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Now more than ever, we must reject wasteful suburban growth as the standard for development
Wednesday, October 17, 2001
By Thomas Hylton
While the debate over the Mon-Fayette Expressway continues in southwestern Pennsylvania, the debate over highways in car-clogged California is over.
When Gov. Gray Davis announced the opening of a new freeway in San Bernardino County last summer, he said it would be California's last. From now on, Davis said, new infrastructure spending will be focused on mass transit.
The problem -- in California as elsewhere in the nation -- is that more highways generate more car traffic in a burgeoning cycle that consumes ever larger quantities of land. With each passing decade, we Americans have used more and more land for each house, store and office we build. That's why the Pittsburgh metropolitan area has consumed 50 percent more land for development in recent decades even as its population has declined.
Recognizing that land is finite, Pennsylvania's land recycling program encourages the re-use of vacant industrial land. The state's farmland preservation program has purchased the development rights to 1,700 farms since 1989, permanently protecting about 3 percent of the state's farmland.
These modest efforts, however, are fighting a strong cultural current that equates "more and bigger" with progress. Until the American concept of the good life changes from gigantic suburban lots to cozy neighborhoods in traditional towns, the region's open space will dwindle as its cities continue to decay.
Using land economically is clearly a novel idea for Americans. For Europeans, it's second nature. England has about the same amount of developed land as Pennsylvania, for example, but that land accommodates four times as many people. Paris has 2 million residents living in an area smaller than Pittsburgh. Moreover, open space in most of Europe is truly open. Rural highways are free of strip development, and hillsides are covered with forests, crops and livestock, not subdivisions.
Alarmed about sprawling development in the 1930s, the English devised a master plan to protect their towns and countryside even as they were fighting the Third Reich to save their nation's existence. In 1947, the Town and Country Planning Act essentially zoned all land in England for its existing use. To change that use, a property owner needs government permission. Green belts from 5 to 20 miles wide were established around most English cities. Used exclusively for agriculture or recreation, these green belts curb suburban sprawl, protect the health and character of existing towns, and give town dwellers easy access to the countryside.
Using population growth forecasts, county planners decide where it makes the most sense to allow development. That's nearly always adjacent to existing towns. The first priority is to re-use vacant industrial or commercial sites, and in recent years, more than half of all new housing has been built on previously developed land. Guidelines make city centers the preferred locations for new retail development.
Draconian as these policies might seem to Americans, they work, and the English goal of protecting their cities, towns and countryside has been fulfilled. The policies ensure a close match between development and public infrastructure. In a democracy that treasures its heritage, they are overwhelmingly popular.
As Americans become more aware of the downsides to sprawl, interest in the Europe experience and model will undoubtedly grow. In the increasingly prosperous Europe of today, more families are building detached houses, and the use of cars is increasing rapidly. Yet neither towns nor countrysides are being sacrificed. It is still easy to walk or take public transportation to most destinations.
If we in Pennsylvania are to remain economically healthy and prosperous, we must end our profligate waste of open space. We need to consider new ideas, even if that means looking to the old countries to find them. It wouldn't be the first time we've done that.
A hundred years ago, as American industry was chopping down the nation's forests with wild abandon, Pennsylvania's Gifford Pinchot, a key adviser to President Theodore Roosevelt, warned they would be depleted in 50 years. Forests needed to be managed like any other crop, he argued.
But he didn't get these ideas in America, because there were no American forestry schools then. He learned about conservation in France, and his most influential mentor was a German forester.
The abundant and well-managed forests America enjoys today can be traced back to the logic and persuasiveness of Pinchot's resource management ideas. They can be applied to land use management as well. Reckless exploitation makes no economic sense. As Pinchot said, "The first great fact about conservation is that it stands for development."
Thomas Hylton is author of "Save Our Land, Save Our Towns: A Plan for Pennsylvania" and host of a public television documentary, "Saving Pennsylvania." He lives in Pottstown.