ADC Blog

The Gainesville Sun is reporting on a program at the University of Florida called ‘One Less Car.’  Put on by UF’s Office of Sustainability, the goal is to get “students, staff and faculty to learn about and explore all transportation options.”

Other than portraying cars as inherently bad, this is for the most part one of those benign gestures one finds on campuses all across the country, and town-gown physical situations often work to serve the “transportation options” of walking, bicycling, or bussing.  This situation is the hub-and-spoke environment where all stakeholders “work” in a concentrated center (hub) and return (along the spokes) to their dwellings, which are concentrated in higher density apartments not too far away.  In this unique situation, compounded by a lack of parking on campus, transit can work as well as foot and pedal power.

The problem arises when planners and politicians believe this model could and should be extended to how the rest of us live.  Today, work and housing is dispersed (freedom and mobility tend to have this effect) so it is nearly impossible for these transportation options to compete with the superiority of the automobile.

… is up in the air after a circuit judge struck down the statewide reforms enacted in 2009.  State Senator Mike Bennett had offered the legislation as a way to ease development and spur Florida out of the recession.  Opponents called it a giveaway to developers that “gutted” the Sunshine State’s 25 year commitment to growth management.

Of course, before waxing nostalgic about state growth management, people should realize that since Florida’s 1985 landmark law pretty much all of the things growth management was supposed to prevent have come to pass – sprawling development and stifling traffic congestion.  Worse, we’ve empowered a state bureaucracy with the power to pick winners and losers on major projects by exploiting the complexities inherent in the system.

The judge said the 2009 reforms imposed unconstitutional mandates on local governments.  Here’s hoping Senator Bennett introduces new legislation next session to address those narrow points while breaking the power hold of the Department of Community Affairs.

Robert Samuelson in the Washington Post today takes on the role of homeownership in our society.  I’m generally a big fan of Samuelson’s writing, a normally sober, cold-eyed analysis of issues without favor to one ideology over another, so imagine my disappointment when reading him say, “The relentless promotion of homeownership as the embodiment of the American dream has outlived its usefulness.”

Of course, there’s more to his column.  He goes on to say:

Unfortunately, we let a sensible goal become a foolish fetish. Not everyone can become a homeowner. Some are too young and footloose; some are too old and dependent; some are too poor or irresponsible. Some don’t want a home.

This is different that saying homeownership is not a worthy goal for our nation and is quite distinct from Richard Florida, who has previously written that homeownership is overrated and whose recent “Roadmap” to recovery focuses on de-emphasizing homeownership.  Where Florida is right is in acknowledging that this would “blow up” the fundamentals of our economy.

He’s also engaging in what I call strategic diminishment – that is, consciously pursuing a future that is less than our current state.  Many progressives and elites think we have it too good and that our lifestyle choices are harmful to ourselves and our planet.  It’s not enough that they want to be scolds; they want to use the power of government to retrofit American to an earlier way of living where we had less.

And they also glorify this reduction as a “less is more” virtue.  The Washington Post recently presented the case against air conditioning.  I’ve addressed this concept of strategic diminishment as it relates to the Livable Communities Act and mobility, but this is also true for homeowners and covers not just the percentage of homeowners but even the size of homes.  Ron Utt of the Heritage Foundation warns how even the President has adopted a worrisome narrative on homeownership.

Before we go off the deep end, let’s clear up two points.  First, the crisis we’ve gotten ourselves into is not because people own homes.  It’s because of the flawed policies promoting homeownership.  The most obvious is the federal policies of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but also contributing were various land-use planning schemes collectively known as Smart Growth.

Second, homeownership has many benefits.  Homeownership is more than a lifestyle choice; it’s a source of wealth and stability.  It’s also the most common source for self-financing small businesses when homeowners take out a second mortgage on their homes.  It’s an ideal and it works.  So what should be our national posture on housing policy?

• Owning your own home is a laudable goal held by millions of Americans going as far back as our republic.
• Becoming a homeowner is positive good that should never be discouraged by government policy.
• Everyone should have the right to pursue homeownership, but not everyone is ready to be a homeowner.
• It’s not government’s role to determine who should be a homeowner or when and where they should buy a home.
• Free markets are better than government mandates at creating the environment in which some people buy homes while others rent.

Before we adopt A Nation of Renters as our new creed, let’s fix the broken policies that got us here.

This critical issue and many others will be presented at the 8th Annual Preserving the American Dream Conference in Orlando, Florida, September 23-25.  Join us!

I want to thank the good folks at AmericanThinker.com for publishing my guest column on the Obama administration’s “Livable Communities Act” – a federal effort to impose Smart Growth regulation on all of us.

Is the American Dream getting smaller? Are we defining down the tools of opportunity and the pleasures of prosperity?

President Obama’s flippant dismissal of American exceptionalism last year stirred a lot of criticism because it suggested he did not believe the United States held a special place in the world. It also suggested America’s unique history is, to the president, no big deal.

Now, with fellow travelers exercising power at all levels of government, progressives can do more than just belittle the idea of American exceptionalism. They can enact policies to make America unexceptional – diminishing our quality of life and dampening opportunities for the next generation. Of course, progressives claim their vision is better and argue, with exquisite preening, that such changes are needed for our own good.

