Opinion: Can booming growth be ‘smart’?

For example, the slammed-together $42-billion bond package passed by voters last year. It included a hodgepodge of specific earmarks and vague categories that emerged out of Sacramento deal-making. Why not require cities and counties to work together on regional water, transportation and flood control plans and projects, instead of giving the governor and Legislature control over billions of dollars in pork? What if there was also a clear scoring system to ensure that regions that successfully focus on results would get bonus funding? Requiring localities to cooperate with their neighbors to be eligible for statewide funding would be a great way to tackle greenhouse gas emissions. Today cities typically compete for sales tax revenue by subsidizing new retail development. That comes not only at the expense of their neighbors (and local taxpayers), it produces longer shopping trips and more congestion. If sales tax dollars were instead apportioned regionally and cities were given incentives for reducing vehicle-miles traveled, wouldn’t they be more likely to promote shopping and workplaces closer to home?

We have over 35 million people in California. More people are being born. Life expectancy is increasing. More are immigrating here. Millions more. Tens of millions more. What do you do with all the people? Marin County won’t take more people. They don’t fit its collective value system. There is a limit to how many “transit villages” can be built and sustained. And this brings me to an issue no one raises in this “state versus local communities” debate. That is individual rights. It is just not the state that is micromanaging local agencies, it is government limiting the opportunities for families and individuals in their pursuit of happiness.