Someone please explain to me what is wrong with wanting a 10 acer plot and a big house. Flushing mi. is outside Flint. Most of the housing in flint is small 1000 sqr. foot homes built over 40 years ago. My current first floor is bigger than that. Again, please tell me what my comunity, my family and my state will gain if I sell and move to a cramped existense in down town Flint. Thanks Steve....

If it were not for automobiles we wouldn't have highways.

The building of roads is lobbied to politicians by private road builders.

New roads are followed by sprawl, pollution, and loss of nature.

Change the tranporation system and we would limit sprawl.

In Wa. state funds have been cut to public transporation and

funneled into road projects. The problem is once a road is built

it is filled with traffic.

Making public transportaion more available and appealing

would help direct the direction of growth while saving farm land

and natural spaces.

Smart Growth isn't about forcing people into tiny, cramped, tenements. It's about people really stopping to think about what they really need to live. And you can throw a little "want" in there, I suppose. But there are countless people who build or buy a particular house for the wrong reasons: to keep up with the joneses, it's what the think the market demands, they should buy the maximum they can afford, etc. Smart Growth is about balancing your needs/wants with the impact it will have on the community. Everybody can't have 10 acres; but maybe if people really thought about it, they and a bunch more people could each have 5 acres and still be happy.

Steve, As far as I'm concerned, there is nothing wrong with WANTING a big house on 10 acres of land. It sounds delightful to me. "Developing" wild or farm land for the benefit of one family is another matter. My question is this: "At what point do we--as citizens--say, 'no, you can't build more.' Humanity has built enough. If you want to build something, then you must facilitate returning an equal amount of land to its natural state."? Do we wait until all the salmon are gone? All bears? When most bird species are extinct? When the few remaining wetlands are gone? At what point do we say, enough? As a citizen, I believe it is in our individual and collective, long term interests to learn to live within limits. With 6 billion people breeding exponentially, I cannot imagine a way for everyone to have 10 acres and a house. Current rates and processes of "development" are a major reason that the Earth is loosing its capacity to sustain life. Building for individual, short-term gratification threatens our common interests--as citizens and as animals who are dependent on a healthy environment for our survival.

I believe that one important task for humanity--as a species, as citizens and neighbors--is to learn to live with the Earth, as opposed to destroying it, as we are now with our living practices. Our way of life, including our development patterns & systems are unsustainable. As much as I want to support people living in places and ways that are pleasing to them (individual rights), it is also clear to me that the notion that anyone who has the money for it can build a house or factory or "develop" land according to their short term wishes (without regard for the greater public good) is short-sighted and dangerous. Our current "market driven" system for development, emphasizing individual rights is contributing to the current ecological catastrophe. The next generations will pay dearly for the choices we make today--including where we build houses and how we manage growth & development. They/ we cannot afford for every family who can afford it (even in America) to live in large houses on their own land--niether economically nor ecologically. I believe the current type and rate of development is pathological.

Our economy is a planned economy. Historically and currently, economically powerful people and groups determine how our communities grow and "develop." The clear pattern is that private planning and development sacrifice the public's resources and long-term interests for short term gratification. Until recently (the last 50-100 years), humanity (particularly in America) could afford thoughtless, greed-driven development. The Earth could absorb our selfish, reckless, thoughtless "development." That's not true any more. The so-called free market approach to development, including housing has damaged (perhaps irreparably) the natural ecological systems on which we all depend FOR SURVIVAL as a species. So my view, for what it's worth, is that assuming that the 10 acres already had a house on it, I wish you well. If you built a house on undeveloped land, I think that is questionable--FROM A PUBLIC POLICY POINT OF VIEW. I do NOT mean to judge YOU or choices you made. Smart growth principles, as I understand it, would provide you with economic incentives to increase your quality of life (e.g., by expanding square footage) for staying in a higher density area. The fact that you apparently found it cheaper to move out of the city to get a more comfortable living space indicates a poorly designed economic & social system to me.

I avoid speaking for others. A short list of what I gain from living in a small apartment in a small city includes: A) Driving my car much less--I contribute less to the pollution poisoning our land, water and air--including greenhouse gas emmissions. B) Greater social and civic involvement--I walk or ride my bicycle to most social engagements, which is good for my health physically and emotionally; I can and do ride my bicycle to city council and other political forums to participate in our democratic process; this is good for me and good for my community. C) My living expenses are lower--I pay less in rent & food; much less in gas. D) I have less direct impact on the remaining (and fast disappearing) wild and agricultural lands--the plants & animals who live there don't have me to deal with and even though I am a nature lover, they are better off with less human contact. E) It is much easier for me to support locally owned businesses and organic farmers than it was living in the country, where the closest businesses were large corporate grocers, who pollute the environment more and take money away from my local community. We have a farmer's market within a mile of my apartment. From April through November, I walk or ride to buy fresh food. In the process, I support my local economy and meet people socially. Again--good for me; good for the community. In short, I pollute much less and find it much easier to socialize and be connected to and involved in my community; I find I am of greater service to my friends and my community living in town. Yes, there is a trade-off: I sometimes miss the luxery of having more private space.

