A week or two I posted an item on Gov. Timothy M. Kaine’s appointment of a “sub-cabinet” to promote smart growth. Not surprisingly, no one in the Mainstream Media has picked up on this initiative. Coping with growth is one of the two or three hottest challenges facing Virginia, and Gov. Kaine explicitly endorses a “smart growth” agenda, going so far as to organize his cabinet around the issue, and no one sees a story?
Well, I think it’s pretty darned significant. And, as Kaine tries to get buy-in for his transportation plan, it’s not within a Business As Usual context, it’s within a context of trying to change Virginia’s human settlement patterns. That’s why, on the first day of the special transportation session, I decided to write, “The War on Sprawl,” which expands upon the original blog post. (Apologies to EMR: I know that “sprawl” is a core confusing word, and I would have entitled the column, “The War on Dysfunctional Human Settlement Patterns,” but the phrase did not roll off the tongue.)
Kaine’s effort is a noble one, although, as I argue in the column, it probably won’t accomplish much. The sub-cabinet will be coordinating the expenditure of “discretionary” funds, which may amount to tens of millions of dollars a year. But, as Lisa Guthrie, executive director of the Virginia League of Conservation Voters, points out, transportation expenditures, the major driver of sprawl, measure in the billions of dollars. Transportation spending is where the action is.
Still, it is important to realize that the state cab affect human settlement patterns in positive ways: by promoting companies to locate jobs where they will contribute to a balance of jobs, housing and amenities; by stimulating the development of housing where they will contribute to a balance; by locating state facilities where they contribute to urban redevelopment and revitalization; and by choosing wisely where to preserve open land.
It makes sense for Kaine’s cabinet to coordinate these expenditures. Of course, it makes even more sense for them to coordinate them with local governments, which are responsible for planning land use, infrastructure and public services. Alas, there is no mechanism for doing so.
When I discussed that last issue with L. Preston Bryant, Jr., the secretary of natural resources and chairman of the sub-cabinet, he agreed. “The whole interworking between state and local goverments could stand a good overhaul,” he said.
Bryant cited the books, “Cities with Suburbs,” by David Rusk, which highlights the virtues of cities with “elastic boundaries” as opposed to Virginia’s “inelastic” ones. He likes the idea of city boundaries that expand and retract with the population, evening out taxes across the metro area, and avoiding the trap of concentrating poverty in the inner cities.
But Fundamental Change in governance structures won’t occur in the 18 months that Kaine has left, and it probably can’t occur in a single gubernatorial administration, Bryant observes. It might take a two-term governor to accomplish a goal that ambitious.
What Kaine has done, Bryant contends, is focused more attention than any previous governor on the critical importance of human settlement patterns. It’s hard to argue with that.
