Suburban Nation - Andres Duany [93]
State governments are also active in the funding of affordable housing, which is most often provided with little concern for the greater goal of creating viable communities. Tax credit programs, in their well-intentioned effort to protect public moneys, enforce criteria that are antithetical to the creation of neighborhoods. Following the old highway engineering adage of “fast, safe, and cheap”—which betrays a preference for efficient production over the needs of the user—the resulting housing is isolated on large tracts far from shopping, schools, and transit, and bunched together by the hundreds according to generic plans. This formula contradicts all that is known about creating successful communities, and further burdens poor families with multiple car ownership.
Correcting troubled “projects” must take precedence over the creation of new ones, with investment directed to infill housing in existing neighborhoods. Affordable housing must be provided in a form and a place that allow for affordable living, even if it comes at greater cost. Although land may be cheaper on the urban fringe, that location fails to provide residents with easy access to jobs and services. Similarly, the cheaper cookie-cutter housing designs often make infill development impossible, because they don’t fit in with their neighbors. And the financial mandate to provide cheap housing in gigantic increments creates ghettoes of concentrated poverty.
State law also establishes rules for local property taxes, which often determine what the private sector does with its real estate. The higher tax assessments that follow rezoning and precede rebuilding often displace long-time residents, encourage speculation by absentee landlords, and lead to the destruction of historic buildings. Recognizing this problem, some states have passed laws allowing cities and towns to allocate tax credits or abatements for historic properties. Other states are permitting municipalities to tax land at a higher rate than buildings—“site—value taxation”—to discourage demolitions and land speculation, and to encourage construction where it might ordinarily occur last.
Finally, states set school policy and therefore must acknowledge that educational goals, busing costs, and community design principles all support the same conclusion: smaller schools are better. Recommendations for larger facilities almost always result from a shortsighted focus on administrative efficiency. Moreover, many states require unjustifiably oversized building sites, and as a result schools become neighborhood separators rather than community centers.dq At their worst, these requirements even impose dispersed suburban layouts in dense urban areas, effectively preventing new city school construction. These rules must be changed. In addition, new real estate developments should be required to include neighborhood-based schools that children can walk to. Similarly, any new citywide magnet schools should be located at public transit hubs to be accessible to all.
In sum: the federal government is distant, local government is myopic, and regional government is lacking. In this context, state government is best able to promote regional planning. Whether it is purchasing land for conservation, mandating urban boundaries, or restricting low-density development, state leadership is needed to foster awareness and to sponsor smart growth.
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
What has been most needed at the federal level is the admission that we have a problem. Happily, after ten years of media coverage of the ills of sprawl—Newsweek covers, Nightline