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« Back to Suburban Sprawl main page    Transcript for: Suburban Sprawltranscript.713.html ANNOUNCER: Brought to you in part by ADM, feeding the world is thebiggest challenge of the new century, because, by the time this babyis old enough to vote, the world will have nearly two billion newmouths to feed. ADM, supermarket to the world. Additional funding isprovided by the John M. Olin Foundation, the Lilly Endowment, theLynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the United States-JapanFoundation, and the Donner Canadian Foundation. (Musical break.) MR. WATTENBERG: Hello, I’m Ben Wattenberg. Do you hate traffic,strip malls, suburban sprawl, want more green space. Here’s an ideaespecially for you, it’s called smart growth. But it has opponentswho think smart growth is dumb growth. Surprise, politics surroundsthe controversy. A leading supporter of smart growth is VicePresident Albert Gore, the leading Democratic contender for thepresidential nomination in the year 2000. Joining Think Tank to sortthrough the conflict and consensus are Richard Moe, the president ofthe National Trust for Historic Preservation, and the co-author ofChanging Places, Rebuilding Community in the Age of Sprawl; JoelGarreau, a senior fellow at the Institute of Public Policy at GeorgeMason University, and author of Edge City, Life on the New Frontier;and Lynn Scarlett, the executive director of the Reason Public PolicyInstitute in Los Angeles. The topic before this house, thesesprawling of America, this week on Think Tank. (Musical break.) VICE PRESIDENT GORE (From video): There are lot of exciting andpositive new ideas that have come from local community leaders tocreate livable communities. We’re talking about the quality of ourlives. MR. WATTENBERG: Trying to galvanize a growing political movement,Vice President Gore recently had this to say: Plan well and you havea community that nurtures commerce and private life. Plan badly, youhave what so many of us suffer from first hand, gridlock, sprawl, andthat uniquely modern evil of all, too little time. Gore apparentlyhits a resonant chord. Bumper to bumper commuter traffic, mile uponmile of neon storefronts, and the ever expanding suburban communitiesthat gobble up open land. Through the use of federal tax subsidies,Gore promises more open green spaces, and more time to enjoy thegreenery. Skeptics worry that smart growth planning policiesemanating from Washington for the alleged benefit of Wichita,Waukegan, Waunauchi (sp), and wherever, is exactly the wrong way togo. They say that the dead-end of top down planning can choke, stifleand distort the existing vibrant communities. Typically, theymaintain that the best communities often develop organically andspontaneously with such planning as is necessary coming from thelocal level. They point out that past Washington-based planningefforts, particularly the urban renewal movement a few decades ago,did not turn out very well. To plan or not to plan, that is thequestion, or part of it. We turn to our expert panel for answers andopinions. Lady, gentlemen, thank you for joining us. Dick Moe, oldfriend, president of the National -- MR. MOE: National Trust for Historic Preservation. MR. WATTENBERG: Okay. What’s the sprawl argument all about? MR. MOE: It’s basically about what kind of communities we want tolive in. We have had planned communities here for a long time.Washington, D.C., was one of the first and best planned communitiesin America. And the question really is whether or not we’re going toallow sprawl, which is basically the unplanned, low density,automobile-dependent growth emanating in all directions from our corecities, eating up more and more open space, and creating the kind ofcongestion and air pollution and other issues that you mentioned.Whether or not we’re going to allow that to continue unabated, orwhether or not we’re going to take these issues into our own hands ascommunities. Nobody is arguing for federally directed planning.Planning belongs at the state and local level. But whether or notwe’re going to be rational about the way that we build communities. MR. WATTENBERG: Okay. Lynn, let’s go over to you, what do youthink about the sprawl situation, so-called sprawl situation? I thinkI’m going to call it the so-called sprawl situation. MS. SCARLETT: Well, I’d like to call it the bumper sticker sprawlissue, because under that big rubric, actually, we’re kind of