Bacon's Rebellion

Here’s a curious tale that you’re not likely to see in the Richmond Times-Dispatch or other Media General outlet.

Diane Cantor, a veteran finance industry official and wife of GOP Congressional wunderkind Eric Cantor, is an executive of a bank that got a $267 million federal bailout even though conservative Cantor has at times publicly opposed the federal bailout program.

According to the investigative journalism Website propublica.org, New York Private Bank and Trust was the beneficiary of a Treasury Department purchase of $267 million work of the bank’s preferred stock to shore it up. The bank is the holding company for Emigrant Bank with 35 branches mostly around New York City. Diane Cantor runs the Virginia branch of Emigrant’s wealth-management division, Virginia Private Bank & Trust, which targets wealthy clients.

Diane Cantor is also a director on the board of Media General, which owns the Times-Dispatch whose editorial staff gushes constantly about how wonderful Cantor, now House Republican Whip, and his wife are. The newspaper does note Mrs. Cantor’s association with the board, but as far as the newspaper’s editorial and news staffs go, “never is heard a discouraging word” about the Cantors. The TD acts as Cantor’s personal PR machine since he is seen as an up-and-coming young Republican leader destined to re-energize the now-hapless GOP leadership left in shambles after eight years of Bush-Cheney-Rove.

Prorepublica.org did talk with Cantor’s office which says that Eric did not know about the bailout of his wife’s bank and did notihng to intercede for it.

If that’s the truth, then Cantor is in a somewhat better position than Rep. Barney Frank, the outspokenly liberal chair of the House Financial Services Committee. Frank, a Democrat, admits he did intercede to get OneUnited Bank of Boston federal bailout money. Frank insists it was a legitimate attempt to help the minority-owned bank, according to The Boston Globe.

Even so, the news puts Cantor in an awkward position. Last summer, when the Bush Administration’s proposal for a $700 billion bailout of troubled financial companies was introduced, Cantor initially pushed for an alternative structure so taxpayers wouldn’t have to pay for it. Cantor suggested using investors on Wall Street to fund the bailout.

He ended up up supporting the program which has ended up giving Diane’s bank taxpayer money. More recently, he voted against releasing the second tranche of the funds.

What’s next is up for grabs. There has been plenty of criticism of the $700 billion bailout program which former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson introduced in a spare, two-and-a-half page long proposal so vague that it wouldn’t get an Average Joe an auto loan. Paulson initially suggested the bailout be used to buy up toxic loans, but since it has been used for just about everything else, from stock buys of banks, to funding bank acquisitions, to helping auto companies and their finance firms.

Barack Obama’s team is ready to propose major restructurings and major re-regulation of the Bushies’ giveaway that has benefited lots of Wall Street insiders as well as Diane whether Eric knew of it or not.

It isn’t clear if anything was done wrong here. The sad part is that because of Media General’s corporate monopoly over news coverage in much of the state, not many Virginians are likely to learn of what is a legitimate news story at all. And that’s a damned shame.

Peter Galuszka

Well down in the post titled “The Intellectual Pretensions of Suburb Bashing” Peter G. said:

“EMR,

“It’s so frustrating. I can never win. Just when I think I come up with a really good post, you tell me I got the vocabulary all wrong. If I get the vocabulary right, you’ll say my point is all wrong.

“Geez!

“Peter Galuszka”

Peter:

EMR did not intend to be critical in any way. As many other comments following you post suggest, settlement patterns that have evolved since 1940 are different things to different people.

All we say is to understand why patterns are functional or dysfunctional everyone must speak the same language. If you do not like ours, come up with your own.

Here is a little exercise for readers:

Take the original post by Peter, Jim Bacon’s 6:59 AM post (good to see Jim up early!) and Groveton’s posts of 12:13 PM and 12:59 PM. Print them out and circle all the times that “suburb” and “suburban” are used. No look at those circled words and see how many different things they describe, especially in the context of the many different experiences noted in the other comments – some good, some bad; some accurate, some ‘adjusted’ to fit preconceived ideas and agendas.