While cap-and-trade grabs the most attention, equally threatening is the euphemistically clever “Livable Communities Act.” Masked with feel-good rhetoric and lofty concepts like “smart growth” and “sustainable development,” the Livable Communities Act is top-down central planning aimed at changing where we live and work and how we travel.

It’s hard to gauge the state of alternative technology with regards to automobiles.  For example, the New York Times recently profiled the Chevy Volt and it wasn’t pretty.  The Volt, designed to “create its own electricity with a gas engine,” is coming to market.  The problem is that its cost is greater than the average income of your typical American.  This heavily subsidized vehicle is looking like a lemon, unlike the Toyota Prius which is doing quite well without the subsidies.

Now Audi is announcing plans to get into the electric car market with plans to bring online an electric vehicle designed for city use.  It’s looking to compete against BMW and Daimer-Chrysler in appealing to the upper crust driver.  Of course, pretty much all hybrid vehicles are accessible to upper income folks … and more power to ‘em!  But it is unlikely this will create enough market penetration and economies of scale to bring down the price for middle class buyers any time soon.

Still, it seems the future is more creative approaches to personal mobility, such as the plug-in hybrid concept.  The good news for personal mobility – regardless of fuel type – is the development of driverless cars.  This technology will revolutionize mobility across the country, and it appears we’re a lot closer than most people think.

This, among many other important transportation issues, will be discussed at the 8th Annual Preserving the American Dream Conference in Orlando, Florida.  We hope to see you there!

Since the bubble burst and our economy slipped into a recession, many friends of the American Dream Coalition like Randal O’Toole, Wendell Cox, and Ron Utt have argued that restrictive land-use planning policies, collectively known as Smart Growth or New Urbanism, were responsible for the housing bubble that precipitated the problems we’re now in.  Yes, there were other culprits – Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lending policies, the Community Reinvestment Act, and bogus mortgage lending instruments, but Smart Growth was at the scene of the crime.

The evidence is now overwhelmingly supports our position, so much so that even some prominent past deniers, to their credit, are now conceding the point.  The question, therefore, should be, Where do we go from here?

Two points: On the policy front, governments at all levels should begin deregulating land use complimented by a stronger embrace of property rights.  This is hard in a state like Florida that has mandated growth management laws; every city and county must adopt 10-year comprehensive plans.  This is a formula for recurring bubbles and recessions.  The alternative is a future based on private property rights.  Reducing the third-party, risk-less interference by planners and politicians is the surest way to promote stability and reliability about growth.  A commitment to a culture of property rights is not just the right thing to do on principle … it’s the practical thing to do as well.

The second point gets to the question of Who do you trust? Those who delve into urban public policy offer up many ideas for elected officials to evaluate when crafting policy for their own communities.  Some are proven wrong while others have a much better track record.  Policymakers who are serious about urban growth issues can bank on the solid research and analysis found at the ADC, Cato Institute, Heritage Foundation, Reason Foundation and similar organizations.

BTW – the 2010 Preserving the American Dream Conference is coming up in September in Orlando and, frankly, there is no better event in the country to drill down on these and other important issues affecting housing affordability, property rights and related issues.  You can find out more about it here.

Some not-so-good-news on the homeownership front.  Bloomberg is reporting that “18.9 million homes in the U.S. stood empty during the second quarter as surging foreclosures helped push ownership to the lowest level in a decade.”

This means that the number of people who own their own residences stands at just 67 percent, which is the lowest since 1999.  The foreclosure disaster caused in large part by excessive land use regulations in Smart Growth states and cities, and the market distortion done by Freddie and Fannie forced many people into making bad decisions about buying too much house or simply buying with risky mortgage instruments when they should have been saving.

But, to be clear, bad decision-making should not be taken as an indictment on the virtue of homeownership.  The central question we need to ask on the land-use side of the equation is whether we want to be a nation of homeowners or a nation of renters?  What option fosters a greater respect for private property rights?  For long term stability and community investment?

Not everyone is ready to be a homeowner and government should not needlessly lure people into it when they are not ready.  However, the end goal should be a land of opportunity where people who have played by the rules and responsibly saved can own an affordable home and, thus, realize part of the American Dream.

The Obama administration is joining the Smart Growth crowd to encourage less driving … in order to save the planet.  According to the Associated Press, “President Barack Obama wants federal workers to cut down on business travel and commuting by car as he seeks to reduce heat-trapping emissions produced by the federal government.”  The message seems to be, take a bus, ride a bike, or walk to work.

The federal government is the largest energy consumer in the U.S. economy, and the combined reductions would be the equivalent of removing emissions from 235 million barrels of oil, the White House said.

At least he’s starting with federal employees, but don’t be surprised if Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood begins angling for ways to make us all drive less.  State leaders in Virginia also want people to drive less, but instead of pushing mass transit and walking as “superior” alternatives these officials are promoting telecommuting.

This makes more sense.  In the Information Age, work is what you do, not where you are.  A lot of our work requires being on a computer and hooked up to the internet with just minimal reasons to walk, bike, bus, or drive.  In some cities there is a higher percentage of people who work from home than who take mass transit, and this is a result of market conditions rather than government mandates.  That’s the way it should be!