Let’s counter myths with facts!

If you are annoyed by being told what to do, you probably wouldn’t want to live in what the Public Policy people call “high density housing.”

Environmentalists want people to live in high-density, high-rise housing, and they want them crammed into buses and street cars. This is of course to save the environment from what they call “sprawl.” The idea — and it is an extremely influential one — is to keep people within the so-called Built Environment where they “belong” (in quotes because I doubt environmentalists really want humans anywhere).

An extremely influential National Research Council report — “Driving and the Built Environment” (summary here) was put together by a high level committee of Public Policy and Urban Planning folks. These are unelected academicians and policy advocates who have devoted their lives to telling people what to do, and I think it behooves those of us who don’t want to be told what to do to study carefully the way these people think. Personally I consider them enemies of freedom, wreckers of the economy, and despoilers of the American way of life. I am sure they would consider me a far-right lunatic, which is a shame because a lot of conservatives consider me a liberal, and I cannot tell you what a pain in the ass it is to be a far-right lunatic liberal.

But I digress. On with exciting excerpts of ruling class thought from “Driving and the Built Environment“!

Above all, the Public Policy people hate “suburbanization” (although I suspect many of them make exceptions for their own elite suburbs):

The Effects of Compact Development on Motorized Travel, Energy Use, and CO2 Emissions

Suburbanization is a long-standing trend reflecting the preference of many Americans for living in detached single-family homes and made possible through the mobility provided by the automobile and an extensive highway network. Yet these dispersed, automobile-dependent development patterns have come at a cost, consuming vast quantities of undeveloped land; increasing the nation’s dependence on imported petroleum; and increasing greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming.

The key recommendation? Obviously, suburbanization must be countered by forcing people into denser housing:

Policies that support more compact, mixed-use development and reinforce its ability to reduce VMT, energy use, and CO2 emissions should be encouraged.

But  the experts recognize that this won’t be easy. After all, they are up against recalcitrance and backwardness of the citizenry, exacerbated by pliant local governments (something the experts want to change):

Promoting more compact, mixed-use development on a large scale will require overcoming numerous obstacles.

Local zoning regulations -— particularly suburban zoning that restricts density levels and the mixing of land uses—- represent one of the most significant barriers to more compact development. Highly regulated land use markets also limit the supply of compact developments, despite evidence of increased interest in such communities. Land use control is, and has remained, largely a local government function and thus sensitive to legitimate local concerns (e.g., about congestion, local taxes, or home values), which are sometimes at odds with other regional or national concerns, such as housing affordability or climate change. Thus, land use policies aimed at achieving sweeping changes in current development patterns are likely to be impeded by political resistance from existing homeowners and local governments that reflect their interests, which may help explain why metropolitanwide or state policies aimed at controlling land use and steering development and infrastructure investments are not widespread.

The problem is that too many Americans prefer what they should not be allowed to have:

…many Americans appear to prefer detached single-family homes in low-density suburbs that are often associated with more privacy, greater access to open space and recreation, and less noise than characterize many urban neighborhoods. Of course, housing preferences may change in the future with changes in the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of the population.

One of the study’s authors is an academician named Rolf Pendall (currently Director of the Metropolitan Housing & Communities Policy Center at the Urban Institute), who holds a Ph.D. in Urban Planning, which he has taught for years. In an earlier influential screed “Myths & Facts About Affordable and High-Density Housing” promoted by the Association of Bay Area Governments (yes, the busybodies like to get together and share ideas on how to better tell us what to do), Pendall explains on behalf of another large committee of unelected ruling class experts what it is that really motivates the people who don’t like density:

In the past 20 years, California’s housing prices have steadily outpaced its residents’ incomes. Housing production hasn’t kept up with the influx of new families from around the world and household growth within the state. And the location and type of new housing does not meet the needs of many new California households. As a result, only one in five households can afford a typical home, overcrowding doubled in the 1980s, and more than two million California households pay more than they can afford for their housing.

Meanwhile, the federal government has dramatically cut back programs that used to help local governments accommodate new growth. Voter-imposed property-tax and spending freezes have further constrained local governments from responding effectively to new growth. Infrastructure funding now comes from new growth. And affordable housing development, while still funded in part by the federal government, also requires a larger local commitment than ever before.

