Salon Newsreal | The war against sprawl I

A L S O+T O D A Y
The war against sprawl, II
By Susan Zakin
It's owls against developers in Arizona's Oro Valley

Reactions to the president's speech
Experts discuss Clinton's performance and what effects his proposals would have on the actual problems he identified as priorities

[ WANDERLUST ]
Can this planet be saved?
By Don George
Mark Hertsgaard discusses his new book about the human toll of global environmental devastation
[ WANDERLUST ]
Earth odyssey
By Mark Hertsgaard
A visit to Bangkok reveals the economic temptations and environmental troubles of the Technological Age

T A B L E+T A L K
Who would be your "Man or Woman of the Century"? Nominate your candidate in the International Issues area of Table Talk
___________________
Visit barnesandnoble.com for politics books on both sides of the aisle
___________________

R E C E N T L Y
We interrupt this impeachment ...
By Joshua Micah Marshall
Two years in a row, Clinton's State of the Union address proves he won't follow the Presidential Tragedy script
(01/20/99)
Dear Henry
By Sean Wilentz, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. and C. Vann Woodward
Historians talk back to House impeachment managers
(01/20/99)
What might have been
By Joan Walsh
It's hard to watch this president perform so well, knowing that he has already undermined his -- and our -- hopes for any real legislative success
(01/20/99)
Diamond in the Ruff
By Harry Jaffe
The president's lawyer, a lone figure in his wheelchair in the well of the Senate, could not have been a more effective defender
(01/20/99)
The State of the Union
Prepared text of President Clinton's State of the Union address
(01/20/99)
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-----The war against sprawl, I
News THINK AL GORE'S "SMART GROWTH" PLAN IS A NO-BRAINER? THINK AGAIN.

BY ROB GURWITT | When Vice President Al Gore unveiled the Clinton administration's new initiative to curb urban sprawl last week, you could sense both the peril and the promise in the move. That is, if you noticed it at all.
Gore announced the administration's "Livability Agenda" just as the Senate took up President Clinton's impeachment trial, when the Washington press corps was busy chasing down every last nuance of Sen. Trent Lott's ruminations and ignoring everything else. The White House, meanwhile, was busy trying to produce headlines that had nothing to do with impeachment: Gore presiding over a summit on "21st Century Skills for 21st Century Jobs"; Gore announcing 20 new "Empowerment Zones"; Gore convening an international forum on "reinventing government." And of course, on Tuesday came the State of the Union address, in which Clinton once again buried the country in a slew of proposals -- including his "Livability Agenda" -- that would have had trouble competing with each other for attention in even the most placid of times.
But the proposals Gore outlined to curtail urban sprawl are worth noticing. Specifically, he laid out a plan to offer $700 million in tax credits to support "Better America Bonds" that will help restore urban parks, protect green space, improve water quality and clean up old industrial sites; boost spending on public transit and regional attempts to find alternatives to highways; and spend about $50 million to help metropolitan areas figure out how to "grow smarter" -- to avoid sprawl and put money back into existing roads, schools and sewers.
Most media coverage of Gore's announcement played it as the first feel-good moment of the upcoming presidential campaign. But Gore's "livability" proposals were both cannier and riskier than the reporting suggested. For what the vice president has done is to join a battle that is really about the ways wealth and poverty etch themselves on our political landscape.
"Gore is clearly ahead of the curve at the federal level in understanding the intricacies of growth patterns in the country today -- what's motivating them and what the fallout is for cities, inner suburbs, outer suburbs and the countryside," says Bruce Katz, who runs the Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington. The simple fact that the nation's second in command uttered the words "smart growth" is unprecedented: After all, who's for stupid growth? But this is the same federal government whose policies, from its highway bills to its mortgage subsidies to its school desegregation efforts, have encouraged urban flight and the opening up of the hinterlands. (Sometime this spring, we'll get an idea of just how fully the feds encourage sprawl, after the General Accounting Office issues a report detailing sprawl-inducing federal programs. Don't expect a quick read.)
Yet Gore's proposals put him at the confluence of anti-sprawl currents that have been gaining force over the last several years. They strike a chord with urban neighborhood activists who are tired of watching limited public resources get spent on spanking new facilities 10 miles out of town. They appeal to suburbanites who resent spending twice as much time getting to work each morning as they did five years ago, even though the distance they travel is the same. They clearly play to environmentalists, for whom sprawl has become the next big battle. They even have an audience among farmers, who have discovered that their new neighbors in those split-levels next door have been complaining to local officials about manure-spreading at 5 in the morning.
All of that has the makings of a fine electoral coalition. But there's a hitch. "Sprawl" is not just about building indistinguishable new subdivisions with spaghetti-like road systems and houses whose most obvious feature is the garage. It is also about the far more personal matter of where we live and why, and it brings up uncomfortable questions with no easy answers: the fate of central cities, older suburbs and the people who live in them; our conflicted feelings about urban schools; the inequities of public spending and our rank failure to address them; the fact that suburban life, even for committed urbanites, is so enticingly cushioned. And, as is always true when a politician takes on an issue that strikes at the heart of American comfort, it's entirely possible that Gore will discover that the only thing we hate more than the status quo is changing it.
N E X T+P A G E+| Talking open space, building new highways

