National
Drinking Water Clearinghouse
West Virginia University
P.O. Box 6064
Morgantown, WV
26506-6064
Smart
Growth & Small Communities
Sprawl
Comes to Rural America
by
Mark Kemp-Rye
On Tap Managing Editor
A thousand years from now, when historians look back at the
turn of the 21st century, they may refer to this period as “the time
when the United States ran out of room.” Oh, there’s still plenty
of open space,
to be sure. But, for the first time, concerted efforts are underway to fight
the mindless expansion of our cities and towns, the loss of valuable farmlands,
and what Donella Meadows, director of the Sustainability Institute at Dartmouth
College calls “landscapes of stunning ugliness.”
The movement is known as “smart growth” and it’s gaining popularity
across the U.S. “It is a way of organizing a community and a style of
growth that safeguards quality of life, economic prosperity, and the environment,”
says Joel Hirschhorn, policy studies director with the National Governors
Association. “It does not mean no growth or slow growth.”
In many ways, smart growth is synonymous with land-use planning; certainly
both seek to answer the fundamental question “what’s the most appropriate
use of this land?” But smart growth takes land-use
planning to the next level.
“In communities across the nation, there is a growing concern that current
development patterns—dominated by what some call ‘sprawl’—are
no longer in the long-term interest of our cities, existing suburbs, small
towns, rural communities, or wilderness areas,” writes Geoff Anderson
in Why Smart Growth: A Primer published by the International City/County Management
Association.
“Though
supportive of growth, communities are questioning the economic costs of abandoning
infrastructure in the city, only to rebuild it further out. They are questioning
the social costs of the mismatch between new employment locations in the suburbs
and the available work force in the city. They are questioning the wisdom
of abandoning “brownfields” in older communities, eating up the
open space and prime agricultural lands at the suburban fringe, and polluting
the air of an entire region by driving farther to get places. Spurring the
smart growth movement are demographic shifts, a strong environmental ethic,
increased fiscal concerns, and more nuanced views of growth. The result is
both a new demand and a new opportunity for smart growth.”
One can hardly think of a more dramatic about-face from the legacy of Manifest
Destiny or the willy-nilly expansion that has typified growth in the U.S.
for hundreds of years.
“For small towns and rural areas, the
challenge is to have growth that does not destroy the rural or small town
character of the original place.”
Joel Hirschhorn, policy studies director, National Governors Association
Grafton, West Virginia - Photos by Mark Kemp-Rye
Photo Caption: From the mid-19th Century until the 1960s, Grafton,
West Virginia, was an important stop on the main stem of the Baltimore and
Ohio Railroad. Now fallen on hard times, the once-thriving downtown is characterized
by boarded-up storefronts and abandoned buildings. In the 1990s, aided by
hundreds of thousands of dollars of state investment in infrastructure, roads,
and a traffic light, a WalMart (above) opened just outside the city limits.
“It’s been the nail in the coffin of downtown,” says a longtime
resident who wishes to remain anonymous.
Implications for the Water Industry
Smart growth ideas are appealing to those in the water and wastewater industries
because unchecked growth means extending distribution lines. And the extensions
mean substantial investments by towns and water districts.
“The result of low density sprawl is that the total miles of water and
wastewater infrastructure needed to serve the same number of people is doubled,
tripled, quadrupled, and more,” says Jim Woods, Morgantown, West Virginia’s
city planner. “And who pays? You and I do, through our taxes. Compact
urban forms with growth boundaries are much more efficient in terms of the
number of miles of infrastructure per consumer.”
Meadows agrees, “It costs us dollars—bucks straight out of our pockets—in
the form of higher local taxes. That’s because our pattern of municipal
growth consistently costs more in public services that it pays in taxes.”
While the price of providing infrastructure to new areas can be high, the
growth itself adds costs to treatment. By increasing what experts call “impervious
cover” (e.g., buildings, paved roads, and parking lots), water quality
is affected, which means more treatment.
