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Saturday, March 26, 2005

Govern Your Way to Happiness

One of the pillars of neo-con ideology that has helped bring them into power is their insistence that government is a negative force in society and should be replaced, whenever possible, by private enterprise. According to the neo-con doctrine, government is inefficient and unresponsive to the needs of society. The free market utopia they are hoping to create seems to be modeled on the early days of the industrial age, an era free of labor and environmental regulations, a time without income taxation, an age of the “haves” and “have nots.” This was not, and will not be a utopia without government; it will simply be an era in which the government is solely for the purpose of serving the interests of the wealthiest citizens.

Since I try to write as often as I can about city planning, I will use this example to refute the assertions of the American conservative movement with regards to government. My assertion is this: The best American cities in which to live are a direct result of heavy-handed local governments that forced businesses to conform to the needs of the people. The lack of strong local governments is a factor that leads to mindless sprawl. Sprawl is mostly the result of private enterprise unbridled by any input from the citizenry. Strip malls and endless shopping plazas are the city model put forth by private businesses acting solely in their own interest with no regard for the needs of the community. I can't imagine that any community of voters would knowingly sign off on a city plan of strip malls.

Over the course of six years I have seen with my own eyes the planned growth of the downtown area of Seattle. This growth has been carefully dictated by a strong local government under the watchful scrutiny of voters. My neighborhood is a great place to live. I don’t think many people would argue against that claim. My neighborhood became a great place to live because of the actions of city government.

Not everyone is lucky enough to live in downtown Seattle but the recent housing boom here indicates that a lot more people would like to live here. Why do people want to live here? There isn’t a Wal-mart within 20 miles. There is no Chili’s. Even the MacDonald’s went out of business from lack of interest. Parking is a nightmare. What we do have are movie theaters, playhouses, scores of great restaurants and bars, bakeries, banks, post offices, sporting arenas, in other words, everything you need to live. And you can do it all without getting in your car.

Less than ten years ago Seattle was facing the same crisis as countless other American cities. Suburban sprawl was choking the life out of the downtown area. An aggressive change in zoning laws—the work of government—reversed the downtown area’s decline. Building codes now require downtown buildings to have the first floor dedicated to retail business. Apartments share the same building as restaurants and clothing stores. People can shop and eat in the same area in which they live. This is a fairly simple concept but one that seems to have been ignored for the past fifty years of American city planning.

I hold up downtown Seattle as a model of the effectiveness and efficiency of government; democracy in action. Suburban sprawl can serve as the neo-con model of what happens when the forces of private enterprise are allowed to implement their idea of city planning. Take your pick.

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