Arresting sprawl won't be easy

Wednesday, December 10, 2003

By Ed Blazina, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Reinvesting in Pennsylvania's established communities instead of supporting sprawl into outlying areas is a noble goal, but community leaders say it won't be easy.

Bruce Katz, director of the Brookings Institution Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy, presented his agency's stark report on development in Pennsylvania yesterday to more than 200 people at a breakfast meeting held by Sustainable Pittsburgh.

In a 120-page report released Sunday, Katz's center concluded that Pennsylvania spends a disproportionate share of development money on outlying areas while abandoning established communities; loses too many college graduates to other states; has too many municipalities that do community planning separately rather than regionally; and has no organized vision of the state's future. The state is among the slowest growing in the country, Katz said, but it is second in the country in using new land for development.

Ken Klothen, executive director of the Governor's Center for Local Government Services who was on a panel discussing the report, said the state's spending practices in the past have been "fractured and silly." Gov. Ed Rendell has proposed a $2 billion revitalization plan that calls for heavy spending on existing core communities, but it hasn't been approved by the state Legislature.

"The good news is we get [the problem] in this administration," Klothen said. "The bad news is, this is a big ship to try to turn around."

Klothen said the state will establish a development team to set a policy for where state money should be spent to support development.

Eloise Hirsh, former Pittsburgh planning director and a member of the 10-county Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission, said the Brookings report led to a heated discussion at the agency's executive committee meeting on Monday. The reaction of some representatives from outlying counties shows how difficult it will be to change development patterns, she said.

"It is really hard to convince the outlying counties ... that the center city has their best interests at heart," she said.

As a result, said Bill Bates, vice president for real estate at Eat'n Park restaurants, national companies are "taking the state apart" by finding areas with limited zoning regulations and pitting them against one another for new businesses. The irony, he said, is that once new areas are developed, residents want the same types of libraries, parks and community centers they left behind.

The meeting with Sustainable Pittsburgh, a group that encourages smart growth, was among 10 the Brookings Institution will have across the state this week to build support for policy and legal changes needed to support its recommendations.

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