The Height of Foolishness: Sprawl Without Growth
Detroit region, unlike others, in grip of no-win development strategy
By Keith Schneider
Elm Street Writers Group
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<http://mlui.org/images/spacer.gif> MLUI/Bruce Giffin
The Detroit region is home to 4.8 million people, just 100,000 more
than in 1970. But during that same 35-year period, the number of registered
vehicles increased by 1.6 million, a flood of cars and trucks that has
inundated a torn up highway system.
If the source of enduring prosperity was more cars, more highways, more
parking lots, and more suburban sprawl, then Detroit and its suburbs should
be like Paris. Detroit, after all, built the inventions that produced
sprawl. It remains the center of the American auto industry, constructed the
first concrete freeway, opened the first suburban shopping mall, and
designed some of the first cul-de-sac subdivisions. Detroit's suburbs are
gobbling up land at a pace six to eight times more quickly than population
growth, faster than almost any other major American metropolitan region.
But a wellspring of opportunity? Hardly. In measures big and small Detroit
and its suburbs are in deepening trouble. The city's population, now around
900,000, is half of what it was in 1950. The seven-county region is home to
4.8 million people, just 100,000 more than in 1970. The Detroit area is the
slowest growing of any of the nation's 10 largest metropolitan regions, and
the most economically and racially segregated.
There's more. During the 1990s, the Detroit area lost more than 100,000
young adults, the highest rate of brain drain of any urban center in the
country. And because it has, arguably, the worst big city mass transit
system in the country, Detroit's auto population has increased by 1.6
million registered vehicles since 1970, a flood of cars and trucks that has
inundated torn-up highways.
Evidence That Sprawl Doesn't Work
Detroit, in effect, is a great big billboard for what happens when a state
and its largest metropolitan region depend on sprawl as the engine of
economic development. When it comes to ranking the best places in America
for business and careers, Forbes Magazine reported earlier this month that
just seven other metropolitan regions were doing worse in attracting new
jobs. Two of those, by the way, also were in Michigan.
Fortunately for the rest of the country, and unfortunately for Detroit and
Michigan, other states have gotten the message. Phoenix is building a new
light rail regional transit system. So is Denver. Boise has enacted new
growth management rules to protect farmland and is expanding its public
transit system. Sacramento built a light rail system. Charleston passed a
sales tax to invest in transit and to protect natural lands. Seattle and
Portland pursued economic strategies to manage growth and rein in sprawl.
Communities in northern and southern California approved growth boundaries
to protect farmland. Chicago rebuilt its waterfront, provided for more
downtown housing, invested in public transit, changed its tax structure to
encourage businesses downtown, and transformed itself in the span of a
generation into one of the liveliest and most beautiful cities in the
country.
These places, and so many more - Salt Lake City, Albuquerque, Austin,
Raleigh, Boston, Minneapolis - are estblishing new incentives and spending
public money in new ways to turn the engines of investment towards the
central city, and to existing suburbs.
The result in economic performance and quality-of-life improvements are
impressive. That same Forbes Magazine national ranking of the best places to
build a business and career put Raleigh, Austin, Albuquerque, and Phoenix at
the top of list. The highest ranking city in Michigan, by the way, was Ann
Arbor, at number 16. Ann Arbor, the home of the University of Michigan, has
spent heavily on its public transit system and voted in 2003 for a property
tax increase to establish a greenbelt around the city to conserve farmland
and slow sprawling housing development.
Michigan's Governor Pursues Smart Growth
It's not as though Michigan has ignored the value of pursuing a new growth
strategy. Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm bases her economic program on
the principles of Smart Growth. She's blocked most new highway construction
in favor of repairing existing roads, invited cities to take advantage of
new development incentives as part of her "Cool Cities" program, enforced
environmental law to conserve natural resources, helped farmers become more
profitable with a "Select A Taste of Michigan" promotion, and proposed a $2
billion bond to spur job development in renewable energy and other green
technologies.
Ms. Granholm, though, is a Democrat working with a Republican-led
Legislature that is in the ever-tightening grip of the party's cultural,
economic, and regulatory orthodoxy.
When it comes to sprawl, though, the orthodoxy looks, well, unorthodox. On
the one hand, conservatives want to reduce taxes and government spending; on
the other, too many also want more sprawl.
Unorthodox Orthodoxy
Needless to say these goals are in conflict. Sprawl is a product of spending
for roads, bridges, public buildings, business recruitment, subsidies, tax
policy, and other public investment. Michigan spends $10 billion a year on
economic development, much of it directed to lure people and jobs out of
cities and older suburbs to the exurbs.
Other states have figured this one out, regardless of political party
affiliations. Utah, the most Republican state, is investing in
transportation, housing, jobs, and growth management to modernize Salt Lake
City and other communities along the Wasatch Front. Illinois, led by
Democrats, understands that turning Chicago into a showcase of safe,
healthy, vibrant urban life benefits the entire state.
Michigan, though, is still a bit confused. The Republican-led House of
Representatives, for instance, just elected 34-year-old Craig DeRoche to be
its speaker. Mr. DeRoche, who once served on the city council in Novi, a
Detroit suburb, and has all of two years of House experience under his belt,
gave a foolish interview to The Detroit News soon after taking office
earlier this year. In almost the same breath that Mr. DeRoche said he wanted
to lower taxes and reduce government he also said that he wanted more
government spending on new highways and was considering raising gasoline
taxes to support auto-oriented growth. "I represent sprawl," declared the
new speaker.
There are uneasy political alliances and varying campaign motives to explain
such fogginess; Mr. DeRoche's leading contributors are energy, realty, road
building, utility, and development companies tied to the sprawl machine. But
that still doesn't help to answer this question: How will future historians
explain why Mr. DeRoche and his colleagues spent political capital to
promote the sprawling pattern of development that is wrecking their region?
Keith Schneider, a journalist and editor, is deputy director of the Michigan
Land Use Institute. Reach him at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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