Peter: I have not visited or lived in some of the places you have. But I do know something about one place you visited. My office / studio at North Lake Cluster in the Fair Lakes Neighborhood of the North Village in Fairfax Center, VA.

Was that place “Urban” or less than urban?

To refresh your memory the residents of North Lake Cluster live at 30 persons per acre – yes even with that great view of the lake and the Openspace from the windowns and decks. You may recall the Four Seasons photos of the very large Swamp Maple from the front porch that could have been taken in Sherwood Forest.

It turns out that if one half the Clusters in an Alpha Community were at that 30 pn acre density, then 25 percent could be Multi-Household dwellings (at 40 to 60 per acre) and 25 percent could be Single Household Detached Dwellings on quarter to half acre lots (at 10 persons per acre) and achieve 10 persons per acre at the Alpha Community Scale.

That distribution of dwelling unit types was the original plan for the almost Alpha Community of Greater Reston. The ratio could have been 30 / 40 / 30 as it is in Village-scale Burke Centre and in the still Beta Community of Columbia, MD, Peachtree City GA, etc.

The density of the Cluster of Single Household Attached Dwellings listed above is just what our current dwelling is, here in Menlough Cluster next to the Clear Edge (the Town and County leaders word, not just EMRs) around Greater Warrenton-Fauquier.

Fairfax Center was designed to have a relative Balance of J / H / S / R / A and 55,000 residents on 5,500 acres. Given its context it has not done badly but for some unfortunate rezonings that undermined the Neighborhood Center service idea — everyone could walk to get weekly necessities in a 100,000 sq ft Neighborhood center, etc. Today it would have lots of live-work units…

Fairfax Center is still not that bad even with traffic from US Route 50, I – 66 and Fairfax Parkway running through the middle and is one of the three Beta Communities we choose to visit inside the Clear Edge. The worst “development” in Fairfax Center? The Fairfax Government Center, hands down.

During the Blueprint process, the Coalition for Smarter Growth came up with some good ideas to evolve Fairfax Center into a great Alpha Community: Fairfax “City” would become the third Village and the Fair Oaks Mall would be reconfigured to span both US Route 50 and I-66 and both the Core of Fairfax City and the new Core Village would be served by an extension of METRO.

But no, the economic activity was scattered across the R = 20 to R = 40 Radius Band and at far greater TOTAL cost.

Oh yes one other thing: Larry do you have no shame?

“…and it occurred to me that even after a gazillion tomes from EMR – I still don’t have a feel for what he thinks is an optimal density level for a balanced community.”

First, EMR has written one Tome and working on a second.

But more important, when reading this post do you not recall seeing the 10 Person Rule [10 Persons per Acre at the Alpha Community scale] at least 50 times in last two years? If TJI had not screwed up the BR archive, EMR could cite you the number of times it was mentioned.

Look, there are only Five Natural Laws of Human Settlement Pattern. You can write them on your arm with a Sharpie and refer to them when you get confused.

And on the Tysons issue. How many times has EMR suggested you read Column # 25, “The Shape of Richmond’s Future,” 16 Feb 2004 for the overall regional evolution process? And while you are at it # 65 “Balanced Communities,” 23 Aug 2005 which Jim Bacon’s header describes as “… Herewith is a primer on what they are and how to create them.”

EMR

The Jan. 19, 2009, edition of the Bacon’s Rebellion e-zine has been published.

