Kaid Benfield's Blog: U.S. Law and Policy

Contemplating Earth Day at 40: a journey for the environment, from NIMBY to YIMBY

2010-04-15T13:34:44Z

As I write this, I am attending the annual conference of the American Planning Association, where I was invited to speak. We are in New Orleans, one of the world’s most welcoming and culturally rich cities, the horrors of Katrina and limitations of longtime poverty notwithstanding. It is also a city rich with historic, walkable neighborhoods. This is a well-suited venue for experiencing, contemplating and sharing the ingredients of community and how to make a better built environment.

What’s a YIMBY?

APA’s membership is composed largely of city and town planners, working for municipalities across the country. They are, at least in their 21st-century incarnation, ‘accidental environmentalists’ whose traditional intentions may not be explicitly environmental but whose current (and in many cases longstanding) causes of thoughtful placemaking, great communities, and efficient transportation almost by definition reduce the weight and scope of our human footprint upon the earth. They get it, intuitively.

In fact, I would argue that they get it better than many environmentalists did for a long time, given our movement’s traditional distrust of cities, development, and commerce. One would have been hard pressed to find a self-identified environmentalist at the time of the first Earth Day, in 1970, who supported land development of any kind, orderly or not. But this is no longer the case, and I and many of my colleagues in the environmental community are living proof.

We now think of ourselves as passionate advocates of development done well, no longer NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yard) but YIMBYs for smart, green urbanism. We know that land development – residential, commercial, civic – is going to happen with our country’s population growth and cannot (and should not) be wished away. We absolutely must say yes, especially in our back yards, to making it as beneficial for the environment and as nurturing to the human spirit as possible. More about that in a bit.

Whither Earth Day

I have to admit that I have never been all that enamored of Earth Day. Part of it is that I remember the original one in 1970, when people I knew were being sent off to die in a tragic war for very dubious reasons, and my own status was in jeopardy. I remember seeing a TV newscast of that Earth Day showing school kids sitting around singing earth songs, and I thought it was trivial by comparison to stopping the war, diverting the county's attention from something that seemed much more urgent.

Some folks felt different, and as a result we now have NRDC, the Environmental Defense Fund, the National Environmental Policy Act, the federal EPA, and a whole slew of federal environmental legislation from that energized period in the early and mid-1970s. And I now have a career.

Today, Earth Day still can feel a little gimmicky to me, to be honest. But, given that this year brings a decadal anniversary of this wondrous beast we call the modern environmental movement, it’s a good opportunity to reflect on where we’ve been, and where we are. I’ve evolved a lot during these decades, and so has our cause. (By the way, we should not forget that there was also a ‘pre-modern’ environmental movement: Teddy Roosevelt, John Muir, Aldo Leopold and Rachel Carson certainly didn’t wait for Earth Day to get started. Neither did proto-urbanist Jane Jacobs, for that matter.)

Becoming a ‘recovering litigator’

I began my professional career as a litigation lawyer (not in the environmental field, which barely existed when I graduated from law school) and it took me forever to shake the label. I started as a consumer advocate, litigating deceptive advertising cases at the Federal Trade Commission with the most remarkably bright, energetic and creative (two in my small office eventually became screenwriters) bunch of people I have had the honor of working with. Having made a reputation as a budding young litigator, I was soon hired by a private law firm. I assisted on the firm’s top cases and, when the client didn’t want to pay the fees the top people in my firm commanded, was lead counsel on others.

I became exposed to environmental law and liked it. When an opening came up in the policy section of the US Department of Justice’s environmental division, I lobbied hard to get it and did. That job put me in contact with NRDC and eventually another opportunity, which I had to lobby even harder to get. That was 28 years ago, and I’ve never left.

There was still a problem, though: the law firm, Justice and NRDC liked me as a litigator more than I liked to litigate. NRDC in particular wanted to, and did, deploy me before administrative agencies and the federal courts to stop environmental damage, particularly in our national forests. When we needed someone to manage a large and important case where NRDC was a defendant, I was deployed for that, too. (Trust me: it’s more fun being the plaintiff.) But the world of arbitrary deadlines, constant jockeying for position with abstract arguments about procedure, and being adversarial for a living isn’t for everyone.

It took me at least 15 years at NRDC to get out of the litigation box and work directly on solutions rather than just stopping bad things. How could I get from NIMBY to YIMBY, I wondered, and would there be a place for YIMBY thought and advocacy in the environmental movement?

Working to create good things, not just stop bad ones

Well, yes, because the environmental movement was changing. My colleague Ralph Cavanagh was blazing a new trail, figuring out a way for electric utilities to make more money from managing demand for electricity than by building or expanding power plants. My colleague (and future MacArthur laureate) David Goldstein was devising a way for mortgage lenders to make money by investing in “location-efficient” neighborhoods that required less driving and thus freed up borrowers’ incomes to make homebuying more accessible.

NRDC’s energy program, perhaps more than any other group of advocates in the mainstream environmental movement, became champions of a new wave of solutions that recognized that all business wasn’t evil, that with the right programs we could become partners instead of adversaries. And with better results for the planet, frequently, than we were getting out of litigation and adversarial lobbying. When our energy team was looking in the mid-1990s for someone to address transportation efficiency, I could not have been more ready.

(I still had to dodge a couple of situations where some members of the old guard thought it would be a swell idea for me – since I was a litigator, after all – to spend my time fighting bad highway projects, but by then I had enough clout at NRDC to say no. It did not harm those challenges, which were well prosecuted by talented lawyers in other organizations.)

It took about five minutes for me to discover (with the help of APA, among others) that transportation efficiency was really about land use. And so were a lot of other environmental challenges, from conservation of the landscape to healthy waterways to clean air to wetlands preservation and more. But what was still missing was the ‘aha’ solution for land use: sprawl was certainly the villain, but what could be the land use equivalent of Ralph’s industry-friendly utilities reform?

Becoming a YIMBY at last

I didn’t really become a YIMBY until I read of uber-architect/planner/thinker Andres Duany’s pioneering work in creating a nonsprawling community in Seaside, Florida, and of equally uber-architect/planner/thinker Peter Calthorpe’s work in articulating (and naming) ‘transit-oriented development,’ walkable communities built around neighborhood conveniences and public transportation stops. These templates addressed land use and transportation at once, and made for convivial neighborhoods, too. That was something positive to advocate. It was good for developers, good for residents, and great for the environment, compared to sprawl. (In a lot of ways, they were actually working on emulating the historic neighborhoods of New Orleans and other older cities.)

As I was soon to learn, I wasn’t alone. There was a growing group of us, arriving at the same conclusions at the same time. Well, frankly, some were already ahead of us, including Duany and Calthorpe, and a whole bunch of enlightened people in Oregon. But now the enviros and advocacy organizations were getting on board – elements of the solutions were being developed not just within architectural and planning circles but also at places like the Environmental Defense Fund, Center for Neighborhood Technology, EPA, Sierra Club, American Farmland Trust, Conservation Fund, Surface Transportation Policy Project, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Enterprise Foundation and more.

