Suburban America Is On A Steady Decline

Sunday Reading

Want To See How America Is Changing? Property Taxes Hold The Answer
The Failed Promise Of Miller Park
Paul Krugman Gets Retail Wrong: They Are Not Very Good Jobs
United Isn't The Reason Air Travel Is So Miserable
Where Is The World's Most Sprawling City?
Growing Life Span Inequality Has Given The Rich An Extra $130,000 In Government Benefits
The Retail Apocalypse Is Suburban
Florida's Go-To Stadium Economist Is A Hack, A Shill, And Also Not An Economist
Climate Change Is Altering The Environment In Ways That Increase The Potential For Viruses Like Zika
11 Charts That Show Marijuana Has Truly Gone Mainstream
CEO Pay Is Out Of Control. Here's How To Rain It In

Growing Pains

James Rowen, at the Political Environment, has covered, in detail and with clarity, the expensive, sprawl-encouraging, Waukesha water diversion proposal. He also critiques the unthinking and misguided Journal Sentinel editorial page's support for such exurban development. Though the editorial does mention an environmental impact study, this seems more an obstacle than a true concern. There is no sense of caution for the underlying environmental issues. Growth is good, keep the sprawl train moving.

The editorial page's boosterism is surreal. They state the water diversion must be studied and done carefully. Yet, in their closing, "Growth in the region helps the entire region. And making sure Waukesha has a safe water source should be in everyone's interest." Basically, let's go through the steps, but, in the end, let's find a way to keep growing at the edges.

If only the Journal Sentinel were full of such vigor in pushing for improvements and pointing out the strengths of the City. How about editorializing for an more integrated public transportation system connecting inner-city poor with suburban job growth? What's good for the City is good for the region, too.

Encouraging enclaves of segregated growth only increases income inequality and solidifies the isolation between suburb and city.

For Further Reading:
More Suburban Shopping Lifestyle
The Suburbanization of Poverty

Suburban Desert

36% More For Water? Suburbs Say Milwaukee's All Wet

No one made suburbanites build in unsustainable areas. They did so because it was cheap (artificially so, by government subsidies), to get away from central city minorities and poor, and for the 5-acre yards they so adore. If suburbanites choose to continue to live environmentally irresponsibly, there is a price to be paid.

Talk about the culture of convenience and entitlement. Surely as the good little, conservative, uber-capitalists most suburbanites are, they know that water is more and more becoming our world's most precious resource. [Finally, we're all realizing this.] So they obviously can understand that as demand for something increases, while the supply remains stable or diminishes, price will go up.

And, if the Sprawlestinas don't like it, well...good luck.

Road Warriors

WOW! I almost need a staff just to stay on top of and respond to all the misinformation and unenlightened opinions of Pat McIlheran at the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. (And, it should be noted, John Torinus' falsehood-spewing isn't far behind.)

Pat follwed up his last bit of nonsense with more of the same, Radical old idea: Let us move around.

In the latest expounding of obliviousness, Pat pushes for extending the Lake Parkway all the way to southern Oak Creek. Is there any problem more highways will not solve for these guys?

McIlheran then runs through the typical gamut of right-wing, development, talking-points: the automobile represents freedom, no one wants to ride the train/light-rail, and building on green space is cheap and therefore preferable.

His description of Pat Jursik's, Milwaukee County Board member, idea for this highway expansion is "revolutionary". In today's environment - sprawl, pollution, water shortages, crumbling roads and infrastructure, stressed budgets - to suggest we build more is absurd. To suggest we build mass transit options that alleviate our dependence on automobiles and highways is, as Pat would say, "Right on!"

McIlheran thinks that if we don't expand highways and if we do expand rail options, we are "cutting off people's options." Someone check into Pat's relationship with the highway lobby. Is there a status quo entity for which he is not a shill? Again, Pat goes back to the oldie but goodie, implying that because we are Americans we can do whatever we want...the planet be damned! Not building highways, continuing to allow us to spew pollutants, nor paving over green space somehow equates to American freedom and would be "cutting off our options".

He then goes on to show more ignornace regarding the latest research, and a complete blindness to a Milwaukee case study. He, agreeing with Jursik, pontificates that tearing down the highway and replacing it with a surface street or lift bridge would be foolish. Maybe they both should read, 4 Cases of How Tearing Down a Highway Can Relieve Traffic Jams.

