Video: Sandy Ikeda on The Unintended Consequences of “Smart Growth”

As someone who works full-time for a smart growth advocacy organization, I can assure you that few smart growth advocates around here (Pennsylvania) “want to use top-down coercive methods”. Absurd!

I watched the whole video and Dr. Ikedia never really engages head on with smart growth policies. The opportunistic taking of a flood plain he cited doesn't have much to do directly with smart growth. Lots of municipalities have conducted questionable takings long before smart growth was around. He also expresses concerns over government intervention and the unintended consequences of subsidizing certain activities. I sympathize with those points, but again, this is just as much a hazard of our traditional planning system as it is with smart growth. Ultimately, I think its kind of silly to argue about whether or not cities should be planned. They always have been and always will be. To some extent, they must be. Planning has produced some of the best cities in the world and some of the worst. Paris and LA were both planned, and I'll leave it up to other commenters to decide which represents which. I know the idea of making normative judgments makes economists like Dr. Ikeda uncomfortable, but we do need to decide, as a public, what role cities should have. Should they be planned to serve exclusively as an office park for suburban commuters? Or can we plan them to be vital centers of activity for people from all walks of life? This choice comes with very real consequences for the environment, for our economy, and for civic life. Simply warning against government interventionism is an all-too-easy way to avoid the toughest issues.

To his credit, Ikeda differentiates between smart growth and “interventionist” urban planning at the beginning of the interview, which the program itself (and lots of people) seem to see as synonymous. But he falls back into this, at least through his illustrations. What exactly is the connection between smart growth and eminent domain? If anything it's usually employed for exactly the opposite …

It drives me nuts that for some strange reason smart growth policies are labeled as “interventionist” yet all of the status quo policies (minimum parking requirements, Euclidian zoning, etc.) that are still on the books of most jurisdictions are either ignored or even seen as organic, market-based, or whatever. Once again this criticism is directed less at Ikeda than the video producers: “Are there dangers associated with smart growth?” C'mon. What about the “dangers” of doing nothing and keeping policies as is? I agree with Epars comments, in many cases eliminating planning altogether is either politically unrealistic or undesirable (in my opinion). Maybe the focus should be more on what kinds of policies are most appropriate, that is that put the market to work aimed at a community's values and objectives, rather than on whether to have policies at all.

Also, when it comes to “top-down,” i think there needs to be some discussion about the levels of government. I think of federal interventions when I hear that term, as opposed to ordinances set at a local level, presumably more tailored to the particular interests of the community. Most smart growth advocates are really working at this level.

Dan,

It drives me nuts that for some strange reason smart growth policies are labeled as “interventionist” yet all of the status quo policies (minimum parking requirements, Euclidian zoning, etc.) that are still on the books of most jurisdictions are either ignored or even seen as organic, market-based, or whatever. Once again this criticism is directed less at Ikeda than the video producers: “Are there dangers associated with smart growth?” C'mon. What about the “dangers” of doing nothing and keeping policies as is?

I agree. The traditional planning techniques are more ubiquitous than Smart Growth Policies, and at least in urban areas, many times more dangerous… I think the real danger is that these policies are so widespread that they are seen as a function of the market. The real challenge is confronting this orthodoxy, and Smart Growth advocates actually share this objective with Market Urbanists and could even be considered allies in that regard.

Thanks for your response. I fully understand the authoritarian tendencies in a statement like, “we do need to decide, as a public, what role cities should have”. I'm also aware of how private interests co-opted the public interest during they heyday of urban renewal to give us the dysfunctional cities we have today. But I still stand by what I said. Why? Well, I'm looking at the banner graphic of your website and I see a pleasant urban scene in France, not sure where but it seems like a popular place to be. I assume you like it too, since you put up top of your site. But I bet that streetcar is publicly owned, or operating under a government-provided franchise. That there are rail lines there to begin with, and not a street for cars, is the result of a government decision. I bet the facades surrounding the plaza have to meet government-imposed design guidelines. I'm sure there are restrictions on what type of businesses the tenants can run, too. The land for the plaza itself was probably acquired coercively by the government years ago (and I highly doubt landowners were afforded just compensation).

