Really Frickin' Petty (RFP)

New Land blasts city development office shortly before downtown site award

It’s a shame when things don’t go your way. But for those who are supposed to be the bastions of free market competitiveness, there seems to be a lot of dependency on the public sector. And when contracts aren’t awarded, some of these private entities lash out, point fingers, and cry the blues. 

This criticism is laughable considering development companies are the ones who continually beat the market drum all the while insisting cities and states fork over millions to help fund their projects. And then if they don’t get their way, and a pile of cash, something is wrong with the process. 

The Business Journal article notes:

New Land's criticisms of the city's development department extend beyond the Marcus Center parking structure project: Gokhman says the department has "chronic problems" and "deep dysfunction" that are "stifling development"

This coming from a company that has been awarded similar projects in the past. The company was also involved in foreclosure proceedings in the not-so-distant past. What's that old saying about glass houses? Funny how private developers believe they should be able to dictate what a city’s development department does.  

Regarding another often-used development handout, the article details, “Tax incremental financing is a tool local governments can use to pay for new developments that are expected to grow the tax base by using future property taxes those developments generate to help repay the city's investment in those projects.” What they leave out is that this financing was intended to serve blighted areas, not locations where development is already thriving. 

The Journal article quotes another developer:

"When you do put out an RFP, you have to be ready, willing and able to make the commitment to help make it successful," said Bob Monnat of Milwaukee development firm Mandel Group Inc. "None of these larger RFP sites have anywhere of a chance of creating the kind of outcome that everyone would like to see unless there's some major participation on the part of the city to help get it over the hump."

Talk about entitlement. Developers seem to believe the City should alleviate all risk from the project, while the private developers get to walk away with all the profits. What a partnership!

Aren’t some of these concepts what the free market is supposed to be all about? Isn’t this part of the conservative mythology we’ve heard over the last many decades about the private sector, job creators, the wise surveyors of the market? So why do they even need the inefficient, mismanaged, inconsistent, misleading, and dysfunctional public sector?

A big problem for New Land’s Gokhman seems to be that the City Development Department took longer than expected. I’m sure that developers never take longer than expected. They’re always on time and everything they propose is seen through to completion. [Sigh. Eye roll.]

Seems odd to have such an issue with not being awarded this site, but then to also state:

New Land supports Johnson’s vision of growing Milwaukee and believes the city's current zoning code and DCD's urban planning team are "one of the best in the country," Gokhman said. 

But then Mr. Gokhman continued:

He cites the downtown Fourth and Wisconsin site near the Baird Center and the former Army Reserve site in the city's Bay View neighborhood — which both remain undeveloped after years of discussion — as key examples of failure.

"No one at DCD loses their job if development doesn’t occur," Gokhman said. "There’s no accountability." 

So, unless every city site is maximally developed, by the city, someone has failed? Seems there is a lot of contradictory ideas and sour grapes going on here. Let’s not forget - failure happens. Everything doesn’t work out as planned in life. [As an example, see the above discussion of Mr. Gokhman’s company's foreclosure activities.] 

City development is booming. Newer offices, hotels, apartments, retail, etc. have steadily been built over the last few decades. Milwaukee has seen downtown development unlike anything since WWII. But the City should throw more money at private developers because a few sites have yet to be developed? Or should the City allow itself to be bullied by developers attempting to rake them over the coals in the media? I don't think either of these would be policy or process improvements. 

These developers' public whining is just a big bushel of bitter, sour grapes.

Fraud & The Real Estate Wrecking Crew

Sunday Reading

Monopoly Rents And Corporate Taxation
Basically Every Problem In The US Economy Is Because Companies Have Too Much Power
The Hit Job On Chief Flynn
UW's Noah Williams Isn't Just A RW Hack. He's A Koch Addict
Harvey Shows Anti-Government Crowd's Utter Hypocrisy
Tax On Hybrids And Electric Vehicles Is Poor Economic Policy
David Brooks Gets Story On Wage Growth And Productivity Completely Wrong
How Local Housing Regulations Smother The US Economy
The Voting Commission Is A Fraud Itself
Why American Workers Pay Twice As Much In Taxes As Wealthy Investors
Houston's Flooding Shows What Happens When You Ignore Science And Let Developers Run Rampant
Why America Still Hasn't Learned The Lessons Of Katrina
Exempting Suburbia
Have Smartphones Destroyed A Generation?

