EDITORIAL: The Growth ‘Ponzi Scheme’, Part Five

Read Part One

We began this editorial series with some quotes from a recent op-ed by urban planner Chuck Marohn, founder of the urban activist group Strong Towns — an article titled, “Opinion: This ‘Ponzi scheme’ surrounding development leaves most cities and towns functionally insolvent.”

Near the conclusion of his op-ed, Mr. Marohn writes:

This lack of productive use of our finite supply of land is at the core of why modern American communities struggle financially, why they’re falling apart despite enormous investment and decades of growth. The returns on most public investments are negative, and those negative returns compound relentlessly over time.

The automobile-centric development pattern not only yields less value per acre; it also lacks long-term adaptability and so is, in effect, designed to decline. The downtown building in Asheville may, over its life, serve as various combinations of homes, offices, and/or local retail space. Today’s big box stores, strip malls, and franchise restaurants lack this potential for fluid reuse; they are one-life-cycle buildings, the municipal equivalent of slash-and-burn agriculture…

We need to stop pouring our money into aggressive growth schemes and start focusing on producing more value out of the places we have already built. Making low-risk “small bets” in depressed neighborhoods — putting in street trees or patching sidewalks — yields consistently healthy returns. An ounce of routine maintenance is worth a pound of revitalization…

According to his organization’s website, Mr. Marohn has been traveling all over the US and Canada these past few years, on a campaign to promote the Strong Towns mission: “…an international movement that’s dedicated to making communities across the United States and Canada financially strong and resilient.”

A key word here is “resilient.” Able to weather a storm. Durable. Stronger and longer-laster than some of the roads and buildings and infrastructure built here in Archuleta County over the past 40 years.

Fixing the financial side of the equation has, from the Strong Towns perspective, a lot to do with changing our patterns of growth and development, especially automobile-centric development — by requiring, for example, urban growth to be focused in areas where roads and infrastructure already exist. Writing as an experienced engineer and urban planner, Mr. Marohn has a clear view of the physical and financial challenges that will face our children and grandchildren if we don’t change our evil ways.

In one sense, it’s up to our community leadership to steer the ship into less-troubled waters. Less troubled financially, and less troubled in terms of function and durability.

There’s another side to “resiliency” — other than the financial and physical challenges — that often gets left out of ‘urban planning’ discussions. I’m talking here about community, and communication. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word ‘community’ is derived from the Latin communis, which is in turn related to the modern English word, ‘common,’ implying something that’s “public, general, shared by all or many.”

The word ‘communication’ appears to come from the same Latin root: communis — “common, public, general, shared by all or many.”  I might go as far as to suggest that you cannot have a resilient community without communication, and you can’t have effective communication without an active community.

And in one sense, it’s up to our community leadership to help us create a real community in Pagosa Springs, if such a thing is possible.

‘Better communication’ has been written into the Pagosa Springs Town Council’s annual “Goals and Objectives” document for the past several years, basically ever since Don Volger was elected mayor. Partly as a result of that intention, the communication that takes place at Town Hall has, in my humble opinion, improved noticeably. But we still have a ways to go.

There’s an aspect to ‘community’ and ‘communication’ that’s intimately related to political power — that is to say, the sharing of political power. If the common people are allowed to voice their desires and opinions, but those desires and opinions are summarily dismissed — as we saw happen, for instance, in the case of the new County Jail — it has a chilling effect on both communication and on our sense of community.

On Friday in Part Four of this editorial series, we listened to a bit of the discussion that took place at the Town Council regular meeting last Thursday, concerning the Town’s new and controversial ‘Urban Renewal Authority’ — an authority created not to renew anything urban, but rather to deliver tax incentives to future developments on vacant, never-before-developed land. The Town Council made it clear, by their 6-to-1 vote last week, that they want the Town Council to maintain control of the new authority, rather than share power and responsibility with all the taxpayers who will be paying for the incentives.

We’ve heard previous hints that some of future URA-funded developments might include affordable housing. Potential housing was mentioned, for example, by Council member Nicole DeMarco when she voted in favor of the URA resolution on November 5.

“I think we’re constantly trying to address things that market economics won’t address. That’s what the public sector does. And I feel — particularly when we talk about affordable housing — I feel really limited on what it is we can do to move forward with that. I think this Authority will give us the ability to push a project, that might consider only market-rate housing, into the ability to have affordable housing. So I think the Authority is a tool for us to consider.”

Ms. DeMarco was, however, the only Council member who disagreed with the December 19 Council vote to prevent the other local districts from having full representation on the URA commission.

It’s not an easy thing, to have acquired political power, and to, then, turn around and share it with The People.

I understand that anxiety. You’re worried that The People are going to screw everything up.

The sad fact is that elected officials, sitting in positions of consolidated power, are just as likely to screw everything up.

Read Part Six…

Bill Hudson

Bill Hudson began sharing his opinions in the Pagosa Daily Post in 2004 and can't seem to break the habit. He claims that, in Pagosa Springs, opinions are like pickup trucks: everybody has one.