Virginia and the Employee Free Choice Act
The panic over the Employee Free Choice Act is overwrought. Here’s why it isn’t as big a deal as partisans on both sides would have you believe.
by Lawrence H. Framme III

Lowering the Costs of Virginia’s Prison System
Has the time come where conservatives need to cast the same wary eye at our prison budget that they do at every other item in the state budget?
by Pat Nolan

Virginia Needs More Charter Schools
Overall, Virginia does a good job with public education, but that doesn’t mean we can ignore the failure of public schools in some parts of our state. Instead of more bureaucracy we need to give parents what they want, more choice in what school their kids go to.
by Christian Braunlich

Stimulating Job Creation
Obama’s stimulus bill may help the economy, but only if we make sure that it doesn’t let the government try to compete against the private sector.
by John Palatiello

Presentism in Virginia Politics
When Virginians recoil in horror from a Southern symbol like Lee-Jackson Day, just as a vampire shrieks at the Cross, they engage in “presentism.” This affliction of the mind pollutes the spirit and poisons the body politic.
by James Atticus Bowden

This Holiday Means Help for the Economy
America’s small businesses are hurting. Here’s how we can help them get back on their feet.
by Todd Stottlemyer

Saturday night my wife and I went to see the movie “Revolutionary Road” starring the Titanic team of Leonardo and Kate. It’s sharp, intelligent and deeply depressing fare by the same director of that gem “American Beauty” but without much of the satiric humor.

The film brought to mind the concept of suburbs and just how intellectuals despise them, often for good reason. This is true at Bacons Rebellion (at least the original one) where such keen-eyed observers as EMR and Jim Bacon and Larry Gross take apart the problems of the car-centric suburbs that have overwhelmed Virginia since about the 1930s when the New Deal brought lots of new federal workers to Washington and many flocked to the cheap housing in Arlington.

I, too, have done my dissing of suburbs, although I lived in some as a child and some of my earliest memories are not of cities, but of station wagons on Rockville Pike north of Bethesda and Congressional Shopping Center, a converted civil airport, where I used to buy my plastic models. Later, I lived in true small towns and in the country. During my adult life, I tended towards residing near the centers of cities, including Norfolk, Richmond, Washington, Chicago, Moscow and New York.

Like Frank and April in the movie, marriage and two children brought me to the suburbs which are where I am now. But I start to wonder, why does everyone hate the suburbs so much? Is it really fair, since suburbs have been a huge part of the American experience since at least the 1950s? Are we really the worse for it as the EMRs and Baconators would have us believe? I mean, Ed and Jim, are we all really so worthless?

There is a certain pretension in ‘burb-bashing. Consider this excerpt from the New York Times which was riffing off the upcoming release of “Revolutionary Road:

“In the last couple of decades, the antisuburban film has become as much a staple of Hollywood as the Serious Crime Drama With an Incomprehensible Plot. A few prominent examples: Todd Haynes’s “Safe” (which has suburban people inexplicably bleeding from every pore of their bodies); the 2004 remake of “The Stepford Wives” (where Viking range + Sub-Zero refrigerator = robotic wife, death of feminism and extinction of human rights); “The Ice Storm” (just in case you ignored the urgent alarm sounded by the antisuburban novel by Rick Moody on which the film is based and moved to Larchmont); the British Sam Mendes’s very own “American Beauty” (of which “Revolutionary Road” is simply a reiteration — take a sprinkler, add a dollop of anomie, and presto! you’re an authentic American filmmaker).”

So, let me see if I am getting this right. The “autonomobile” + “dysfunctional settlement patterns” + boredom = hopelessness + self-abortion (see the movie). But I think that is terribly harsh and negates such much of what has been good about U.S. culture at least when I have been alive (I turned 56 last week).

The fact is that for years hardly anyone has lived in the extremely-densely packed neighborhoods where I resided in Brooklyn for four years when I worked at a magazine in Manhattan. I spent fascinating weekends inspecting brownstones and redbricks, studying the sub-society on tenement roofs and on fire escapes and marveling at the incredible ethnic diversity of the place. My Soviet-born wife loved New York with a passion and was disappointed when we ended up in a nice suburb. She ought to know — she teaches the children of suburban families and knows their issues very well.

Suburbs are alien worlds to her so her viewing of “Revolutionary Road” was a bit clinical. As a child, she lived for a while in a city in a “kommunalka” or apartment where as many as a dozen families lived on one floor and shared one kitchen and bathroom. Talk about properly dense housing patterns! Think of it as Risse’s ideal world on steroids with a vodka chaser!

