Stashed Amid Choices, One Finds Life
Let’s look at the picture that emerges when we connect the dots represented by several stories from just two recent editions of The Times.
On Feb. 7, we read an analysis of Ventura County’s Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources (SOAR) initiatives by economist Mark Schniepp, a front-page story on the conversion of farmland to housing, a lead story in the Real Estate section on builders doing in-fill projects, a piece in the Opinion section concerning the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and a science brief noting that borax, in some cases, could replace malathion as a pest control agent.
The next day brought a commentary by Virginia Postrel on the current national movement away from “urban sprawl.”
What do all of these have in common? Let’s take it from the top.
There are more people on the face of the Earth than ever before and, yes, many of them are in California. Yes, that increases demand. (Score one for Schniepp.)
As a result there is increased pressure on farmers to convert their land, particularly in light of competition from foreign producers with cheaper labor, fewer pesticide regulations and questionable inspection procedures. (Think NAFTA and malathion.)
Schniepp offers a simplistic economic view of the world using purely black and white numbers and trying to distill many quality-of-life issues into simple quantitative formulas. He’s correct that restrictions on the supply of land coupled with increased population demand leads to higher housing prices that may force some economic groups out of the market. So, what’s new? That’s Economics 101!
The diatribe by Postrel supporting “flat” rather than “tall” solutions to urban settlement problems is equally lacking. Postrel blathers on about a “neo-traditional conspiracy” that is determined to put everybody into living conditions like San Francisco. (This writer happens to think San Francisco is one of the top cities in the world. But San Francisco can’t happen everywhere because climate and terrain can’t be imitated.)
The neo-traditional / new urbanist movement is simply saying that a lot of today’s ills are visited upon us because we have chosen to sprawl. Sprawl does lead to jobs following housing in some instances (see “Edge Cities” by Joel Garreau), which has led to deteriorating downtowns. Sprawl has forced longer commutes for some people seeking affordable homes, and also separated them from basic services, leaving them dependent on autos.
Cookie-cutter tract homes with garages as the dominant feature (“garages with attached houses” as former Pasadena Mayor Rick Cole puts it) are primarily designed to serve the automobile rather than human needs. This has led to people feeling disengaged from their neighbors and without a sense of community.
The new urbanists are not saying that more compact development is for everyone. They are saying that builders, until recently, have not been willing to develop that type of product (more precisely, lenders haven’t been willing to lend for it). They are also saying that alternative types of housing should be offered. And the purchasers of those new products seem to be fairly happy with them (so says the Real Estate lead story “Inside Tracts”).
One way to save farmland is to efficiently use the areas that are already developed. (Back to SOAR.)
Schniepp always fails to take into account quality of life--an intangible factor for economists. And yet, that’s what much of this discussion is about. SOAR was a reaction to concerns about a deteriorating quality of life, real or perceived. Instead of viewing SOAR as only a negative movement, we could take advantage of it to reevaluate how humans can better interact with the natural landscape.
Humans are a strange species. Our lives are full of dichotomies. We rail against high density. We rail against longer commutes, crowded streets, lack of good-paying jobs, no time for our families and pesticide use near our homes. We say we want to slow down, become members of a community, care for our elders and enjoy the natural environment. Yet we chase the good-paying job, love our cars, want cheaper housing and don’t like change.
Everything is interrelated. Nothing in life is without trade-offs. Sure, there are problems but there are also solutions--be it trading malathion for more benign borax so farming can continue close to urban uses; in-filling underutilized areas or helping U.S. farmers compete with imports by paying slightly higher prices for better quality produce.
Life happens on an incremental basis. Decisions about where to live, eat, work happen daily. Choose wisely. The quality of life you save may be your own.