Scatteration

The Countryside is dying, and so are the small urban enclaves that support it. Undermined by economic and social forces emanating from urban areas, the Countryside is sliding into entropy, creating scattered and undifferentiated settlement patterns that are neither urban nor nonurban, but a "sub"urban and "sub"country agglomeration of dysfunctionally organized activity.

In an economic, social and physical demonstration of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, vast swaths of Mid-Atlantic Countryside outside the Clear Edges around the cores of New Urban Regions are being overrun by urban land uses. These land uses are spreading at a frightening rate across the landscape in an amorphous, disorganized smear of semi-

development. This low-energy state, which I call "scatteration," breeds economic inefficiency and social dislocation.

Scatteration supports a negative feedback loop with the Urbanside which makes our urban areas increasingly dysfunctional as well. The more attractive and pristine the Countryside landscape, the more Urbanside inhabitants want to enjoy it, bringing Urbanside land uses with them. Thus, an attractive Countryside, such as Virginia's Piedmont, reinforces the outward (centrifugal) forces which are trumping the inward (centripetal) forces pushing development towards the urban core of the Washington-Baltimore New Urban Region. Taming the centrifugal forces would make easier for the inward-pushing forces to agglomerate high-quality, high-value components of Balanced Communities within the Urbanside. For this reason, the forces now at work destroy both the Urbanside and the Countryside.

This Special Report on the Countryside:

Examines the context of urban land-use scatteration;

Demonstrates the extent and impact of scattered urban land uses in the Countryside;

Explores ways to make the impact of scatteration comprehensible.

In the preparation of this report, we surveyed and photographed 23 counties in four states that lie between 25 and 100 miles to the west of the cores of the Philadelphia New Urban Region and the Washington-Baltimore New Urban Region.(1)

Shape of the Future Special Report

This is the second of three special reports on contemporary human settlement patterns. The first report, Abandoning Potentially Great Places, (“Wild Abandonment,” September 8, 2003 ) treated the failure of current urban development processes to create new high-value/high-quality components within the Urbanside. This second report examines erosion of the Countryside. The third addresses the citizen perspectives and perceptions that drive these dysfunctions. The observations contained in these three reports are supported by the fundamental principles and theories established in The Shape of the Future and document the importance of “The Third Way” introduced in Handbook: The Three-Step Process to Create Balanced Communities in Sustainable New Urban Regions. A series of PowerPoint programs illustrate the Three-Step Process.(2)

Conflict and Dysfunction

For more than 80 years, tensions between urban and non-urban land uses have escalated in an ever-widening concentric zone around the intensively urbanized area of every New Urban Region in the United States. Millions of conflicts occur daily in the Countryside between intensive (urban) land uses and extensive (non-urban) land uses. There also are clashes between competing urban land uses ensnared in an unsupportive environment. Traffic congestion –- urban commuters clogging farm-to-market roads –- is a widely noted example. So are most of the ills attributed to “sprawl.”

These disputes and conflicts would be less critical if it were not for the fact that their cumulative impact negatively affects nearly every household and enterprise in every region every day. They are the signs of an eroding Countryside. Most arise from the scatteration of urban housing and jobs at and beyond the fringes of intensively urbanized areas where, in a rational world, a Clear Edge would demarcate the divide between Urbanside and Countryside.

Urban land-use scatteration has been going on since 1920 and has accelerated each year over the past four decades, despoiling a rapidly expanding area. The negative impacts of dysfunctional human settlement patterns are well-documented.

“Scattering urban land uses across the Countryside is not a good idea.”

In the abstract, few disagree with this statement unless they realize it refers to their activities. But the collective impact of well-intended individual actions causes an unsustainable Countryside. Most of the decisions that yield conflict and dysfunction are made by citizens who believe they are acting in their own best interest. Some may be. Collectively, the result is unsustainable.