It wasn’t that her family was poor – everyone was. Her mother worked at a partly-underground factory that made, among other things, surface-to-air missiles of the type used against U.S. aircraft in Vietnam. Back then in the Urals, such housing wasn’t so much a factor of far-sighted urban planning, Rather, it was because the nation was still getting over the effects of World War II which killed millions of Russians.

Anyway, back to the movie. Leonardo and Kate do a fine job of playing out their enormous frustrations at being alive in the 1950s suburbs and they really seem to want to get on to Paris and make like Kerouac or Ginsberg. I liked the movie but really admired “American Beauty,” another gutting of suburbia, but more of a satire thanks to Kevin Spacey’s wry and brilliant humor.

I guess I subscribe to the intellectual pretension of ‘burb-bashing because I am so much a product of it.

Peter Galuszka

There seems to be an intentional attempt on this blog to distort EMR’s views of governance and the achievement of Fundamental Transformation in human settlement pattern, governance structure and the global economic structure.

Darrell – Chesapeake dismisses EMR as just another socialist.

Larry Gross somewhere got the idea that it will require a philosopher king to manage society. He has not bothered to read THE ESTATES MATRIX.

Nova Middle Man recently said:

“EMR and You (Jim Bacon) seem to have similar goals but totally different ways of getting there. EMR’s plans only work with massive government regulation. Am I missing something?”

Yes!

“EMR probably would want 100% control in the typical liberal elite I know best mentality. In reality what would this look like.”

Where does this foolishness come from?

Not from anything we have written. Not from any lecture we have delivered. The primary source of this foolishness appears to stem from readers not understanding the Fundamental Transformation means FUNDAMENTAL TRANSFORMATION.

Since inquiry is part of a chapter we will be editing soon and we have not specifically addressed this issue before in this forum we will try to summarize:

Management at the Cluster scale is critically important since the Cluster is largest organic component with realistic potential to have effective direct democracy. This observation is base on years of Community management experience and on the study of group dynamics as well as the physical constraints of meeting space that is available at times and in locations when all the citizens of a Cluster can assemble.

So that means at least 2-million “leaders” and if there is any delegation of responsibility about 10-million.

The New Urban Region is the smallest Organic Component of human settlement that can achieve sustainability (and may also be the largest but that is another issue). To lead New Urban Regions, citizens need thousands of “leaders.” There are also Subregions and Urban Support Regions so let us say there is a need another 250,000 to manage at the Regional scale.

Above the New Urban Region – MegaRegions, nation-states, trading-blocks, continental and global scales there are many who would like the have roles. These are the one now hears about as “leaders” but they should have worked up through to ranks and they should be among those already tabulated.

Of course there are more than just Agencies in need of leadership. Many Enterprises and Institutions will be managed by those who also participate in the governance structure. The difference between now and a sustainable future is that in 24-7 Sunlight, everyone will know of the multiple roles and the conflicts can be eliminated.

At the other end of the spectrum of Organic Components is the Unit occupied by the Household. It is clear that to be a functional Household there must be at least one informed “leader.” If part of Household activity is to raise children there need to be at least two. So there is another 130-million more or less leaders.

The Dooryard, Neighborhood, Village scales components need leaders too but almost all will also be among those already identified.

So far we are up to 140,250,000 leaders. In a true democracy everyone has a vote so even those who are not in a leadership position at any given time role have a say.

So where is the central committee, the philosopher king or the liberal elite? Pure fantasy on the part of those who do not want to understand Fundamental Transformation.

Will such a system work? So far the field tests say yes – if citizens understand their role and take responsibility for their actions.

There need be no central committee and no philosopher king. No liberal elite, no pseud-conservative Belief Tank, no Tri-lateral commission, no messiah, no caliph, no dictator, no Darth Vader. Just citizens making informed decision in the market and in the voting booth.