“As towns and cities continue to grow, and more land is developed, the
impervious cover increases,” says Javier Vélez-Arocho of the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Policy, Economics,
and Innovation Development. “How and where
the development occurs will have an important impact on water quality, an
impact that will impair the treatment facilities ability to treat water efficiently.
However, smart growth can result in economic benefits for those working in
the water and wastewater industries. Why? When new growth is managed in a
watershed context, homes and businesses can be located and designed to have
the smallest possible impact on streams, lakes, wetlands, and estuaries. For
a manager or operator of a filtration plant or wastewater treatment facility,
this means less pollution to treat at the plant—in other words less treatment
requirements and better economy.
“Some studies indicate the cost of treating the quality and quantity
of stormwater runoff ranges from $2,000 to $50,000 per impervious acre,”
continues Vélez-Arocho. “A great example to explain why smart
growth is good to the water quality in any given watershed or locality occurred
in the Northeast. The City of New York acquired land and easements in its
upstate watershed at a cost of $1.5 billion in order to protect source water
supplies. They did this in lieu of expanding their water treatment systems
to accommodate necessary repairs and the increase in demand for water. The
estimated cost to expand water treatment systems was $8 billion.”
Smart Growth and Rural America
Until recently, when talk of sprawl came up, it was in reference to the country’s
largest cities. And, certainly, metropolitan areas in the U.S. have been impacted
by unregulated growth. Chicago, for example, had a population increase of
four percent between 1970 and 1990, Census data show, but its developed land
area grew by 46 percent. During this same time, Los Angeles mushroomed by
45 percent; its settled area a whopping 300 percent. Even cities like Pittsburgh,
which actually lost population, saw its urbanized land areas expand by 43
percent between 1982 and 1997.
The ‘Burbs Are Booming
Data from the 2000 Census show that several suburban areas in the West and
Southwest are now more populated than some established urban centers. Dubbed
“boomburbs,” these suburbs now account for one-fourth of the big
cities (i.e., places with a population between 100,000 and 400,000) in the
U.S.
Mesa, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix, leads the pack with a population of 396,375.
Other “boomburbs” with populations exceeding 300,000 include Santa
Ana and Anaheim, California, and Arlington, Texas. These suburbs are now larger
than older cities such as Cincinnati, Ohio; Miami, Florida; and St. Louis,
Missouri.
Robert Lang, co-author of Boomburbs: The Emergence of Large, Fast-Growing
Suburban Cities in the United States says ”Boomburbs may be the ultimate
symbol of a new, sprawling postwar metropolis.” Founded during the 1970s
and 80s, these cities epitomize what smart growth advocates are working against:
office parks,”big box” retailers such as Home Depot, strip developments,
and subdivisions made up of large, single-family homes.
”They have now coalesced into suburban super cities that have all the
functions of a traditional city,” says Lang, ”but are built for
a drive-through society. ”The entire text of Lang’s article is available
on the Fannie Mae Foundation’s Web site at www.fanniemaefoundation.org/census_notes_6.shtml.
But sprawl is increasingly a concern for small towns and rural areas, too.
According to the American Planning Association (APA), West Virginia—a
predominantly rural state—leads the nation in sprawl. A report prepared
by the APA found that, as of 1997, only seven percent of the land in West
Virginia had been developed for human use, compared to 40 percent in New Jersey,
the most densely populated state. However, on a per-capita basis, construction
of new subdivisions, shopping centers, office buildings, and roads is proceeding
faster in West Virginia than anywhere else. All this development, however,
hasn’t been because of an influx of new residents: West Virginia’s
population declined significantly over the 15 years the study examined. “In
West Virginia, the sprawl phenomenon in rural areas is a result of the counties
lacking the political courage to step up to the plate and implement sensible
land-use controls,” charges Woods.
Are counties in other parts of the country reluctant or unable to combat sprawl?
That’s one of the questions that Rick Reeder, Dennis Brown, and Kevin
McReynolds of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research
Service tried to answer in a report titled Rural Sprawl: Problems and Policies
in Eight Rural Counties.