Parris Glendening gave our movement a name, making ‘smart growth’ his signature issue as governor of Maryland. Eliot Allen of Criterion Planners began to use sophisticated technology and brainpower to measure the environmental impacts of neighborhoods, almost universally finding that those that were well located within their regions, designed to be walkable and transit-accessible, and efficient in their use of land produced superior results to sprawling subdivisions and commercial strips. The progressive architectural movement that Duany, Calthorpe and their peers called 'the new urbanism' eventually became even more powerful when coupled with environmentalists' smart growth theory that insisted that even the best-designed development would not produce net benefits unless it went into the right places, and stayed out of the wrong ones.

We found industry partners, too, in the Urban Land Institute and Congress for the New Urbanism, and professional organization partners such as APA. The smart growth movement, writ large, was born. We created organizations like Smart Growth America, the Smart Growth Network, and the Growth Management Leadership Alliance to support the cause and, eventually, LEED for Neighborhood Development to rate and certify it. Congressman Earl Blumenauer and Senators Jim Jeffords and Carl Levin became our early legislative champions.

How is being a YIMBY different?

Our movement became, and remains, much more about making friends and building alliances than slaying enemies. There are still folks within NRDC and other organizations who fight the bad stuff and don’t back down in fierce legislative battles, and you should be very glad of it. (We need them even to fight preservation battles in New Orleans, where important neighborhoods are at risk as I write.) And there are still some folks in the environmental movement who don’t quite know what to make of us YIMBYs, even though one of the better-kept secrets is that we’re winning: central cities are growing again after years of decline, driving rates are declining, sprawl developments are losing money, all this even before the recession, and nearly every community in America wants to jump on the smart growth bandwagon, one way or another. Zoning ordinances are being reformed left, right, and center to support walkable and transit-accessible neighborhoods. California now has a smart growth planning law to reduce carbon emissions, and so many jurisdictions are adopting complete-streets laws to make sure that walkers, cyclists, and transit users are accommodated fairly alongside cars that I can’t keep up. There is no question that market forces are trending our way.

Collaborating for solutions works. And it’s not just we smart growth advocates, of course. NRDC’s energy program is still leading the way in its realm. Our water program is working on solutions, too. Our urban program is working on green jobs. We even have a Center for Market Innovation, whose sole purpose is to work with industry on win-win approaches to environmental challenges. Our sister organizations in the environmental community also have solution-oriented agendas. The environmental movement has grown up.

Back to New Orleans

When I spoke to the planning audience at the New Orleans meeting, I opened by saying, “You are my heroes. You already know what to do to make better, more sustainable communities. I see my job as building public and political support to enable you to do it.” It’s not completely that simple, of course: we still have much to learn together and from each other. We have a lot more implementation to accomplish and great neighborhoods and communities to build. But I knew I was among friends, by and large.

I then demonstrated my YIMBY credentials by arguing for more, not less, development in some places. It can be counter-intuitive to some, but we actually reduce per capita environmental impacts by concentrating them. We use less land, emit less carbon, reduce the spread of pavement that way. But I also argued that we must be thoughtful about it. We must make the places where we build better and greener. We should only be YIMBYs when the development earns it.

The day after the talk, I spent several hours walking around the Vieux Carré, the French Quarter. It is the essence of a lively, walkable neighborhood with tons of character. Yes, it can be very touristy, what with conventioneers like myself ambling around; but there are always plenty of locals about, too. It can be boisterous and loud in places at night, but it has quiet, restful spots, too. You can even find a parking spot if you need one, which you won’t, unless you’re coming from or going to a place less convenient. And you can also sample some of the world’s best music and food, which you should, because post-Katrina New Orleans is still recovering and needs your business to strengthen its municipal coffers. The Quarter has proved itself quite literally sustainable, having survived three centuries more or less intact.

You’re actually limiting your environmental footprint while you’re having a good time here, because you’re using your feet, not your car. And, if you want a change of scenery, you can hop aboard one of the country’s oldest streetcar lines, part of which rides on a green rail bed. You have to try really hard to have a bad time in old New Orleans.

You see, it’s easy being green when you’re in a great, walkable neighborhood. We need more of them. And we need more YIMBYs to help make them happen.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

The nations of North America, revisited and considered

2010-04-05T13:38:24Z

Writing on his blog PeteSearch, Pete Warden has performed a very interesting geographic agglomeration of Facebook relationships and affiliations, in the US and across the world. In a post titled “How to split up the US,” Warden found the strongest commonality within each of the regions shown in the following map:

Warden explains:

“As I've been digging deeper into the data I've gathered on 210 million public Facebook profiles, I've been fascinated by some of the patterns that have emerged. My latest visualization shows the information by location, with connections drawn between places that share friends. For example, a lot of people in LA have friends in San Francisco, so there's a line between them.

“Looking at the network of US cities, it's been remarkable to see how groups of them form clusters, with strong connections locally but few contacts outside the cluster. For example Columbus, OH and Charleston WV are nearby as the crow flies, but share few connections, with Columbus clearly part of the North, and Charleston tied to the South.”

“Some of these clusters are intuitive, like the old south, but there's some surprises too, like Missouri, Louisiana and Arkansas having closer ties to Texas than Georgia. To make sense of the patterns I'm seeing, I've marked and labeled the clusters, and added some notes about the properties they have in common.”

He also describes the types of associations that characterize each region and, if you go to a linked page, you can see how the links tend to connect various cities, states, and countries, along with what the Facebook patterns reveal about “who lives [in each], what they like and how they're connected.”

This made me recall my first encounter with the work of writer Joel Garreau, who in the 1990s popularized the phrase “edge city” to describe the booming but formless suburban commercial districts that were establishing themselves in nearly all US metro regions. But first, back in 1981, Garreau wrote The Nine Nations of North America. I read an excerpt in The Washington Post and was fascinated:

That was a long time ago, but he was on to something that people who think about ecology, land use, and social and economic issues are frequently forced to confront: the issues that we must address bear little relation to the political boundaries of states and municipalities (and, for that matter, countries). This poses immense challenges to the crafting of realistically implementable policy solutions.

And, besides, it’s just plain interesting when applied to cultural characteristics such as food, music, and religion. While mobility, digital communications, fungible shoddy architecture and chain stores are doing their best to eradicate what is left of regional distinctions in America (e.g., almost no one who works in NRDC’s Washington office is actually from the Washington metro area, and we all eat international ethnic food), there still remain some meaningful distinctions, not least those provided by nature, such as climate, vegetation, and landscape.

A post on the fascinating blog Strange Maps says that “Garreau’s subdivision of the North American continent is the best-known example of what one might call bioregionalism or ‘ecoregionalism’. This term, first emerging in the 1970s, puts great value on the ‘politics of place’. Which means that the basis for policy and analysis are geographical areas, defined by their natural or cultural – but in any case ‘organic’ – boundaries (such as watersheds or prevalent type of industry).” It is interesting to compare Garreau’s divisions with Warden’s, which came 29 years later.

More relevant to the issues we usually discuss in this blog, perhaps, are the “megaregions” identified by the America 2050 project (see also my post on the subject from a while back) spearheaded by the Regional Plan Association. Their map, just above, is built not so much on commonality within vast geographic regions such as Garreau’s “Breadbasket” or Warden’s “Stayathomia” as on relationships among closely linked metropolitan areas such as the Dallas-Houston-San Antonio “Texas Triangle.” But the map also shows “areas of influence” beyond the specific metro borders and begins to suggest larger regions, which you can see. The Great Lakes Region on America 2050’s map, for example, lies entirely within Warden’s Stayathomia and comprises Garreau’s The Foundry as well as part of his Breadbasket.

