Some cool urban development meetings coming up in Fort Worth and Dallas.
I really like the sustainable and new-urban concepts. My only concern is that they tend to lend themselves towards activisim which seeks legislation promoting their ends. The legislation then, typically in the form of land use restrictions, tends to infringe on private property rights.
I am all for these concepts as long as they are not forced upon landowners or regions. I would like to see something like this grow from a neighborhood scale, and then outward. You will most likely have someone hold out here and there (like Bass parking lots in Sundance), but we have to respect their right to do so.
March 16th, 2009 at
In fact, most urbanism efforts are efforts AGAINST the legislation of the past 50+ years that has made traditional urbanism *impossible* to build in most of the United States. A good urban code, such as the Near Southside’s, gives *more* flexibility and freedom to landowners than most modern-day suburban codes are. Land use is much more flexible and open in an urban setting than in post-WWII suburban zoning.
The present condition of sprawl is about the farthest thing from being the result of freedom of private property rights as you can get. Our present-day built environment is the result of a long series of legislative steps to prevent anything from sprawl from being built.
March 16th, 2009 at
I can certainly see of your point of zoning limiting internal buildout and promoting sprawl.
What I fear now is retroactive legislation which does the exact opposite. My concern is a resulting increase in land value which outstrips logic and income (California, Nevada, Arizona, Florida, D.C.).
I would like to see changes occur strictly through a popular desire. I think government interferance towards any particular end will muck up progress (and as you point out, that knife can cut both ways).