Smart growth? Try less planning

Can both sides of the sprawl debate find common ground on property rights?

Date published: 5/15/2005

ONE of the great myths spread by opponents of suburban development is that land-use patterns we have today are the result of free-market forces, greedy developers, and unregulated property rights.

Contrary to urban legend, however, gaudy strip malls and tacky subdivisions are more often a consequence of over half a century of zoning and land-use planning, conducted under the guidance of professional planners in cooperation with elected officials. What repel us today are not the unintended consequences of free enterprise, but planning concepts from the 1960s that have dropped out of fashion.

Having failed us once, planners are asking for a second chance--along with more regulatory power than ever before--to impose their aesthetic sensibilities on the rest of us, the philistine masses. Instead of letting the planners have their way, communities should work to restore and strengthen individual property rights. Part of this is giving property owners and builders the freedom to construct housing that people want--not what the planners want to impose on them.

Despite the rapid spread of zoning in the 20th century, local officials and zoning boards still tended to respect the rights of landowners, often granting reasonable requests for variances from master plans. This careful balance between freedom and regulation began to tilt away from property owners in the 1990s, when the smart-growth and New Urbanism movements rose to prominence.

The activist wings of these movements gained traction by vilifying the suburbs and their residents. In response, many communities altered their zoning laws to slow the pace of suburbanization. The consequence has been to encourage leapfrog development--in what we now call exurbs--and even more sprawl.

It is revealing to look at the list of model communities that advocates of smart growth hold out as worthy of emulation. The Sierra Club conducts anti-sprawl tours in the Washington, D.C., area, and its guides highlight the beautiful neighborhoods of Old Town Alexandria in Virginia and Georgetown and Capitol Hill in Washington. Elsewhere in the country, anti-sprawl activists hold up Charleston and Savannah, both elegant cities, as role models, along with Society Hill in Philadelphia, Oakleigh in Mobile, the Garden District in New Orleans, and Beacon Hill in Boston.

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Date published: 5/15/2005