by James A. Bacon
Marc Tracy conducts an interesting thought experiment in the New Republic: Would increasing the height restrictions on Washington, D.C.’s buildings turn Virginia back into a red state?
His logic runs like this: The District of Columbia is running out of developable land under current height restrictions, which is driving up real estate prices and pushing people out of the city. Those people, employed by Northern Virginia’s technology sector, tend to be “upwardly mobile, highly educated, racially diverse, blue-leaning people.”
Removing the height limit on D.C. buildings, in place since 1910, would allow tens of thousands more people to reside in Washington than would otherwise. From a cultural and political perspective, the people drawn to walkable, bikable, transit-oriented urbanism are overwhelmingly likely to vote Democratic. And that would mean fewer Democrats in Northern Virginia.
After playing with the idea, however, Tracy concludes that restricting development in D.C. probably won’t make much difference. The rise of “urban suburbs” in Northern Virginia will continue as the Silver Line runs the Metro through Tysons and the Dulles Corridor. He quotes Christopher Leinberger, a Brookings Institute fellow and advocate of “walkable urbanism,” as saying that lifting the D.C. height limit might sap Northern Virginia population growth on the margins, but “northern Virginia is going to become more blue and continue to grow. That’s demographically in the cards.”
Lest you think it a stretch to link human settlement patterns with voting patterns, permit me to share an email I received a few months ago from an aide to a Republican congressman, chastising me for supporting smart growth:
Smart growth means bringing more liberals into what were once middle class homeowner conservative areas like Vienna VA. It means more traffic and congestion where there is already too much traffic and congestion. It means turning Fairfax County into another Arlington and then even a DC. Hope you enjoy the socialist future that smart growth guarantees.
Why conservatives hate smart growth. Now, let’s get back to a question I have raised earlier on this blog: Why do conservatives hate smart growth? One answer is that they perceive it as a political threat. Smart growth breeds liberals.
Perhaps I am excessively influenced by my own personal experience in Richmond but I am highly dubious. I am an unapologetic conservative… yet I love walkable urbanism. My wife is a liberal Democrat… but she loves the suburbs. (What can I say. We have a mixed marriage. Love is blind.)
Liberals began spilling into Northern Virginia long before Arlington County and Old Town Alexandria became known as centers for walkable, transit-oriented urbanism. Many liberals, for seeking affordable housing, settled in the cul-de-sac tracts of Fairfax County long before anyone thought of turning Tysons into an urban district with grid streets and Metro stations.
Rather than reject smart growth out of hand on the grounds that it attracts liberals, conservatives should articulate a set of principles governing transportation and land use issues that is aligned with conservative principles and values, which, as I have argued before, often (not always, but often) would lead to more compact, walkable development patterns. Building more prosperous, livable communities in a fiscally sustainable manner just might win some converts to conservatism. Who knows, some of them might even be liberals!
