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current structure of subsidization, trucking is heavily favored over rail transport, even though trucks consume fifteen times the fuel for the equivalent job. The government pays a $300 billion subsidy to truckers unthinkingly, while carefully scrutinizing every dollar allocated to transit. Similarly, we try to solve our commuter traffic problems by building highways instead of railways, even though it takes fifteen lanes of highway to move as many people as one lane of track.6 This predisposition toward automobile use is plainly evident in the prevalent terminology: money spent on roads is called “highway investment,” while money spent on rails is called “transit subsidy.”

The American Gosplan is not a conspiracy so much as a culture—albeit one strongly supported by pervasive advertising—and it is probably unrealistic to hope that legislators will soon take steps, such as enacting a substantial gasoline tax, to allocate fairly the costs of driving. Pressured by generous automobile industry contributions on the one hand and a car-dependent public on the other, politicians have lately been using gas-tax elimination as an election strategy, with some success. But there is encouraging information suggesting that a gas tax may not be the political suicide that most politicians suspect. According to a recent Pew Foundation poll, 60 percent of those asked favored a twenty-five-cent-per-gallon gas tax to slow global warming.bg

While there are many supposedly “anti-business” arguments for a higher gas tax—from fighting global warming to supporting public transit—the real justification is economic: subsidized automobile use is the single largest violation of the free-market principle in U.S. fiscal policy. Economic inefficiencies in this country due to automotive subsidization are estimated at $700 billion annually,7 which powerfully undermines America’s ability to compete in the global economy. Although suburban sprawl is the concern in this book, it is not the only sad result of this fundamental error.

The problems of automobile subsidization have been well documented; this is old news. And yet it is news which few people seem to understand, and which has barely begun to influence government policy in any significant way. So, to all the concerned activists nationwide who are banging their heads against the wall on this issue, we do not have very much to say except “May we join you at the wall?” Fortunately, the automobile subsidy is only one of many forces contributing to sprawl, and there are other avenues along which anti-sprawl efforts are likely to achieve meaningful results.

6

SPRAWL AND THE DEVELOPER

THE DECLINE OF THE AMERICAN DEVELOPER;

THE INSIDIOUS INFLUENCE OF THE MARKET EXPERTS;

QUESTIONABLE CONVENTIONAL WISDOM; STRUGGLES WITH THE

HOMEBUILDERS; A VISIT TO THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF

HOME BUILDERS’ ANNUAL CONVENTION

If what you are selling is privacy and exclusivity, then every new house is a degradation of the amenity. However, if what you are selling is community, then every new house is an enhancement of the asset.

—VINCE GRAHAM, ADDRESSING THE NATIONAL

ASSOCIATION OF HOME BUILDERS, 1997

THE DECLINE OF THE AMERICAN DEVELOPER

Of all those who suffer from suburban sprawl, who is the greatest victim? It could be argued that the distinction belongs to that former pillar of society, the real estate developer. Certainly, over the past quarter century, few members of American society have experienced as drastic a fall from grace as he has. While entire segments of the population have been forced by suburbia to significantly compromise their quality of life, the developer has been victimized in a different way: he has become persona non grata.

It was not always thus. When George Merrick built Florida’s Coral Gables, only seventy years ago, he was regarded not as a developer but as a town founder. A bust in his likeness still presides proudly over City Hall. He is hailed, appropriately, as the city father, a visionary, and mentioned regularly in the public discourse, not unlike the framers