Sunday Reading

Confusion About The Financial Crisis Won't Die
Will Bill Privatize Water Utilities?
Is Ted Cruz Right About The Federal Reserve & The Great Recession?
Bill Would Limit City Control Of Development
Zoning Laws Transfer Wealth In The Wrong Direction
The Case Against Bernie Sanders Is Dumb
Can New Approach End Gerrymandering?

Development Desperados

Just a few thoughts on Mike Johnson's article, in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Democrats zoom in on property tax loophole.

Johnson opens with the crux of the issue, "Senate Democrats are moving to close a loophole that has given developers huge property tax breaks by planting crops on land that is zoned for residential and business purposes."

Developers whine that not allowing them this ability to cheat on their taxes, and essentially be subsidized by the rest of us, will impede their development plans. In reality, closing such a loophole will encourage more efficient development - promoting higher density and agglomeration economies. Which would lead to more optimal outcomes, rather than allowing developers to sit on land, pay artificially low property taxes, and lobby local and state government to subsidize development on and around their land.

This sentence from the article sums up the inequity of the situation, "...the loophole shifts property taxes that should be paid by developers to other taxpayers, mostly homeowners."

All Aboard

Road are expensive to build and maintain. And, it appears, we're not maintaining them very well. "In many urban areas nationwide, 30-60 percent of roads are in poor shape," according to an American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials report.

One solution, which would also be good for the environment, is to invest more in rail networks. A study by the HNTB Corporation found rail networks induce development and increase property values.

Here is a recent article from John Gurda, Milwaukee historian, on his experience with the rail system in Zurich. Elisabeth Rosenthal, in a piece for the New York Times, tells the story of Vauban, Germany, and their experiment as a car-free city.

Death Trip

It's good to see Mayor Barrett opposing stimulus money being wasted on the sprawling suburban wastelands. Is this the DOT's idea of green stimulus? Investing the majority of the money on auto-centered development, while the city's infrastructure slowly continues to crumble? We need to amend the deferred investments in the city; to discourage sprawl and encourage high-density, walkable environments. There is no better place to start than the city.

It's The Environment, Stupid

Tom Brokaw has an op-ed in today’s New York Times. He basically makes the case for more regional provision of services as a cost-cutting measure during these tough times. This is not revolutionary nor is it a new proposal.

When discussing North and South Dakota’s 17 colleges and universities and why so many schools are unnecessary for such a small population he states, “They are a carry-over from the early 20th century when travel was more difficult and farm families wanted their children close by during harvest season.”

Both of these ideas - cheap travel and local farming - are two sides of the same coin, and two issues we need to address and think much more clearly about with regard to the environmental crisis we are facing.

Travel may be easier, but that is because it is heavily subsidized. We are encouraging environmental degradation with cheap fuel. Our jet-setting lifestyle is convenient for those who can afford it, yet this frivolously inefficient hyper-mobile culture is also destroying the planet.

Later Brokaw opines, “If this is a reset, it’s time to reorganize our state and local government structures for today’s realities rather than cling to the sensibilities of the 20th century.”

Today’s realities dictate that we concentrate more on local sustainability rather than global mobility. Certain places are naturally endowed to produce food and others have an abundance of natural resources. The last fifty years have seen a totally new development pattern – highways and exit ramp economies. We locate wherever we want regardless of the natural environment and then, because travel/shipping is cheap, we build and import whatever we need to make that place livable.

We dam and reroute rivers. We build over wetlands. We turn deserts into golf courses. We construct hundreds if not thousands of miles of irrigation systems and water supplies for farmlands and subdivisions that should never be.

I agree that service consolidation is an efficient idea. But we must also consider the environmental realities. We have built fantasy communities where they should have never been imagined – much of Arizona and Nevada comes to mind. Until we face the hard fact that some of these places are not sustainable and we come to grips with a more long-term, high-density lifestyle we’re really just spinning our wheels.

Road To Nowhere

James Rowen has rightfully been all over and against the push for more highway construction using stimulus dollars. He points the finger at the road-building lobby. More of the same wasteful, sprawl-style development.

Here's an excellent article from the Financial Times illuminating the long, misguided history of highway building.

You Oughta Be In Pictures

Here is an interesting piece by Michael Rosen which elaborates on a theme I'd posted earlier.

