS Database and Census 2000.

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People who can, move away from poverty.

• Poverty and wealth are concentrated within
  counties

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Black poverty is more highly concentrated than
white poverty.
22
Blacks live farther from jobs.
Overlaid with tax districts
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Sprawl and disinvestment make poor communities
unsustainable.

• Lower Richland tax districts
• a per household taxable value of under 68,000
• The primary Northeastern tax district (2DP) has a
  household tax capacity of 126,000.

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Sprawl is not sustainable for wealthy or poor
communities.

• Sprawl means
• new roads
• schools
• water lines
• sewer lines
• Example Columbus, OH
• 70,000 to pay for new public infrastructure for
  every new household
• The poor pay more and get less
• Source Brookings Institute. 2004

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Black communities lack infrastructure, like water
and sewer services.
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Services follow investment and avoid
disinvestment.
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Affordable and subsidized housing is located in
poor communities with few opportunities.

• Low income housing location and concentrated
  black poverty

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To protect the environment, we must promote
opportunity.

• International and national studies show
• Fairer, more equitable countries and states
• Have better environmental quality
• (measured by income distribution, political
  rights, civil liberties, educational attainment,
  access to health care, etc.)

Torras, Boyce, Income, inequality, and pollution
A Reassessment of the Environmental Kuznets
Curve, Ecological Economics 25147-160.
1998 Boyce, Kemer, Templer Willis, Power
distribution , the environment and public health
A State Level Analysis, Ecological Review
29127-140, 1999.
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Environmental hazards are concentrated in poor,
Black communities.
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Sprawl control policy in Richland County

• Denser development
• Small increase in minimum lot size in rural areas
• Incentives for planned growth
• development of new villages

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Denser development can save money.

• Estimated cost of new investments in the Central
  Midlands region
• 5 billion more to pay for new growth
• an additional 3.5 billion to rehab existing
  infrastructure by 2015.
• Each new resident will cost 42,500 in
  infrastructure.
• The State estimates savings of over 400 million
  over a twenty-year period by increasing
  development density.

Source South Carolina Infrastructure Study 1997.
State of South Carolina, State Budget and Control
Board. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental
Relations. This calculation is based on the
projected population growth between 1995 and 2015
of 117,000 new residents in the Central Midlands
and the 5 billion cost needed to pay for new
infrastructure growth.
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Large lot zoning can also create more sprawl

• Can spread out development
• Ohio rural townships 5 acre zoning to slow
  growth. Added an additional quarter of a million
  residents in the 1990s
• Even 1 acre lots have been criticized
• Large lots consume more land for houses
  fragmenting open space and permanently altering
  the rural character of a community.
• This can result in lower long-term land values

Critics Fear Higher Costs and Even More Sprawl.
The Atlanta-Journal Constitution, June 23, 2003
Density Limits Only Add to Sprawl Large Lots
Eat Up Area Countryside. The Washington Post,
March 9, 2003 For New Jersey Towns, an
Experiment Putting Growth Here, Not There, The
New York Times, April 21, 2004.
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Large lot zoning in Lower Richland will increase
developed land by 25.

• At its current 5 growth rate, the population
  would increase by about 2,100 by 2010
• 840 more housing units required
• Former zoning ordinance consumed land 630 acres
• New zoning ordinance 840 units consumes 840 acres
  of developed land is needed.

Based on the growth rate of the 1990s applied
to the 2000 population for Lower Richland.
Estimates based on minimum lot sizes
identified per zoning category. Housing demand
estimated based on population change and the
average housing unit size for Richland County
(approximately 2.5 persons).
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Cheap land in Lower Richland means that
developers can still afford to develop there.

• A ¼ acre lot size change increases the cost per
  housing unit by
• 350-500 for RU zoned land
• 1,500 to 2,300 for D1 zoned land
• Costs are easily passed off to homebuyers
• In the Northeast developer water/sewer line
  hook-up fee (1,500 per unit) passed thru to
  homebuyers
• Other ways to defray costs
• dedications to offset the density requirements
• input optimization (reducing the cost of
  materials, construction)

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Villages Targeting communities for development
is a good idea.

• New villages in Lower Richland
• If concentrated poverty, reproduces structural
  racism
• Not be connected to opportunity structures
• No employment base, residential only
• Far from employment

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Eastover and Hopkins are good targets for
development.

• Eastover
• It has been targeted for development since late
  1990s, but little investment has come. (with the
  exception being a 252,000 grant for streetscape
  improvements)
• No residential building permits were issued
  between 2001 and 2004.
• Hopkins
• No water and sewer lines
• contaminated wells
• Source South Carolina Department of
  Transportation. We also identified a 225,000
  grant for infrastructure improvements in the 2003
  South Carolina Senate session, but could not
  verify if this was funded and approved.

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Opportunities to promote now

• Affordable housing where jobs are located
• Inclusionary zoning
• Wealth Creation/Development for poor areas.
• Development planning and advocacy for Hopkins and
  Eastover that connects residents to wealth
  creation opportunities.
• Water/Sewer services
• The primary problem restricting growth in the
  Southeast is the lack of water and sewer in the
  more rural portions of the region. Homebuyers and
  businesses are reluctant, for the most part, to
  build where infrastructure is lacking.
• The Countys Consolidated Housing Plan for HUD
  identified sewer infrastructure as a high
  priority need for low income areas of the county.
  
• Almost 70 of county residents also identified
  sewer system expansion as a high priority need
  for the County.
• Southeast Area State of the Region Report
  Central Midlands Council of Governments 2004

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Develop a citizens commission to develop and
respond to policy options

• Planned growth must seek to build healthy,
  sustainable communities
• Requires a race lens to identify how policies
  impact different communities differently
• Equity is not achieved through equality of
  treatment. Equity requires investment in all our
  human and communal resources to maximize our
  potential as individuals, families, communities
  and a nation.

Ford Foundations Initiative on Race, Equity,
Community Philanthropy in the American South
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Benchmarks of Healthy, Sustainable Communities

• Quality Education
• Affordable Housing/Homeownership
• Low Poverty
• High Employment
• Good Income
• Low Crime
• Healthy Environment
• Healthy People
• Political Representation

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SOLUTIONS North Carolina

• North Carolinas annexation laws constitute,
  quite simply, the nations best urban policy. By
  my analysis, the state boasts the three socially
  and economically healthiest major metropolitan
  areas in the country.
• David Rusk. Metropolitan Change Elasticity.
  Housing, and Policy in Ohio Cities 1998
• What are annexation and growth policies?
• STRUCTURES
• Progressive annexation policies in North Carolina
  have helped fuel the growth of the states
  regions.
• Growing central cities have also meant more
  expanded opportunities for African Americans and
  resulted in less racial disparity and segregation
• Wade County socioeconomic integration improving
  outcomes.