Interesting stuff. And it has practical application, too, such as the high-speed regional rail networks suggested by America 2050. They closely follow the megaregions:

America 2050 explains:

“As metropolitan regions continued to expand throughout the second half of the 20th century their boundaries began to blur, creating a new scale of geography now known as the megaregion. Interlocking economic systems, shared natural resources and ecosystems, and common transportation systems link these population centers together. As continued population growth and low density settlement patterns place increasing pressure on these systems, there is greater impetus to coordinate policy at this expanded scale.”

Three different sources, all getting at the same thing: transcending political boundaries that bear little relationship to real-world problems, in order to better understand the actual boundaries that describe economic, cultural, and environmental commonality and distinction.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

New data on the missed opportunity of the stimulus

2009-12-01T13:44:18Z

By now, we all know that the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, usually referred to as "the stimulus bill," wasn't particularly green. The emphasis on "shovel-ready" projects inherently favored highway projects and other dubious undertakings. My own pet peeve about the bill is that it did absolutely nothing for transit operating and maintenance expenses, which could have added and saved jobs while helping businesses near transit stops. That omission could not have come at a worse time for public transportation, which had been experiencing significant growth in ridership simultaneously with losses of revenue as municipalities' tax receipts declined with falling property values.

Now, thanks to Shari Shapiro's Green Building Law blog, we have analysis of the first 10 months of spending, and it confirms that the stimulus to date has been far more brown than green:

"The overall spending-i.e. money that has been paid out for green projects-in the first 10 months of 2009 amounts to over $1.5 billion. This is not nothing, and a vast improvement from the summer. On the other hand, $83.8 billion has been paid out in tax benefits as of 11/06/09, and allocation on highway infrastructure by the Department of Transportation alone was $20.2 billion of which $3.7 billion has been paid out."

Shari goes point-by-point through the categories of spending that have been green, including renewables and energy efficiency, transit, green buildings, and EPA, and I recommend her post to everyone interested in the topic.

Another provocative blog post on the stimulus concept comes from Charles Marohn, writing on the Strong Towns Blog. His position is that "we already have more infrastructure than we can afford to maintain and this imbalance, combined with the massively inefficient development pattern it has induced, is the real drag on the economy. Building even more infrastructure on this same model is simply digging the hole deeper."

He further argues that spending on infrastructure maintenance and improvement should be subject to analysis of its effect on community value, including property values, and that the winner under this kind of scrutiny will be retrofits of existing communities "to be mixed-use with complex, urban streets."

The environment, and existing communities, got shortchanged in ARRA. Let's make sure it doesn't happen again.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

Cong. Blumenauer launches Livable Communities Task Force

2009-10-21T13:29:51Z

Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore) has long been the U.S. Congress's leading champion of smart growth. On Monday, he announced the launching (if I recall correctly, actually a re-launching) of a Livable Communities Task Force within the Democratic Caucus of the House of Representatives in order to work more effectively together on these issues.

According to Blumenauer's web site, the Task Force will identify ways in which the federal government can be a stronger partner to local communities to improve Americans' quality of life. This includes reducing the nation's dependence on oil, protecting the environment, improving public health and investing in housing and transportation projects that create jobs and give people more commuting choices. Blumenauer will serve as Chair.

"When I first came to Congress thirteen years ago, people looked at me curiously whenever I used the term livability," said Congressman Blumenauer in a press release. His statement continues:

"Today, not only are policymakers talking about how to make our communities more livable, but we have an administration that has established a Partnership for Sustainable Communities. As Chairman of the Livable Communities Task Force, I am eager to work with the administration on this initiative and ensure that the federal government is a better partner to local communities. By making smart investments in transportation and housing, for example, we can give people more choices, reduce America's dependence on oil, and grow the economy. With a diverse group of members from around the country, this new Democratic Task Force will play a vital role in coordinating with the administration to improve the quality of life for millions of Americans in communities big and small, urban and rural."

As part of its mission, the Task Force intends to hold public briefings and roundtable discussions with experts and stakeholders, including members of the administration, nonprofit organizations, experts, and members of the business community. The group will also issue a bi-monthly newsletter highlighting Hill and non-Hill events in Washington and important legislative developments.

A list of members of the Livable Communities Task Force is on its website. No doubt reauthorization of federal transportation law will be high on its list of priorities. In addition, Blumenauer has introduced a bill that would establish a fund to provide assistance to state and local transportation planning efforts to reduce carbon emissions from transportation. The concept was partially included in legislation that passed the House in June, but has not been taken up by the Senate.

Another Task Force member, Rep. Doris Matsui (D-CA), has introduced a bill that would mandate that the EPA administrator designate at least three centers for regional smart growth planning and would establish a grant program to improve smart growth data collection and model development; implement comprehensive regional smart growth planning programs; apply planning outcomes to regional transportation plans; and work with units of local governments to coordinate land use, transportation and air quality planning.

This is great news and great leadership from Blumenauer, as usual. My only misgivings are that this should be a nonpartisan issue rather than one owned by Democrats, and it should have strong leadership in the Senate as well as in the House. Both concerns are eminently fixable.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

How to fix local transit and road planning

2009-08-03T13:30:13Z

Our nation's metro regions need stronger tools to address transportation and land use issues. I haven't turned to the issue of metropolitan regionalism in a while (last time was in April), but a new column by Bill Hudnut on Citiwire inspires me to do so again today. Bill's bio lists him, accurately, as a man of many facets: "Former four-term (GOP) mayor of Indianapolis and congressman, author, public speaker, TV commentator, think tank fellow, elected official, and clergyman."

I've had the good fortune of working with Bill occasionally and highly value his experience and judgment. He's right on the money this time as he argues for reform of metro-level transportation planning.

As I have written before, I believe most of the issues of growth, mobility, equity and the environment that we address here are fundamentally regional in character. But our political mechanisms place most of the authority for dealing with them at the smallest levels of local government. This causes all sorts of chaos, since city and suburban municipalities by their nature do not consider matters beyond their limited, frequently artificial borders and too often drain people, jobs and resources from each other while competing for revenues - to cite just one type of dysfunction. This breeds sprawl, which breeds increased traffic and inconcenience, and so on.

While mayor, Bill actually did something about this issue, advancing a form of merged government between the city of Indianapolis and surrounding Marion County. And he believes that we have an existing structure on which to build regional solutions in the metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) mandated by federal transportation law.

I have had the same thought and said so, but it's reassuring to read it from Bill. Now, MPOs in the real world are fraught with problems of inequitable representation and political weakness. In most places, they don't work very well. But the idea of vesting multi-jurisdictional MPOs, each covering a metropolitan area, with defined political responsibilities is a good one.

Bill writes that "MPOs are ideally suited to the regional realities of today's metropolitan areas and to the task of shaping future growth in multi-jurisdictional communities." But, with some exceptions that Bill cites, there's a hitch:

"They largely lack power to implement the transportation improvement plans (TIPs) they recommend. That's why we can think of them as 'sleeping giants.' They can propose, but not dispose. They can veto federally funded projects allocated under state plans, but not rewrite them. So they have few if any teeth."

