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Jewish World Review Sept. 29, 2005 / 25 Elul, 5765 Houston to be more like Portland By Froma Harrop
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
PORTLAND, Ore. — There are people who think that suburban
sprawl is a good thing. The very name "Portland" makes them nuts. Portland
was the reason for Oregon's famously strict land-use planning laws. They
keep Portland pretty and the surrounding countryside green. Pro-sprawl
interests recently ran a successful propaganda campaign that persuaded
Oregonians to gut these rules.
In any case, Portland remains famous as the city that does not
roll over for real-estate barons. For the sprawl crowd, Portland is bad
advertising. The city keeps getting top marks for livability. Educated young
people continue to flock there — and their retired parents are following.
Job numbers are growing, but just not fast enough for all the people who
want to live here.
No, quirky cities must be brought under the developer's boot.
Portland, Savannah and San Francisco must be shown the error of their ways.
New Orleans was one of the independent-minded places. Now that it's flat on
its back, the anti-zoning people see opportunity.
Joel Kotkin, the balladeer of American sprawl, is now busy
spreading the gospel to New Orleans. Kotkin sings the praises of
car-dependent, unregulated development — while leaving out the stanzas on
gridlocked traffic and no place to walk.
Kotkin is among those urging New Orleans to look toward Houston
for inspiration, not Portland. Houston is bustle and sprawl — the no-zoning
zone. It's the economic dynamo that Portland is not, or so he says. The
energy industry had left New Orleans for Houston, Kotkin writes in a
post-Katrina column, "despite New Orleans being a city that was heavily gay,
very cool and extremely hip."
The criticism is directed at the increasingly popular concept
that preserved neighborhoods, public transportation and night life are
themselves good for urban economies. They attract the creative people that
make these places go.
A Gallup poll last summer found 53 percent of New Orleans
residents to be "extremely happy with their personal lives in the city," the
best showing of 22 cities. If the people are content, why do the promoters
of sprawl feel the need to conquer the small pockets of resistance? After
all, they have a big country to sprawl over.
One reason is that they are fighting a culture war. You can't
have a war without an enemy. The enemies are the liberal-minded urban
centers that thrive on their museums, condos, gay bars and jazz clubs. They
won't let businesspeople who don't "get it" mess with their environment.
More to the point, these are places filled with singles, gays
and childless couples. In the pro-sprawl brain, these qualities make hip
cities frivolous and economic lightweights. And some conservatives think
that the only places that matter are those where middle-class families with
small children choose to live. To them, urban values seem disrespectful of
family values.
Never mind that the childless couples may be young people who
will have children some day. Or they may be older folk with grown children
who want the excitement of a city condo. Many people migrate between city
and suburb according to their changing situation.
Furthermore, single people and childless couples are not some
strange subculture. The Census Bureau recently reported that households with
no children are now the largest segment of the U.S. population. In other
words, cities don't need traditional middle-class families to survive —
even though they'd love to have them. Urban centers are not about to sprout
4,000-square-foot houses, so why even pretend that they can attract the
people who want them?
The sprawl advocates are great at counting boxes in warehouses,
but not patents in file cabinets. That's why they have trouble understanding
that hip cities are also economic powerhouses. The mental work in software
design, medical research and finance tends to be urban activities. Exports
by the U.S. entertainment industry now exceed those for aerospace,
automobiles or steel.
The big joke about making New Orleans more like Houston is that
Houston is becoming more like Portland. In Houston, awful commutes have
created a hot market for city housing. Developers are turning empty lots
into loft apartments, reminiscent of Manhattan's SoHo district. And, miracle
of miracles, Houston now has a sleek light-rail system.
Like it or not, Houston is becoming cool. And with much of New
Orleans now living there, who knows what the future will bring? Perhaps
Portland has answers.
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© 2005 Creators Syndicate |
Arnold Ahlert | |||||||||||