Development Needs Research

In Sunday's Journal-Sentinel, John Torinus has a bullet-pointed, long-winded sermon on the beauty and stimulative-nature of entrepreneurship (whatever that means). Even his title has it backwards.

There is a tone when he states, "...a heavy dependence on its historic manufacturing sector." As if we should divest ourselves of our large market share, our competitive advantage, and a continued focus of the success of one of our most lucrative sectors. Manufacturing is generally a higher paying, high value-added industry. This should be a prime focus of our research and development efforts. The hits to employment in this industry over the last few decades have more to do with trade politics (and slave labor) than with efficiency or productivity.

He also feels we should capitalize on our research and development capabilities and stengthen them. OK. Sounds good. Although, typically this type of activity is either heavily subsized by the government, or directly funded by the government through the university system and organizations such as the National Institutes of Health. Has Torinus suddenly become a tax-and-spender? Or is he just citing another example of where government and bureaucrats can be highly effective and actually improve society?

Much of his opinions regarding UWM -- it's construction projects, and it's innovative leadership, and the giant strides it has made in recent years -- are spot on. And, hopefully UWM will choose a downtown rather than a suburban location. As a former student and employee at UWM, I'm proud of their progress and their scholarship.

[Mr. Torinus mentions, "The R&D has to be turned into patents, licenses, and start-up companies." Here are numerous articles by Dean Baker that disprove the economic efficiency of patents: A, B, C, D, E, and F. The money is made being the first to create the idea, not holding that creative capacity from others to build upon it. That causes long-term inefficiency.]

But after the public sector nurtures these industries and ideas, Torinus feels we should, "...transferring the basic technology to commercial applications in the real world of business." If public entities are producing technologies and products the market wants, aren't they applying their know-how in the real world of business? And, competing quite effectively it seems. We should turn over the innovative capacity to the private sector so they can make highly leveraged bets, create gains for a select few, watch them mismanage and corrupt the endeavor, and see the whole thing collapse...to then have to be cleaned up by taxpayers (the public sector)?

It seems taxpayers' money is actually better managed and spent by the government than the private sector. The Republican propaganda campaign over the last 35 years to dispute this fact and muddle the discussion about such seems impervious to reason and clear-thinking. We'd all be better if we just ignored them.

Other than that, I'm all for Torinus' bullet-pointed research spending ideas. But, lets keep them state- or local(ly)-run centers, having well-paid jobs with health care and funded retirement plans.

"Sharing is caring," as Mr. Rogers said. If a select few would share just a minuscule amount (pay their fair share of taxes), they could initiate massive change and end the impoverished conditions of the majority on this planet. The only thing standing in the way of this is political cover, masking greed and entrenched interests.

Obviously all the ideas Mr. Torinus feels should be funded would have to be public programs. If this was "easy money" wouldn't private corporations already be making the investment? Of course, they only care about short-term gains. How we fund our societal institutions and the priorities of such, how we reach for sustainability and prosperity, these are long-term policy issues. Concerns rightfully addressed and managed by the public sector.

But WMCers and the right-wing bow to a different savior. They must keep their shareholders happy. You don't want to piss off Wall Street. Wall Street it now seems has become our defacto government. How about the change we believe in is taking our government back.

With some populist spin struggling to conceal the underlying conservative positions and giveaways to the private sector, this piece seems nothing more than typical WMC rhetoric from Torinus.

Foreign-owned: Yes. American-owned: No.

Greg LeRoy, Good Jobs First’s executive director, proclaims, “And while proposed federal aid to the Big 3 would take the form of a loan, the vast majority of subsidies to foreign auto plants were taxpayer gifts such as property and sales tax exemptions, income tax credits, infrastructure aid, land discounts, and training grants.”

These state and local subsidies for foreign-owned auto assembly plants total approximately $3.6 billion.

Just more of the beggar-thy-neighbor, zero-sum development policy we're pursuing in the U.S.

This whole - make the automakers sweat - episode is really just cutting off our own nose to spite our face.

The Pabst Farms Mirage

I warned against Pabst Farms back in February 2008. Another retail wonderland is the last thing Wisconsin needs to be publicly-funding at this - or for that matter, any other - time. Such subsidization merely realigns spending away from existing shopping destinations toward the newer, shinier destination. A colossal waste of public (and private) resources if there ever was one.

But wait a minute, things aren't going as planned.

I thought this was a slam-dunk economic development initiative?

One of those unstoppable catalysts that was necessary, creates jobs, and spurs further development.

