(October 19, 2011) by Evan Lowenstein
photo Elmwood Village (Buffalo) by American Planning Association
It’s not hard to see the environmental awakening afoot across the country. From ordinary citizens to multinational corporations, there’s a sincere desire to “go green.” From reducing-reusing-recycling, to energy efficient cars, HVAC and appliances, to “locavorism,” people are walking the environmental talk more than ever.
But this growing green consciousness is missing a piece. A very large piece.
The missing piece is individual and collective consciousness about location efficiency. Having work, school, goods, services and recreation close by and close by each other is imperative to truly being green. However, tens of millions of well-meaning green-minded people are leaving location efficiency out of their green decision-making. These people necessarily drive 20,000 miles per car per year or more to access the daily destinations in their lives, as they are far-flung from the home, and from each other. Those living location-efficiently (whether consciously or not) have much shorter distances to their destinations and a choice of transportation modes, freeing them from dependence on many hours and miles in private automobiles. Those close-in and close-by benefit from saved time, energy, and money, and make a smaller carbon footprint. Location efficiency also helps to reduce tax burdens on government and taxpayers because it is easier to serve proximate built environments with infrastructure and services.
Delving into this issue reveals some surprising and ironic conclusions about sacred concepts such as “freedom” and “safety.” The automobile is worshiped as the great freedom-producing element in American life, yet the high costs of its operation and upkeep saddle us in many ways. Gasoline has almost tripled in price since 2000; this translates into $6,000 more spent per year by an exurban American household driving two cars a total of 32,000 miles per year. What’s more, youth and seniors living location efficiently aren’t dependent on that “greatest freedom” and all its costs—and dangers. Motor vehicle accidents are by far the number one cause of death for teenagers (74% of all accidental deaths of teens between ages 15-18)–and much more common than violent death at a stranger’s hand, a fear that causes many a parent to move their families to places where their children become dependent on the most dangerous thing they can do. Too many seniors continue to drive past when it’s safe for them and the others on the road because they don’t have any other viable transportation options. On top of all this, long distance auto-dependency stresses the biosphere more than an Energy Star refrigerator, LEDs, or even a gas-electric hybrid engine can make up for.
New York City is one of a kind when it comes to location efficiency, but most people don’t or won’t live there. The good news is that there are exemplars in more ‘regular’ mid-sized Upstate cities and even small cities and villages. For example, there’s the Atlantic-University neighborhood in Rochester and the Elmwood Avenue neighborhood in Buffalo; the City of Saratoga Springs and Village of Brockport. These places afford proximity and transportation mode choice, and, not surprisingly, a high quality of life.
In Rochester’s Neighborhood of the Arts–which is urban but gets quiet at night, harbors birds and other critters, and in other ways isn’t overwhelming–teens aren’t watching the calendar, waiting with angst for the day they turn 16 and can run off to the DMV to get a driver’s license. In fact, several teens in the neighborhood are well past 16 and choose not to drive. Within a fifteen-minute walk (and a five-minute bike ride) from any point in the neighborhood are schools, services, coffee shops and cafes, parks, arts, and myriad other sources of fun, goods, and enrichment. Nearby public School of the Arts students are released at lunchtime to walk to the neighborhood’s cafes or coffee shops.
Internet applications like WalkScore can help people learn more about what constitutes location efficiency (Neighborhood of the Arts addresses score an impressive 80-90 out of 100). But even with awareness tools such as this, there will always be a good percentage of the overall population wishing to have elbow room; to live in the suburbs, exurbs, or rural areas. Denser living is a non-starter for these people, and in these cases the push needs to be towards energy efficient homes and vehicles, and green products.
There is evidence to show that more and more people who chose or accept location inefficiency and auto-dependency are ready to be free from it, whether their motivations are green or not. Much of the shift in thinking can be related to future demographic realties; projections for 2025 indicate that households will be smaller and many will not even have one child (only 28% of U.S. households will have children, compared to 48% in 1960 and 40% in 2000). With this comes a demand for alternative living arrangements, such as the many new lofts coming online in urban areas like downtown Rochester, already being occupied by “empty nesters”–those 50 and over wanting to be able to walk (or at least drive much shorter distances) to restaurants, culture, recreation, entertainment, goods, and services. The majority of the rest are being scooped up by young professionals seeking the urbane, the dense, the proximate, the social and community-focused—not the sprawling properties and neighborhood or the large maintenance-intensive lawns of the suburbs. The empty nesters are done with lawn mowers and pricy snowplow services for their lengthy driveways, and whether or not they are choosing location efficiency to “go green,” they are making a big green difference.
We should all respect anyone and everyone with the desire to do the right thing for our ecology, but let’s also help them see the key missing piece in their quests. The great news is that close-by living usually comes with expanded choice, and that’s what people want most today. It’s important and reassuring to know that one of the greatest green actions doesn’t require much in the way of sacrifice or complex technological achievement, but rather a decision to live location-efficient.
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This all leads to the one solution which can both reverse the centrifugal forces of sprawl development as well as foster greater conformity with all the principles of sound tax theory: that is taxing the economic rent that is otherwise capitalized in land sites to attractive speculative practices. If we phase out the tax on improvements and increase that tax on the site values on a revenue neutral schedule, this will foster the infilling, provide the incentives for development on underused locations, improve tax equity, restore neutrality to behavioral choices, and provide far greater understanding and appreciation of tax policies.
This idea has its roots in political economics of the 17th and 18th centuries — the French Physiocrats and even John Locke! Adam Smith wrote “Ground-rents and the ordinary rent of land, are . . . the species of revenue which can best bear to have a peculiar tax imposed on them.” John Stuart Mill noted that “Landlords grow richer in their sleep without working, risking or economizing. The increase in the value of land, arising as it does from the efforts of an entire community, should belong to the community and not to the individual who might hold title.” They saw that the value of land is not on account of what you do but rather by what you neighbors do. Mill called it the “unearned increment,” the noted British statesman, William Gladstone, “lazy income.”
There is simple justice in taxing rents to support government and not taxing the wealth that people earn. John Houseman, an actor perhaps most widely known as Professor Kingsfield in the long-running TV series, The Paper Chase, later became the TV pitchman for Smith Barney. In his advertisement, the tag line was “They make money the old-fashioned way — they earn it.” To be sure, there have been rentier elites throughout history, but we need not continue the practice.
You might be interested to know that I heard James Howard Kunstler speak this afternoon at the plenary session of the National Trust for Historic Preservation Conference in Buffalo. He said that it’s important to understand that green buildings alone are not enough. It matters how you deploy the buildings on the terrain — a statement one would expect from Kunstler. I had read your article just before hearing him, and his comments resonated with yours. I happen to live in Elmwood Village, and I can testify to the advantages of living in a walkable community.
A great article, and right on! This discussion of location coincides perfectly with my recent effort to connect transportation policy and poverty. Households regularly spend more for transportation than for food, and the transportation expense is regressive–i.e., automobile ownership and operation costs at least $12,000 annually, whether household income is below poverty level or multi-millions.