They mention how surface streets isolate one area of the region from the other. But on the contrary, what they actually do is encourage high-density development and community along those surface streets. Just the opposite of what McIlheran and Jursik are proposing. They want to relieve surface streets of traffic - which would relieve the businesses along these streets of customers. This of course would lead to more exit-ramp, big-box retailers sprouting up along the highways so drivers can jump on and off to get items they might need on any given day. We'd hate to see people shopping in their own neighborhoods supporting local retailers and entrepreneurs. It's much better that we spend money at absentee-owned stores that pay a lower wage and subsequently siphon much of that spending outside our border. Basically, McIlheran and Jursik just want more of the same. More highways for more driving, just not on surface streets, so all of our driving can be at higher speeds, alongside more of the same, haphazard development we've seen over the last 50 years.

The boogeyman here is congestion. We need more highways to relieve all our congestion? What congestion? Milwaukee has one of the shorter commute times of any larger city. Milwaukee was recently ranked the third best city in the country for commuters by Forbes magazine.

We need an investment in rail. Being one of only two or three areas in the country without, or not planning, light-rail is bad for business, the environment, and our quality of life. And, this would only make our commute time even better.

Glaringly absent from the article is a discussion of induced demand. The phenomenon whereby building highways, adding lanes, actually increases congestion on those highways. But economic development, urban planning, and quality of life are obviously not Pat's forte. He's only worried about convenience.

Is McIlheran unaware of the environmental issues breathing down our necks? Or just unwilling to make lifestyle changes to avoid catastrophe? He even makes a crack about, "the silliness of opposing all new pavement." Seemingly, somehow, glorifying and proclaiming the righteousness of paving over open space. Again, showing his complete ignornace regarding the environmental issues with sprawling development.

Parasitic Pat

Patrick McIlheran's stubborness, obtuseness, and ignorance are on full display in his screed on Milwaukee's water wars, Dollars and sense stall water war.

Pat feels the Water Works, or whomever does what they do, purifies water and pipes it to your home...and they only real issue here is whether this is done effectively and cheaply. Since Milwaukee has some of the lowest water rates in the land, is internationally recognized for our water system, and the Water Works is a handsomely profitable entity - according to McIlheran's own standards, the Water Works is the epitome of efficiency.

As usual, rather than adding anything to this debate other than the typical conservative talking points, McIlheran seems to use the water issue, as he does with many other issues, to simply take shots and make wise-cracks about environmentalists, Democrats, and citizens concerned with their water supply.

Pat is still oblivious to sprawl, how water diversions are connected with development patterns, and the ill effects all of this has on our environment. But, in Pat's eyes, we have dominion over the earth, we must continually build new highways, develop open space into parking lots and strip malls, drive our SUVs, and pretty much do whatever the hell we want. We're Americans, damn it! If we do it, it can't be wrong.

Pat's argument that Lake Michigan water really belongs to all of us, therefore there should be not contention about this issue, is also logically adrift. We all live in the U.S., Alaska is part of the U.S., so, by Pat's logic, all of us here in Wisconsin (along with all the other states) should be getting an annual check from Alaska's oil profits. It's funny to see conservatives like McIlheran become socialists when their worldview and the existence of the suburbs would disappear without such an intellectual manipulation.

Sorry, if suburbs want to keep sprawling and building in places where they shouldn't, they are going to have to pay a steep price. Pat should do some reading on externalities.

Pat is one of a number voices unable to come to terms with the FACT that low-density development must die. Either than or the planet will die. Not a very tough choice.

McIlheran believes, as all right-wingers do, that privatization will solve everything. Privatization would "depoliticize water". But maybe they should be careful what they wish for regarding their privatized paradise. I guarantee a private company would charge the suburbs much, much more for their water diversions and usage. The suburbs and McIlheran think Milwaukee is playing hardball, just wait until an absentee-owner, accountable to no one, controls the water.

Plus, do Pat and his ilk not realize that continued growth of places like Waukesha and other exurbs is the reason for water shortages and the sudden interest of private companies to control major water ways and water systems?

Maybe they need to talk with Australians, Californians, and Kansans about the outcomes of their water diversions and over usage.

There is no assurance any of this - water, oil, the planet - will continue in perpetuity. Acting as if we can do whatever we like and ignoring the consequences ensures disaster. It's time we begin acting like stewards rather than continuing to act like parasites.

