THE WAR OF WORDS: HOW CAN SMART GROWTH WIN?

Vassiliki Andreadou

Smart growth success in various cities and regions across the United States and in other parts of the world has stimulated a fierce opposition among powerful anti-smart-growth advocates. A genuine war of words has developed. The United States has been the main battle field since smart growth concepts came to a fore in the 1970s.

The outcome of this war may condition the shape of American cities, and the eyes of environmentalists around the world are focused on this struggle since the USA is needed in the global struggle to save the earth. Urban and suburban sprawl may become irreversible or a victory on the smart growth side would be tantamount to a new era of urban planning, putting and end to, or at least limiting the environmental and aesthetic damages of sprawl and its costly consequences. A snapshot of the ongoing war of words reveals that smart growth combatants have more often than not lost the early battles and literally lose even more “ground”.

The powerful anti-smart-growth arsenal. It has to be admitted that the opponents are extremely powerful. Their troops are led by big conservative think tanks such as the Heritage Foundations, created in 1973, whose mission among other things is the defense of “individual liberty, free enterprise, limited government, […] and traditional American values, among which they do not include what Ray Oldenburg calls “third places”, such as traditional cafés and other neighborhood hangouts. The Cato Institute and the Reason Foundation are other influential players against smart growth. There are also invidual crusaders against smart growth, whose leader is Wendell Cox, for whom smart growth is a “crusade against the American dream”. Finally, this crusade is supported by influential private players such as industries in the sector of buildings, transportation and oil. Their efficiency is partly due to the fact that their discourse includes serious (or at least notorious) economic analyses.

Lack of communication and economic fundamentals

Not only is the other side powerful and influential but the weapons of smart growth advocates often seem weak and obsolete. Though “googlization” is not very scientific test, within Google the “pro smart growth” results in 1.5 million responses, against 2.3 million for “against smart growth”, indicating that there may be a communication deficit for smart growth advocates. Smart growth arguments are usually based on concrete experience but often lack support in the realm of economic theory, which allows the enemy to pretend that smart growth is detrimental to consumers in search of private property because smart growth leads to a rise in property prices. (See Matthias Planque’s essay on how to curtail gentrification.)

Thus, one solution could be to use the weapons of the enemy, which means developing a consumer-targeted approach and “selling” smart growth as a quality-of-life “product”, to the same degree as suburban housing tracts are sold as the American dream. This may be the only way to sensitize people to how smart growth represents their own personal interests. Since consuming has become a right, almost as important as voting, by convincing consumers that smart growth patterns are favorable to their pocketbook (and their good health, as well), we will then be able to defend this ideal in political circles and private sectors. Though smart growth has lost some battles, the war against sprawl and its consequences is far from over.   

Bibliographical note:

Dozens of sources were recommended and hundreds of others were discovered. Just a few of those read and considered were, in alphabetical order: Ivan Illich, James Howard Kunstler, Serge Latouche, Richard Layard, the Michigan Land Use Institute, the New Economics Foundation, Ray Oldenburg, Vendana Shiva, and others named within the texts.