So why can't the developers even sign tenants?

Maybe it has something to do with the duplicative, sprawling, inefficient, environmentally unsound, and bribery-laden path of our urban planning & economic development. Sites compete for capital, subsidizing businesses to locate in less than optimal locations. This increases productive inefficiency, whilst hamstringing the unsubsidized competition. All this slows growth from what it would be without the subsidization. It also decreases municipal tax revenue which reduces the provision of public services (which are crucial to quality of life indicators) and encourages labor force contraction.

I can only hope Obama's appointment of an Urban Czar can correct some of these deficiencies.

Doing Development Right

James Rowen, of the Political Environment (an excellent blog), gave kudos to John Kovari, of the Public Policy Forum for a blog he posted regarding regional development. While it's great that the Journal-Sentinel raises this issue, and that Rowen and Kovari are engaging in a discourse about such, it's seems there is much context missing from the discussion. If we really want to tackle the problems of sprawl and other urban issues we need to operate from a much bolder paradigm, rather than tinkering around the edges of a system and models that do not work.

John Kovari opines, "There has been little empirical evidence linking regional cooperation initiatives or regional governing bodies with clear economic benefits." In the Midwest region, alone, Indianapolis and Minneapolis are shining examples of regional governance done correctly. The problem isn't a lack of empirical evidence supporting regional governance, but NIMBYist parochialism and a lack of political will to put such plans into operation.

Mr. Kovari reports, "There is much economic research, based on the “public choice” theory of Charles Tiebout, that argues that local competition is more efficient than regional cooperation." Tiebout's model is based on highly restrictive assumptions, which rarely pan out in the real world. The model places much reliance on the invisible hand of the market to steer decisions, somehow, toward Pareto optimal outcomes (which are assumed the apex of outcomes, but again are based on an unreasonable framework of theoretical idealism). The model assumes that every person can move whenever and wherever they wish. It also presupposes that local government public goods provision is known and stable. All of which are highly dubious assumptions.

Kovari writes, "Strong, tangible incentives from individual municipalities (along with state tax breaks) draw the first-class corporations." This is a roundabout, and very kind way to describe our system of economic development, which is basically bribery by businesses pitting one city against another, driving up their bounty. Numerous studies by Peter Fisher, Greg LeRoy, et al have shown the inefficiency of this system.

Near the end of the posting, he states, "Regional cooperation in building specific infrastructure projects, such as public transit or intermodal freight stations, has been found consistently to raise local property values." Yet these basic infrastructure improvements, other than highways, seem to take lower priority in budgets year after year. Maintaining the public infrastructure in itself is a sound public policy for providing jobs and attracting business.

As more tax code is written which allows corporations to avoid taxes, and as more cities give exemptions and breaks to business, obviously homeowners pay more. There is a minimum standard of public goods and services people expect, this is why people (with the means to move) choose a community. If cities strangle their taxpayers pocket books to provide reduced public service provision -- due to uncollected corporate taxes, and costly and unnecessary business incentives -- this is a sure way to drive away residents.

A crucial component to solving our urban issues is federal directives ending the "war among the cities" and redistributive policies that give taxpaying homeowners a break, by removing some of the exemptions, tax breaks, and unnecessary TIFs and such littering our landscape.

Wal-Mart Propaganda and (Local) Media Lapdogs

Wal-Mart is trying to build new stores in Cudahy and Muskego. Citizens of both communities are fighting the development. Much of the “journalism” covering this subject could only be described as subdued boosterism. As noted in previous postings here, there really isn’t a development project some local newspapers won’t support. Taxpayer dollars being redistributed to thriving, profitable businesses to subsidize building their private stores, stadiums, museums, parking structures, convention centers, etc. is great public policy!?

Yet this same style “reporting” has the audacity to complain about entitlement program costs, the cost of maintaining parks, the possibility of light-rail, etc. The programs, projects, and infrastructure that benefit us all, or take care of the least among us, are an inefficient waste of public dollars? But a good public investment is subsidizing large profitable corporate interests even as our wages stagnate, our health care and retirement funding is cut, and such subsidies destroy our communities and social fabric?

We indeed have entered into a new era: labor is completely subservient to capital. Corporations are allowed to speculate, cut corners, use tax loopholes, and do anything to increase their profit while avoiding paying their fair share, acting responsibly, or showing any sense of commitment to anything other than profit. Often this corporate speculation is subsidized – done with taxpayer dollars. So even if they fail, the taxpayers are the ones forking over the money (our tax dollars…again…on top of the subsidies) bailing them out and assuming the risk for their poor management, judgment, and greed.