buryinga lot of very different and distinct problems. Certainly, no one isgoing to celebrate congestion. I commute from Santa Barbara to LosAngeles and, of course, know that congestion very well. The questionis whether we have chaos, whether we have an entirely unplannedenvironment occurring before us that is, indeed, gobbling up vasttracts of land. When we look at this issue, we have to say, first ofall, that a lot of that decentralization, that suburbanization isoccurring because that’s what people want. That is, there’s a bit ofa pull into the suburbs because people want that picket fence, thatlarger yard. In a sense, their own private green space, if you will.So, there are reasons why that’s occurring. And, secondly, I think wehave to understand, at least as one looks at traffic patterns, tosome extent, believe it or not, some of that decentralizeddevelopment actually has mitigated or relieved some of the sprawl. Dowe have a perfect situation, no. Are there things we can do tomitigate problems, yes. MR. WATTENBERG: Joel Garreau, why don’t you let us know what yourtake is on this? MR. GARREAU: I think I’m caught in the middle between these twopoles. I’m a card carrying Sierra Cluber, but I’ve written a greatdeal about the biggest change in 150 years in how we build cities.Every urban area, worldwide, is growing, is growing like Los Angeles,and that includes Paris, and London and Jakarta. And I originallythought that this was a conspiracy on the part of the developers toruin our lives. And the farther I got into it, the more I realized itwas, no, this was us. This is our culture and values. MR. WATTENBERG: These are the edge cities? MR. GARREAU: These are the edge cities. MR. WATTENBERG: Why don’t you define that for us. MR. GARREAU: These are not the old-fashioned suburbs. These arenow the center of our jobs and our lives. They have 25,000 expensive,white collar jobs and up. They’ve got 600,000 square feet of retailand up. At nine o’clock in the morning, people are heading towardsthese places, not away from them. They’re not bedroom suburbs, theyare enormous job centers. Examples would include Silicon Valley, theRoute 128 area in Boston, Tysons Corner in Virginia, and we have notbuilt an old downtown from scratch in 75 years. What we have beenbuilding now is these edge cities. And I’m interested in what thissays about us and our values. MR. WATTENBERG: The argument now that Vice President Gore andRichard Moe have introduced, in my judgment, is, should there befederal zoning, should there be -- MR. MOE: No, no, Ben, that’s not the issue. MR. WATTENBERG: Well, look, I mean, excuse me, but your speech tothe Press Club calls for a number of federal initiatives that willpush localities to do certain kinds of things as opposed to otherkind of things. Now, do you think that my use of the phrase 'zoning'is too plenary, maybe it is. But, my question is this, look, we haveheard from this administration, and particularly form the vicepresident, about reinventing government, that one size doesn’t fitall, that we shouldn’t have a top down government, and the presidentcomes out and says, the era of big government is over. And, bingo,it’s like hitting the knee, and all the reflexes start flying. And,the position taken is, and I would maintain it, although I know youdisagree with it, is that the position is, suburbs bad, cars bad,cities good, apartments good, because that’s where it comes out, andyou’re going to put federal bucks behind. MR. MOE: That really does not represent my view, and I don’t thinkit represents the vice president’s views, but he can speak forhimself. MR. WATTENBERG: And will. MR. MOE: And will, right. What I was trying to say in that PressClub speech is that the federal government ought to examine its ownpolicies, transportation, tax, housing, other policies, to see theeffect that they have in terms of promoting sprawl. There’s noquestion in my mind that they do, inadvertently. They’re not intendedto do that for the most part, but the same thing is true at the statelevel. And, as a matter of fact, they sometimes subsidize sprawl. Wetalk about free market and forces at work here, sprawl is not aresult of free market forces. It is very heavily subsidized, andthat’s really the genius of the smart growth program here inMaryland, because what that says very simply, is that the State ofMaryland will not spend money for schools, roads, infrastructure, andso forth, except in existing communities, and those