OK, now that’s just a “backdrop” for what he has to say about the role of “myths.” (Smart-talk for the concerns ordinary people like taxpayers might have about their communities.) Their “myths” are used as “shields” for “deeper and uglier motivations”!

Against this backdrop, it should surprise no one that many communities no longer accept population growth with open arms. When anyone proposes the development of affordable or multi-family housing, ambivalence about growth often shifts to hostility. And hostility feeds and strengthens certain myths, deep, emotional perceptions of how the world works. Myths—important sources of meaning in all societies—provide shared rationales for community members to behave in common ways; they have a strong moral component, with clear lines between right and wrong. Although myths are sometimes positive, they can also serve as shields for deeper and uglier motivations: racism, fear of outsiders, greed.

OH MY GOD! If you disagree with the expert academicians who know so much more than you do, it’s only because you’re a racist! And a greedy one at that. (And we all know who the greedy racists are, don’t we? The Republicans!

Those greedy racist Republicans (whose ranks include many black Democrats, but never mind that) will use their myths to try to influence a group of people the rulers like to call the “decision-makers”:

When people argue against new high-density and affordable housing, they often use myths to convince decision-makers that the new development and its residents don’t belong there. Traffic will be too heavy and schools will grow overcrowded. The buildings will clash with existing neighborhoods. The people won’t fit in. Maybe they’ll even be criminals.

Opponents often truly believe these myths. But it’s essential to counter these myths with facts.

The facts, of course, are little more than the opinions of the Public Policy people, buttresses by their own statistical studies. The bottom line is that they are the experts, they know what is good for you, and if you disagree with them it is because you are a greedy racist, and probably a Republican!

One of the most stubborn facts is that many people don’t plain want to live in cities. They don’t want to be hemmed in, crowded together, subjected to noise and crime (yes, it does exist in cities), and above all, they don’t want to be regulated to death by government.

What prompted this rant was that earlier this morning I stumbled onto an official directive emanating from the City of Ann Arbor (but which has become a major movement in cities across the country). If you live above the fifth floor, the government says it is time to turn your lights out!

For the birds!

SAFE PASSAGES GREAT LAKES DAYS: AUG. 15 TO OCT. 31, 11 P.M. TO 6 A.M.

CALL TO TURN OFF LIGHTS ON FIFTH FLOOR AND ABOVE

ANN ARBOR, Mich., Sept. 19, 2011 — During seasonal peak bird migration, residents andproperty managers are reminded to close shades or turn out lights between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. (or dawn) on tall buildings from the 5th floor and above. This action assists birds to maintain their natural night navigation patterns and helps prevent the unnecessary death of migrating birds from becoming disorientedand flying into lighted tall buildings. A 2009 State of Michigan proclamation designates the periods of March 15 to May 31 and Aug, 15 to Oct. 31 as Safe Passage Great Lakes Days.

Starting in Chicago, Ill, New York City, Toronto, Ont., and other cities, Safe Passages actions have resulted in significant reductions in migratory bird deaths. The campaign came to Michigan in 2009 with resolutions passed by the State of Michigan, and the cities of Ann Arbor, Detroit, Southfield, and Jackson.

“More than 250 species of night-migrating birds, including warblers, thrushes, and tanagers, fly overMichigan during their spring and fall migrations,” explains Will Weber of the Washtenaw Audubon Society. He adds that the deaths of millions of birds each year has been tracked to the apparent effect of tall building lighting, which interferes with the navigation systems of migrating birds flying nearby,causing them to repeatedly circle the illuminated buildings until they either die from exhaustion or from colliding into windows.

Etc. I’m all for saving birds, but isn’t this an argument against building high rise housing in the first place?

No, because the environmentalists want us in high rises. It makes it easier for them to order us around according to their latest whim.

It’s all about who gets to be in charge of the Built Environment!

I say that it is time for the poor suburbanites to speak up for their environment, which is infinitely more bird-friendly than the urban environment.

What the environmentalists call “sprawl” (in their own myth) actually saves birds.

It’s essential to counter the myth that sprawl is bad with facts.

Suburbanization is good. Urbanization is bad.