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It’s
difficult to decide who is more exasperating — the
activist who wants to force everyone to use public
transit and live near a rail or bus stop, or the
developer who insists that sprawl is not a problem
and growth should continue into rural areas as fast
as roads can be built.
Virginians
have demonstrated that they won’t tolerate the
kind of restrictions on their freedom that would be
necessary to make the activist’s dream a reality.
Despite huge taxpayer subsidies for public transit,
only a small fraction of the travelers in
Virginia’s metropolitan areas use rail or bus.
Scattered
development and public transit will never be a good
fit; consequently, the activist relies on rigid
zoning regulation to shoehorn new growth into
pockets of dense development. Under this scheme,
land costs would skyrocket in the limited areas open
to growth, while property values elsewhere would
plummet.
The
developer who believes that scattered development
has no adverse effects lives in a dream world. He
insists that, in the name of property rights,
taxpayers must fund more road building into rural
areas to allow owners of farms and forests to
realize the maximum value of their land.
For
decades, I have witnessed another threat to property
rights that is seldom considered. When farms and
forests are converted to shopping malls, residences,
roads, parking lots and office parks, runoff
increases at a staggering rate. Regulatory measures
to control runoff have never been completely
successful. This has turned once-small creeks into
raging rivers during storm events and undermined the
value of downstream properties which are often
severely scoured by the runoff.
Both
the activist and the developer rely too much on
government to get what they want. The activist
proposes even more extensive zoning restrictions and
increased government spending on public transit. The
developer wants more government spending for roads
and other infrastructure to support scattered
development.
Under
either scenario, the taxpayers pick up the tab.
I think they would fare better as consumers. By
limiting the role of government and expanding the
role of private, risk-taking entrepreneurs in
providing what homebuyers, commuters and businesses
want, Virginians can exercise greater power and
enjoy a wider range of choices in pursuing their own
visions, and do so more efficiently.
One
of the major problems with the present approach is
that politicians tend to separate the costs
associated with benefits from the benefits
themselves. This leads to excessive government
spending and borrowing, distorted development and
deferred pain.
The
market economy can bring about greater efficiency
and fairness than the political/governmental system
does. An expanded role for private markets is key to
linking benefits to their actual costs.
The
market system does not fully account for all costs
of growth and development, as the drainage problem
previously described illustrates. Cumulative
environmental effects are generally not built into
the pricing of individual development transactions
except as government requirements are incorporated
in the costs.
Government
can assure that externalities are accounted for by
setting appropriate safety, environmental and
historic preservation standards for new development.
Beyond that, government’s role should be limited
in favor of a larger role for private, risk-taking
entrepreneurs.
Individuals
should be able to choose where they live, work and
shop — if they are willing to pay the cost.
The system in place for half a century has distorted
individual decisions through hidden taxpayer-funded
subsidies. Those subsidies can’t be eliminated
soon enough.
In
my next column, I’ll provide more detail about the
role the private sector could play.
--
January 3, 2006
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