After examining 113 nonmetropolitan counties identified as having “potential
sprawl problems,” the authors focused on eight counties from different
parts of the country: Citrus, Florida; Elbert, Colorado; Gilmer, Georgia;
Lamoille, Vermont; Lyon, Nevada; Mason, Washington; Monroe, Pennsylvania;
and Wise, Texas.
With respect to water and wastewater, the authors found that infrastructure
capacity was “overstrained” in half of the counties and that another
three were “playing catch-up” to meet growing needs. They found
that water pollution was a problem
in coastal areas and that in at least one county the cost of onsite home wastewater
systems “is so high that the cost of new housing is becoming prohibitive.”
Most of the counties had some sort of zoning on the books, although their
quality was a mixed bag. The authors single out Florida and Washington as
being states with strict growth management laws and, hence, manageable growth.
Two counties had no zoning or growth control measures. “One of the biggest
problems for most of these places was their relatively slow growth in tax
base compared with their growth in public spending needs,” write the
authors in their conclusion. “(Growth areas) initially attract commuters
or retirees, and only later do private services and other industries follow.
The result is that most of these rural sprawl places complained of insufficient
tax revenues to pay for school and infrastructure improvements. Several officials
noted that the only way to break out of this conundrum would be for their
state to help out by paying more of the infrastructure costs.”
In addition to the fiscal costs of treatment and infrastructure mentioned
above, communities pay other prices for sprawl in terms of their quality of
life. “(The) conversion (of rural areas) to soul-less subdivisions and
strip-shopping centers is the single biggest threat to small town character
and identity,” says Woods.
“For small towns and rural areas, the challenge is to have growth that
does not destroy the rural or small town character
of the original place,” says Hirschhorn. “The solution is use of
new community design principles to build mixed-use places within or very close
to the older, original towns.”
Photo courtesy of NASA
Photo Caption: This photograph of the U.S. at night—taken from
a satellite miles above the Earth—shows how densely populated much of
the country is. The urbanized area stretching from Boston to Washington, for
example, is home to more than 60 million people.
Does anyone want “dumb growth”?
“In some ways, the very term (smart growth) itself is unfortunate,”
says Woods. “Ask anyone if they’re in favor of smart growth and
they’ll say ‘sure.’ After all, what’s the alternative—dumb
growth?” While it would be difficult to find an advocate for dumb growth,
there are those who criticize smart growth and planning.
The most obvious opposition comes from what is loosely defined as “the
development industry”: realtors, road-builders, and conventional homebuilders
and developers. It is, obviously, much easier and cheaper to build in rural
areas with no land-use restrictions. There are literally millions of dollars
to be made and developers are, they say, merely responding
to market conditions.
There are also
those who criticize the assumptions on which smart growth and planning are
predicated. They claim that public transit is unpopular in the U.S., that
farmland is not being lost but has remained constant for 50 years, and that
increasing population in urban areas actually contributes to pollution. The
Competitive Enterprise Institute, a group “dedicated to the principles
of free enterprise and limited government” advances the following counter-arguments:
• Smart growth promotes densification, which means that urban open spaces
are developed (including parkland), crowding the few parks that remain. In
Portland, Oregon, which proponents of smart growth hail as a model of smart
growth, the amount of parkland per 1,000 residents has declined from 21 acres
to 19 acres this decade alone.
• From 1945 to 1992, the amount of cropland remained constant at 24 percent,
according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In fact, the federal government
spends billions of dollars each year paying farmers to idle their land, suggesting
there is a surplus of farmland, not a shortage.
• While increased population density may reduce development pressures
in rural areas, increased urban density correlates with increased traffic
congestion and air pollution. According to the EPA’s own data, smog worsens
as densities increase.
• Mass transit ridership has been falling for decades and shows no sign
of reversing, despite substantial government subsidies. From 1990 to 1995,
the number of public transport boardings dropped 5.5 percent nationwide. Public
transit fails to provide the speed, flexibility, and comfort that today’s
commuters demand, so they use their cars instead.