This is where the tough issue comes in. As you point out, the “we” I refer to refers to those in power, not individuals. You're right, of course. But any democratic country, regardless of how laissez-faire it is, has to make basic choices about who will represent it and what decisions those people can make on behalf of the public. Apparently, some of those people in France have made good decisions for their cities. Similarly, the government of Copenhagen has succeeded in getting 30-something percent of its commuters to bike to work through building bike infrastructure. The result has been a great success for urbanism, but it didn't happen through the free market. Now maybe we could tie ourselves in knots theorizing on a privatization scheme that gets us to the same result. But the point is we don't need to, if we recognize the tough, messy reality that there's no unified theory on when government works and when it doesn't. Many times markets work, other times they fail. Sometimes voluntary action is feasible, sometimes its not. So once we get over this, we can move on to the more important debate over what makes for good cities and what we can do through our government to build them.

I certainly don't have the credibility to debate this subject, but a couple of thoughts I have:

Why is a top-down approach bad by default? Some corporations, boards, and executive committees do need to intervene from time to time and are often the source of original missions and business models. The London sewers, Amsterdam's canals, and more are all excellent top-down solutions that were not emerging from the market (and in some cases fought the ideas). I just don't accept that top-down planning, no matter what the application, is inherently evil or dangerous. I do understand the “force” card that government has, but that is why the form of government (democratic) is critical. We wont achieve perfection, but most of the older cities that had some thought put in them appear to have done much better (at least as far as this layman can tell)

I have seen plenty of examples of market collaboration at the expense of the consumer. I believe that a strong index system of laws that all can agree upon make a great starting point for the market to work it's magic without sacrificing the majority (London) with little to no recourse.

Benjamin Hemric writes:

I haven't gotten a chance to view the video of Sandy's talk yet, so this isn't a comment on his talk or the responses people have had to it. But “Epar” wrote something interesting that I think is worth discussing further, if it hasn't been discussed here already (the following numbering, which separate outs the various points being made, is mine):

Epar wrote:

Ultimately, I think its kind of silly to argue about whether or not cities should be planned. [1] They always have been and always will be [“planned”]. [2] To some extent, they must be [“planned”]. Planning has produced some of the best cities in the world and some of the worst. [3] Paris and LA were both planned, and I'll leave it up to other commenters to decide which represents which. [4] I know the idea of making normative judgments makes economists like Dr. Ikeda uncomfortable, but we do need to decide, as a public, what role cities should have. [5] Should they be planned to serve exclusively as an office park for suburban commuters? Or can we plan them to be vital centers of activity for people from all walks of life?

Benjamin Hemric writes:

In conversations about urban “planning,” I think it’s useful to define what it meant by the word planning, as the word seems to mean different things to different people. Using the word “planning” in the conventional way that it seems to be used today, I think it is untrue that cities have been and always will be [planned] (item 1 above). I also think it is untrue that they must be planned and that LA and Paris (yes, even Paris) were both “planned” (items 2 and 3 above).

It seems to me that the word “planning” as it is actually used today, almost always is referring to what might be termed “comprehensive” planning , whereby governments try to self-consciously plan things that they were NOT planned in the past, before the advent of the field of city planning. It does not mean any government action whatsoever (e.g., the construction of streets, parks, police stations, etc.).

I think an analogous situation exists with regard to the definition of economic planning. Governments decide how much money to print, etc. But this isn’t what people mean when they talk about economic planning. Economic planning is when governments try to “comprehensively” plan an economy in a self-conscious way. (The clearest and most extreme examples of this were, of course, seen in communist countries in the 1950s.)