As we suggest in posts over the last three months that focused on achieving a sustainable trajectory for civilization, creating an AntiParty and the upcoming change of administration – for example “Thanksgiving Perspective”:

The problem citizens face is massive over expectation that any one person or the team any one person assembles can “solve the problem.”

Larry Gross again:

“But EMR has failed repeatedly and miserably IMHO to lay out a clear and articulate path for citizens to understand what a Balanced Community is (and is not) – and what changes they should support via elections and referendum and current development proposals (like Tysons) to move in that direction.”

No, Larry, you have failed “repeatedly and miserably” to bother to read what EMR has written on these topics. For some reason you expect that every time a question occurs (or reoccurs) to you, that EMR has the obligation to drop everything and try to again answer it. That is especially a problem when you appear to only listen / read / understand what supports you preconceived notions which lack a comprehensive Conceptual Framework or a Vocabulary to articulate that framework.

That is why a sustainable trajectory requires hundreds of millions of citizens who are ‘responsible’ and informed so democracy and the market can work.

So far Jim Bacon is the only one who has grasp just how profound “Fundamental Transformation” – in settlement patterns, governance structure and economic systems – must be to obtain a sustainable trajectory.

The central tragedy is that the market and the vast majority of citizens indicated that they WANT that change but are thwarted by those who now benefit from special privileges under the existing system.

That is exactly what Niccolo M. said thwarted change…

EMR

In a Jan. 12 release, and again in his state of the Commonwealth speech, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine outlined the details of his “green jobs” initiative. For the most part, it is a worthy policy thrust, containing some very good ideas, some inoffensive ones, and only one worrisome proposal. The package is modest in scope, constrained by Virginia’s budget straightjacket, but considered as a whole, it would nudge the Commonwealth in the right direction.

Let’s be clear about what the green jobs initiative is not. While there are strong conservation components, the Kaine initiative is not a comprehensive approach to reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions across the economy. “Green jobs” does not address key drivers of energy intensity in Virginia’s economy, such as the auto-centric system of transportation and land use. But provisions of the program, if enacted, would get us closer to creating sustainable, energy-efficient regions.

The most far-reaching – and laudable — provisions would promote energy conservation in two ways: (1) raising energy-efficiency standards for state buildings, and (2) promoting electric utility investments in conservation.

In his state of the Commonwealth address, Kaine cited the top recommendation of his Climate Change Commission: to reduce electricity consumption in Virginia by 19 percent of current levels by 2025 (with adjustments for population growth). That goal won’t reduce total consumption by 19 percent, but it would reduce per capita consumption. It’s an ambitious goal but an achievable one.

Kaine has already issued an executive order requiring all new state buildings be constructed to high energy-efficiency standards. This year, the governor proposes extending that idea by amending the Code of Virginia to require “all state and local government buildings meet either LEED or Green Globes standards for efficiency.”

He’s not talking about new buildings only. He’s talking about retrofitting existing buildings. Retrofits, he notes, would put a lot of carpenters, electricians and installers back to work – a good thing in a recession. Fair enough. What he didn’t do in the speech was say how he intends to pay for the retrofits.

If the plan relies upon the routine allowances for building maintenance and improvements in the state budget, the sums available to pay for the energy-efficiency retrofits will be meager indeed, and the impact on jobs would be minimal. This strikes me as an instance in which the state should exercise its AAA bond rating to borrow money.

Let’s say, for purposes of illustration, that the Department of General Administration has identified $250 million worth of worthy energy-efficiency projects in public buildings, including only projects that generate a payback of 20 percent per year or more. The Commonwealth could borrow that $250 million, paying 5 percent or so on its bonds. Not only would the expenditure of those funds create work for the construction industry at a time it desperately needs it, the expenditures would more than pay their way. Every dollar the state devotes to debt payment, it makes back through a reduction in energy costs — with an ample “profit” to spare. That’s just good business, and a good tactic for addressing the state’s long-term budget challenges.