An illogical editorial in the Journal-Sentinel was published simply to say that officials shouldn’t be subjected to recall elections just because they have voted against the wishes of the citizens in favor of big box development [to subsidize and allow a Wal-Mart into the community] rather than against it. Officials are elected to represent and be the voice of their constituents. If those constituents don’t want a Wal-Mart and a public official votes to allow a Wal-Mart, they have every right to “throw the bum out,” in fact, it’s their duty as citizens.

A Google search of the City of Milwaukee reveals 5 Wal-Marts. Add in all the Targets, Kohl’s, etc. – just think off all that square footage of retail space, all the land it is gobbling up, the environmental devastation from the impermeable parking lot surfaces, and the inefficient replication of the same buildings performing the same services every mile or so throughout the region! Are we constructing these blemishes of infrastructure as a representation of our times, hopes, and dreams? Is this the built-environment legacy we wish to leave? Within a 30-mile radius of Milwaukee, there are 16 Wal-Marts! Not only is this development an economic loser, it's a visual, aesthetic disgrace.

Big box, mega-retail oriented development leads to a realignment of spending - away from a diverse set of owners, neighborhoods, mom-and-pop stores, and other community-linked businesses – toward Wal-Mart. Claiming building a new Wal-Mart will draw in customers from areas without a Wal-Mart is not the same as claiming growth will occur because of Wal-Mart. Such development actually just rearranges spending patterns within an area. The gains to the new host community are the losses of another community. And they will soon be the losses to the host community as well, as Wal-Mart begins to attract away customers from other existing businesses. (Here’s what this type of development and business practice does to encourage sprawl and devastate the environment.)

Think you’re getting a deal? Always the low price? Think again! The September 2005 issue of Consumer Reports exposed, “None of the major retailers outpriced the independents for ranges, refrigerators, and other large appliances…What’s more, readers found Wal-Mart no cheaper than other stores overall, despite it’s low-price slogan.” Categories like prices, service, selection, quality, and checkout ease were compared. Overall, the local stores outscored the big competitors by a considerable margin.

By saturating the market with subsidized stores, their strategy to control market share (by buying up all the competition and driving others out of business), Wal-Mart is being publicly financed to compete with similar, already existing businesses that provide the same services; whilst usually paying a lower wage and providing substandard, if any, affordable health care options. For every job a Wal-Mart creates, 1.4 retail jobs are eliminated from the local economy. Yet, we as taxpayers are subsidizing this loss of jobs, the lower wages, and the general degradation of our communities by allowing such renegade retail profiteers into our neighborhoods.

Twenty-seven percent of Wal-Mart associates’ children are on public assistance programs such as Medicaid or the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. Other research found Wal-Marts cause taxpayers to pay more than $2,000 per employee in social safety net costs. As detailed by Wal-Mart Subsidy Watch, “In June 2007, the State Department of Health and Family Services found that, of all employers, Wal-Mart had the largest number of workers participating in Badger Care, the state’s health insurance program for low-income families. In addition, 776 dependents of those workers were in the program. In total, the Wal-Mart workers and their dependents were costing the state about $3.7 million a year.”

Also, women make up 72 percent of Wal-Mart’s sales force but only 33 percent of its managers. As Liza Featherstone reports, gender discrimination is such an issue at the company, “…current and former Wal-Mart employees are charging the company with systematic sex discrimination in promotions, assignments, training, and pay.”

Some discord has arisen over the typical big-box design. There have been calls for more neighborhood-cohesive styling elements to the building. And - although big boxes are eyesores – as we’ve seen, the real dispute about Wal-Mart and big-box developments is over the seasonal, low-wage jobs lacking good healthcare, and the environmental and community impacts of such developments.

To meet Wal-Mart demands for low-prices, suppliers continually have to cut costs – which involves layoffs and/or outsourcing jobs. This exact problem doomed Milwaukee’s own Master Lock. In 1997, Master Lock began importing from Asia and opened a factory in Nogales, Mexico. As Charles Fishman explains, “The Milwaukee employees of Master Lock who shopped at Wal-Mart to save money helped the hand shove their own jobs right to Nogales.” Additionally, Stephen Dobbins in the same articles adds “…you can’t buy anything if you’re not employed. We are shopping ourselves out of jobs.”

