There are more things that make me see red than I usually admit to on this blogsite. I’m a WASP, trained to be self-controlled, not a ranter. And I won’t even complain about the malfunction — WordPress? my own computer? — that lost my first posting of this on Saturday night.
Here is what makes me see red: the baked-in assumption that we’ve got to have yet more urban growth. I recently did a Metro survey on land use. (Metro is the regional governing agency here in the Portland, Oregon area). The survey asked what farmland and rural areas we inhabitants think should be marked as ‘urban reserve’ areas, i.e. what land should be paved over to become future cities.
I basically told the survey that it was asking the wrong question.
The right question is: how does a region best pursue overall happiness and quality of life?
Even Metro, generally progressive, is buying into the old-school assumption that we have to have “growth” under the conventional definition of economic growth. Growth for whose benefit? The benefit of developers and the construction industry? They are one segment of the population, no more and no less important than anyone else. Developers and construction workers can earn their livings doing infill and redevelopment within the urban growth boundary. They also have the option of doing what most people do two or three times these days: changing careers.
I see no evidence that there must be ANY urban reserve areas, or that the Metro area needs any more cities than it currently has. The fact that people like to move to this region does not obligate us to create sprawl. Sprawl is proven to lower a region’s quality of life and to increase carbon dioxide emissions, which hastens climate change.
Measuring quality of life rather than GDP or dollars earned and spent is definitely doable. The country of Bhutan measures their success this way. Quality of life (happiness) in a region is composed of things like literacy rate, longevity, good walkability, low carbon dioxide emissions, civic engagement, lots of parks and green spaces, low divorce rate, high voting rate, clean water, neighborhood safety, a high ratio of locally owned restaurants and grocery stores, high education levels, and low crime rate. All measurable things.
Our goals should be quality of life and happiness, and we should seek urban growth if and when it serves our quality of life and happiness. Where is the proof that it does?
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Heartily agreed.
James R // May 13, 2009 at 12:48 pm
[quote]Quality of life (happiness) in a region is composed of things like literacy rate, longevity, good walkability, low carbon dioxide emissions, civic engagement, lots of parks and green spaces, low divorce rate, high voting rate, clean water, neighborhood safety, a high ratio of locally owned restaurants and grocery stores, high education levels, and low crime rate.[/quote]
One of these things does not belong here as a measure of happiness or quality of life. All the things in the list directly improve the life of the resident, except low greenhouse gas emissions. That is why it’s been so difficult for policymakers to affect greenhouse gas emissions: people don’t instinctively want that. (That’s also why we’re in such trouble in the first place.
Reduction of greenhouse gas emissions could be a byproduct of things like walkability and green spaces. But on its own it is not a measure of citizen happiness.
Alison,
As a resident of Portland, I would have expected you to highlight more the difference between two very opposite types of urban growth: urban renewal/higher density, and sprawl.
Whether you realise it or not, what you are in fact arguing for is zero population growth. This is the only way that zero urban growth can be achieved without increasing suburban/rural sprawl.
It’s nice to talk about Bhutan’s oft-cited gross domestic happiness metrics, but I don’t really think you can apply that metric directly to highly urbanised societies, in either the developing or developed world.
What we should specifically be arguing for is more vertical development as opposed to horizontal development; in other words, make downtown buildings taller, constrict zoned areas, ban the development of any new suburb.
There is nothing wrong with ‘urban growth’ as long as it goes up, not sideways.