This is a complex issue. There are no easy answers. You might check out "The Earth Charter" to examine what I found to be an interesting and compelling framework for sustainable human development. If you're interested, go to www.earthcharter.org Thanks for sharing. Tom (user name: tbrinker)

In Michigan we are the last state to tax farmers not on the land’s value for farming, but on its “highest and best use”—meaning the use which will fetch the most money. Not farming, that’s for sure. Developers love having a tax structure that feeds their insatiable appetite for farmland. No wonder Michigan leads the country in sprawl growth vs. population growth. Sprawl is as political as taxes.

The other point is health. The pattern of low density growth—sprawl—is making trips by anything other than a motor vehicle not just impractical, but dangerous. The Dutch and Germans have shown us that it doesn’t have to be this way. People in sprawling developments weigh, on average, 6 pounds more than people who live in walkable, bikeable communities. Our rural developments uniformly lack sidewalks, and the secondary roads leading to them are increasing dangerous for bicyclists. We have an obesity epidemic by design. In Michigan, one of the fattest states in the fattest country in the world, the cost of diseases attributable to inactivity was about $8.9 billion in 2002.

P.S. Midland is about as white and middle class as a city of 41,000 can be, and yet we are also suffering the effects of sprawl. At least here, it’s not about race.

Jim

This is really more to do with "certain" people forcing nonwhites into areas where whites did not want them. Before quotas/busing, etc.... whites had nice neighborhoods that passed on from generation to generation with a huge saving in wealth. Now, whites constantly need to flee from the results of an intrusive government forcing integration down everyone's throats. Try as you might, America was far better and stronger when whites were allowed to keep their own neighborhoods.

Regarding "smart growth": I'm sorry that Keith Schneider thinks that political decision making is somehow more fair or "clean" than private decision making. Consider all the bitterness over tax cuts, Iraq, terrorism -- you name it, when decisions are made through politics (i.e., publicly rather than privately) the result is anger, communication failure, and distrust of one another. When people work out their problems without government control, they tend to work them out cooperatively and with less rancor. Surely Schneider knows that from his experiences in Michigan.

Jane, I agree that our political system is highly dysfunctional; that making choices democratically can be abusive, bitter and frustrating. In this sense, I agree that it is not clean. However, my belief and experience is that the housing and development "markets" have been and are controlled by money. Decisions affecting our collective way and quality of life (as citizens of a supposed democracy) have been and continue to be made by "developers". Capitalism 101--"Those who have the gold make the rules." This dynamic in community development has enabled short term thinking and profit to drive decision-making rather than the principle of the common good over the long-term.

As a result, countless species have been driven to extinction; our water, air and land is being poisoned and we have a classist, racist society where those who can afford it live in relative safety and those who can't often live in abusive, toxic squalor; and many live somewhere in between these extremes, watching the natural systems that have nurtured life for hundreds of thousands of years get destroyed. Here in Western Washington State, I see sprawl everywhere (I moved 17 years ago from the Ohio & Pennsylvania, where the natural enviornment is already mostly trashed). From an environmental and community perspective, I think the building boom (which has been very good for the economy) is making things worse in the long run--for all living things, except the relatively wealthy people who drive away the farmland and non-human species with their new homes and SUV's. As a financially poor person who cares about such things, functional frameworks, like "Smart Growth" are cleaner in the sense that priorities get named and there is a framework for saying "No" and/or "yes--if" to builders. Please explain how the market has EVER (or can) protect the environment or promote positive relationships among citizens/ neighbors.

Scott_P, I think "Smart Growth" is not about forced integration; it is about putting some forethought and focus into how we, as citizens (yes, non-whites are citizens who deserve equal rights too) want to deal with development and growth. Our way of life, including whites living in segregated communities, is unsustainable--socially and environmentally. Smart growth is about getting together and letting reason drive decisions instead of unregulated capital--the kind that has poisoned the living systems on which we all depend. If you are interested, I spell out my general concerns more specifically in my other posting (#4). Lastly, I want to ask: America was sronger for whom (during the glory days of segregation)? For blacks? Latinos? Native Americans? Asians? Or was it mostly just whites for whom it was better? Thanks for sharing.