communitiesdesignated for growth. You can build somewhere else if you want,that’s your choice, but don’t look to the state to subsidize it. MR. WATTENBERG: But that’s the state. That’s not the UnitedStates. MR. MOE: What I was saying in the speech is -- MR. WATTENBERG: That’s a county. That’s a Montgomery County. MR. MOE: -- we ought to encourage the states to move in thatdirection. But there’s not a one size fits all solution. MR. WATTENBERG: But you encourage them with somebody else’s money.You tax the people in the city and in the farms, or wherever, taketheir money to Washington, and you say, now, Mr. Urban Planner, ifyou do it the way we want it, we’re going to give you a subsidy. MR. MOE: No. We’re not trying to lay down that kind ofprescription. But you should know that federal policies and federaldollars have helped to drive this whole sprawl effort for the lastseveral decades, for longer than that. MS. SCARLETT: I think the sources of the sprawl that we’re talkingabout, and if we mean by that decentralized, low density development,actually have been driven far more by state and local policies thanthey have by the federal government. MR. MOE: I agree with that. MS. SCARLETT: There’s no question, for example, that zoning,prohibition on mixed use, minimum densities, all of that stuff hashelped to drive the sprawl that we see. What I do see, and whatconcerns me about the federal role that is being contemplated, andwhether you would agree with this or not, it certainly is beingadvanced, is substantial federal dollars going to drive citiestowards, for example, mass transit, rail kinds of transportationwithin cities, as if this would emulate the old cities of Paris, andEurope in the past, as if somehow we could build high density, highrail transit, and somehow people will therefore be able to live inthe cities and get around. All of the work that we’ve done looking atthat rail transit suggests, first of all, that those investments dovery little to get people out of their automobiles, do very little tochange living patterns. The so-called transit oriented developmentthat Portland, the much vaunted Portland Program, has used. MR. WATTENBERG: Portland, Oregon. MS. SCARLETT: Portland, Oregon, has experienced with, has donevery little to actually attract people along those rail corridors.What you end up having is a lot of money spent on transportationsystems that do not really provide people the convenience and speedthat they want, and don’t, by the way, take them where the live orwhere they’re going. In that way, I could suggest that the federalapproach may yield another boondoggle of the sort that the urbanrenewal efforts did, say, 20 years ago in the realm oftransportation. MR. WATTENBERG: Joel. MR. GARREAU: Could we get a reality check on these policies? Ilooked into this, the idea that the interstates and the WATTS linesis what turned all this into sprawl. I see no evidence that that’sthe case. If this were true, then other countries should be producingother results. Take Canada, for example, they don’t have mortgagedeductibility like we do, which encourages suburbs. They spend a lotmore on mass transit. They haven’t spent anywhere near as much onroads. Toronto has got a beautiful downtown, doesn’t have much in theway of crime problems, doesn’t have much in the way of race problems.You should be able to produce a dramatically different result there.And yet you don’t. Toronto’s edge city has exactly the same marketshare, I mean exactly, as Chicago. So, it seems to me that what we’relooking at is something that’s much deeper here. You’re getting thesame results in Mainland China, in London, in Paris. You’d think thatif policy made this much difference, we’d end up with differentresults, and I don’t see them. MR. WATTENBERG: Hold on a second. I just want to go back to squareone here for a minute. Maybe we shouldn’t be calling it sprawl,because sprawl is a pejorative. We always say, oh, it’s sprawl. Weare talking, at least in my judgment, about probably the most elegantand humane residential situation that human beings have everexperienced anywhere, at any time, in any place. You’re saying,people can go out and have a quarter-acre, half-acre, an acre, buildtheir own house, maybe put a little swimming pool in it, maybe not,have a yard for the kids, picket fence for the dog, all the thingsthey want, and we call it bad, nasty, sprawl. Why don’t we call itgreat? MR. MOE: If you think it’s great, call it great. Most