It is not easy to confront and eliminate the negative cumulative impact of individual actions when citizens believe these actions are in their personal best interest. This is illustrated by a review of the national context of scattered urban land uses. Citizens willingly choose–and pay large amounts of money to build or buy urban structures:

In dry canyons choked with manzanita in the Southern Coast Range (Los Angeles New Urban Region);

Among lodgepole pines in the upper Columbia River Basin (Northern Rocky Mountain Urban Support Region);

On old lahars and in the path of potential new lahars in the North Cascades (Puget Sound New Urban Region);

On known fault lines prone to violent earthquakes (Los Angeles New Urban Region);

In areas subject to tidal surges from hurricanes and on flood plains across the country.

Manzanita burns like a kitchen grease fire. Lodgepole pines are giant Roman candles waiting to explode. Lahars are forty-mile an hour volcanic mud slides with the consistency of wet concrete. Earthquakes, floods, tidal surges and hurricane winds demolish thousands of households and enterprises every year. The impacts of flawed location decisions cause personal trauma and tragedy, as well as cumulative public and private costs. In spite of these facts, the scatteration of urban land uses is taking place at an accelerating rate.

Within this context, how could citizens not be expected to spread out across benign Countrysides such as those in New Urban Regions of the Mid-Atlantic?

The Clear, Simple Solution

By 2003, it should be clear that there is a simple, fair, effective answer to scattered urban land uses in the Countryside. If speculators, developers, builders and building owners in the Countryside had to pay the full, total cost land conversion to urban uses and the increase in the costs of urban services that are consumed by occupants and workers in scattered urban structures, the scatteration would stop. Application of the “Cost of Services Curve” and the “10X Rule” to scattered urban land uses in the Countryside document that this practice is a spectacular loser for citizens and organizations, especially municipal, state and federal jurisdictions.(2)

The costs of development and of providing urban services to scattered urban land uses now are subsidized by all taxpayers and all service users. There has been over a decade of advocacy for fairly and equitably allocating the full cost of scattered urban development to those who profit from and use this settlement pattern. There are few indications of proclivity on the part of governance practitioners or even conservation advocates to discuss, much less endorse or implement, policies and programs to achieve a fair and rational distribution of the total cost of urban land conversion and urban services.

The Urbanside impact of scatteration is clearly documented by urban land and improvement values as outlined in the first Special Report. An analysis of urban land uses in the Countryside indicates that:

The cumulative costs of land conversion and providing services to urban land uses scattered in the Countryside are prohibitive unless these costs are heavily subsidized.

If the full cost of services required by urban land uses in the Countryside is not allocated to the land speculators, developers, builders and others who make money from the conversion of land from non-urban to urban uses, there is a greater profit available to them. This potential profit raises the speculative price of land for urban uses to the point that it drives non-urban (agriculture and forestry) land uses out of business.

The cumulative result of scattered urban land uses is to lower the value of land around these uses because scattered urban uses make the land less desirable for non-urban uses.

These indicators of the impact of scattered urban land uses are well-documented and are based on economic, social and physical facts that are not seriously contested. In spite of this, the scatteration is escalating.

If the full cost of urban services for scattered urban land uses were fairly and equitably allocated to those responsible for this activity, the scatteration would stop. Without a reallocation of costs that ends the subsidies, scatteration will continue.

The Imperative of a Clear Edge

One of the results of the application of the Cost of Services Curve and the 10X Rule on a regional basis is to substantiate the imperative for defining and respecting a Clear Edge between the Urbanside and the Countryside. To achieve a sustainable future, there must be a clear, distinct demarcation between the Urbanside and the Countryside.

Use of the term “Clear Edge” comes from Ed McMahon of The Conservation Fund. Mr. McMahon cites the need for a Clear Edge around urban areas as a “fundamental principle” and a prerequisite for creating better development patterns. The concept of the Clear Edge is, however, as old as human civilization.

The origins of the Clear Edge can be seen in the thorn brush barriers that Homo sapiens’ ancestors dragged up around their camps to provide protection from marauding animals. The origins are visible as walls erected around neolithic trading villages–and later around most urban settlements to protect the occupants from marauding Homo sapiens. The walls marking the Clear Edge between Urbanside and Countryside were integral parts of the plans for Greek and Roman Planned New Communities. They were the sine qua non of the well-governed Renaissance city state. They were part of the Garden City ideal and of every other comprehensive human settlement pattern strategy from 500 B.C. to 2003 A.D.

