New Visions for Metropolitan America

New Visions for Metropolitan America by Anthony Downs

The car-centric low-density suburban pattern has dominated American development since the end of World War II. New suburbs have autonomy and encourage comercial, retail and housing development within their boundaries. They enforce ever stricter zoning and building codes to provide higher-quality housing. The poor are priced out of new suburbs and find themselves confined to older inner-city developments of lower quality. Eventually, some of the more well-to-do inner-city residents can migrate to older inner-ring suburbs that have fallen out of favor, however, most remain confined to to the inner ghetto. The inner city often ends up a high poverty, high crime area, with few working class jobs, yet it still supports regional immenties. The disparate pattern of development also results in increased car-centric commute times.

The solutions proposed in the book seek to improve the condition of everyone in the metropolitan area. Regional bodies and regulation will help everyone in the metropolitan area. Increasing density will allow for more affordable housing and reduced commute times. Greenbelts and growth boundaries will help improve the conditions of everyone. Getting there is the challenge. People like having responsive, small scale governments. Government officials like to showcase short term improvements. There is little patience for improvements that take a long time to show results in the long term, especially if they involve sacrifices.

The author has identified many of the challenges to improve the quality of metropolitan areas. Getting a workable solution is a challenge. Even the best set plans can be subverted by inertia and vested interests. It is interesting that in passing he mentions societies decision to turn the mentally ill out in society. That, together with drug epidemics and high housing costs has produced a homeless crisis. That has attracted immediate concern. Alas, it seems most people are eager to throw lots of money at housing authorities and hope it goes away. Nobody wants to address the root causes (especially the housing authorities). It seems society has tried to opt for the "most expensive" solution for housing, and fumbling with it.  

On transportation, we have a mixed result. We are still building far-flung suburbs and spending money to expand roads. However, we are spending billions of dollars on new public transportation infrastructure. It looks good and produces plenty of pork, but not necessarily improvements. In Seattle, Sound Transit is a government agency responsible for light rail and longer-distance buses. Most of the board is made up primarily of local officials. There is also incredible attention to geographical equity. However, the agency is required to get local approval for all work. This allows local suburbs to extract demands from the transit agency. The transit agency has become a money pot that has provided road improvements, parking garages and other car-centric infrastructure. Local governments have specifically fought rail alignments near high density areas due to perceived impacts. Instead, much of the rail line has been near suburban freeways with limited density (or even potential density.) It may be succeeding now. Is this the first step in the improved metropolitan development, or will this be the cautionary case that will prevent the positive long-term goal?