people don’tlike it. A lot of people don’t like it. MR. WATTENBERG: Then why do 52 percent -- this is the firstcountry in history with a suburban majority. Why is everybody movingout there? MR. MOE: Well, as we’ve discussed, there’s a whole slew of reasonswhy they’re moving out there. That doesn’t mean they necessarily likeit. MS. SCARLETT: Dick, let me just interject here. Clearly, peopleare voting with their pocketbooks and with their feet to go to lowdensity, to have their own little green space, if you will. So, inthat sense, people like it. What they don’t like are some of theadverse impacts that come with it. People don’t like congestion thatmight be associated with a long commute, with lots of single occupantvehicles on the road. They don’t like the loss of larger park spacesin urban areas. In that sense, I would agree with Ben. I think thesprawl word is using a pejorative for a general living pattern that,itself, is not bad and may, indeed, be exactly what people arewanting and seek in the market. What we are better off doing issaying, ah, congestion is, indeed, a problem. What is it that we cando about that? And here we have lots of ideas that we could debate.People are also concerned, they kind of have an anxiety about theloss of nature. Well, what is it that one can do to ensure that thereare green spaces within cities, and also on the periphery. MR. WATTENBERG: But we have, in the United States now, fi I am notmistaken, notwithstanding the growth in the suburban perimeters, moreopen land in America than we’ve had in many, many decades because somany fewer acres are being farmed, because agricultural productivityhas gone up so much. I mean, this idea that that -- MR. MOE: Ben, I’m not sure about that. We are losing the greatCentral Valley of California at an alarming rate. MR. WATTENBERG: But what does this mean, we’re losing it? Whatdoes losing it mean? It means that Americans who have saved up theirmoney are getting a mortgage to live in a beautiful place, and yousit here and say, oh, they’re losing it. They’re not losing it,they’re gaining something. That’s why you were talking about, it’s amarket system. What is wrong with that? MR. MOE: Well, Ben, be fair. The people are not -- if you fly overthis country, you’d notice that -- MR. WATTENBERG: Fair, why would I be here if I was going to befair to my old friend Moe. MR. MOE: It’s never gotten in your way before. MR. WATTENBERG: That’s right, it never got in my way before,right. MR. MOE: You look down in a jet, and you see an awful lot of emptyspace in this country as you fly across it. But that’s not whatpeople are upset about. They’re upset about like losing the Piedmontof Virginia. That’s what they’re upset about, that’s where they’regetting -- why they’re up in arms. That’s why there’s political juicefor Gore in this. I mean, he sees an issue, when he knows an issue is-- MR. WATTENBERG: Do you think there’s political juice in it becauseit’s a gangplank thing at work that will raise the value of the homesof the people who already live there? MR. MOE: Gee, I hope so. I’ve got a nice house up there. MR. WATTENBERG: I already live there, you can’t come in.Therefore, my house becomes more desirable, vote for me. MR. MOE: In last fall’s election, there were some 200 referenda ondifferent state and local ballots, initiatives, dealing with thisissue either preserving open space, revitalizing existingcommunities, urban growth boundaries, they passed overwhelmingly.There is grass roots support for dealing with this issue. MR. WATTENBERG: For local and state. MR. MOE: Locally, right, and that’s where this -- MR. WATTENBERG: I’m for it. MR. MOE: And that’s where the issue will be dealt with, on thestate and local level. MR. GARREAU: But they’re getting their paycheck locally, which iswhy they’re going federal. MR. WATTENBERG: Why is a man running for president making it afederal issue, a federal case, as you say? MR. MOE: He sees that there’s support for this kind of thing, andhe sees a federal role, as I do, it’s not the primary role, but wecan encourage states and localities to deal with this issue in theirterms, recognizing that they will make the ultimate choices. MS. SCARLETT: But again, you know, Dick, can you do thatneutrally? I mean, again, let’s go back to the era of urban renewalwhen someone had a notion of how to remake our cities, and remakethem better and habitable for all kinds of people. MR. MOE: Right, didn’t work, disaster. MS. SCARLETT: