Smart Growth advocates are concerned about the energy consumed by America's many cars and the emissions they produce. With gas nearing $4 a gallon, it's hard not to share these concerns. However, the solutions commonly proposed--densification to support rail and bus travel--often don't work well in practice. Many homebuyers resist being packed into dense neighborhoods where costs per square foot are high, greenspace is scarce, roads are congested and parking is hard to find. And, too, commutes by public transit typically take twice as long as commutes by car.

The May/June briefing from trendwatching.com describes how companies are working to combine the convenience and comfort of personal vehicles with the need to be gentle on the environment. These innovators include:

Honda (FCX Clarity)

Tesla Motors

Dodge (Zeo)

Chevrolet (Volt)

Myers Motors (NmG)

Subaru (R1e)

Aptera

Nissan (Pivo)

La Petite Reine (Cargocyles that move goods around a city at lower cost)

These vehicles won't resolve all the issues surrounding sprawl and growth, but they may well address some important problems more effectively--and with greater consumer satisfaction--than "transit-oriented development" and throwing more money at rail and bus systems.

Rapid and welcome innovations in transport underscore one of the difficulties of urban planning: unpredictable changes in technology. Major, hard-to-reverse sacrifices--such as paving over in-town greenspace in the name of densification--become harder to justify when more palatable and flexible solutions are in the offing. A good urban plan, with few exceptions, is one that is cautious, humble, gradual, broad-minded, respectful of citizens' preferences, and adaptable.


See also:

Metro Portland's Long Experience with Smart Growth: A Cautionary Tale
Expected home price inflation was found to be greater than expected in most of the states that embraced smart growth, including Oregon, Washington, Tennessee, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Colorado...

Restrictive growth policies actually caused increased suburbanization in Portland, which now has the 10th greatest suburbanization rate in U.S. As home prices went up in the site-restricted metropolitan area, families moved further out to find affordable housing...

There is very little evidence that other aspects of restricted growth policies have reduced households' costs in other areas to offset the increased costs of housing. In economic terms, it is safe to say that restricted growth policies are not family-friendly...

Portland Suburb Successfully Staves Off Densification
In 1995, county planners came to the neighborhood and said they wanted to rezone the area to make it easier to walk around and ride bicycles. There are no sidewalks in the area, but because the area is so low in density, people do not hesitate to walk or ride bicycles.

...people don't want to live in high densities, especially when there are planner-induced parking shortages. A state regulation requires Portland to reduce its parking by 10 percent, so new developments are often built with limited parking. Since developers won't build what they can't sell, planners have to subsidize them to get them to build high-density developments.

People Cannot Live on Boutiques Alone: The Myth of Northwest 23rd
Northwest 23rd Avenue in Portland, Oregon sounds a bit like Main Street in Northampton. It is "lined with classy shops and restaurants" that attract visitors from a wide area. To be sure, these are both pleasant destinations. We are glad to have them around. However, they are not sufficient for meeting all the core needs of most residents with any degree of efficiency. Cars and big box stores currently offer a compelling value proposition that must be acknowledged. If planners want to do away with them, they need to present alternatives that will be cost-effective and time-efficient for people with ordinary incomes.

LA Weekly: "City Hall's 'Density Hawks' Are Changing L.A.'s DNA
The shift is pushing L.A. from its suburban model of single-family homes with gardens or pools -- the reason many come here -- toward an urban template of shrinking green patches and multistory buildings of mostly renters...

LA Weekly: "What's Smart About Smart Growth?" (5/30/07)
[Photo caption:] 11.7 m.p.h.: Average speed of L.A. buses. Yet City Hall pols hope buses will somehow handle the human crush once their plans for multistory living take hold...

[Sharon] Tohline decided to do her part and hop on the bus. Now, she has a commute that consumes three hours each day...

[Pasadena resident Barbara Hamilton] can’t imagine living in the apartments -- at $2,030 for a one-bedroom -- built above the railroad tracks. “They say the windows insulate them from the noise,” she declares. “But wouldn’t you want to open the windows now and then?”

Scrape-Off Redevelopments Provoke Backlash in Denver Neighborhoods
Supporters [of lower-density zoning] said the increased density from the multiple-unit structures was ruining the character of the two neighborhoods, which are comprised of predominately single-family detached homes.

The outcropping of multifamily structures has cast shadows on gardens, increased traffic and created parking wars, among other quality of life issues, they said...