The Clear Edge at the boundary between Urbansides and the Countryside is clearly visible throughout western Europe and elsewhere. The Clear Edge is not just a historical curiosity but indispensable for the creation of functional contemporary human settlement patterns. In spite of 50 years of dysfunctional scatteration of urban land uses across the landscape in the United States, a rational place to draw a Clear Edge is not hard to find around most of the urbanized areas in New Urban Regions. A rational location for a Clear Edge also can be identified around the smaller urban enclaves within the Countryside. However, the logical locations for a demarcation move outward on a continuing basis when policies and programs to establish and maintain a Clear Edge are not put in place. This leaves more and more vacant and underutilized land within the urbanized area as documented in Abandoning Potentially Great Places ("Wild Abandonment," September8, 2003) and in other reports.

The Clear Edge is part of the generic hard wiring of human preferences that established the value of high-quality urban components explored in the first Special Report. A parallel genetic hard-wiring is also behind the less prevalent (but more often articulated) desire to escape from the confinement of the walls. This Urbanside-Countryside tension has been present since the first urban enclaves were established. At that time, 10 in 10 million were urban citizens. Now the vast majority of Homo sapiens are urban residents. Well over 95 percent of the residents of First World nation states make their living from urban pursuits.

In contemporary application, the Clear Edge might alternatively be called the “urban service district border,” the “urban growth boundary” or the “inside edge of the greenbelt.” Whatever it is called, the Clear Edge is the demarcation between the Urbanside and the Countryside. The Cost of Services Curve and the 10X Rule illustrate the importance of the Clear Edge in achieving sustainable and economially competitive New Urban Regions.

(“Beyond the Clear Edge,” Bacons Rebellion, 26 May 2003, explores the Clear Edge in the context of a fair and equitable restructuring of municipal and state taxes.)

In order to create sustainable human settlement patterns, there must be compact Urbansides –- 10 percent of the typical New Urban Region land mass –- and extensive Countrysides – 90 percent of the typical New Urban Region land mass. There also must be Clear Edges between Urbansides and Countrysides. Stated as an axiom that articulates the boundary condition of Urbansides and Countrysides and the function of the Clear Edge:

A Clear Edge must exist around the intensively urbanized area that constitutes the core of New Urban Regions. A Clear Edge must also be present around the urban enclaves which exist in and support the extensive, non-urban land uses in the Countryside.

The Need for More Effective Communication

Because of the profound negative consequences of the scatteration of urban land uses across the Countryside, more effective vehicles must be found to illustrate and discuss the impacts of these scattered uses which will persuade citizens and their governance representatives to an intelligent public judgment on the need for fundamental change.

First, the overwhelming presumption (aka, the Conventional Wisdom) that scattering urban land uses across the Countryside is an excusable individual or collective strategy must be debunked. As noted in the first Special Report, current practice makes key participants richer, faster than would creating sustainable human settlement patterns. Beneficiaries of current practice -- developers, home builders, road contractors, attorneys, engineers and others have developed an elaborate ideology to justify business as usual -- an ideology that has co-opted venerable themes in the American psyche such as "economic opportunity," "free enterprise" and "property rights." There must also be found a way to counter the self-serving rhetoric of those who confuse the constitutional protection of “property rights” with an unconstrained privilege to take actions detrimental to the collective good.

It may be most effective to start by addressing why citizens do not understand existing conditions and thus follow an unsustainable path.

Each of the 23 county jurisdictions surveyed and photographed for this report and each of the 10 to 15 potential Balanced (but disaggregated) Communities that might evolve within these jurisdictions is unique. No two of the 5.8-million plus acres are exactly the same. However, many conditions are similar and parallel strategies can work across this broad expanse of territory west of two of the largest New Urban Regions in the northeastern urban agglomeration of the Untied States.

Historical Context of Urban Land Use in the Countryside

Since before the Revolutionary War, citizens in the United States have been living in small urban enclaves -- traditionally called towns -- and in separate ‘farmsteads’ in the Countryside. In 1820, the majority of the citizens lived in these settlement patterns. There were also larger urban areas that were called “cities.” During the 19th, century, these places morphed into Industrial Centers that became the locus of manufacturing, fabrication, warehousing and trade. By the late 20th century, these places had evolved further to form the urbanized cores of New Urban Regions.