With a rewrite of federal transportation law just around the corner, we have an opportunity to do some constructive dental work. Here are Bill's six ideas for strengthening MPOs and giving them a mission better-suited for 21st century problems:

"Elect the membership. Elected officials and agency staff could be excepted; they would serve ex-officio. But let all eligible voters have the opportunity to vote on citizen members in any number chosen as long as it exceeds the number of ex-officio members.

"Give MPOs actual authority to zone land, allocate funds, issue bonds, levy taxes, and enforce federal and state regulations regarding clean air and water.

"Require MPOs to focus on GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions as a planning issue, since lower densities generate a larger carbon footprint than higher ones. And not only that: federal law should require that the [transportation plans] comply with results-based goals for climate stability (my emphasis), furthering national energy independence and clean energy goals.

"Require neighboring regions to link their planning through a uniform approach to presenting information and benchmarking results. And require, indeed, that there only be a single MPO for a single metro region-Many are now all split up, with predictably minimal coordination.

"Develop multimodal regional access plans, establish local transportation governance standards and best practices, and fund approved multimodal access plans (as recommended by the White House).

"Mandate a "fix it first" strategy for MPOs, which is to say, rebuild the old before building the new.

That would be a heck of a start. Read the full column here.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

Oberstar delivers a history lesson and imagination on transportation reform

2009-07-31T13:48:24Z

There's a fascinating (if brief) interview with Rep. Jim Oberstar (D-MN), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, on the PBS "Blueprint America" website. Oberstar and his committee will play a major role in the upcoming overhaul of federal transportation law, likely to be the most important piece of environmental legislation in the next session of Congress.

In the interview, the Congressman (and, last I knew, bike commuter) expounds on the history of road and transit legislation in America, and what kind of reform we need to catch up with the 21st century. Here are some excerpts:

"BLUEPRINT AMERICA: What needs to happen with the national transportation system?

"REP. JIM OBERSTAR: The end of the interstate era and the beginning of a new period of transit - to give people in America something more than where the road goes, but where the people (want) to go.

"We need to transform the entire Department of Transportation to make it work . . .

"Funding is skewed away from transit and into highways because transit grew up in a different environment. It was a spin-off of railroads. It was during the 1960s, just before the creation of Amtrak. The railroads wanted to get rid of their passenger service. And they wanted to pass it off as a transit program. And secondly, transit was considered something to help the elderly and the disabled and the poor - it was a social program instead of a transportation program.

"For example, Los Angeles had one of the most extensive streetcar systems in the country. But, they tore up the tracks, put in highways, roadways, streets and paved to accommodate the car. We have suburbs because we have the car. We have exurbs because of the car. Now, we have to transform our thinking in America . . .

"We have to now transform our thinking - to link land use and development to transportation. And not require transportation to go where the land use went.

"In an urban setting, a mile of freeway may cost in the range of $46 to $50 million. The same mile of urban light rail will cost $26 million and move twice as many people - or three times as many people. And that is what we need to impress . . ."

Good stuff, and so is the rest of it, which you can access here. There is ample evidence that the American people want this, as evidenced by my colleague Justin Horner's report yesterday of a new poll showing that 77 percent of Californians want expanded transit and more efficiency measures in current roads, while only 18 percent want more roads and freeways. Meanwhile, Oberstar also says that the Moving Cooler report, coordinated by my colleague Deron Lovaas and endorsed by a range of environmental, industry, and government groups, should be a "blowtorch to the behinds" of those seeking to delay transportation reform.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

Awesome choice - Shelley Poticha to take sustainability post at HUD

2009-07-24T20:13:40Z

Wow. Only a week after I wrote a post celebrating how well the Obama administration seems to be getting its act together on smart growth and sustainability, they have done it again. My friend Shelley Poticha has accepted a senior position at HUD, where she will be a sustainability advisor and, likely soon, director of the agency's Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities. (I write "likely" because there is legislation in the works to create the office.)

Shelley and I co-founded LEED-ND together, were among the founders of Smart Growth America together, and even wrote a book together. And I am excited to see that this association has not hurt her career in the least! Shelley is wise, pragmatic, insightful, committed, and articulate, and the administration has really, really done well to get her.

From HUD's press release:

SHELLEY POTICHA APPOINTED AS HUD SENIOR ADVISOR FOR SUSTAINABLE HOUSING AND COMMUNITIES

"WASHINGTON - The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development today announced that Shelley Poticha has been appointed Senior Advisor for Sustainable Housing and Communities.

"'Shelley will help lead HUD's effort to change the way we think about our communities,' said HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan. 'Her wealth of experience will help move us forward in creating sustainable, greener and smarter communities.'

"HUD is working with Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) on legislation that seeks to create the Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities at HUD. Poticha will direct the office if the bill becomes law.

"Poticha currently serves as the President and CEO of Reconnecting America, where she has become a national leader for the reform of land use and transportation planning and policy with the goal of creating more sustainable and equitable development. Her efforts have stimulated a national conversation about the role of transit in shaping communities and the importance of building diverse and inclusive neighborhoods . . ."

Go here for the full release. For Reconnecting America's announcement and release, go here.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

The Obama administration’s remarkable week on sustainable cities, smart growth and revitalization

2009-07-16T13:35:50Z

Wow. On Monday, before heading out to toss the first pitch at Tuesday's baseball All-Star Game, the president kicked off a White House forum on urban policy by criticizing past federal measures that have encouraged sprawl and promising a new look at ways, including support for public transit, to help metropolitan (in other words, not just traditionally "urban") areas become more sustainable.

From a story by Robin Shulman in The Washington Post, here are some highlights:

"Addressing a White House urban affairs summit on Monday, President Obama called for the 'reinvention' of America's cities and metropolitan areas and vowed to spark a public conversation to create a 'new, imaginative, bold vision' for urban policy . . .

"Obama noted that he has lived almost all his life in cities, including studying in Los Angeles, New York and Cambridge, Mass., and founding his political career in Chicago.

But he said that he defined 'urban' as not just inner cities, but also their surrounding suburbs, asserting that there is no longer a divide between the two . . .

"He said he would send members of his Cabinet and the Office of Urban Affairs to look at innovations in cities around the country to elevate as best practices.

"Obama noted Denver, for its plans to build a public transit system to handle the city's anticipated growth; Philadelphia, for its urban agriculture; and Kansas City, which has weatherized homes and built a ecologically minded transit system in one low-income neighborhood . . .

"'For too long, federal policy has actually encouraged sprawl and congestion and pollution, rather than quality public transportation and smart, sustainable development,' said Obama.

"He said that developing housing, transportation and energy-efficiency should 'go hand in hand.'"

The president more than once invoked the new HUD/DOT/EPA partnership on sustainability (that I reported here and here), as well as several White House offices, including the new Office of Urban Affairs. These themes were a big part of his presidential campaign as well.

Then, Tuesday morning, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood put a little policy meat on the rhetorical bones in testimony before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. His message was all about reducing transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions not just through more efficient vehicles but also through walkable, mixed-income communities near public transit. The Secretary summarized his remarks in his blog on Tuesday:

"We must implement policies and programs that reduce vehicle miles driven.
"This means providing communities with additional transportation choices, such as light rail, fuel-efficient buses, and paths for pedestrians and bicycles that intersect with transit centers. These options will also reduce household transportation costs, strengthen local economies, lower traffic congestion, and reduce reliance on foreign oil.
"Our strategy also calls for investing transportation dollars in coordination with housing and economic development. By doing so, we can promote strong communities with mixed-income housing located close to transit in walkable neighborhoods."

