Suburban Nation - Andres Duany [94]
There is an urgent need for national policy on community design. It must be on the public agenda, alongside crime reduction, health care, and family preservation. It is in the nation’s interest to grow healthily, if for no other reason than to maintain its competitive advantage in the global marketplace. Just as it regulates aviation and broadcasting on behalf of its citizens, the federal government should advocate smart growth.
The necessary initiatives are now obvious. The best strategy, in the simplest terms, would be the systematic reversal of those policies which decanted America’s cities into their suburbs after World War II. To begin with, our government’s dedication to subsidizing automotive transportation should be balanced by increased support for public transit. The gasoline tax, whatever its size, should aim to benefit transit as much as highways. After all, if we tax cigarettes to pay for anti-smoking ads, we can certainly tax gasoline to pay for trolleys.dr Then, to create transit systems that actually work, federal funding criteria should regulate the urban design within a half-mile radius of all new stations.
Tax and mortgage policies must be revamped to encourage renovation as much as new construction. Federal incentives to convince developers to do business downtown are necessary but not sufficient. They must be supplemented by programs that remove the disincentives embedded in current industry regulations, such as redlining nonconforming uses and structures built according to earlier codes. Such disincentives often prevent smaller businesses from investing in existing communities, and they require specific attention, as they have become institutionalized into lending and insurance underwriting practices. The Community Reinvestment Act, which requires banks to invest in neighborhood renovation, is working and must be renewed and strengthened. Those federal programs that target neighborhoods, such as Enterprise Zones and Empowerment Zones, must be assessed and improved. Rather than perpetually introducing new (i.e., untested) ideas for dramatic political impact, successive administrations should simply extend effective programs and improve partially successful efforts.
Congress must also establish a mandate for balanced resources among school systems, similar to the federal mandate for transregional air quality. In the final analysis, this is perhaps the critical component of any plan for making urban areas attractive to families of all incomes. For young parents, the single most important factor in choosing a new home is usually its school district, and the inner city can never truly compete without competitive schools.
For the federal Department of Transportation, the mandate is clear. If we truly want to curtail sprawl, we must acknowledge that automotive mobility is a no-win game, and that the only long-term solutions to traffic are public transit and coordinated land use. Given the well-documented case of Atlanta, where road construction did nothing but lengthen commuting times, every inch of proposed pavement must be scrutinized to determine its likely contribution to sprawl.ds
Finally, a federal initiative is needed to better coordinate those policies which now govern the apparently distinct objectives of affordable housing provision, business assistance, job creation, and social services. To be effective, these policies must be focused together at specific places, initiated nationally but customized locally. Each of these programs addresses only one aspect of community life, so they must be approached and applied as a group. HUD’s new initiatives emphasizing community design, not just housing construction, are a step in the right direction.
These policy recommendations,