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Show Volume II, Issue XI THE OGDEN VALLEY NEWS Page 3 1 June 2000 Guest Commentary Are We Anti-Growth—or Pro-Community? By Mike Swaim Third Term Mayor of Salem Oregon It’s time for some straight talk about growth. To put it bluntly: Are we growing better, or just bigger? The growth industry argues that if we impede growth in any fashion, housing costs will skyrocket and locals will lose out on needed jobs. No certifiably sane mayor wants to be responsible for that, so I might just as well put the noose around my neck and jump off the horse right now. But is the growth industry correct? Do we really have to accept more congestion, pollution, and tax subsidies while losing open space, natural resources, and funding for youth recreational programs? I don’t think so. Growth is expensive and can throw communities, like my city of Salem, Oregon, into significant distress. We have huge infrastructure deficits (overcrowded schools, congested an potholed roads, an overflowing sewage plant, and inadequate primary water mains); huge facility maintenance deficits (city-owned historic properties in disrepair, chunks of concrete falling off of City Hall and our parking structures); a noticeable reduction in public services (fewer police officers and fire fighters per capita, longer process times for city services, reduction in library hours, and in social and recre- ational services); increased public bonded debt to do major infrastructure construction (such as new taxes for new roads, schools, and higher rates for waste water treatment plant expansion). Growth does create jobs, but often times more people come to a community seeking those jobs than actually land them. That means unemployment increases following the employment expansion. And, if the kind of jobs created are low wage, you end up with greater competition for low-cost housing stock, which drives up prices and hurts the very population for which “low-cost” housing was built. Why do we have these problems? Because we keep growing larger and larger, while falling further and further behind in our ability to pay for the care of the larger community. New residents are seldom, if ever, required to cover even half of the costs generated by the growth. So existing taxpayers in the community are forced to pick up the rest of the tab, and they rightfully resent it. In Salem, voters recently defeated two levies that would have assured more library hours, improved streets, and provided monies for under funded fire protection. While nearly everyone agreed these were serious needs, voters were unwilling to dig deeper into their tax pockets. The backlash is being felt throughout Oregon. Insanity is sometimes defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. If we hope to avoid the insanity of places like Los Angeles, then we’ve got to quit doing things the way Los Angeles did. Many planners and politicians are trumpeting the virtues of well-planned, “smart” growth. Under such policies, farmland, forestland, and open spaces disappear slower and, perhaps, in a more methodical fashion; but they disappear nonetheless. Dr. Albert Barlett, a University of Colorado professor, says that “Smart growth ultimately gets you to exactly the same place as dumb growth—you just get there first class.” Ultimately, we must go toe-to-toe with growth itself. Let’s not succumb to the “Growth is Inevitable” mantra that the growth industry drums out. Like those folks in saffron robes at the airport, they’re just after our money. We need not be helpless victims of change. We can, and should, set limits to our rate of growth, and even consider capping the ultimate size of our communities at whatever size we collectively feel is in our best interest. If public funds are sought by development, then we owe it to our taxpayers to require a cost-benefit analysis, which should also look at all of our priorities, including schools, libraries, and fire and police officers. By taking such measures, we are not being “antigrowth,” but rather “pro-community.” Nearly 20 years ago, then Oregon Governor Tom McCall warned us that “ . . . there is a shameless threat to our environment, and to the whole quality of our life, and that is the unfettered despoiling of our land; sagebrush subdivisions; coastal condo mania; and the ravenous rampage of suburbia here in the Willamette Valley; all threaten to mock Oregon’s status as the environmental model of this nation . . . “ You were right, Tom, both then and now; perhaps even more so now. But Westerners are waking up to the threat and the challenge that you saw so clearly. The only question is whether we are willing to elect public leaders with the political guts to do something about it. |