By Tuesday afternoon, it was the turn of housing secretary Shaun Donovan, who spoke along with former HUD secretary Henry Cisneros at an event hosted by the Brookings Institution. Brookings was honoring the innovative federal HOPE VI program to replace dilapidated public housing with mixed-income, human-scaled neighborhoods, and a new book by Cisneros about the program. (Seattle's High Point neighborhood, featured in our green infrastructure slideshow earlier this week, is a HOPE VI development and was mentioned in Donovan's remarks.) I was supposed to attend but, regrettably, got caught up in an important meeting at NRDC and had to miss it.

Donovan wants to expand on HOPE VI through a new program the Administration calls Choice Neighborhoods. The initiative is being designed to do what HOPE VI has done in sponsoring affordable housing in the context of real neighborhoods, but also to go further to make the local initiatives even more community-oriented with supplemental assistance for jobs and education to help break the cycle of poverty. Again, here are some excerpts, this time from Secretary Donovan's remarks:

"Our FY 2010 budget request for Choice Neighborhoods would be $250 million - more than double the funding we have for HOPE VI this year.

"But a HOPE VI development that is surrounded by disinvestment, by failing schools or by other distressed housing has virtually no chance of truly succeeding.

"That's what Choice Neighborhoods is all about. It would expand on the legacy of HOPE VI by expanding the range of activities eligible for funding and capitalize on the full range of stakeholders we know are needed and want to be involved - from local governments and non-profits to private firms and public housing agencies.

"And like the successful Jobs Plus Demonstration, residents in public and assisted housing would be eligible to receive work incentives and work supports.

"Choice Neighborhoods would also link housing interventions more closely with intensive school reform and early childhood innovations. Critically, the Department of Education is standing shoulder-to-shoulder with us in this effort with its new Promise Neighborhoods initiative . . .

"Combined with HUD's Sustainable Communities Initiative to bring transportation and housing planning together at the local level to reduce costs and increase opportunities for working families, we believe Choice Neighborhoods has the potential to revitalize and transform communities across the country."

I have to quote just one more passage, from the concluding portion of Donovan's remarks, that is near and dear to my heart:

"Whether we live in a city or in the Great American Heartland, every American has a stake in urban revitalization and neighborhood transformation.

"Today, America's cities and surrounding communities are increasingly becoming the engine of our nation's economic growth. Ninety cents of every dollar in our economy is generated by our metropolitan areas. These same communities house more than two-thirds of our population . . .

"And if sixteen years of HOPE VI has taught us anything, it's that building communities in a more integrated and inclusive way isn't separate from advancing social and economic justice and the promise of America - it's absolutely essential to it.

It's inseparable from the idea that, in America, our hopes and our dreams should never be limited by where we live-an idea that, as we speak, Judge Sotomayor - a product of America's public housing - is on Capitol Hill proving to the world."

I won't pretend to be the equal of Justice-to-be Sotomayor on anything, but having lived in public housing is something she and I have in common (if only briefly in my case). That's just one of many reasons I'm rooting hard for these new initiatives to succeed. Mostly, I just find it utterly remarkable that the federal government finally gets it about the "triple bottom line" (equity, environment, economy) of sustainable development, and they get it about cities and metro areas, too. A lot needs to be done, but that's a great start for the issues that readers of blogs like this care about.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

Tax greenfield development, subsidize infill

2009-06-30T13:30:45Z

Tyler Caine has a terrific post on his sustainability blog Intercon extolling climate change policy to get on the smart growth bandwagon. He says it extremely well, so I am just going to quote a few bits and send you to his site if you want more:

"A number of government sponsored initiatives are targeting sustainable technologies that want to provide an easy fix to climate change (renewable energy, fuel cells, energy efficient home upgrades). But when it comes to sustainable progress, if we are going to delve into the policy game then we should be including measures that actually change the way we are doing things, not merely advance the technology that allows us to do things the same. As a result, I would suggest taxing the development of greenfield sites and, conversely, offering incentives to redeveloping existing buildings or property near town and city centers . . .

"Undoubtedly, building on the edges is building cheaper. The land often goes for a song. Labor is less expensive. Access to sites is easier and building codes are less stringent. But the cheaper choice for builders can be more expensive for municipalities (and we know where their budgets comes from.) Sprawling development is notoriously inefficient; each an oasis of occupancy connected by thin veins of pavement that make car travel a considerable portion of daily life . . . Greenfield development can mean funding for new power lines, new sewers and new roads for a relatively small group of new citizens. It expands the coverage areas for maintenance crews, emergency vehicles and mail delivery that can drastically offset the incremental rise in tax revenue . . . Taxing this kind of sprawling development may help curb its growth in the country.

"Most importantly of all, there is no need for greenfield building. We have loads of existing space in close proximity to transportation and infrastructure . . .

"On the other side of the tax lie subsidies to shift new construction and home ownership to areas with an existing populace. New homes and offices can benefit from utilities and services that residents have already paid. In addition to possibly being cheaper than new construction, reusing existing structures drastically reduces waste from demolition and construction and negates the need for the production of new virgin materials. All of it points to lower carbon footprints and lighter lifecycle costs . . . Remember, the goal is not for less development, merely shifting it for a smarter solution. Reinforcing our town and urban centers would support a critical mass of residents that breeds efficiency where fewer services could reach more instead of wasting more taxpayer dollars on diluted redundancy . . ."

I love it. Go here for the full post, which I originally found via the Sustainable Cities Collective.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

Transportation Secretary LaHood leads the way on sustainability

2009-06-18T13:30:11Z

This is not your father's DOT. A couple of days ago I wrote a post on the remarkable (and now three-agency) partnership on sustainable communities within the Obama administration. Secretaries Ray LaHood (DOT) and Shaun Donovan (HUD) and Administrator Lisa Jackson (EPA) are placing the sustainability agenda front and center, committing the federal government to join forces with states and localities in making the places where we live, work, shop and play more livable, affordable, connected and environmentally friendly. All three deserve our praise; so do their staffs who have been working on this; and so, for that matter, does their boss in the White House.

Today I want to give a particular shout out to Department of Transportation Secretary LaHood, a few months ago just a little-known Republican (!) Congressman from downstate Illinois. I have to confess that I didn't know what to think one way or another when the Obama team announced his appointment. But, from today's vantage point, wow.

The first major signal came in March, when LaHood and Donovan announced the interagency partnership. I wrote about the announcement then - emphasizing the agencies' intention to "have every major metropolitan area in the country conduct integrated housing, transportation, and land use planning and investment." You'd be surprised how few regions do this now. In defiance of logic, land use and transportation are considered independently, and the results of that are all too apparent on our chaotic landscape and soaring carbon emissions from driving. This in itself was big.

A few days later, LaHood elaborated on the concepts in his own blog:

"We'll look for ways our two departments can further coordinate location efficiency [a phrase that I believe was coined by my NRDC colleague David Goldstein] in housing and transportation choices for states, counties, and municipalities.

"On a less concrete level, the task force will evaluate and recommend measures that indicate livability. After all, if we don't know livability when we see it, how can we know if we've helped communities achieve it?

