Maggie's Farm

From my blog - maddogslair.com

URBAN PLANNING MAKES HOUSING UNAFFORDABLE

HTTP://WWW.MADDOGSLAIR.COM/BLOG/URBAN-PLANNING-MAKES-HOUSING-UNAFFORDABLE

​If you want affordable housing, you must stop the planning, the growth boundaries, and all the other containment nonsense.

We all know, and hate sprawl, that is what happens in LA. Except it isn't. LA has the densest metropolitan area, by both population, and jobs.

http://www.accessmagazine.org/articles/fall-2010/density-doesnt-tell-us-sprawl/

How it became so dense is not hidden, it happened because LA grew during the period of the streetcar, and rail transit. People could not afford personal transportation in the urban/suburban environment, and so relied on streetcars, and rail transit. Because of this, land was expensive near street car lines, and lots accordingly small. The city built many streetcar lines, and once the land along the line became filled, the line was extended. This resulted in suburbs full of small lots, and high density.

Portland, and other Smart Growth meccas long ago decided they did not want to look anything like LA, so they adopted light rail, streetcars, among other transit modes, and mandated suburbs build on small lots ensuring density. Sound familiar? It is just unnaturally capturing the pressures which built LA. They don't want it, but everything they do creates it.

The urban growth boundary, the zoning all walk hand in hand to limit the supply of land. This is what the Smart Growth Urban Planner wants, because he hates sprawl, you know exactly what he is building. This limitation on supply drives up home prices, and land prices, making the cost of living higher than it need be. Grocers, and business owners need to use land, and these costs add to the local cost of living.

In a doubly interesting twist, Smart Growth, density, and the transportation planners elimination of roadways in preference for transit also does not result in greater transit ridership. I am detecting a trend, whatever the planners want they will attempt to get through a plan which will actually get exactly the opposite of what they want. This is fueled by a religious belief, because nothing but religion would allow such idiotic beliefs to override the facts on the ground.

http://www.publicpurpose.com/ut-porshare.pdf

In 1980, transit in Portland had a commuter share of 9.5%, by 2007 that share was down to 6.8%. In 1982, transit in Portland had a total market share of 2.8% (de minimus), by 2007 it had a total market share of 2.1% (less than de minimus). This means that if one were to eliminate all transit one could sit at any local roadway count 100 cars, add two, and that would be the average addition to congestion.

The rail component of transit is about 40-45% so it accounts for less than 1% of total trips, undoubtedly less than the total number of trips made by skateboard in Portland every day. Imagine that, and all for something more than $3 billion dollars! For that money we could be up to our fundaments in skateboards.

The transportation planner's forced shift from roadway to transit, has been a dismal failure.

The planning only makes for inconvenience, higher costs of living, strife, and struggle. Urban planning is a failure. Transportation planning is a failure. We need to move on and turn these 19th century thinkers out to pasture.

Mark Sherman