Wal-Mart will increase the tax base, some will argue. As Good Jobs First discovered, Wal-Mart, in 30-40 percent of its facilities, contests it's property valuations to diminish their property tax bill. The Super Centers and Discount Stores win about 45 percent of these appeals. The Distribution Centers win about 65 percent of the time. This means less money for local services, schools, projects and programs. So, to keep up the services we all enjoy in our communities, thanks to the likes of Wal-Mart not paying their fair share, you and I pay more (and this is on top of the publicly financed subsidy you're paying for that your city already gave them).

Rather than continuing this beggar-thy-neighbor, war-among-the-states policies, Common Councils and Planning Commissions should be developing regional, state and federal proposals – alliances among public entities, rather than against one another. This encourages old economic staples like comparative advantage and clustering, and takes into consideration the local history of a place. These policy options are much better for all of us, rather than the false promises of job creation and the environmental irresponsibility of big box development.

Afterword:

“With more than $100 billion in personal assets among them, the five Waltons occupy positions six through ten in the Forbes billionaires rankings, twice as rich as Microsoft’s Bill Gates, the guy on top…It [Wal-Mart] uses its economic and political power to extend the scope of the low-wage economy and threatens to extend its business model into other sections of the economy, undermining wages and still more workers,” affirm Glen Ford and Peter Gamble.

For Further Reading:

Big Box Economic Impact
Big Box Swindle
Great American Jobs Scam
Rolling Back Property Tax Payments
Shopping for Subsidies
Wal-Marts Great Tax Dodge

Sprawl & Sewer Overflows

Don Behm's April 19, 2008 Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel article goes on at length about the "swelling sanitary sewers," but no mention is made between this phenomenon and it's connection to urban sprawl. This is a glaring and puzzling omission.

As Dr. Jane Frankenberger, an Assistant Professor in Agricultural and Biological Engineering at Purdue University, reports, "The fate of rain that falls on the land is strongly affected by land use. In a forest or grassy area, most rain soaks into the soil (infiltrates), where it eventually is used by growing plants or percolates to ground water. Ground water flows slowly into streams, usually over a period of months, providing steady base flow (flow in streams in times without rainfall) that fish and other aquatic life need. By contrast, most rain that falls on a parking lot runs off immediately, often draining into storm sewers that transport it to a stream or ditch."

As noted by the Envirocast Weather & Watershed Newsletter, "Impervious surfaces can create a number of environmental challenges, such as more frequent and severe urban floods, ... and pollution in the form of storm water runoff." The more we build endlessly upon open space, paving parking lots and highways, we are diverting water with deleterious effects.

American Rivers, of the Natural Resources Defense Council and Smart Growth America, explains, "... sprawl not only pollutes our water, it also reduces our supplies. As the impervious surfaces that characterize sprawling development -- roads, parking lots, driveways and roofs -- replace meadows and forests, rain no longer can seep into the ground to replenish our aquifers. Instead, it is swept away by gutters and sewer systems."

The Alliance for the Great Lakes in the 2007 The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement inform, "The systems [sewage treatment] are aging and many are inadequate to meet currents needs, including the increased volume of wastewater imposed by suburban growth."

Sprawl and Big Box stores and strip malls are integral in creating impervious surfaces, as detailed by the Sierra Club, "Big Box stores like Wal-Mart threaten our landscape, our communities and the environment by building on the fringe of town, paving vast areas for stores and parking lots, and undermining the economic health of existing downtown shopping areas...Large parking lots contribute directly to non-point source water pollution, which is the leading cause of water pollution in the U.S. Each acre of impermeable parking surface produces runoff of 25,000 gallons of water during a 1 inch storm. By contrast, a one-acre undeveloped site only has runoff of 2,700 gallons during the same storm. Runoff from impermeable surfaces leads to erosion, flooding, and the flow of pollutants like oil, chemicals, bacteria and heavy metals into waterways."