For Further Reading:
A Win in the Water Wars
Alternatives to Water Privatization
California Water Wars
California's Real Water Wars
Fighting the Corporate Theft of Our Water
Is Water Becoming the New Oil?
Localize Water
The Real Cost of Water
Thirsty Suburbs
Water
Water Barons
Water & Sprawl
Water: Public Good
Who Owns Our Water?

Water v. Roads

Milwaukee is supposed to be conciliatory with regards to giving water to every deprived suburb, yet those same suburbs still basically have the "screw Milwaukee" attitude concerning every social, political, and/or regional issue that arises. [Hat tip to James Rowen at The Political Environment.]

I hope Milwaukee's water gets really, really expensive for the suburbs. Sorry, but I've said it before, this is our only trump card. If the City has to provide for the majority of the State's poor, pay for mass transit options for the region, and shoulder the majority of costs for similar issues, why not charge the real cost of water, and use the revenue to fund such programs?

Waukesha (as stated in a Waukesha Freeman editorial) doesn't feel the need to cooperate regionally. They have no interest in light rail. And no general interest in a regional transportation network. Although they say they are for regional cooperation...but somehow they are against regional transportation cooperation. They feel such a transportation system would only benefit Milwaukee. [Maybe the editorial board needs to realize Waukesha wouldn't exist in the first place without Milwaukee.]

All Waukesha needs are cars and buses, or so they think. They see a future of hybrid double-decker buses (no, I'm not making this up). They find light rail impractical. The Milwaukee metro area is one of only two or three in the country that does not have, or are not planning, some form of light rail. Continuing to argue against light rail is illogical...but it seems that may be what the Waukesha Freeman editorial board was aiming for in their article.

Then the editorial has the nerve to state, "Transportation experts said Wisconsin needs to implement toll roads because the state doesn’t have enough money for road repair and construction in the region. Just think, all those taxes you pay and there still isn’t enough to fix our roads." Funny, they don't mention that their sprawling development patterns, full of new road building, is why we can't afford the maintenance. We keep building more and more roads, and as more and more money goes into new construction, less is available to maintain the roads we have already.

Another uprorious editorial statement, "The reason there is negativity toward a regional transit authority is because it is a bad idea that would cost taxpayers a lot of money." As opposed to the cheap cost of gas, car insurance, road and highway building and maintenance? And, lets not forget the environmental costs involved with road building and an automobile-dependent lifestyle.

Wolves at the Door

There's somewhere between 626 and 662 gray wolves in Wisconsin, and because some calves and pets have been killed by these wolves, we need a controlled yearly wolf hunt?

We build up to and over the living area of wildlife and then we are surprised and angered when they eat our livestock or rummage on our property in search of food?

How about we control our sprawling development patterns, attempt to maintain more green space, and maybe we can cohabitate peacefully.

The Concrete Jungle

James Rowen does yet more wonderful reporting and analysis regarding the highway lobby - and their effect on state and local budgetary issues, and sprawl.

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.

Water & Sprawl

An excellent post by James Rowen of the Political Environment on Waukesha's thirst for Milwaukee's water and it's (apparently) never-ending appetite to sprawl.

Taxes

Community columnist, for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Matthew Gutierrez rambles on about decreasing property taxes by increasing other taxes.

Gutierrez feels, "Taxes should be increased on items that every Wisconsin resident spends money on," not just real estate. The perplexing thing here is that those other things already are taxed. We haves fees, the sales tax, sin taxes, the gas tax, and on and on. And, these taxes tend to take a larger portion of the non-wealthy's overall income - regressive taxes.

Gutierrez proposes a clothing tax. Again, this would only hurt those that he claims to want to help. The majority of homeowners would either pay more to clothe themselves, or they would have to go without replacing their clothing.

He then proposes raising taxes on gas and bus fare...we already do this. I agree gas taxes should be higher, to correctly cover the environmental costs and discourage sprawl. But raising bus fares primarily hurts, again, the non-wealthy. Similar arguments can be made against his call for an increased tax on food. It appears Mr. Gutierrez wants a tax on every single item in our society to discourage its use or to exclude it from those whom can afford it the least.