Regarding Paris as a planned city. Of course, I know about the boulevards and other “planning” regulations. But as I understand it, before the boulevards, etc., Paris was a thriving, teaming unplanned (in the sense that we used the word today) city.

P.S. – Perhaps I’m not using the website correctly, but while I’m typing it, I can only see two lines of my post at a time. Is there anyway one can type and see more of what one is typing?

While I'm not an expert about Paris either, from pretty much all that I've read about it (and about the history of Western cities in general) it would seem to be inaccurate to call Paris, before Haussman, a “slum town.” It was, so it seems, a pre-Haussman city — one that was not that much different from most other great cities of the time. (Which isn't to say that parts of it, maybe even very large parts of it, wouldn't offend today's sensibilities.)

In any case, the point is that Haussman's boulevards, for all their functional and aesthetic benefits, did not create the economically and politically important city of Paris. So it seems inaccurate to me to call Paris a planned city; a not insignificant portion of Paris was already there, and was already a great city before Haussman came along.

Plus, when Hausman built his boulevards (and sewers, I believe), etc., this was not, at least from the little I've read, (“comprehensive”) planning in the sense that the word has today, with government officials self-consciously choosing winners and losers among various activities and then putting them in various zones at various densities, etc. in order to create a near perfect static (or very slowly changing, under the watchful eye of planning authorities) “planned” community. In comparison to the professional (“comprehensive”) planning of today, I think it would be more accurate to call Haussman's great improvements to Paris, brilliant ad hoc problem solving (of transportation, sanitation and aesthetic problems) of problems facing an already great metropolis (destined to become even greater due to the brilliant problem solving).

Similarly, I think it would be inaccurate to call NYC (which I am more knowledgable about) a (“comprehensively”) “planned” city. The laying out of its 1811 street grid (which also provided for some parks), the construction of its horse drawn street car lines, it's great water supply system, Central Park, the Brooklyn Bridge, the NYC elevateds and subways (and PATH system), the development of Times Square, the great Garment District (and other business districts), the construction of Pennsylvania Station, Grand Central Terminal “city,” the slicing through of Seventh Avenue South and Sixth Ave, the Holland Tunnel, the construction of Rockefeller Center, etc. were NOT the result of professional (“comprehensive”) planning. Rather they were all, so it seems to me, relatively narrowly focused ad hoc solutions to problems or business opportunities that were generated by the economically growing metropolis of New York City. The government initiatives themselves also seemed to be narrowly focused on specific problems. Some of these developments were even proposed by ad hoc groups of private citizens, or were even business propositions (or originally meant to be business propositions, like the Brooklyn Bridge).

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P.S. — I'm typing from a different PC, but it seems like the problem I mentioned is gone.

Its not bad by default, but it starts to break down as an efficient and effective means of coordination as it gets too big and cannot support the weight of its own bureaucracy.

The problem with the examples you gave, is that it is nearly impossible to imagine the market-based counter factual because it was not allowed to emerge. It would be interesting to compare those examples with a market-based approach such as the growth of the internet, cellular phones networks, and railroad networks.

great response benjamin. I actually have a post that has been a draft for about a year that discusses some similar cocepts. I plan to try to wrap that up and get it posted since it is timely to this discussion.

I would very much like that. Next time you are in OKC, let's do it. 🙂

I would also love to visit with you just to hear about journey. I was once very libertarian and then I tried getting anything done and found the whole movement was failing miserably. The irony is, libertarians (including myself for time) couldn't grasp the concept of voluntary grouping of people to form cities. What naturally follows is where I had to part my ways. I see nothing wrong with those voluntary groups creating rules and asking those who live “among them” to abide by them. Society rules are considered vital to our advancement as a society and I find nothing wrong with it.

It is tempting to jump on a train to come up for that beer. I really would love to hear your thoughts.

Sandy commented on the video at thinkmarkets here:

http://thinkmarkets.wordpress.com/2009/12/21/th…