Steve: I agree with you that many of us would like to have a private lot, with lots of room to roam, and a big house. The issue seems to be that when you ask a community (county, whatever) to deliver services to you, it costs a lot more to the community to do this. Ultilities have to travel further, police and fire, and if you're like most people, you don't want to pay that extra cost. It's a matter of economy of scale. The other thing is that when everybody wants to move 'out', then you've got everybody 'out there' and you have to move the frontier out further, and the urban core dies. It's surely a clash of values as the program said. Until I started reading about all this, I was raising your same question. Fortunately our family was able to find an acre of land, on the river, and an old farmhouse just inside the city limits. And as much as our county is growing, there's plenty of fringe area for the taking, close enough that these choices don't dissipate resources.

tbrinker, America was stronger during the 50's than it is now. Trying to twist it into "stronger for whom" is just a red herring.

Look at things today - dying of a thousand cuts. We can't keep national secrets (thanks to all the "internationals" we have working with sensitive information. Note, these people have no qualms about being loyal to their 1) race and 2) nation and laugh at us how we hand them the keys to the castle. ), are losing untold billions to illegal immigrants working under the table (not paying taxes) while sending our capital to Mexico, have enemy combatants inside our borders (isn't "diversity" grand?) while Jew CEOs (Dell is one, or didn't you know) sending jobs overseas. Think this would be allowed during the 50's that that people like you abhor so?

scott_p, Thank you for responding. I don't understand how my asking the question, "America was stronger for whom in the 1950s," is "a red herring. How so? How do you define & assess American "strength"? What is it in Smart Growth principles that you see "weakening" America? Given that America is a nation of immigrants (who live on stolen land), how do you define/ decide who is an "international"? My paternal ancestors came to America in 1734; does this mean I am somehow less American than someone of Native American descent or more American than a citizen who immigrated in 1940 or 2004? Given the tremendous contributions that immigrants of all nations and creeds have made culturally and economically to American society, on what basis do you make and support your claim that "these people (what people, I wonder) have no qualms about being loyal to their 1) race (what's it mean to be loyal to one's race, I wonder) and nation and laugh at us how we hand them the keys to the castle.)"? How many of "these people" do you know personally? Having worked with and developed relationships with immigrants from most continents, I have yet to see the behavior you describe myself.

I also need to say directly that I think your observation "while Jew CEOs (Dell is one, or didn't you know) [are] sending jobs overseas" is a racist (and inaccurate) generalization. While I abhor globalization myself, it is a fact that shipping jobs over seas for short term profit is a multinational and multicultural phenomenon (plenty of "WASP" CEOs are doing it too--e.g., Phil Knight of Nike; Walmart is doing it; as is Levis & Microsoft). Shipping jobs overseas to enrich shareholders is, in my view, not a racist/ anti-American/ nationalist conspiracy (as I think you're implying) but simply one of the abusive dynamics of our economic system. Personally, I believe it is unfettered ("deregulated" or "privitized") corporate institutional power that is the real problem--they're the ones profiting from outsourcing (moving operations to countries like China, which has a record of human rights abuse, including weak environmental protection laws and use of prison labor to "compete" globally) as well as employing unregulated, undocumented immigrant labor, here in the USA. To answer you question: I think developers & economic planners got away with massive graft & exploitation in the 1950's--it was just a different type of exploitation than they get away with now. They might not have gotten away with shipping jobs abroad like they are now but they did laugh all the way to the bank with the pork that the congressmen they bought threw their way--at the expense of many other Americans.

My point here is that my experience and a lot of (documented) information tells me that--when it comes to (real estate) development (and "economic development" in general)--it is private power that has historically driven decision making in the USA. Given the racism of our culture, the benefits of these private decisions tended to "trickle down" in favor of some whites--at the expense of the majority of non-whites as well as poor whites. Are you aware of the long history of graft and subsidy in housing & commercial real estate "development" all over this country (including in the 1950's)? It led to poor decisions then, like institutionalized segregation and it continues to lead to poor decisions now, like the sprawl devouring the natural systems on which human life depends (e.g., pollution of water, mass extinctions, destruction of ecosystems). My sense is that it is only democratic frameworks like Smart Growth that allow citizens like you and me the possibility of defining what WE , the people (black, white, brown, yellow & purple), want for our communities in the long run and regulating private developers (those with the gold--Christian Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu or Atheist) whose interests tend to be NOT about domestic tranquility or community health but the bottom line ($$$$). Thanks for your consideration.