A terrible failure. And now we are seeing elementsof the same kind of lack of humility, if you will, at least as itrelates to the transportation side of things, an idea that we need tosteer and remold transportation expenditures to support rail, forexample. MR. MOE: Lynn, let me take issue with you there. I wanted to getto your rail issue, because I think it’s very important. Rail isn’tthe whole answer here, but neither are highways. What mostcommunities need are balanced transportation systems, and know thatthe balance will be different in different communities. But, it’sfederal policy, and state policy, to heavily accentuate theautomobile, and to build more freeways. We see it in the Washingtonarea here, Route 95, and Route 270. MS. SCARLETT: But, you know, Dick, not really true. Factualplanning in the State of California, heavens the centerpiece of afreeway system, there’s not been a new freeway built, or hardly atall, in years and years. I mean, not since the first Governor Brownera. So, I mean, the idea that there continue to be massive federalsubsidies of highways, I think, is -- MR. MOE: Well, I don’t think that there’s much doubt that thereare, and that they’ve very heavily subsidized. MS. SCARLETT: There continues to be maintenance paid by gas taxes. MR. MOE: You know, all the new beltways that they’re talkingabout, the outer beltways, build them and they will come. You know,the average traffic in Los Angeles in 10 years is estimated to be 11miles per hour. MS. SCARLETT: But they made the same prediction 10 years ago, andI’m still shooting down the freeway. MR. GARREAU: This kind of yammering at each other we’ve beenhearing now for 50 years, and what I’m curious about is what awin-win solution would look like. We’re constantly falling into thesame trap. I’d like to know from you, how you could produce aprofitable and reliable means for developers, developers are a veryimitative. If you can figure out a way for them to make moneyreliably, they’ll build you anything. I’d like to know what you -- MR. MOE: Two points. MR. GARREAU: Okay. Start with you. MR. MOE: One, there is an urban design movement in this countrycalled the new urbanism. And these are basically very creative urbandesigners who plan and build new communities based on old principles,houses close together, close to the street, mixed income, alleys andgarages in the back, commercial stores and facilities intermixed withthem. There’s one up here in Gaithersburg. MR. GARREAU: Kettland (sp). MR. MOE: Kettland, Celebration, South Seaside, others. Theseconsume a lot less open space. I think they’re better communities,but that’s a judgment, not everybody would want to live there, but alot of people like having the choice of living there. MS. SCARLETT: Just a couple of reflections first. The newurbanism, of course, it is the watch word of the planners today. Butmost of those communities, ironically, are taking place in greenspace. That is, they’re being build in precisely the peripheral areasthat you’re suggesting we want to try and limit development.Transposing the new urbanism into an existing urban structure, forexample, partly that’s what Portland, Oregon, is trying to do, meansincreasing densities. That means densifying places that right nowhave their little backyard. And what are you finding in Oregon? Loand behold, as they’re trying to impose that new urbanism in anexisting space, they’re getting opposition. People say, whoa, likeBen, I like my little green backyard. So, it doesn’t seem to me thatthat specific tool, per se, is really useful in reimposing in onexisting urban space. I want to go to my win-win, which is, and sinceI’m supposed to wear the market hat here, interestingly enough, aspeople are expressing their desire for more contiguous green space,and so forth, guess what, some developers are beginning to workthrough and build cluster developments that allow higher densityhere, but some green areas around that. And, guess what, they’reselling at a premium in the marketplace. MR. GARREAU: Can I just come back to win-win for a second. I mean,the essence of win-win is figuring out what the other guy reallywants, deep down, and giving it to him. It involves the Sierra Clubtrying to figure out how to make life simpler for developers, itinvolves the developers figuring out how to save Santa Barbara andOjai. I mean, that’s the essence of how you do this. You responded tohow do you keep the developers happy with the new urbanism. A