[PEN-L:7410] Re: Rebuilding + Repopulating Cities in America (was Harvey...)

["Michael Hoover" <hoov@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> I have no idea what the resolution looks like, but at present rebuilding
> and repopulating urban areas and stopping (and better yet, reversing)
> suburban sprawls in the United States would, I think, be good for both
> cities and rural ecosystems.
> Yoshie

consequences of unrestricted suburban growth include among other things,
uncontrolled sprawl, loss of accountability for public decisions,
government proliferation...some are favored and some are not...the
multicentered metropolis is biased in favor of those who profit from
uncontrolled sprawl - land speculators, real estate developers, large
retail businesses...it is biased against a public good if minimizing
pollution, protecting open space, equalizing and expanding available
public services, and equalizing access to education, employment, &
housing (shopping too, for that matter) mean anything...and it works
against effective political input by poor, minorities, & working
people (hell, the middle strata too which is steeped in that not-very-
fashionable-in-intellectual-circles-these-days state of false
consciousness)...

letting owners manage their land as they've seen fit has resulted in,
among other things, racial segregation, shoddily constructed housing,
oil spills, untreated industrial wastes dumping & inadequate septic
tanks in housing developments...historically, land use has been either
unregulated or regulated by the lowest-level gov't...developer gets a
permit for project that must conform to any existing plans, ordinances,
codes, regulations, but suburban municipalities often lack
comprehensive process, employ few people to examine permit requests,
and are seeking growth to expand tax base...so development permits are
granted quickly, without critical srutiny, and with no consideration of
the impact on neighboring communities or whole region...

some environmentalists, urban planners, and social critics have found
'common ground' and they've influenced certain locales with their
persistent lamenting of the absence of any authority at the metro
level responsible for regulating land use...reponse has been 'rational'
planning via 1) limited-growth zoning that perpetuates suburbanite
parochialism & exclusion of minorities and poor; 2) statewide land
management that continues to approve most development permit applications
and would not be acceptable in states with history of local land-use
control; 3) dual permitting that requires developer to get local and a
regional approval but which has only been used to protect environmentally
endangered areas; and, 4) metro-wide policymaking with obligatory
municipal implementation that requires state legislative action to
create metro-wide planning council with authority over land-use policy...

efficacy of 'managerial' approaches is certainly questionable...
Michael Hoover