With some suburban areas already fearing the possibility of running out of water, the fact that, "Sprawling development slows the replenishment of underground aquifers, making it harder for communities to cope with drought," as noted by Cat Lazaroff of the Environment News Service, should be a major point of discussion when we are speaking about sewer and sanitation problems and resolutions. In the same article, Betty Otto of American Rivers affirms, "Sprawl development is literally sending billions of gallons of badly needed water down the drain each year ... the storm drain"

The National Resource Defense Council elucidates, "Haphazard sprawl development also brings runoff water pollution to more and more watersheds, degrading streams, lakes, and estuaries. Natural landscapes, such as forests, wetlands, and grasslands, are typically varied and porous. They trap rainwater and snowmelt and filter it into the ground slowly. When there is runoff, it tends to reach receiving waterways gradually. Cities and suburbs, by contrast, are characterized by large paved or covered surfaces that are impervious to rain. Instead of percolating slowly into the ground, storm water becomes trapped above these surfaces, accumulates, and runs off in large amounts into waterways, picking up pollutants as it goes."

Here again, yet another crucial issue the media should be leading the discussion on, but sadly are only reporting a, meaningless without full context, portion of the story. They should be forcing our politicians and corporations to think big about and tackle such an immediate need. Fostering debate, thereby leading the charge to develop sustainable policies dealing with sprawl, sanitation, and, in general, the environment.

Development, Sprawl and Water

Sprawl: low-density, lacks mixed-use, separates residential from non-residential property, lacks mass transportation options, increases auto-dependence and commute times, consumes more and more green space, and lacks affordable housing.

I know suburbanites feel they can just continue growing outward, building more roads and sewer lines, paving over more and more green space, and this will have no deleterious effects. Yet the real debate we should be having over the Great Lakes Water Compact is that the suburbs (and sprawl) are a misguided, unsustainable pipe-dream. We don’t have enough money to take care of the roads we have now, yet some want us to continue sprawling outward. America has more paved mileage per capita than any other country. Sprawl is merely duplicating infrastructure we already have. People complain about taxes now, yet they want to continue sprawling, which will only require more police, more maintenance, more of everything, which includes more taxes.

White flight and the “screw the inner-city” attitude is what drove suburbanites outward in the first place. All of this was encouraged by the highway and home-building lobbies. Suburbanites turned their backs on the problems of the city. This was also aided by federal policies. The Federal Housing Administration provided government-insured mortgages to whites in the suburbs (while denying them in the inner-city). Policies have also kept gas prices artificially low, while reserving gas tax and highway toll revenues for road-building rather than mass transit, which subsidizes suburban commuters and continued sprawl.

Another much touted, yet becoming more so destructive, policy tool is tax incremental financing (TIF). These were initially established to bring investment to blighted, low-income areas. But nowadays, more states are loosening their eligibility requirements and allowing affluent areas to reap the benefits. TIFs allow a municipality to issue a bond to pay for part of the costs of the new development. The property tax revenue generated by the development is then used to pay off the bonds. Some municipalities also allow sales tax increments, where the sales tax generated by the new development can be diverted to redevelopment costs.

The City has the trump card in these negotiations. If suburbanites want access to the City's water: 1) move back to the city, 2) pay a ridiculous amount for the water (to offset the negative externalities of such development), 3) pay for mass transit improvements to link inner-city unemployed with suburban employment, or 4) make some effort and recognition to show that suburbanites understand their present water-deprived reality and are willing to work towards a long-term, sustainable resolution.

We cannot keep pretending that we can do whatever we wish and mold nature to our liking. The suburban land of strip malls and highways is a blight and cancer on our landscape. The idea that suburbanites can use Lake Michigan water, take it from the Great Lakes Basin, divert it west of the Subcontinental Divide, and never return it, or somehow return it through pipelines, does nothing to address the unsustainable nature of sprawl, which is devouring our green space and natural habitat nationwide. And, as Barbara Miner reports in her Milwaukee Magazine article The Politics of Water, "One of the world's oldest lakes took less than 50 years to shrink away...diverting the Aral Sea's tributary rivers in order to grow cotton in the desert - turned into a massive ecological disaster." In the last few decades the U.S. population has grown by roughly twenty percent, but urbanized land has grown by over fifty percent. This cannot continue.

The simple fact that certain localities are running out of water is Nature’s way of saying you were not supposed to be there in the first place. The sooner we realize that we can’t keep running from our problems and building over evermore green space with parking lots and highways, the better off we will be, and the better off the planet will be.

For Further Reading:
Fair Faucet
A Firm Hand on the Spigot
Great Lakes Deal Announced
Great Lakes Forever
Options Running Dry
State Struggles on Where to Draw the Line
Those who control oil and water...
Time to start paying waters real price