DOES THE SMART GROWTH MOVEMENT HAVE TO BE POLITICAL

Lutz Weischer

Many people within the smart growth movement believe that it should be mainly about changing your lifestyle; living without a car, buying organic food grown in the region, using your bicycle or public transportation, living in a moderately sized residence. Once you live according to your values, others will see you are actually enjoying it and they too might decide to use fewer resources.

But even as the movement slowly grows this way, changing lifestyles just won’t be enough. Our political and economic system constantly sets incentives for people to act in a way that is not compatible with smart growth. Political decisions on all levels make it hard to follow a smart growth lifestyle. Here are some examples.

On a local level, many cities and especially suburbs are still built primarily to accommodate the needs of automobile owners. In some of the most developed cities and regions, public transportation is underdeveloped or does not even exist. Enormous amounts of money are spent to build and maintain roads while railway networks remain under-funded. On the national level, airplane fuel is tax exempt while the energy used by public transport is fully taxed. Global free trade agreements encourage intensive agriculture and long distance transport of food. 

Many such political decisions make it easier and cheaper to disrespect smart growth principles. Such decisions may even render a smart growth lifestyle impossible: such as single use zoning that places residences far enough away from commerce to require the use of a car for shopping. You cannot influence where your electricity comes from, and you are stuck with electricity derived from coal, gas or oil. Nor can you make the government rehabilitate an old train line that passes near where you live.

Therefore, the smart growth movement has to be political. But changing society from above by getting politicians to do the right thing will not work unless there is pressure from below, from the grass roots. Changing lifestyles remains a necessity because one of the best ways to build political pressure is to practice what you preach.