"I have a few ideas. For example, I think everyone, urban and rural alike, needs safe and affordable access. Access to work, to medical services, to schools, to shopping, to recreation, and to other essential activities.

"We're moving into new territory, and it must be mapped out. We need better tools to track housing and transportation options and expenditures. We need standardized and efficient performance measures. We need to learn from what works.

"In the coming months, we'll work closely with Congress and our stakeholders on a new authorization package for surface transportation--the sidewalks, roads, rails, and transit that move you where you want to go, that move your goods where you need them. With your support, we can make livability a centerpiece of this legislation."

(There is currently some skirmishing going on regarding the timing of the reform legislation, with some reported disagreement between the administration and Congress on the issue. I'll have more to say about that at the bottom of the post, but it in no way detracts from the terrific leadership the Secretary is showing on the substance of sustainability.)

The mention of sidewalks in LaHood's writing is significant. Walking is the most environmentally efficient means of transportation of all, yet it has traditionally been completely ignored in transportation planning and investment. Despite some good procedural reforms over the years (particularly in the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991), and the implementation of some innovative transportation programs that have been relatively small compared to the agency's overall budget, DOT's core mission for several decades now has remained giving money to states for highways, with very few strings attached. To have the head guy talking about a new direction, emphasizing location efficiency, access, performance measures, and livability is huge - and badly needed.

The announcement earlier this week bringing EPA into the partnership only strengthens the new direction. On Tuesday, I wrote about the core principles announced for the partnership. But the agencies' full statement, which was not yet available when I wrote that entry, also discusses the methods by which their partnership will pursue those goals, and they are all about smart growth. Here are some excerpts:

Enhance integrated planning and investment. The partnership will seek to integrate housing, transportation, water infrastructure, and land use planning and investment. HUD, EPA and DOT propose to make planning grants available to metropolitan areas, and create mechanisms to ensure those plans are carried through to localities.
Provide a vision for sustainable growth. This effort will help communities set a vision for sustainable growth and apply federal transportation, water infrastructure, housing and other investments in an integrated approach that reduces the nation's dependence on foreign oil, reduces greenhouse gas emissions, protects America's air and water and improves quality of life . . .
Redefine housing affordability and make it transparent. The partnership will develop federal housing affordability measures that include housing and transportation costs and other expenses that are affected by location choices. Although transportation costs now approach or exceed housing costs for many working families, federal definitions of housing affordability do not recognize the strain of soaring transportation costs on homeowners and renters who live in areas isolated from work opportunities and transportation choices. The partnership will redefine affordability to reflect those costs . . .
Redevelop underutilized sites. The partnership will work to achieve critical environmental justice goals and other environmental goals by targeting development to locations that already have infrastructure and offer transportation choices . . .
Develop livability measures and tools . . . HUD, DOT and EPA will help communities attain livability goals by developing and providing analytical tools to evaluate progress as well as state and local technical assistance programs to remove barriers to coordinated housing, transportation and environmental protection investments. The partnership will develop incentives to encourage communities to implement, use and publicize the measures.
Align HUD, DOT and EPA programs. HUD, DOT and EPA will work to assure that their programs maximize the benefits of their combined investments in our communities for livability, affordability, environmental excellence, and the promotion of green jobs of the future.
Undertake joint research, data collection and outreach.

(Emphasis in original.) This is exactly what we need, and we should all look forward to helping them succeed. But Secretary LaHood has been busy on some separate (if very consistent) initiatives as well.

Take high-speed rail, for example, one of the President's favorite transportation projects. Earlier this month LaHood and Vice President Biden met with eight state governors, along with transportation officials from 15 additional states, in a roundtable to discuss the administration's plans "to jump-start a potential world-class passenger rail system and set the direction of transportation policy for the future." The Secretary has been out front on the issue, writing on his blog:

"It's the right thing to do for our mobility - and for the environment. A single railroad track can carry as many people as a 10-lane highway. That could help to relieve congestion. And rail systems powered by clean diesel or electric power are energy-efficient. They're capable of removing billions of pounds of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year.

"Years from now, Americans will look back on this time as a game-changer. A time when we got serious about putting public transportation to work on behalf of all Americans. A time when we recognized that passenger rail can play a key role in making our communities more livable and sustainable."

LaHood's DOT is also seeking Congressional approval to invest $604.3 million in 10 new or expanding city and metro transit projects across the country, and he has approved federal ARRA relief funds to help 11 others already under way. He has elaborated on these initiatives on his blog and in an address to the American Public Transportation Association. And LaHood has even spoken up on behalf of bicycling as "an important factor in less carbon-intensive commuting."

To top it all off, he has made great appointments to posts in DOT. My friend Roy Kienitz, whose career has included outstanding service on transportation and related issues to the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan and governors Glendening (Maryland) and Rendell (Pennsylvania), as well as leading the nonprofit Surface Transportation Policy Project, is now DOT Undersecretary for Policy. There is no one whose judgment I trust more on transportation policy matters.

Roy's appointment was followed up by the announcement that Polly Trottenberg, another Moynihan veteran (the late senator was primarily responsible for the landmark ISTEA legislation in 1991 and was a giant intellect on infrastructure issues), would be joining the team as assistant secretary for transportation policy. Polly also served as legislative director for Senators Barbara Boxer and Charles Schumer, and more recently has been executive director of Building America's Future, a bipartisan coalition co-chaired by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Pennsylvania Gov. Edward Rendell, and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Other big-time appointments at DOT have included John Porcari of Maryland as Deputy Secretary, Victor Mendez as head of the Federal Highway Administration, Peter Rogoff as head of the Federal Transit Administration, and Joe Szabo to head the Federal Railroad Administration. It is not without significance that so many of these appointments have substantial legislative experience. As noted above, the massive federal transportation law is due for reauthorization in this Congress, whether it occurs this year or next, and I believe Obama and LaHood are assembling a team deep in Congressional experience specifically in order to bring about the change they have signaled in their rhetoric.

That's a lot for, what, five months so far? Mostly words, true. But that's where leadership begins. And it's the first time we've had it at DOT since I've been working on these issues.

As for the administration's desire to put off consideration of major transportation reform until next year, environmentalists should not necessarily view that as a bad thing. DOT's terrific appointments are new, and just settling in. The legislative calendar is already full with hugely important items such as health care and climate change. And the recession distorts the issues surrounding any major funding bill such as transportation in ways that could be counterproductive to the reforms we hope to see. Both of the last two major transportation reauthorizations also involved postponements, so this is far from unprecedented.

The only downside is that House Transportation and Infrastructure chairman Jim Oberstar (also a friend of reform) has been eager to get going, and as of this writing has been planning to introduce a 100-page outline of his proposals later this morning. So this creates a bit of tension between two pockets of leadership who are really on the same side. That's not good, but in the long run the law could be better for the delay.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

EPA joins exciting HUD/DOT partnership on sustainable communities

2009-06-16T15:18:07Z

The more the merrier, and one only wonders what took them so long. Back in March, the Obama administration announced an exciting new partnership between the federal transportation and housing & urban development departments to pursue together an agenda for smart growth and sustainability. As I wrote then, this was exciting news because HUD had basically avoided the issue for most of its history, and DOT had been a bit schizo, doing some great things but also continuing to fund sprawl-inducing highways without any clear mission for sustainability.