Of course, state and local government account for only a tenth or so of Virginia’s economy, so these measures leave 90 percent of the economy untouched. Kaine’s proposed changes to utility rate structuring would address that problem. Said Kaine:

Under current law, we guarantee a rate of return for a utility building a new coal plant, but not for investments that promote conservation. That just makes no sense. Our long-term planning should recognize that conservation is just as important an energy source as new construction. We should treat conservation investments at least as favorably as new generation investments, and my bill will do that.

This measure would address a fundamental flaw in Virginia rate-setting policy. (I haven’t read the bill, so I cannot comment on the specifics, but the broad idea behind it is sound.) Despite the many opportunities available, Dominion, Appalachian Power and the smaller power companies have little incentive to invest in energy efficiency and conservation. One idea currently under consideration is Dominion’s proposal to install smart meters in every home. Smart meters would give consumers the means to carefully monitor their electricity consumption. Pilot programs around the world have demonstrated that people utilize electricity more efficiently when they can measure the impact of their activities.

These proposals are “slam dunks” and warrant the full and fair consideration of the General Assembly. Gov. Kaine proposed some other measures, which don’t seem like the “slam dunks” that may require more thought. I will address them in a future post.

In the 47th comment on the TRAGEDY OF TRICKLE DOWN string, TMT posted a question unrelated to Trickle Down but on an important topic:

The optimum location for the evolution of Balanced Communities.

Jim Bacon posted a responding comment that is on target but TMTs post provided an opportunity to nail down some flapping issues and misunderstandings (aka, misunderestimations).

We have reproduced TMTs comment here and interlined comments. That is the fastest way to deal with the issues.

“Maybe I’m still missing something – wouldn’t be the first time and won’t be the last.

“My question is then: How are balanced communities to be implemented?”

Jim Bacon outlines three good principles in his post. In The Shape of the Future, EMR lays out six Overarching Strategies that provide a comprehensive context for achieving Balance.

The first step is to understand that achieving Balance will be to everyone’s benefit and the failure to achieve Balance will result in Collapse.

“Having lived in the Midwest and Great Plains for many years, I know from personal observation that there is plenty of room in many states to the west of the Eastern Seaboard and to the east of the Left Coast.”

Here is the first issue that needs to be nailed down: There is “plenty of room” not just in the Midwest and the Great Plains but right here in the National Capital Subregion. There is a vast amount of vacant and underutilized land for which the public has already provided infrastructure. Check out Blueprint.

EMR prepared a PowerPoint on this topic (“Five Critical Issues”). No one has (nor could they) dispute the calculations. All they can say is “I would rather not live in a dwelling in the patterns and at the density that the market demonstrates is in the greatest demand.” This pattern is, by the way Balanced at the Alpha Community scale and it functions / performs well.

Jim Bacon and EMR say: “Live where you what and as you want so long as you pay the fair cost.” The 12.5 Percenters do not like it but 87.5 percent is a majority and if they do not want to go with the majority, all they have to do is pay the cost.

“Should it be the policy of the United States to push population and even job growth to “Fly-over Country”?”

No, No, No. The markets shows the vast majority do not want to live in Fly-over Country. That is why it is Fly-over Country.

Some do want to live there and there is no reason they cannot build Balanced Communities there. However, it should not because “policy” pushes them there.

There is another reason besides the value of free choice. That reason is that the cost of contemporary society is vastly more than anyone is now paying. That is why there is huge debt — public and private — but what is being paid plus what is being barrowed now is not nearly the total cost. If ‘policy’ starts pushing citizens where they do not want to go it will cost far more.

“What if it would be much less expensive to triple the population of North Dakota than to build a mixed use Tysons Corner?”

No, not even close. How much would they have to pay you to move to Fargo? OK you are from Fargo and want to return but only 1 out of 7,346 are in that situation. The market says; the Creative Class says; common sense says: Go to the best places.

“Should immigration reform be tied to “settling the great open middle”?

