{"id":197,"date":"2007-10-27T11:50:06","date_gmt":"2007-10-27T18:50:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/2007\/10\/27\/smart-growth\/"},"modified":"2007-10-29T14:14:20","modified_gmt":"2007-10-29T21:14:20","slug":"smart-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/2007\/10\/smart-growth\/","title":{"rendered":"smart growth"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Smart growth” is planning-speak for urban development, based on the principle that people should live in high-density, automobile-free, environmentally-minimal, urban centers. <\/span>It tries to convince people they should want less rather than get more. <\/span>Most people, however, want more. <\/span>This is not a moral judgment. <\/span>It’s just our nature.<\/p>\n

In America most people migrate away from compartmented lives toward open spaces and freedom. <\/span>The young start out renting in the cities and dream of the day they can reside in their own detached family structure. <\/span>After building equity on that achievement they move up and out to the suburbs for more space. <\/span>And then they keep going as far as they can to larger, more natural, more private spaces. <\/span>At the top of the heap they buy small islands and large ranches in the West. <\/span><\/p>\n

None of us escapes the fundamental economic principle of scarcity <\/span>Our human nature is to have unlimited wants and limited means. <\/span>And though our great country was built by humans who freely adapted and thrived in this construct, “smart growth” planners no longer trust us to find our own, best, natural economic balance. <\/span>Instead, they dictate what our needs ought to be, and then they design the parameters of our lives so that we may some day rise to the limits they have predetermined. <\/span><\/p>\n

They use government coercion to enforce zoning laws and we bear the burden of their communitarian vision of the greatest good for the greatest number. <\/span>They’re not content with the tools available to non-bureaucratically-empowered citizens. <\/span>Let the citizens have their constitutionally protected speech, their powers of persuasion, and their free choice. <\/span>Let them squawk, “we” have the zoning laws.<\/p>\n

Elbert County is full of people who migrated up and out of urban and suburban pasts. <\/span>And why would they want to return to suburbia? <\/span>That’s where they came from. <\/span>Of course it’s a less attractive life to those that already live here. <\/span>But to those on the other end of the spectrum desperate to escape the confines of the city, suburbia is a shining city on the hill. <\/span>Are their fundamental rights any different than our own? <\/span><\/p>\n

The crushing load of zoning legalese and politicking that the 20th century planning movement produced have not solved a single economic problem. <\/span>They haven’t made people more happy, more healthy, more wealthy, or more wise. <\/span>Rather, these bureaucracies have siphoned off and wasted untold amounts of scarce human energy in the fruitless pursuit of a mythical great society.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Get real people. <\/span>Determinism never solved anything. <\/span>We need to unleash human creativity to solve real problems, not enslave it to the code of a monolithic state. <\/span>Elbert County won’t solve it’s water scarcity or preserve it’s quality of life through planning and zoning. <\/span>Skilled lawyers create arguments to achieve any purpose under any set of circumstances and any set of laws. <\/span>That is the nature of our language. <\/span>Planning is, quite simply, a legal venue for third parties with no stake in our lives to control us. <\/span>Planners have had decades to prove that planning works, yet the problems stay a step ahead of them. <\/span>We should leave this relic of 20th century progressivism in the 20th century and move on.<\/p>\n

Brooks Imperial<\/p>\n

(click to enlarge)<\/p>\n

\"Ranchland,<\/a><\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Smart growth” is planning-speak for urban development, based on the principle that people should live in high-density, automobile-free, environmentally-minimal, urban centers. It tries to convince people they should want less rather than get more. Most people, however, want more. This is not a moral judgment. It’s just our nature. In America most people migrate away […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-197","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-planning","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elbertcounty.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}