Lynne Kiesling
Urban planning, sprawl, “smart growth”, and land use are issues that touch on the core issues that I find captivating. Thus I am always pleased to find thorough, logical discussions and analyses. Jane Galt’s post from Monday on smart growth is a good general discussion of the topic. I also found the comments generally edifying and informative.
One thing that the post and comments did not discuss, though, that I think is an important part of the smart growth story is road pricing as an alternative to either congested freeways or increased public transportation. I’m not the expert on this subject, but Bob Poole is, as seen in the content of Reason’s Surface Transportation Resource Center.
Transparent pricing of scarce resources, including highway capacity, creates efficiency, value and opportunity.
UPDATE: There is a related post, full of good links, at the Heritage Foundation’s policy weblog.
I’ve always been a little sceptical of “smart growth”. It implies that someone, somewhere, can work out and implement a plan. Which is exactly what such things as zoning are. My own personal experience (living in various places like Bath, England, Moscow, Russia, Cascais in Portugal, SLO in CA, Wash DC etc) is that the more “planning” there is of what goes where the less “smart” the resultant growth seems to be. Those urban areas that are fun to live in have apartments above shops, pubs on corners, in general a mish mash of business, industry, office retail and living areas.
Just an opinion of course but then I’ve always suspected I was really a City Boy at heart.