But Secretaries LaHood and Donovan really get it, and their press releases said all the right things about focusing on metro-area coordination of housing, transportation, and land use planning, even taking into account the true affordability of housing when transportation costs are factored in. This was big stuff, and HUD secretary Donovan backed it up with a great speech several weeks later to the Urban Land Institute. With a new task force being appointed to do the work, these were signs of true leadership.

At the time, I couldn't help but wonder where EPA was in all this. After all, both the Clinton and Bush administrations maintained a truly committed and innovative smart growth division in their policy office, now headed for the Obama administration by Maryland smart growth veteran John Frece. Although I have been wildly enthusiastic about the new leadership from HUD and DOT, both of whom direct major programs and dispense considerable amounts of funding that can have huge impacts on land use and sustainability, I have also become accustomed to having EPA be the federal lead on these issues.

But the good news is that EPA is about to join the party. Although, as I write at 10 am, there has not been a formal announcement on EPA's website, I have been told that administrator Lisa Jackson will be announcing today that her agency, too, is on board. [Edit 12.30 pm: here is the announcement on EPA's site.]

According to a document describing the partnership, the three agencies will work together to ensure that the nation's housing and transportation goals are met "while simultaneously protecting the environment, promoting equitable development, and helping to address the challenges of climate change." The now three-way partnership will identify and carry out strategies to do the following:

Provide more transportation choices. Develop safe, reliable and economical transportation choices in order to decrease household transportation costs, reduce our nations' dependence on foreign oil, improve air quality, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote public health.
Promote equitable, affordable housing. Expand location and energy efficient housing choices for people of all ages, incomes, races and ethnicities to increase mobility and lower the combined cost of housing and transportation.
Increase economic competitiveness. Enhance economic competitiveness through reliable and timely access to employment centers, educational opportunities, services and other basic needs by workers as well as expanded business access to markets.
Support existing communities. Target federal funding toward existing communities to increase community revitalization, the efficiency of public works investments and safeguard rural landscapes.
Leverage federal investment. Cooperatively align federal policies and funding to remove barriers, leverage funding and increase the accountability and effectiveness of all levels of government to plan for future growth.
Value communities and neighborhoods. Enhance the unique characteristics of all communities by investing in healthy, safe and walkable neighborhoods - rural, urban or suburban.

EPA's smart growth staff really has the best and the brightest, in my opinion, and I'm not just saying that because they are friends of mine. They are very, very good at what they do, and even with a relatively small budget have produced some of the best research in the field. HUD and DOT will be fortunate to have them as a partner, and so will the country.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

Can smart growth and urbanist design enhance military life?

2009-05-25T17:41:15Z

On a day when we remember America's military and their families, let's also acknowledge and honor the efforts that our Army, Navy, and other uniformed services are undertaking to enhance sustainability and livability. Not only can this raise the standard of living for our soldiers, sailors and their families, but it can also set an important example for civilian applications. There is also the impact of sheer numbers: the US military controls 30 million acres of American land.

Last year I wrote about how base housing at Fort Belvoir, south of Washington, DC, was being transformed into 15 walkable villages, along with a mixed-use town center. That project (photo below) won a Charter award from the Congress for the New Urbanism, along with commendations from the National Association of Home Builders and American Planning Association. Especially given that base realignment and consolidation is bringing tremendous growth to Fort Belvoir, the model is instructive.

Across the country, the Village at the Naval Training Center in San Diego (photos at top and below) won a national award for smart growth achievement from EPA in 2003 for creating a 50-acre redevelopment parcel with 500 affordable housing units, a seven-acre site for a future elementary school, a community center, recreational space, and walking-distance shopping in the Navy Exchange. From EPA's citation:

"With well-designed public spaces, pedestrian-friendly streetscapes, and regional architectural styles, the Village integrates smoothly with the existing residential and commercial context of the historic city. Implementation of smart growth principles can be seen throughout the Village. Not only is it located within three miles of downtown [San Diego] on an underutilized urban site, but it is connected seamlessly into the existing urban fabric, and provides access to alternative transportation options and a public school site."

A comprehensive sustainability effort at Fort Lewis in Washington state is also gaining some recognition. Writing in USA Today, Haya El Nasser reports that the installation is incorporating smart growth principles in part to reduce the amount of land needed for housing:

"Fort Lewis, a post south of Tacoma, Wash., is touted as a model of the new [smart growth] philosophy. The active-duty population was 18,000 five years ago. It's now 30,000 and is expected to top 32,000 by 2012, says Col. Cynthia Murphy, garrison commander . . .

"The military doesn't want to touch land used for training, which it views as vital. That means overhauling the base's old development plan. About 600 people met in workshops - 'from junior soldiers to the most senior leadership to families of deployed soldiers ... single soldiers, retirees,' Murphy says.

"A planning vision emerged: A main boulevard with sidewalks, side streets for slower traffic, 2- to 3-story buildings for denser development, retail stores on the street level, a distinct downtown. It identified 12 neighborhoods that would have their own mini-downtowns. All would be connected to the main town center."

El Nasser notes that the new trend, which is also being picked up in Camp Pendleton (CA) and Fort Bragg (NC) [note: not to mention Guam], represents a significant turnaround for bases that have long followed an automobile-dependent sprawl model of shopping, housing, and other community functions widely separated from each other.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

Putting the "UD" in HUD - sustainably

2009-05-05T13:28:07Z

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan just gave a great speech to the Urban Land Institute in Atlanta. Here are some excerpts:

"I would like to share my vision for the role HUD can play in creating the most sustainable communities and quality places across the country. HUD can and will be a vehicle to advance sustainable growth in our metropolitan areas. Together, with the partnership of all of you, I know that we can make our vision of sustainability a reality for our communities and this nation.

"Let's be honest--HUD has become the Department of Subsidized Housing, and that must change. We've got to put the "UD" (urban development) back in HUD. At the outset, the design, location, and quality of housing have a dramatic effect on the quality of place . . .

"As we look at the patterns of foreclosure across the country today, it is no coincidence that most of the neighborhoods with the highest foreclosure rates are some of the least sustainable places in this nation. (This includes) both the newer suburban areas that are disconnected from transit options, as well as the older urban centers, where residents are disconnected from educational and employment opportunities. It is clear that there is a larger lesson to be learned from the current mortgage crisis about sustainable communities. There is also a larger lesson to learn about how HUD must change, given the larger scale demographic and credit shifts that have occurred in our country since HUD's founding (in 1965) . . .

"As the boundaries of urban, suburban, and rural are blurred, the problems once seen as urban problems are now suburban and rural problems as well . . .

Our budget also includes the establishment of a sustainable communities initiative. This will catalyze a new generation of metropolitan and rural efforts to integrate transportation, housing, and land use planning. To ensure that this collaboration occurs at HUD and other agencies, we created new a new Office of Sustainable Housing in Communities. This office will coordinate the efforts we are undertaking with the Department of Transportation (DOT).

"The average American working family today spends close to sixty percent of its budget on housing and transportation costs. This is simply not sustainable, given the way that our metropolitan areas are expanding and developing. Together with DOT, we will lower these costs and expand families' choices for affordable housing and transportation by better coordinating our investments at the federal level. Specifically, HUD and DOT, in the federal fiscal 2010 budget, will encourage regions to develop integrated housing and transportation plans that help reduce traffic congestion and increase transportation mobility . . .