lot isto be loved about the new urbanism, I don’t know if it’s going to getus where we need to go. But the question I have is, you live in SantaBarbara, this is God’s country. I mean, people will really lay downon the tracks over places like Santa Barbara and Ojai. How are yougoing to prevent that? How are you going to solve these problems withyour framework if you go to a market situation? I mean, clusteringdoesn’t do the job. MS. SCARLETT: Yes. Now, I actually have some sympathy with some ofthe things that Dick has put forward. I do think that landacquisition is an important part of this process. We are fortunate inSanta Barbara in having the Los Padres National Forest stretchingmiles and miles behind us. Which, of course, means, that unlike LosAngeles, we’re not going to build up that mountainside and stretchover into the next valley, because there’s a national forest there.But emulating that through purchase of strategic portions of land Ithink is perfectly appropriate, perfectly desirable, and indeed I’vebeen part of several such efforts in Santa Barbara. On the otherhand, in terms of transportation, which is another issue we’re nowfacing. It’s starting to get some gridlock as you go in and out oftown. I would argue against the kind of imposition of somebody’s ideaof bicycles and rail on the city because I don’t think it’s workable.I’d rather see us experiment with door-to-door shuttle van systems,for example, which can actually be, it looks like, increasinglyeconomically run. You know, we all know those shuttles that go fromour home to the airport, do it for commuting, too. MR. WATTENBERG: People all over the world regard the automobile asthe ultimate liberation vehicle, instrument, and it really is. Imean, it says, I can go where I want when I want. MR. MOE: More so here than most places. MR. WATTENBERG: Right. More so here than most places, perhapsbecause we have more personal liberty here in the United States, butcertainly more so here, and certainly it is changing. But what iswrong with that? That’s a great machine. MR. MOE: It is a great machine. MR. WATTENBERG: I want to ask you a question. We were talkingbefore, your ancestors settled in Minnesota, coming from the oldcountry. Was that sprawl? MR. MOE: There’s always been growth. MR. WATTENBERG: We gained 100 million people in this country sincethe Census of 1960, and you say build it and they will come. Hey,they are here. There are children, there are immigrants. MR. MOE: We are going to grow, it’s not a question of whetherwe’re going to grow, of course, we’re going to grow. It’s a questionof how we’re going to grow, whether we’re going to grow sensibly, sothat we maintain these values that we’ve been talking about, and atthe same time maintain our core communities. One thing we haven’ttalked about here is what’s happening to cities. Some people thinkthe cities are back, they’re not back. MR. WATTENBERG: Next show we’ll do on the cities, downtown. Andmeanwhile, we do have to go. We have agreed on one thing, we’re allfour of us in favor of win-win. Thank you very much, Lynn Scarlett,Dick Moe, and Joel Garreau. And thank you. For Think Tank, I’m BenWattenberg. ANNOUNCER: We at Think Tank depend on your views to make our showbetter. Please send your questions and comments to New River Media,1150 Seventeenth Street, Northwest, Washington, D.C. 20036, or emailus at thinktank@pbs.org. To learn more about Think Tank, visit PBSOnline at www.pbs.org. And please let us know where you watch ThinkTank. This has been a production of BJW, Incorporated, in associationwith New River Media, which are solely responsible for its content.Brought to you in part by ADM, feeding the world is the biggestchallenge of the new century, because, by the time this baby is oldenough to vote, the world will have nearly two billion new mouths tofeed. ADM, supermarket to the world. Additional funding is providedby the John M. Olin Foundation, the Lilly Endowment, the Lynde andHarry Bradley Foundation, the United States-Japan Foundation, and theDonner Canadian Foundation. (End of program.) Back to top  Think Tank is made possible by generous support from the Smith Richardson Foundation, the Bernard and Irene Schwartz Foundation, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the John M. Olin Foundation, the Donner Canadian Foundation, the Dodge Jones Foundation, and Pfizer, Inc. ©Copyright Think Tank. All rights reserved. 
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