Our Column in Today's Gazette: The Hidden Risks of 'Smart Growth'
Steven Greenhut, a columnist for the Orange County Register, is critical of [Bozeman's] Portland-style growth controls:

Creating unattractive and high-density projects in a place awash in open space only pushes people farther out into the countryside. In Belgrade, eight miles away, one finds market-driven suburban-style subdivisions. That city does not have many restrictions, and those who cannot afford Bozeman or who want a bigger place simply move away, thus promoting the sprawl that Smart Growthers are trying to stop...

Randal O'Toole: "Dense Thinkers" (Reason Magazine, January 1999)
The "decline" of cities that officials worry so much about is due to the fact that cars, telephones, and electricity make it possible for people to live in lower densities--and most choose to do so...

"Sprawl and Congestion—is Light Rail and Transit-Oriented Development the Answer?"
The motor vehicle has enriched our lives in countless ways. It has provided the easy connectivity that enables modern, highly interdependent, urban societies to thrive. It has eliminated rural isolation. It has enabled workers to choose employers rather than accept whatever employment opportunities are within walking or transit distance of their homes. The personal truck allowed craftspeople and artisans to carry their tools with them and enter the middle class by becoming independent contractors. The motor vehicle has enabled people to live outside urban centers and still participate in mainstream society.

The car is an amazing piece of technology that has greatly extended our range of choice as to where to live, work, shop, and play. No other form of transport can compete with the automobile in terms of door-to-door mobility, freedom to time one's arrivals and exits, protection from inclement weather, and comfort, security, and privacy while in transit.[2]

...There is a misconception that rail is an energy efficient, environmentally benign technology. While that impression has considerable truth when applied to long-haul freight, it is not true of rail as a passenger device in US urban communities. The automobile consumption of fuel per passenger mile, in 1993, was 3,593 BTUs. Rail transit was higher, 3,687 BTUs.[20] But actually, the picture for rail is considerably worse. The automobile takes its passengers directly from origin to destination, but rail typically requires supplemental trips to and/or from the station, whether park-and-ride, kiss-and-ride, or by bus...

Further, urban rail systems require local transit operators to alter bus routes to "feed" the rail, due to the limited coverage of its stations and its higher capacity. These feeder lines, as in Portland, are among the least cost-effective and least energy-efficient of the bus lines. And buses are far more fuel-consuming per passenger mile than automobiles (4,374 BTUs/mile vs. 3,593 BTUs), and are even less fuel efficient than trains (3,687 BTUs)...

...not a single light rail line in America carries as many passengers as one conventional freeway lane...

[Locales like Portland are tempted to embark on boondoggle rail projects in order to avail themselves of federal government subsidies: "It's predictable that public bureaucrats, the construction industry and unions, certain professional service providers, and even business associations would promote such projects, each reaching for a chance to cash in on some piece of the action."]

NY Times Magazine: "The Autonomist Manifesto (Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Road)"
Even with $5-per-gallon gasoline, the number of cars per capita in Europe has been growing faster than in America in recent decades, while the percentage of commuters using mass transit has been falling. As the suburbs expand, Europe's cities have been losing people, too. Paris is a great place to visit, but in the past half-century it has lost one-quarter of its population...

Intellectuals' distaste for the car and suburbia, and their fondness for rail travel and cities, are an odd inverse of the old aristocratic attitudes. The suburbs were quite fashionable when only the upper classes could afford to live there...

Some...especially the young and the childless, are moving back to cities, and once again there are private developers ready to meet their desires, which now run toward lofts and historic town houses with modern kitchens. But for most middle-class families, the ideal of city life conflicts with the reality of their own lives. Even if they're willing to do without a yard, how can they afford to live in a decent neighborhood within easy commute of their jobs? How will they go shopping on a rainy day with a child in tow?

Seeing Like a State: Planning Gone Awry in the 20th Century
Scott proposes guidelines to reduce the potential harm from plans. These include:

Take small steps. In an experimental approach to social change, presume that we cannot know the consequences of our interventions in advance. Given this postulate of ignorance, prefer wherever possible to take a small step, stand back, observe, and then plan the next small move...

Favor reversibility. Prefer interventions that can easily be undone if they turn out to be mistakes. Irreversible interventions have irreversible consequences. Interventions into ecosystems require particular care in this respect, given our great ignorance about how they interact...

Plan on surprises. Choose plans that allow the largest accommodation to the unforeseen... In planning housing, it would mean "designing in" flexibility for accommodating changes in family structures or living styles...

Plan on human inventiveness. Always plan under the assumption that those who become involved in the project later will have or will develop the experience and insight to improve on the design... (p.345)