The reason the governor asks more from homeowners is because we allow him to ask less of corporations. There is a minimum of services we expect in Wisconsin, it's why we're a great state and beloved among so many of its residents and visitors, and that's why a certain tax level is needed to maintain our standard of living.

The best way to ensure fairness in the tax burden is to make sure we have plenty of auditors in the Commerce Department doing their job. Secondly, we need to remove the many exemptions and tax breaks which allow corporations to avoid so much of their tax responsibility.

Housing Is A National Decision

Patrick McIlheran at the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel pontificates on housing and how it must remain in the realm of individual decision-making. Somehow property and housing - wherever a person wants to build and live - is a right. There shall be no input from government, no growth boundaries, no planning involved in how we create our built environment, house our citizens, and construct our society and communities.

This McIlheran-thinking is really just another stunning example of selfish, greedy, base-instincts at their worst. These are some of the same driving forces and impulses that led to the current economic mess we're in.

Is McIlheran really that uninformed regarding the many environmental and economic issues involved in sprawling development? The upkeep of the new roads, additional sewer and water issues, policing, electrical grid infrastructure, commuter pollution, paved land, among many others. There are ecosystems, food sources, natural resources, animals, wet lands, and other natural systems that are destroyed in our continually destructive "build wherever land is cheapest and construct a highway out to it" mentality.

Can we all also agree on the point that just because we desire something or would like things to be a certain way, this does not mean that we automatically get what we want, nor does it mean that things should be our way, nor does it imply things will turn out a certain way? There are larger societal issues here than just each individuals wants and desires.

Although the advertisers and public relations hucksters may want it this way, we should not be aspiring to be a nation of hedonistic gluttons. Just because some developers want to sell the "American Dream" as a McMansion on 5 acres an hour out in the middle of nowhere doesn't make it so and it doesn't make it the most highly productive, efficient, or beneficial housing or development policy. It's a way to make a quick buck for the developers, while the negative externalities are passed on the public.

It's time for us to be more responsible to the environment and more sustainable in our development decisions. It's time to realize that what is right and just is not always cheap and easy.

Chris Caldwell, of the Financial Times, gives a nice primer on highway building, suburban sprawl, and the many negative consequences of both here.

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.

Water

Is it only me or does anyone else feel the New Berlin one-time payment of $1.5 million for the diversion of Lake Michigan water is borderline robbery?

I'm continually amazed at the naivete of the City in believing this will somehow make its way, economically (by fostering continued growth in New Berlin), back to the City. (Or that we need to be the bigger men and work with the suburbs. If that's the case, why not make some sort of regional governance and tax sharing measure part of the water diversion compact.) If there's one thing we should have learned by now from the last 50 or so years, it's that the suburbs don't understand how intimately connected to the City they are, and that the suburbs have continually, through policy and politics, shown a dislike - borderline hatred - for the City.

Let's add up the costs of the damage done by the "hollowing out" over the past few decades from white flight to the suburbs. Let's get a number to represent the fact that the City has to house and provide services for most of the poor. Let's put together some figures on the cost for added clinics, police, food pantries, etc. And, we can't forget to try and get some idea of the cost in decreased productive capacity in human capital from segregating the poorest. If New Berlin, or any other sprawling community wants water, I think all these factors should be included in the final price they pay.

Putting aside the economics, maybe, based purely on environmental concerns, this water diversion just shouldn't be done. Maybe this is Nature's way of saying, "Sorry. You're not supposed to be here." Maybe their only option is to shrink or halt growth. The law of diminishing returns comes to mind. Suburbs and sprawling growth are unsustainable. It's time people face reality and accept this. Sometimes we have to accept limitations and work within those boundaries.

Such as the City having to accept responsibility for the poor, and the associated costs, while the suburbs refused to help educate and care for the poor, and refused to institute transit options to help employ the people in the jobs popping up in the suburbs.

It seems the City should now be adopting the NIMBY perspective and returning the screw-you attitude. Unless of course you can pay us gobs and gobs of money. Because it's all about the money. Isn't that right O' land of strip malls, industrial parks, and retail wonderlands (aka - the suburbs)?

Water is the next oil. We are decades late in realizing our mistakes regarding oil. We can't afford to do the same with water.

