Suburban Nation - Andres Duany [61]
The components of a healthy region: neighborhoods, districts, and corridors (Drawing by Thomas E. Low, DPZ)
This eight-step program, unlike some of the wishful thinking currently being promulgated by anti-growth groups, accepts the realities of the American real estate business. The most practical—and popular—aspect of the program is that it encourages good development rather than attempting to outlaw all development, which is tantamount to political suicide in most jurisdictions. This process recognizes and capitalizes on the one resource readily available to bureaucracies: time. Because most permitting agencies have trained their local developers to wait months or even years for a permit—in a business in which time is money—they essentially have the opportunity to grant large monetary awards by offering quicker permitting to the appropriate projects. In such an environment, bad development need not be outlawed; it need only remain subject to the same drawn-out process it currently follows, a process that becomes all the more painful in comparison to that which is available to neighborhood development.
Of the eight steps, the sixth one—encouraging the construction of true neighborhoods—is perhaps the most important. But it is also the most easily forgotten. In the absence of a neighborhood structure for new development, even the best planning efforts can be fruitless. Miami once again proves an instructive example. By any common measure of planning wisdom, the city has done a stellar job. It has had a single regional government (Miami-Dade County) since 1957. It has a consolidated school district serving the entire county, so that school quality will not cause relocations. It has an urban boundary that was drawn tight to the edge of existing growth in 1976. And it has a top-of-the-line regional transit system, including a downtown People-Mover tram, a complete bus network serving locations many miles away, and the already mentioned twenty-seven-stop elevated Metro-Rail.
Yet, by any common measure of planning success—environmen—tal quality, social equity, or quality of life—Miami is far from where it should be. One need not marshal statistics to support this assertion; a single afternoon driving in the city’s western suburbs will convince anyone. What is missing in the Miami plan is neighborhoods: the organization of growth into mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly, transit-ready communities. Without neighborhoods, the city could double its rail service and still not lessen its harsh traffic.
While the above eight-step program is open to dispute, the fundamentals are well accepted. As growing pains become severe, the problem lies not just in agreeing on a course of action but in developing the regional-scale coordination necessary to implement it. The will to do so seems to be mounting, thanks to some well-publicized examples, both good and bad. Cities are looking with envy at the success of Portland’s regional plan, and with fear at Atlanta, where decades of laissez-faire construction have led to a traffic and air-quality crisis. Indeed, Atlanta recently created a regional transportation authority to confront this crisis, proof that regional planning cannot be avoided, only postponed.bz
It is wise to be suspicious of any solution that implies more government, but this is not one of them. Regional governance can best be achieved not by adding more bureaucracy but by redistributing existing responsibilities.ca Those