“The deliberate goal of anti-sprawl activists is to promote policies
that exacerbate traffic congestion and force people to live in crowded cities,”
writes John Carlisle, author of The Campaign Against Urban Sprawl: Declaring
War on the American Dream published by the National Center for Public Policy
Research. “Since high density urban areas almost always have the worst
air pollution, the likely result of a federally-financed campaign to restrict
growth to less healthy urban areas in the name of protecting undeveloped open
space would be to worsen the quality of the nation’s environment.”
In a very real sense, the backlash against smart growth ideals goes deeper
than specific arguments about open space and population density. The sanctity
of rural areas and the corresponding demonization of cities has been an almost
constant theme since the founding of the U.S. itself. Thomas Jefferson, for
example, was a strong proponent of rural life and viewed yeoman farmers as
the backbone of democracy. During Reconstruction, the notion of “40 acres
and a mule” was advanced as fitting reparation to freed slaves. After
World War II, the GI Bill and the development of the Interstate highway system
allowed hundreds of thousands of Americans to recreate their own little rural
places in what came to be known as “suburbia.”
David Ellwood, professor of public policy at Harvard University, identifies
four basic themes that define fundamental American values: autonomy of the
individual, virtue of work, primacy of the family, and desire for and sense
of community. With respect to ideas such as smart growth or community planning,
there is a built-in tension in these values. “The autonomy of the individual
and primacy of the family tend to push people in individualistic and often
isolating directions,” says Ellwood. “But the desire for community
remains strong in everything from religion to neighborhoods.”
Americans long to be part of a community, it seems, yet we want our own piece
of land and we’ll be damned if anyone tries to tell us what to do with
that land.
Where are smart growth principles
being used?
A funny thing happened in Loudoun County, Virginia. With cheap land and an
hour-and-a-half commute to Washington D.C., 5,000-square-foot homes were becoming
a common feature of the landscape. Elected officials there—the third-fastest-growing
county in the U.S.—had been planning to add 40,000 houses over the next
five years. Had been, that is, until eight anti-sprawl candidates were elected
to the Loudoun County Board of Commissioners.
“It was an astounding victory,” Joe Maio, director of Voters to
Stop Sprawl, says in an article by Linda Baker in the May/June 2000 issue
of E Magazine. “It was a complete repudiation of the way business is
done around here.”
The large houses on large lots in Loudoun County are cited by Eben Fodor in
a book titled Better Not Bigger. A new house on a quarter-acre lot adds just
over $700 per year to a town budget (over and above the property tax collected),
says Fodor. A new house on a five-acre lot costs the community $2232 per year.
In neighboring Maryland, smart growth has become the focus of a heated debate.
Citing a 25-year-old law that allows the state to bring court challenges against
potentially harmful rezoning decisions, Governor Parris Glendening says in
a June 25, 2001, New York Times article, “It’s the responsibility
of the state to stand up aggressively and try to protect the quality of life.
“Let the battles begin,” says Donald Dell, Carroll County commissioner
in the same New York Times article.
“What’s at stake here is my ability to govern and do the things
I’m sworn to do.”
To Dell and others, the principle of home rule is sacred. But, Glendening
says that it’s unfair for municipalities to subsidize sprawl by rezoning
farmland for housing developments—designed, primarily, to generate tax
revenue—only to turn to the state to provide new sewers, water systems,
roads, and schools.Between one and six million new residents are expected
in Maryland over the next 20 years, and many communities are already feeling
the pressure.
In Frederick, for instance, city officials had to take a drastic anti-sprawl
action by cutting residential construction permits in half after they discovered
that the city did not have the water resources to accommodate its current
growth rate. Unlike the contentious situation in Maryland, residents of Littleton,
New Hampshire, have had a comparatively easy time adopting growth-planning
strategies.
The town of 5,965 and its smart growth tactics were featured in a cover story
in the November 15, 2000 USA Today. Reporter Haya El Nasser writes, “This
picturesque town in the White Mountains has embraced innovative, sometimes
drastic planning concepts: Fill every existing building before putting up
new ones and invite citizens to participate in planning decisions through
town hall-style meetings.”