"In our budget, we also recognize the need to continue the effort started under the successful Hope VI program to alleviate a concentration of poverty in inner city neighborhoods, fostered by poor planning. This effort will help directly to achieve our goal of creating a geography of opportunity for all Americans . . ."

Read the entire speech, which is not long, on ULI's site. (Images with this post are of projects built under HOPE VI, whose budget was slashed under the previous administration.)

This is terrific stuff. I remember a decade ago, when Don Chen and I (with, I think, Matt Raimi) were making the rounds to talk to people about our work on sprawl and what we were beginning to call smart growth. As I've noted before, one of the most dispiriting meetings we had was at HUD, where we might as well have been reading a mathematical treatise, judging by the amount of interest in the room. And no, we weren't that boring.

At the end of the meeting one fellow pulled us aside and insisted that we (or maybe it was just me, as the NRDC guy) accompany him to his office, where he handed us a large cardboard box filled with papers he had written about sustainable development over the years, but that no one else had ever been interested in. He was about to retire, and wanted someone to have them. He had given up on finding such a person in his agency. I don't remember his name, but somehow I hope he hears about Donovan's speech. It is change he would believe in.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

It’s time to adjust to the new metropolitan reality (continued)

2009-03-26T13:26:04Z

One of the recurring themes of my writing (for example, here) has been that, to achieve sustainability in our cities, suburbs, and rural areas, we need to get beyond the accidents of history that comprise our local jurisdictions. Environmental, economic, and social patterns do not respect jurisdictional lines, and it is essential that our solutions not be confined to them, either.

"Chicagoland," for example, comprises parts of eight counties in northeastern Illinois. When I was researching a book in the 1990s, I ran across one researcher's account that put metropolitan Chicago's number of legal jurisdictions at 267 separate entities, with around 1200 quasi-jurisdictions of various kinds. (And that may not even include the portions of metro Chicago that are in Indiana; most representations of metro Chicago don't.) Those numbers may be even higher now.

In my own life, my wife and I live in Washington, DC; my bike is currently in the shop for repairs in the state of Maryland; my wife just called me from the commonwealth of Virginia, where she works. She passes through several municipalities every day just getting to work and back, frequently stopping along the way for errands. I'm sure readers are nodding their heads: none of this is in the least bit unusual.

But, for the most part, unfortunately, policy decisions are made at the most local of levels - one of those 267 legal entities - or at the state level. With few exceptions, metropolitan areas have little in the way of legal authority. Especially for transportation and environmental issues, this is dysfunctional. It is also problematic that, for the most part, state and federal government agencies have no official relationship with metropolitan areas, and state and federal authorities themselves are fragmented in silos. It's a mess.

Here are two views of metro Washington:

Fragmented jurisdictions are also a major cause of sprawl, by the way, especially as they compete with one another for new development to increase their tax revenues - sometimes actually diminishing those revenues as the jurisdictions offer tax breaks or other subsidies to out-compete their neighbors.

This is far from an easy problem to address. But I am encouraged that President Obama has issued an executive order creating an Office of Urban Policy with an agenda to focus on entire metropolitan regions, not just cities. It would be even better if he called it an Office of Metropolitan Policy, but I'm not going to quibble about semantics.

Writing for his syndicate Citiwire, Neal Peirce is both cautious and hopeful:

"Obama's selection of Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion to head the new office was a touch unsettling to some supporters of a more metro-oriented urban approach. They worry that Carrion's experience is entirely New York City-related, without background either in city-suburban ties or federal policy . . .

"[But] the long-term possibilities for the new office are intriguing. It can encourage the administration's macro-economists to take seriously the wealth-generating capacity of metros. Long-neglected Census tools can be ramped up to give metros a better compass on their status, mixing transportation, housing, energy and workforce issues. Federal policies that unintentionally hamper the work of metros can be singled out, targeted for change.

"[Obama adviser Robert] Weissbourd even advocates inviting civic and government leaders of individual metros to develop customized plans to connect their infrastructure, workforce, housing, transportation and business challenges, and then getting the new White House office to clear the way for positive cross-departmental federal response."

Peirce points out that just the 100 largest (of 363 total) metro regions in the US today account, together, for 92 percent of air passenger boardings, two-thirds of major research universities, 75 percent of workers with graduate degrees, and 78 percent of all patents. They are major economic units, but only when considered across local jurisdictional lines. (Metro Twin Cities, Minnesota, shown at right.)

The president campaigned on the issue, noting that "Washington remains trapped in an earlier era, wedded to an outdated 'urban' agenda that focuses exclusively on the problems in our cities, and ignores our growing metro areas." He is now attempting to fix that, and the challenges will be immense. (Watching his news conference the other night, I was mostly struck by the fact that I wouldn't want his job for all the tea in China.) But at least it's a start.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

US Housing and Transportation Secretaries announce groundbreaking partnership for sustainable communities

2009-03-19T13:00:45Z

This is awesome. Here is an excerpt from yesterday's joint press release:

"WASHINGTON - U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan and U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) Secretary Ray LaHood today announced a new partnership to help American families gain better access to affordable housing, more transportation options, and lower transportation costs. The average working American family spends nearly 60 percent of its budget on housing and transportation costs, making these two areas the largest expenses for American families. Donovan and LaHood want to seek ways to cut these costs by focusing their efforts on creating affordable, sustainable communities.

"The Secretaries discussed their plans for sustainable communities today at a U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation and Housing hearing titled, 'Livable Communities, Transit Oriented Development, and incorporating Green Building Practices into Federal Housing and Transportation.'

"'One of my highest priorities is to help promote more livable communities through sustainable surface transportation programs,'" said Secretary LaHood.

"'This partnership will help expand every American family's choices for affordable housing and transportation,'" said Secretary Donovan. 'HUD's central mission - ensuring that every American has access to decent, affordable housing - can be achieved only in context of the housing, transportation, and energy costs and choices that American families experience each day.'

"DOT and HUD have created a high-level interagency task force to better coordinate federal transportation and housing investments and identify strategies to give American families:

More choices for affordable housing near employment opportunities;

More transportation options, to lower transportation costs, shorten travel times, and improve the environment; and

Safe, livable, healthy communities."

But wait, it gets better. Here are some of the things the task force will be charged with:

Enhance integrated regional housing, transportation, and land use planning and investment. "The task force will set a goal to have every major metropolitan area in the country conduct integrated housing, transportation, and land use planning and investment in the next four years."
Develop federal housing affordability measures that include transportation costs and other costs that affect location choices.
Ensure that the costs of living in certain geographic areas are transparent- using an online tool that calculates the combined housing and transportation costs families face when choosing a new home.
Research, evaluate and recommend measures that indicate the livability of communities, neighborhoods and metropolitan areas.

Go here for HUD's announcement, here for DOT's, here for some additional remarks by Secretary LaHood on his blog, and here for the full text of Secretary Donovan's testimony.

This is huge. I remember going to HUD in the late 1990s with Don Chen (then with the Surface Transportation Policy Project, now with the Ford Foundation) to talk to agency officials about problems associated with sprawl, particularly those hurting the agency's core constituency, and how they could help in solving them with smarter investments. To say that there was zero interest on their part may actually overstate their interest. In fact, they actively sought to rebut our points to defend the status quo. How times have changed!

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.