No, no, no. There is no need “settle” anyplace. Over 95 percent of the population is Urban and to house the entire Urban population of the US of A requires less than 5 percent of the total land area of the Lower 48 at MINIMUM densities.

“For example, just as with homesteading in the 19th century…”

You could have a lot of that homestead land right now for NonUrban activities – really cheap. If you want to use it for Urban purposes the cost will be huge.

“… should Obama propose “amnesty” to any person who lived here illegally for five years or more, but only if she/he lives in a place such as Iowa or Wyoming for five more years?”

Of course not.

“Should new immigration permits be conditioned on settling in Montana or Arkansas?”

Only if the immigrants have skills that will evolve Balanced Communities in Montana and Arkansas and that is where they want to go.

“Should Congress enact a law that says 50% of federal agency staffs must be located in either the Central or Mountain Time Zones?”

No, see note on cost above.

That does not say that for some Agency purposes it would be more efficient to have facilities in small New Urban Regions or in Communities in Urban Support Regions but the function should dictate the location. And be prepared to pay bonuses to those who do not end up in desirable Communities and the most desirable Communities are Balanced Communities.

“Should Fairfax County simply say, “We’ve grown as big as we are going to get. The next big building boom must occur in Fairfax, Minnesota or Fairfax, Ohio.”

Fairfax County’s problems are rooted in settlement pattern dysfunction and lack of Balance, not over-population. Over-population is what dysfunction looks like to those who do not understand human settlement patterns and have let an inequitable allocation of costs line the wrong pockets.

“If we recoil at all or some of these programs as being violative of free choice, why is so-called ‘Smart Growth’ being rammed down people’s throats?”

So far as EMR is aware no “smart growth” policy or program has been established in any jurisdiction where the elected representatives did not believe that the majority of the citizens supported those policies. There may be cases where the governance practitioners believe that the majority would support these policies if they knew what was good for them but by the time “smart growth” is an issue, the majority do support it. Yes, most want the change in someone else’s Neighborhood, not theirs but few favor “dumb growth.”

“Is “Smart Growth” just an alliance between those who hate autos and suburbs and the landowners/developers who want to make money, but don’t want to move west, or south or wherever?”

You know the answer to that. But if it is the case, then the alliance is the majority in the jurisdiction where it occurs.

EMR

Every municipality in Virginia bases its land use planning on the anticipated demand for new housing. Their plans are only as good as their projections. And the projections are good only as long as historical trends hold up.

The demand for housing is based upon the rate of new household formation. And that is driven by population growth and the average size of the household. Of the two, population growth is the most important, but average household size is by no means insigificant. Look what’s happened over the past century or so: In 1915, the average household size stood at 4.5. By 1967, it had declined to 3.0, and by 2006, it had dipped again to 2.6.

Bottom line: Shrinking household size has turbo-charged the growth in demand for housing. Insofar as housing projections are predicated upon past increases in household formation, the planning assumptions embedded in comprehensive plans across Virginia assume that average household size will continue to shrink.

While population is expected to continue increasing, we cannot assume that household sizes will continue to shrink. Indeed, there is evidence that household sizes actually may begin to increase in size. That is the thesis of a column, “Reinventing the Family,” that I wrote earlier this week for the Times-Dispatch. (Here is the version posted on the Boomer Project web site.)

One factor is the increasing tendency of adult GenYs to live longer with their parents. Whether the trend reflects a prolonged adolescent dependency or the economic realities of student loans and credit card debt, I don’t know. But it’s happening. At the same time, on the older end of the age scale, more parents are moving in with their children. Thus, we’re seeing signs of a re-emergence of a three-generation household. (There are other factors reversing the atomization of the family, but those are the two biggest.)

I suspect this trend will be accelerated by the severity of the current recession. As unemployment shoots up, it only makes sense for family members to combine residences and reduce overhead. As much as Americans love their big homes and personal privacy, they are not immune to economic forces. They will change their behavior in response to adverse economic circumstances.

