The ‘Smart Growth’ elite meets in Charlotte; the results are devastating for low- and moderate-income homebuyers.
The 10th Annual New Partners for Smart Growth national conference was held in Charlotte last week. North Carolina’s supporters of smart growth are praising the conference. Wake Up Wake County hailed the conference. "We’re learning exciting, effective good growth planning strategies that Raleigh and Wake County could benefit from." Charlotte Observer associate editor Mary Newsom came away from the conference "with a notebook full of interesting ideas, factoids and thoughts."
The conference was funded by the usual cast of government agencies eager to expand their ability to control the lives of American citizens, private businesses that feed at the government trough and liberal foundations looking to further their statist ideology.
One theme at the conference, highlighted by Raleigh planning director Mitch Silver, was that the term "smart growth" might have outlived its usefulness. Some want to scrap the term entirely or substitute "prudent growth" or "responsible growth."
When average citizens start to get restless because their rights are being violated, authoritarian planners just change the terms because they believe the masses are easily confused. Even better, hide your intent by not using any term that will identify your policies.
Raleigh planning director Silver, confident he was speaking to a friendly audience, let fly with this arrogant comment: "I vote for not calling it [smart growth] anything, since any good planner/urban designer/policy maker worth her or his salt knows what to do anyway." That’s right; planners should keep the public in the dark because they know "what to do anyway."
Remember when Squealer, in George Orwell’s novel Animal Farm, used the term "readjustments" to hide the fact that the food rations given to the working animals were drastically reduced?
My guess is that most of those attending and especially the government bureaucrats, business representatives, and foundation executives have incomes much higher than the average citizen and don’t worry much about housing affordability. But low- and moderate-income citizens do. The bottom line of a new study by Demographia outlined by Joel Kotkin is that smart growth drives up the price of housing, making it unaffordable for low- and moderate-income families.
The study looks at housing prices internationally and compares the price of housing relative to household income. Historically, median housing prices have been three times yearly median household income. Where smart growth policies, such as restricting the amount of land available for housing, have been implemented, housing prices have become unaffordable for many at five times median household income
According to Kotkin: "Limits on the kind of residential living most people prefer [single family house with a front and back yard] inevitably raises prices. As the Demographia study shows, the highest rise in prices relative to incomes generally has taken place in wherever strong growth controls have been imposed by local authorities."
Where have housing prices remained near the historic 1-to-3 ratio? You guessed it. In Raleigh and other places in the South and Southwest, especially Texas, where smart growth zealots have had little impact, until recently.
We documented smart growth’s impact on NC cities in the report "Planning Penalties in North Carolina: Why other NC cities should not follow Asheville and Wilmington."
If smart growth policies such as imposed on Raleigh by the new comprehensive plan Planning Raleigh 2030 are implemented, housing prices will increase relative to the median household income. The Raleigh city council might consider posting signs at the city limits that say: "Welcome to Raleigh: Low- and moderate-income people need to go elsewhere to pursue the American Dream of homeownership."
If the smart growth elite that attended this conference in Charlotte gets its way, affordable housing will cease to exist in Raleigh and all of North Carolina’s cities. Remember the smart growth elite believes "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others" and they, like the pigs, live in very nice houses.
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