Will the housing fall stop the sprawl?

November 22, 9:32 PMDC Corporate Ethics ExaminerJim Cunningham

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Occasionally I get two brain cells to rub together just right and a spark forms in the right side of my left leaning brain. One particular spark turned into a truly Progressive idea several years ago. Now, with the housing crisis, the concept is simmering in my head yet again. I’d like to float the idea and see if, with some other brains at work, we can cobble together some kind of policy to propose.

I’ll begin here with the bare bones of this idea. You can comment below with your contributions on how to improve or implement this concept, or just steal the idea and do with it whatever you please. I’m just happy to contribute.

Here’s the concept:

Force cities to make sure downtown residences and business complexes are nearly full before permitting anymore land to be developed on the outskirts of town.

What’s wrong with living in or doing business in the city? Why are our downtowns blighted while more and more of America is paved and destroyed?

I just moved to Washington from a city that had a severe urban sprawl problem. The outskirts of the city – suburbia – were continually expanding. Builders were constantly bulldozing prairie land, foothills, and even mountain property to build horrible subdivisions. You know the kind: the kind where if you got so drunk you had to take a cab home, you’d have trouble telling the cabbie where you lived. People would always be fighting over whether to poison prairie dog colonies or relocate them. They’d be duking it out over whether endangered frogs should be allowed to go extinct or not so another unneeded movie theatre could be built in that place instead.

The statistics were damning. Downtown had a 60% vacancy rate. Yet, the expansion continued. More and more houses were built outside of town with shopping centers to support them, all while apartments, homes and condos in town were left vacant. People wanted their own brand new cardboard dwellings built on pristine lands while existing buildings in the downtown area were left empty.

It was a damn shame.

I propose we make it stop.

Even before the housing crises, I was outraged that habitat was being bulldozed for new homes when existing homes in town were left uninhabited. This idea formed out of the news of the vacancy rate back then.

But now, I have support. Home prices are down. Builders aren’t doing well. Let’s ask them to retool their business models to remodel homes and businesses in town instead.

There is no reason to build new homes and businesses in the current economic climate. Now is the time to ask it to stop.

Cities should insist that, unless existing dwellings are down to 90% vacancy, they will not grant any more permits to develop outside of town. Why continue to allow any kind of sprawl and the destroying of habitat for more homes and businesses when existing homes remain unoccupied?

Sure, some consider it the “American Dream” to build their own home on fresh new ground, but to what end? Do our cities become doughnuts where the regions surrounding cities are developed while the cities they surround die?

Even regardless of real estate prices, it’s a sound idea. But since they’re down, now is the time to sell the idea. Let’s formulate policies to stop the sprawl.