Yesterday, USA Today published an article quoting the National Association of Home Builders to the effect that the average size of new single-family homes, which has climbed steadily over the decades, has gone into reverse. The NAHB’s analysis showed that the average size of new houses declined from 2,629 square feet in the third quarter of 2008 to 2,438 — the steepest dip since researchers started collecting the data in 1999.

Business-As-Usual is on its last legs. Many assumptions that underpinned Virginia’s governance systems of the past half century are no longer valid. We are entering a new era — and I fear that our planners and elected officials are not prepared for it.

The Jefferson Institute for Public Policy has published the Jan. 5, 2009, edition — its second — of the Bacon’s Rebellion e-zine. The highlights:

Privatization Can Transform the Delivery of State Psychiatric Services
by Leonard Gilroy

Wanted: A Virginia Land Inventory
by John Palatiello

The Ultimate Tax Cut that can Help President Obama get America’s Economy Moving Again
by Paul Goldman

The Right to Choose…Secretly
by Christian Braunlich

The Economic Mess
by James Atticus Bowden

Global Virginia
by Michael Cecire

Change We Can Believe In
Lawrence W. Framme III

As part of my job for the Boomer Project, I survey the media and blogs for emerging trends. One unmistakable trajectory is the increased commentary on what EMR and I would call the “end of the era of mass overconsumption.” Others have given catchier names to the phenomenon, but it all amounts to the same thing: The era of unsustainable, debt-fueled consumption in the American economy is over. In contrast to the past two recessions, consumer spending will not rebound stronger than ever. Consumers are fundamentally re-evaluating the idea that accumulating more stuff is the path to happiness.

Matt Thornhill, a principal of the Boomer Project, sees the rise of what he has labelled “responsible consumerism” and, alternatively, the “new fru” (for new frugality). Personally, I find the second term more memorable. Responsible consumerism sounds like more people reading Consumer Reports. New Fru sounds like people embracing frugality as a positive virtue, which is, in fact, what I think more and more people are doing.

As Matt elaborates the concept in a Times-Dispatch op-ed piece, “Age of Responsible Consumerism Begins,” the spreading rejection of mindless consumption will persist beyond the cyclical tightening of credit. Writes Matt:

We saw this seismic shift coming a generation away. Members of both the G.I. and Silent generations, those now ages 63 and older, led the way by reducing their own consumption of goods and services as they grew older. Their desires shifted as they reached 50 and then 60: fewer material goods, more enriching experiences. Fast on their heels comes the largest, wealthiest, and most important demographic group America has even seen. Boomers, raised in front of television sets, a target for marketers from age 5 upward, are now reaching 60 at the rate of one every eight seconds.

That’s right. The generation that put the mass into consumption is now at the stage of life where people naturally shift focus from the material to the ethereal. What’s fascinating (or worrisome, if you’re in a retail or consumer-products business) is that the impact of this shift on America’s consumption-driven economy is just beginning.

But wait, there’s more: This shift away from spending by our largest demographic group coincides with a larger societal trend toward sustainability. Consumers of all ages are thinking more about the environmental impact of their purchase behavior and consumption patterns. In a national study we conducted among all adults in late summer, before the economic meltdown, 80 percent of all consumers told us they think or act in a “green,” or environmentally responsible fashion. Green is mainstream, and here to stay. Today’s consumers want to be responsible in their consumption. They crave sustainability, not planned obsolescence. They focus increasingly on “needs” and not “wants.”

• As the retail sector shrinks, there will be fewer retail jobs — an entry point for many Virginians into the workforce.
• As retail sales shrivel, so will revenues from the sales tax. Government services that depend upon the sales tax for funding will be more fiscally challenged than services that rely upon, say, the income tax for a funding stream.
• As retail chains contract, demand for retial space in malls and shopping centers will evaporate. Vacancies will rise. Investment in retail development and re-development will plummet. That, in turn, will hurt municipalities that depend upon their commercial property tax base for revenue.

These changes are bearing down on us like a freight train. There is no wishing them away. Governance practitioners have no excuse for getting caught off guard.