For Further Reading:
Climate Change Requires Human Adaptation
Coping With Water Scarcity
Development, Sprawl and Water
Drowning In Delusions
Is Water The Next Oil?
Nobody Knows How Dry We Are
Severe Water Shortages By 2080
Sprawl And Sewer Overflows
The Politics of Water
Water For Profit
Water Wars

Nudging Away Nonsense

Patrick McIlheran, conservative ideologue and propagandist of the Milwaukee-Journal Sentinel, has yet another infuriatingly misinformed (as usual) screed pertaining to a government mandate - when taxpayers fund over a million dollars of a private project, decent wages must be paid to the workers of the project.

Seems rational. Oh, but not in McIlheran's race-to-the-bottom model of development.

How dare the government demand that there be labor standards in projects where they're paying over a millions dollars! By now, we know the drill: give our tax dollars to the private sector, let them do what they wish, expect nothing, and shut our collective mouth. Sounds like a great investment - because I believe in corporations and the free markets and I know, deep down in my heart, that somehow it'll all work out best for all of us, gosh golly. [Please excuse the dripping sarcasm.]

By the way, how are all those privatization schemes, private sector financial innovations, and deregulatory initiatives working out?

From the article: "If we have a problem with people getting jobs," said Council President Willie Hines, an ordinance opponent, "the solution can't be to increase wages." The "increase" in wages is better thought of as the interest paid by the private developer on the risk assumed by the government in helping to fund/start the project.

A business is choosing to develop a site because of the income stream, the cash flow, that can be generated from that site. Every site is not duplicable anywhere we'd like. Certain spots have better exposure and demand, and that's why those sites are chosen for whatever project may be planned (except of course when "subsidies" - bribery or pay-off is a better descriptor - distort the market by courting a business to move with tax breaks and exemptions to what could be considered a comparatively less than optimal site). This fact squashes the claim that a developer can just go anywhere else they want. Cheapness is not a comparative advantage. And, as has been repeatedly found in numerous studies, labor cost is not the boogey-man the race-to-the-bottom cabal claims it to be [see For Further Reading below].

For McIlheran, being paid an honest days wage for an honest days work is "suspect." Our labor laws and standards, the labor movement in general, all part of a nefarious conspiracy. Luckily McIlheran, Mr. Consistency, doesn't have any type of representation in his profession of journalism. Oh, wait, I almost forgot about the Newspaper Guild, the International Federation of Journalists, the International Press Institute, the Society of Professional Journalists, and the National Writers Union.

He also shows another glaringly uninformed - regarding sprawl and the environment - viewpoint, "You see buildings rising, instead, out where the parking is free and the costs are lower. Developers and their tenants have choices." It doesn't even cross his mind that there might be negative economic and environmental issues with this type of development. More on this obliviousness here and here.

He also then tries to take a shot at the sick day ordinance and the 'tax hell' (as some falsely try to claim) that oppresses business here, "This sick leave outrage is part of a continuum. From high taxes to a weird fee on going out of business to a general feeling that they're seen as the class enemy, businesses aren't finding our city a welcoming place. Why, then, would leaders want to give entrepreneurs one more reason to leave?"

As 9 to 5 has noted, "Since enactment of paid sick time on February 5^, 2007, San Francisco has maintained a competitive job growth rate that has exceeded the average growth rate of nearby counties without paid sick days. Likely benefits include improved health outcomes, speedier recoveries for workers and their families, and greater family economic stability with more consistent employment tenure." Another no-brainer with a case study for evidence. But that doesn't jibe with the McIlheran narrative, so forget it.

[Michael Rosen, of Midcoast Views, has an interesting post about Milwaukee developers and their lobbying efforts to undermine the ordinance.]

The problem is, most of what the McIlherans of the world think, most of the policies they push, have no grounding in solid empirical data. It's an ad hoc paradigm they operate from where they mold reality to fit into their narrow worldview. They imagine it, therefore it must be so.

But keep railing for the interests of the powerful at the expense of the many, Mr. McIlheran. Big Business will always be eager to pay for shills willing to present their propaganda to the public.

For Further Reading:
A New Development Paradigm
Attracting Economic Development - At What Cost?
Beginner's Guide to Accountable Development
Building Good Jobs & Strong Communities
Economic Benefits of Union Membership
How Unions Help All Workers
NAFTA: Still Not Working
Shielding Public Incentives for Corporate Relocations from Public Scrutiny
The Economic Civil War
Union Advantage By The Numbers
Union Wage Advantage for Low-wage Workers
Want Change?

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