The Shape of the Future

E M Risse

New Year's Resolution

Our politicians and pundits could resolve to tell the truth about what it takes to ameliorate traffic congestion. Of course, they're no more likely to do so than they are to lose 20 pounds.

I have been out of the region. While I was gone, I dreamed that upon my return I would read about resolutions for 2005. In my dream, these resolutions were articulated by those who make decisions and establish opinions. By “resolutions,” I do not mean the soon-forgotten promises to eat less or treat the dog better. I mean commitments to solving problems plaguing citizens: things like traffic congestion, dysfunctional human settlement patterns and rising costs for government services, health care and security. When I got home, I found that it had been just a dream, and that “reality” is just more of the media/officialdom nightmare from 2004 and the previous 60 years.

The Governor, legislative leaders and editorial writers are still suggesting that finding more money is the transportation “solution.” They do not mention changing human settlement patterns-–the location and distribution of travel demand. More money will not “solve” or even “improve” traffic congestion and provide citizens with mobility and access unless there is a Fundamental Change in human settlement patterns.  (See “Self Delusion and Fraud,” June 7, 2004 .

Gov. Mark R. Warner’s $800 +/- million infusion will pay off some debts but will not make a dent in the laundry list of “needs.” These needs are driven by the assumption that just building more transport facilities is an intelligent strategy. No amount of money will “solve” the mobility and access problem without a Fundamental Change in the pattern and density of land use.

The “business community” is raising money for political campaigns and convincing journalists to peddle its story about how congestion is costing billions (it is) and how spending billions on new roads is the solution (it is not).  (See “Businesses Feel Squeeze of State’s Crowded Roads” Stephanie Stroughton, Associated Press, December 30, 2004.)

What is being said to counter “Business-as-Usual” tripe? The good government/conservation/quality-of-life advocates are still suggesting that the path to salvation is to give municipal (aka, “local”) governments additional powers. The very best that municipal governments could do with more power is to better implement their municipal comprehensive plans. Yet these plans, and land-use controls that put them into effect, are a major cause of the core problems. Municipal plans provide for vastly too much land for “tax base” land uses which are only a fantasy and encourage the scatteration of urban land uses (primarily urban dwellings) across the landscape. (See “Scatteration,” September 22, 2003, and "The Role of Municipal Planning in Creating Dysfunctional Human Settlement Patterns", January 23, 2002.)

Problems at the municipal level are exacerbated by the fact that the cumulative impact of inconsistent municipal plans create un-transportable and unsustainable patterns at the subregional and regional scales. There is not a single region or subregion in the Commonwealth with a plan for human settlement that is functional or transportable. (See “The Shape of Richmond’s Future,” 16 Feb 2004.)  

When it comes to a prosperous, functional and sustainable future, “Government As Usual” is no better than “Business As Usual”.

The prospect for more dysfunction emanates not only from the state and local levels of government. Consider the flap over Fannie Mae. No one mentions that the core problem at Fannie Mae is not the cooked books or the exorbitant salaries but the fact that Fannie Mae, along with Freddie Mac and other government actions, superheat the market for houses that are the wrong size and in the wrong location. Expanding home ownership is a fine goal. However, as we note in The Shape of the Future, except for the very rich, it is nearly impossible to make a home out of a house placed a dysfunctional location. Likewise, it is, in fact, impossible to evolve a functional community out of scattered urban dwellings.

Aggravating these individual program failures, national “leaders” are hyping the prospects of an expanded economy and more jobs by accelerating consumption.  This orientation to prosperity (which is good) drives the consumption of dwindling resources (which is bad). As documented by the best current data, this strategy makes those at the top of the economic food chain get richer while those at the bottom are losing ground.  Those in the middle are sinking under the pressure of growing medical, education and service costs. They look down to see their shredded health and retirement safety nets.  

What is a citizen to do in 2005?  In a democracy with a market economy, there is only one path to more effective governance and more functional human settlement patterns.  Informed citizens.

In the current context, most politicians (and governance practitioners) are doing just what they need to do to get elected and reelected (hired and promoted). Citizen education depends on identifying ways to provide information on individual and collective enlightened self-interest. This has to be done in a way that citizens who are sleep, time and distance deprived and advertising/peer pressure besotted will pay attention.

In this issue of Bacon's Rebellion, Professor Joseph Freeman provides an introduction to a program that holds promise--Property Dynamics. (See "Rain Dance," January 4, 2005.) Perhaps if enough citizens gain enough useful information to expose the myths, the truth will allow us all to move past this nightmare.

-- January 4, 2005

Ed Risse, and his wife Linda live inside the "Clear Edge" of the "urban enclave" known as Warrenton, a municipality in the Countryside near the edge of the Washington-Baltimore "New Urban Region."

Mr. Risse, the principal of

SYNERGY/Planning, Inc., can be contacted at spirisse@aol.com.

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