Suburbs, Parks and Trains: The Tough Decisions
by Tony Chavira
I want to write this blog post about a few complicated decisions that policy-makers are going to have to make over the course of the next year, both locally and nationally. Of course, you can't please all of the people all of the time and because of that certain decisions will seem entirely unfair or ridiculous to those who are missing out.
But sometimes that's just how things have to go down.
First, Former Los Angeles County Transportation Commissioner Wendell Cox's article on New Geography makes some strong assertions about the idea that the development of sprawl has destroyed the affordability of our communities. But let's cut right to the meat of the article:
A Matter of Will: The fast growing metropolitan areas demonstrate that suburban infrastructure can still be provided without a material financial burden to the community. Indeed, given the house price escalating effects of compact development, the cost of living will be lower where suburban expansion is allowed. It is not a matter of suburban infrastructure being too expensive but the resistance of planners and urban land autocrats to crafting policies that actually reflect the desires of the vast majority of people in most advanced countries.
As much as I hate sprawl, the problem is that he's absolutely right... our suburban communities are much better suited in a lot of ways to promote affordability, and it's only natural that sprawl-like suburban communities (particularly in the mid-west) have a much much lower cost of living than a loft on Manhattan or a townhouse in San Francisco. That being said, is the incentive model for providing more sprawl going to make affordability issues go away? The answer to that is resoundingly "no," and more resoundingly "hell no!" The more sprawl you allow to fester in smaller cities, and the more we allow for this gigantic discrepancy in housing costs between densely-packed communities versus suburban communities, the more we're a) creating an ever-widening socio-economic gap between cities, b) sanctioning an increase the energy consumption of smaller cities, and c) brushing public transportation issues under the carpet in favor of more and more distance between work, home and wherever else you need to go. Sure, we're used to it and sure we've provided an immediate cost-saving model if you look at the fact that the economy hit denser areas the hardest, but what're the benefits of sprawl aside from quick immediate cost savings? Are there any long term benefits at all?
Secondly, a quick blog post today from Ben at the City Parks Blog about how federal resources for city park rehabilitation have essentially be barred. Here's what he took from the Vice President's Recovery Act Year-End Report:
According to the report, funds were re-directed to “infrastructure” projects, housing assistance, job training centers, and street improvements. These may also be worthy investments, but what seems evident is that the projects cut out were directly related to people doing work, and job creation. (They certainly did so in the 1930s WPA.) Most people would probably say that parks are “green,” especially if money is spent on rehabilitating them — something the stimulus bill was meant to foster.
What's worse is that it's really no shock that park rehabilitations were essentially left out of the list of projects. So were a ton of large public transportation initiatives. The reason why this news isn't much of a shock has little to do with the fact that we all know that safer/better parks and access to multiple modes of moving around are both net pluses to society as a whole. Instead, it has to do with what what the general public (and your general public officials) think of when they think of improvement projects. When you heard "Infrastructure investment" most people immediately think of two things: 1) public buildings and 2) roads. "Those will get the common man working on building America again!" most people will say to themselves, and the bill will be signed and projects approved with little to no rebuttal.
However, similar to the outcome of Mr. Cox's article, more roads means more dependence on a system that's simply failed us in the past. The system load will not be able to manage the increase it was meant originally to support and eventually we'll just be back where we started... begging the government to build more roads and buildings. Thinking again of capacity, who's to say that a light rail train is more or less important than a highway? Who's to say that a public building should be maintained when a public park shouldn't? How long can we allow this lop-sided relationship between favored versus disfavored public works projects to last before there are few maintained parks left... no more funds for rail improvements?
Lastly, CityWatch has an interesting interchange regarding the route the Expo Line will take through West L.A. that I think is worth reading. Here are the two opposing viewpoints, in a nutshell:
So I’m also noting with both fascination and concern how this paradigm contrasts with the tone which the Expo Line Authority has taken with West LA and its political leadership, and how the major legal opponents of the Expo Line have appeared to ONLY allow the most expensive option to be allowed.
This confrontational approach bodes ill for all parties, and will probably put a much more bitter taste in the mouths of the Expo Line’s neighbors than the Crenshaw Corridor and Downtown Connector projects will for their neighbors.
B) Mike Eveloff, Terri Tippit, Drew DeAscentis and Kevin Hughes:
The community is saying “build it right, or don’t build it.”
Ken asserts that the community is only focusing on the most expensive solutions and will take no other alternatives. At the same time, he presents a plan that includes grade separation at Overland and Sepulveda, without mandating a massive unsupportable development project. We agree. He has suggested a regional transportation center. We agree.
In fact, there are just two areas of disagreement between Ken and the “confrontational opponents.” Specifically, we believe that grade separation should also exist at Westwood and also believe that elevated rail with its noise and visual barrier through a single-family neighborhood is incompatible with the area.
Without getting into the nasty details of where the rail will go exactly (since you can read the articles yourself), I just want to make that point that this type of confrontation is literally a microcosmic reflection of the great debate of our time. We, as cities, just don't have a ton of money to spend... but we still want to spend it. How then do we spend our money to get the greated possible return on our investment (however you want to measure it)? Most importantly, when the difference between a $2 billion project and a $3 billion project might also mean the difference between whether or not people will actually utilize it, on what criteria exactly should you base your decision to move forward?
But most most most importantly of all, you can't forget that all of these projects cost billions of dollars. Nothing done right is cheap exactly because it's done right. Just as importantly, it's done right exactly because it took a lot of money. An uncomfortable amount, possibly.
So without taking a side in this debate, both parties should probably remember that there's always a place you can negotiate to and you never get to that place by entering into a debate confrontationally. There's just too much money at stake to take things personally, and (in this case) a lot of it isn't just the Westside's.
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