I just came back from the annual CALED (California Association for Local Economic Developers) conference, where much of the buzz involved Smart Growth. AEDC’s annual conference in Dallas next month will also discuss Smart Growth while, a week later, CUED has a three-day conference on Smart Growth scheduled for Portland, Ore.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg, too. Smart Growth is on everyone’s lips, and on every economic development organization’s agenda.
Smart Growth is spreading like wildfire throughout the United States, though I wonder whether or not it will deliver its desired results, or whether it will only further exacerbate the situation — urban sprawl and urban decay — that it seems to hope to turn around.
| That’s because, in my opinion, it ignores the single largest obstacle to urban economic revitalization — school districts that don’t deliver the type of educated work force the current (and future) economy demands. |
It’s not that I wish them ill. It’s simply that I think that the movement is built upon a well-meaning, but off-target, foundation.
That’s because, in my opinion, it ignores the single largest obstacle to urban economic revitalization — school districts that don’t deliver the type of educated work force the current (and future) economy demands.
Smart Growth revolves around three components they call the Three E’s of Sustainability: Economy, Environment and [social] Equity.
How can you argue with that? It’s like being against mom, the flag and apple pie. The problem is in the details, or rather the lack thereof.
You hear a little bit about ending poverty by giving every person who wants a job a good job with a future. That’s nothing new. In fact, that’s what economic development has always been about. That’s what gives it real meaning.
Most of what you hear about Smart Growth, though, involves the environment, protecting green space and farm land, cutting down on automobile pollution, building mass transit, encouraging higher population density, about mixed-use parcels … basically, about creating mini-New York Citys throughout the country.
Unfortunately, when it comes to the economic component of Smart Growth, though, things get a little fuzzy, relying more on wishful thinking than on a hard-nosed understanding of the dynamics of why businesses locate where they do.
How Smart Growth proposes to achieve that lofty goal of revitalizing America’s cities, it seems to me, is by stopping the growth in its outer suburbs. That’s not very likely to succeed.
What’s missing in all of the Smart Growth literature is a recognition of the fact that many, if not most, of the nation’s urban school districts are woefully under-performing in their mission to educate our kids so that they will be able to participate fully in the new economy.
Until we solve that problem — and we better start now because the results won’t even begin to show for at least another decade — we’re never going to get businesses to move back into the heart of our cities in any meaningful numbers.
Why? Because where a company locates is a business decision, that’s why., and companies go where the labor is. And if they can’t find it in one place, they tend to move to a place that has the work force they need.
When corporate site selectors look at potential sites, they try to pick locations within 20 minutes of their projected work force. Sometimes they stretch it to 30 minutes. But make no mistake, in the end, picking a site is a business decision based larely on whether or not the company will be able to access a qualified work force in sufficient quality and quantity.
And it’s the company that decides who’s qualified, not the local government or economic development community. That’s where Smart growth needs to put some substance into the work “smart.”
America’s urban core will continue to lose out to the suburban “outer ring” as long as that’s where the qualified labor pool is. The current reality reflects this.
Land and office space is generally much cheaper in the suburbs. There’s also room to grow. That’s why companies have been migrating from the central city to the outskirts for decades.
Commuting patterns have also changed dramatically throughout most of the country. As much as environmentalists dislike crowded rush hour traffic, the people in those cars dislike it even more. With job growth in the suburbs far outstripping job growth in the central business district, more of those unhappy commuters are finding employment closer to home. Turning that around is going to be difficult, too.
Finding ways to revitalize our cities must take these issues into consideration, and simply trying to physically block suburban growth is not the answer. All that will do is cause businesses to move out entirely from the metro area. Besides, in order to stop suburban sprawl, cites will need the cooperation of the suburban communities, many of which are independent political jurisdictions.
But those issues can probably be resolved through political give and take. What won’t be resolved, and what cannot be ignored, is the fact that continuing to rationalize why your particular urban school district really isn’t as bad as its record indicates — or that, even if it is, that everyone concerned is doing the best they can — is not good enough.
Every day American businesses vote with their feet when they relocate from the central business district and, until our urban school districts start improving achievement and begin turning out well-educated graduates in large numbers, the suburbs will continue to “sprawl” while the city center deteriorates.
If Smart Growth is to be something more than just an empty slogan, its proponents need to place improving the urban school districts at the top of their list of things to do.
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