Overcoming opposition to more compact development.

• Author: Calabria, Mark
• Position: REACTION

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The argument of "The Missing Metric" is basically "if only the citizens and politicians were better informed." I suspect, however, that citizens do have a general sense of the tradeoffs across developments. The problem is that the costs and benefits of development are not evenly spread across the community.

The imaginary story of Millville, as told by Peter Katz, is sadly one that plays out repeatedly in real cities across America: the political opposition to compact development. Where Katz sees the solution, or at least a solution, in the form of better information and metrics, I believe the ultimate obstacle to denser land development is the perverse incentives facing both local government and its citizenry.

Before getting into our differences, it is worthwhile to emphasize my areas of agreement with the article. As an economist, and one who tends to favor the voluntary cooperation of the market over governmental solutions, I believe that America's urban areas would actually display higher density than we currently see without extensive zoning and land use regulation. Government both pulls development into the fringes, with such subsidies as our federal highway programs, and pushes development into the fringes, with relatively greater political obstacles to development in urban areas. While Katz and I may approach the analysis from different points of view, with different assumptions, I suspect that we would both be in substantial agreement in terms of what an efficient pattern of urban development actually looks like.

Katz's proposed fiscal impact quotient is at heart a mechanism for overcoming political opposition to dense infill development. In a time of squeezed local government budgets, his hope is that by showing localities in which developments will be the biggest net fiscal contributors (and these are usually the densest developments), then approval for these projects will become easier to achieve. The end result is both better fiscal health for local governments and denser development.

The argument is basically "if only the citizens and politicians were better informed." This leads to Katz's solution of trying to better inform the development process. I would agree that citizens and politicians do not have perfect, or even accurate, knowledge of the trade-offs across various developments. I suspect, however, that citizens do have a general sense. The problem is that the costs and benefits of development are...