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A L S O+T O D A Y The war against sprawl, II By Susan Zakin It's owls against developers in Arizona's Oro Valley Reactions to the president's speech Experts discuss Clinton's performance and what effects his proposals would have on the actual problems he identified as priorities [ WANDERLUST ] Can this planet be saved? By Don George Mark Hertsgaard discusses his new book about the human toll of global environmental devastation [ WANDERLUST ] Earth odyssey By Mark Hertsgaard A visit to Bangkok reveals the economic temptations and environmental troubles of the Technological Age T A B L E+T A L K Who would be your "Man or Woman of the Century"? Nominate your candidate in the International Issues area of Table Talk ___________________ Visit barnesandnoble.com for politics books on both sides of the aisle ___________________ R E C E N T L Y We interrupt this impeachment ... By Joshua Micah Marshall Two years in a row, Clinton's State of the Union address proves he won't follow the Presidential Tragedy script (01/20/99) Dear Henry By Sean Wilentz, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. and C. Vann Woodward Historians talk back to House impeachment managers (01/20/99) What might have been By Joan Walsh It's hard to watch this president perform so well, knowing that he has already undermined his -- and our -- hopes for any real legislative success (01/20/99) Diamond in the Ruff By Harry Jaffe The president's lawyer, a lone figure in his wheelchair in the well of the Senate, could not have been a more effective defender (01/20/99) The State of the Union Prepared text of President Clinton's State of the Union address (01/20/99) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Browse the Newsreal Archives - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
		-----The war against sprawl, I THINK AL GORE'S "SMART GROWTH" PLAN IS A NO-BRAINER? THINK AGAIN. BY ROB GURWITT \| When Vice President Al Gore unveiled the Clinton administration's new initiative to curb urban sprawl last week, you could sense both the peril and the promise in the move. That is, if you noticed it at all. Gore announced the administration's "Livability Agenda" just as the Senate took up President Clinton's impeachment trial, when the Washington press corps was busy chasing down every last nuance of Sen. Trent Lott's ruminations and ignoring everything else. The White House, meanwhile, was busy trying to produce headlines that had nothing to do with impeachment: Gore presiding over a summit on "21st Century Skills for 21st Century Jobs"; Gore announcing 20 new "Empowerment Zones"; Gore convening an international forum on "reinventing government." And of course, on Tuesday came the State of the Union address, in which Clinton once again buried the country in a slew of proposals -- including his "Livability Agenda" -- that would have had trouble competing with each other for attention in even the most placid of times. But the proposals Gore outlined to curtail urban sprawl are worth noticing. Specifically, he laid out a plan to offer $700 million in tax credits to support "Better America Bonds" that will help restore urban parks, protect green space, improve water quality and clean up old industrial sites; boost spending on public transit and regional attempts to find alternatives to highways; and spend about $50 million to help metropolitan areas figure out how to "grow smarter" -- to avoid sprawl and put money back into existing roads, schools and sewers. Most media coverage of Gore's announcement played it as the first feel-good moment of the upcoming presidential campaign. But Gore's "livability" proposals were both cannier and riskier than the reporting suggested. For what the vice president has done is to join a battle that is really about the ways wealth and poverty etch themselves on our political landscape. "Gore is clearly ahead of the curve at the federal level in understanding the intricacies of growth patterns in the country today -- what's motivating them and what the fallout is for cities, inner suburbs, outer suburbs and the countryside," says Bruce Katz, who runs the Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington. The simple fact that the nation's second in command uttered the words "smart growth" is unprecedented: After all, who's for stupid growth? But this is the same federal government whose policies, from its highway bills to its mortgage subsidies to its school desegregation efforts, have encouraged urban flight and the opening up of the hinterlands. (Sometime this spring, we'll get an idea of just how fully the feds encourage sprawl, after the General Accounting Office issues a report detailing sprawl-inducing federal programs. Don't expect a quick read.) Yet Gore's proposals put him at the confluence of anti-sprawl currents that have been gaining force over the last several years. They strike a chord with urban neighborhood activists who are tired of watching limited public resources get spent on spanking new facilities 10 miles out of town. They appeal to suburbanites who resent spending twice as much time getting to work each morning as they did five years ago, even though the distance they travel is the same. They clearly play to environmentalists, for whom sprawl has become the next big battle. They even have an audience among farmers, who have discovered that their new neighbors in those split-levels next door have been complaining to local officials about manure-spreading at 5 in the morning. All of that has the makings of a fine electoral coalition. But there's a hitch. "Sprawl" is not just about building indistinguishable new subdivisions with spaghetti-like road systems and houses whose most obvious feature is the garage. It is also about the far more personal matter of where we live and why, and it brings up uncomfortable questions with no easy answers: the fate of central cities, older suburbs and the people who live in them; our conflicted feelings about urban schools; the inequities of public spending and our rank failure to address them; the fact that suburban life, even for committed urbanites, is so enticingly cushioned. And, as is always true when a politician takes on an issue that strikes at the heart of American comfort, it's entirely possible that Gore will discover that the only thing we hate more than the status quo is changing it. N E X T+P A G E+\| Talking open space, building new highways - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Become a Salon member. Click here. PHOTO © UPI/CORBIS-BETTMANN