Non-urban settlement patterns in Europe have evolved differently. Especially in parts of France and Germany, the Countryside is characterized by hamlets and small villages from which farmers and foresters ‘commute’ to their fields and woodlots. There are also patterns in Europe and Canada where farm houses front on a road or a navigable river with long, narrow strips of land stretching behind the dwellings and farm buildings.

Few Americans ever lived in communities like these because their settlement pattern was established after the usefulness of walls to provide dooryard- and cluster-scale collective self-defense in most areas had passed. Farmers lived on their land and traveled to urban enclaves as needed for supplies, governance, social activities and other support functions.

It is important to be aware of the historical pattern because of the fundamental changes that have taken place in the past 80 years. If a sustainable future is to be secured, it is necessary to distinguish historic functionality from the current needs.

An Example from Warrenton-Fauquier

This report examines the relationship between urban land uses (for example urban dwellings) and extensive, non-urban land uses (such as farmland and woodlots) in the Countryside. It addresses the scope of the fundamental changes that impact the past and current distribution of dwellings and other urban land uses. To sharpen the focus on the relationship between intensive , urban and extensive, non-urban land uses, it is helpful to examine the distribution of households in Warrenton-Fauquier in Virginia's Northern piedmont. Similar analysis would reveal similar conditions in other section to the Countryside within other Mid-Atlantic New Urban Regions.

U.S. Census data document that in 1900 there were 23,374 citizens in Fauquier County, which encompasses most of what holds the potential to become a Warrenton-Fauquier Balanced Community. In 1950, there were 21,248 residents, a decline of nine percent in a half century. In April 2000, there were 55,139, an increase of 159 percent. According to post-2000 estimates, the population figure continues to escalate.

The last 50 years have seen a fundamental change in the pace of population growth, and the rate of change is accelerating. The greatest impact is on the Countryside. While most urbanized areas in Warrenton-Fauquier have expanded, much of the urban growth has been scattered at very low density across the landscape outside the urbanized areas. The increase in population over the past 50 years is not, however, the most significant change in the Countryside -- there is a more profound transformation.

A “dot map” that represents human activity in the Countryside is a useful tool to understand the impact of scatteration.

During a recent leadership seminar focused on 11 counties covering 2.5 million acres including the 500,000 +/- acres in Warrenton-Fauquier, participants presented a tool that may have broad application. One of the four prospective Balanced Community teams distributed a map of Fauquier County with a dot pattern depicting population density (10 persons per dot) as of April 1, 2000. This graphic, based on U.S. Bureau of the Census data, was an eye opener.

During discussion of the 2000 Census “Dot Map,” it was observed that “about the same distribution of population exists now as there was 100 years ago – except there are twice as many dots.” Based on historic maps, it is fair to state that in both 1900 and 1950 the dot pattern was approximately the same as the one above with one exception:

In 2000, there were twice the number of dots scattered across the Countryside.

The “twice as many dots” comment carries the implication that scattered households in the Countryside are not a critical problem since this was the historic pattern. This statement requires significant amplification because it could perpetuate dangerous misconceptions. The “pattern of dots” observation opens the door to an extremely important line of inquiry and an opportunity to understand human settlement patterns in the Countryside.

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1. The 23 counties surveyed and photographed for this Special Report include:

Maryland: Baltimore, Carroll, Frederick and Harford.

Pennsylvania: Adams, Berks, Lancaster and York

Virginia: Clarke, Culpeper, Fauquier, Frederick, Loudoun, Madison, Prince William, Rappahannock, Shenandoah and Warren

West Virginia: Berkeley, Hampshire, Hardy, Jefferson and Morgan

These counties are among those that lie all or in part between 25 and 100 miles from the cores of the Philadelphia New Urban Region and the Washington-

Baltimore New Urban Region.

2. For definitions and application of the “Cost of Service Curve,” the “10 X Rule,” the “95 percent/5 percent Rule” and others terms used in this report, see Risse, E M. The Shape of the Future (2000) and Handbook (2003). Warrenton, VA: SYNERGY/Resources.