Involving the public is extremely important if smart growth initiatives are
to succeed, experts report. It’s advice that residents of Littleton took
to heart. (See the sidebar on page 13 for ways to foster smart growth.)
Working together on community issues has, by all accounts, reinvigorated the
town. Plans are being finalized for an affordable housing development, for
continued aesthetic improvements in the historic downtown, and for recreation
trails on both sides of the Ammonoosuc River. Littleton’s efforts were
rewarded in 1999 when it was named New Hampshire’s Main Street Community
of the Year.
The Future of Smart Growth
The smart growth movement faces some formidable obstacles: entrenched political
ideals, long-standing societal beliefs about homes and lands, and a maze of
cross-jurisdictional laws and policies governing land-use planning, to name
just a few. Nevertheless, anti-sprawl proponents remain optimistic about the
future.
“Smart growth is probably the strongest grassroots-driven movement in
the U.S.,” says Hirschhorn. “It is relatively young and is still
growing as more Americans suffer more declines in quality of life, like traffic
congestion, and as more elected officials realize that ensuring economic growth
requires smart growth strategies.”
So far, most smart growth efforts are at the local and state levels. In 1999,
for example, voters passed more than 70 percent of 2,400 local ballot initiatives
preserving open spaces and creating more than $7.5 billion in funds for land
conservation. At the state level, more than 1,000 land-use reform bills were
introduced in legislatures in 1999, with more than 200 enacted into law. Eleven
states have some sort of smart growth strategy and several more are considering
such measures.
Although the federal government has historically taken a hands-off approach
to land and growth issues, there are signs that this is changing. Both houses
of Congress, for example, have Smart Growth Task Forces. Toward the end of
their administration, Bill Clinton and Al Gore launched a “Livability
Agenda” designed to curb urban sprawl.
EPA, too, has been exploring ways to encourage smart growth efforts. Citing
a number of environmental, fiscal, and quality-of-life issues, their report
Potential Roles for the Clean Water State Revolving Fund Programs in Smart
Growth Initiatives explains how loans can be used to support growth management.
Ultimately, though, it’s up to informed residents to decide how their
communities should grow or not grow. “Don’t believe the myth that
all growth is good,” cautions Meadows. “Ask hard questions. Who
will benefit from the next development scheme, and who will pay? Are there
better options, including undeveloped, protected land? How much growth can
our roads, our land, our waters and air, our neighborhoods, schools and community
support? Since we can’t grow forever, where should we stop?” The
answers to these questions will become more and more urgent as demands on
land increase—even if the U.S. never literally runs out of room.
More Information About Smart Growth
Numerous groups are involved with issues relating to smart growth, urban sprawl,
healthy communities, and sustainable growth. Although by no means exhaustive,
the following six organizations provide excellent information on these issues,
as well as additional sources.
The National Neighborhood Coalition
1030 15th St. NW, Suite 325 Washington, DC 20005
Phone: (202) 408-8553
E-mail: nncnnc@erols.com
Web: www.neighborhoodcoalition.org
The Smart Growth Network
777 North Capitol St., N.E., Suite 500
Washington, DC 20002-4201
Phone: (202) 289-4262
E-mail: info@smartgrowth.org
Web: www.smartgrowth.org
The National Governors Association
Hall of States
444 N. Capitol St.
Washington, DC 20001-1512
Phone: (202) 624-5300
E-mail: webmaster@nga.org
Web: www.nga.org
The Brookings Institution’s Center for Urban and Metropolitan Policy
1775 Massachusetts Ave., N.W.
Washington, DC 20036
Phone: (202) 797-6139
E-mail: ksommer@brookings.edu
Web: www.brookings.org/es/urban/urban.htm
The National Association of Local Government Environmental Professionals
1350 New York Avenue, N.W.,
Suite 1100
Washington, DC 20005
Phone: (202) 393-2866
E-mail: nalgep@spiegelmcd.com
Web: www.nalgep.org
The Congress for the New Urbanism
The Hearst Building
5 Third Street, Suite 725
San Francisco, CA 94103
Phone: (415) 495-2255
E-mail: cnuinfo@cnu.org
Web: www.cnu.org