This week’s letter comes from former city councilor John Schubert who
asks a question that’s been on a lot of people’s minds lately: “What’s
with the massive urban growth boundary expansion proposal?”
An
advocate of smart growth and alternative transportation planning,
Schubert questions whether the city’s past subsidies to the building
community have led to the current fiscal crisis in Bend. Thanks for the
letter, John. You can claim your prize for this week’s winning letter
at the Source headquarters, 704 NW Georgia.
I recently I flew from Frankfurt, Germany to Moscow and marveled at how
clearly the land use patterns unfolded below me. Compact town led to
open agricultural land led to forest land, and then the pattern
repeated, over and over, mile after mile. No rural sprawl as in
Deschutes County; no fuzzy boundary between city and farmland as in
Bend; no homes in the forest. Later in the trip I remarked on my flight
observations to a German acquaintance I met. I asked why he thought
this was so. Without a second hesitation, he said, “It is most
certainly because to do anything else is incredibly wasteful of
government money and natural resources.”
I was stunned that an ordinary citizen understood this without blinking an eye. This argument of economic and resource efficiency should be well understood by the business community, especially if they are called upon to pay their way in land development. I was aghast to read that Bend developers expect the entire community to subsidize their developments at the fringe of the city. I suggest that too-many-to-count taxpayer subsidies to growth are the biggest cause of skyrocketing living costs in Bend and the current city fiscal crisis. They have led to increasing property taxes, increasing utility costs, increasing housing costs, increasing transportation costs. And all the while, we still haven’t figured out how to adequately maintain our transportation system, provide adequate affordable housing, fund schools to provide reasonable class sizes…. Until we get a handle on these things, it makes no sense to me to dramatically expand the UGB and cause more inefficient land use and subsidized runaway growth.
John Schubert, former planning
commissioner and city councilor
This article appears in Nov 27 – Dec 3, 2008.
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Sounds like one socialist talking to another socialist!
Whom do you expect to pay for the infrastructure? You?
“This argument of economic and resource efficiency should be well understood by the business community, especially if they are called upon to pay their way in land development.”
But they are NOT called upon to pay their way — there’s the rub. People like our friend Jed say land use regulation is “socialist,” but what we do now is socialize the costs of development and privatize the costs.
Oh, how convenient to toss out derogatory political labels in order to detract from the argument. Whenever you don’t like the message, simply try to assassinate the character of the messenger! Bend has indeed lost much of its “friendly” character during this unfortunate boom years with far too many new residents expecting the Central Oregon environment to cater to their uban wants rather than for the new arrivals to adapt to the environment. I personally came here ahead of the “boom” to celebrate and embrace the environment NOT to destroy it. I guess I am in the minority but still a surviving and defiant rural dweller. People in this country have a right to live wherever they choose, given space available and in harmony with our ecological systems ability to sustain the human encroachment. Once it’s gone, though, it ain’t coming back! Where are its advocates?
In the words of Theodore H. White (The Making of the President, 1968) be warned, “Cities force people to live closer together than Nature intended.” Whatever happened to the “Men without Ties” promising to preserve Bend? Are they now lobbyists for the developers? We haven’t heard much from them in quite awhile, have we?
Land use regulation is not “per se” socialist. The comment that is socialist is “government money”!! It is the people’s money that is entrusted to the government. Government is wasteful!!!
Sprawl is American because development is based mostly on what the consumer wants, and very little on what planners believe is best. In Europe and most of the world, it’s the opposite.