Anthony Flint, author of the new book, “This Land: The Battle Over Sprawl and the Future of America.” covered planning and transportation issues for the Boston Globe before leaving several months ago to help his home state of Massachusetts communicate with citizens about its smart growth programs. He recently was named public affairs director of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy in Cambridge. In a conversation with SGA’s communications director, David Goldberg, Flint talks about his emerging optimism.
Q. You’ve been moving around the country lately to promote your book. What are you finding in your travels?
A. I’m going around predicting that people will make a new calculus in terms of the family budget, convenience and quality of life and that sprawl increasingly is going to end up not being the bargain it was cracked up to be. People seem to get it. Energy and transportation costs will be factored into the price of the home. People are driving to qualify for mortgages, they’re headed to the Central Valley in California, to West Virginia in the D.C. area, but the additional costs will be factored in. The worst thing in the world would be if the middle class found that sprawl was unaffordable but that living in the city is too expensive, too.
In Seattle people said they would love to live in the city but they can’t afford it, because Microsoft execs are bidding up all the houses and condos. My answer is that more supply will help, that if new urbanist and mixed neighborhoods weren’t so rare they would be less expensive. The smart growth movement in the future will need to go the extra mile to work for affordable alternatives …
Q. In your book you made a forceful argument that the way our metro areas have been growing is unsustainable and is beginning to raise serious challenges for our country, yet you were not optimistic that things were going to change. Do you still feel that way?
A. I have actually grown more hopeful, although I do conclude in the book that it would be the American consumer who would lead the way in bringing about the change in demand. And I do think that is what is happening. The high gas prices have nudged things along quite a bit. … As a journalist I was perhaps impatient and trading in the world of bumper sticker messages. One thing that being involved in government has taught me is a better appreciation of how intricate policy making can be. I personally think all journalists should take a year and go into government, because it would make them better reporters. There is no one thing that will change things. No one will snap their fingers and make something happen in a state or local area.
Q. As your book was headed to print you rushed to add a chapter to your book about the aftermath of Katrina. Do you think the experience in the Gulf Coast is contributing to a tipping point where smart growth and new urbanism are concerned?
A. The attention and publicity that new urbanists and people who support smart growth have received for the ideas and expertise they have contributed to the rebuilding has been one good outcome of the storm. They have been in The New York Times and on network news, and so that’s a good thing. The Katrina cottage can show how modular and manufactured housing can be done well and contribute to affordable housing. If Gulf communities adopt form-based codes that also will help. It’s a moment of truth for the alternative … in planning and development. In the years ahead, it may prove to be a crowning achievement for smart growth and new urbanism that will be a model to point to for parts of the country that were not ravaged by Katrina.
Q. I recently heard you spar with writer Robert Brueggman, who argues that urban sprawl has always been with us and that only “elites” are concerned about it. What do you make of his contention?
A. I was sorry to see that he fell into the pattern of being the sort of drive-by intellectual that Joel Kotkin often is. He knows, for example, that there was no such thing as automobile-dependent sprawl before the automobile. I was disappointed because this role of devil’s advocate just seems to put us in a debating society mode that is a little bit of a waste of time. It doesn’t seem like these celebrators of sprawl are really interested in an honest debate. His technique primarily is to throw out a lot of red herrings. I think arguments like his are the last gasp defense of an out-moded system. It’s easier and sexier to be an Ann Coulter type commentator on this topic.
Q. But one thing Brueggman did say that struck me was that he is in accord with the ideas advocated under the rubric of smart growth – more choice in where and how we live, preserving critical landscapes for future generations, investing first in the communities we’ve already developed – as long as advocates stop making “sprawl” the culprit. Do we really need to talk about sprawl to make progress at this point?
A. There’s an angels on the head of a pin quality to much of the debate. Does it matter, as Brueggman contends, whether they sprawled or not in ancient Rome? I’m not so preoccupied with sprawl per se. The major home builders — Pulte, KB Homes, Toll Brothers — have all started high-density units, getting away from pure reliance on single family subdivisions. I’m sort of done talking about sprawl and more focused on changing zoning and cutting the red tape for revitalized urban neighborhoods and older suburbs. In that area we have some common ground with conservatives. The ultimate act of respect for the free market is to level the playing field and make it as easy to build in our cities and older suburbs as it is to do conventional sprawl. I’m the Ronald Reagan of planning in that regard.
Q. But do you think it will be possible to avoid government intervention when it comes to creating affordable housing on pricey land near job centers, or to promote redevelopment of an old shopping center as opposed to a green field?
A. I think, though, that much of this can be done with carrots to encourage local governments to change the zoning that prohibits mixed income and higher density closer in, or that allows for low-density development on the fringe. In Massachussetts now there is a scorecard that cities and towns fill out showing what they’re doing to increase housing production, protecting open space, redeveloping brownfields, managing water resources. The higher they score, they higher up the priority list they go for state grants and loans for infrastructure, $500 million a year. 300 of 351 cities and towns have completed the scorecard, and many say they have found it useful, in addition to getting a leg up on state funds.
Q. Do you find that people are eager to talk and read about these issues?
A. Yes, I do. People are eager to talk about this. There is a degree of apprehension out there, the degree and speed of development on farmland, in places no one imagined they would see it. … It’s a lively thing to talk about. We’re doing a lot of fussing and fighting over growth, usually at the late-night zoning hearing, but what I find is that people really are eager to take in the bigger picture. But it’s hard work. It’s a lot easier to do sprawl.