A few weeks ago, Gov. Crist signed SB 360, a horrendous bill that significantly weakened Florida's growth management laws, inviting more urban sprawl in rural areas. Environmental groups, and Progress Florida, vehemently fought SB 360 for this reason. For more info, watch this great YouTube video:



We unfortunately lost that battle, but in the wider war against wasteful and destructive low-density urban sprawl, who is really going to win? That question has not been answered yet. While it seems that big developers won the day, they might have just shot themselves in the foot at the same time. You see, as the title of this blog post suggests, every time big developers and their allies in the Florida Chamber of Commerce push through another short-sighted bill that extends the already hated status quo, the more support builds for solutions like the Florida Hometown Democracy Amendment. Some folks consider Hometown Democracy a very radical solution, taking land-use decisions away from county commissions and instead turning them into public referendums. This would undoubtedly slow down the rate at which farms are gobbled up and turned into golf courses and gated communities. Many Floridians think this would be a good thing, but developers obviously view it as a terrifying prospect.

When SB 360 passed, I heard the same refrain from several unconnected individuals - that this will make it easier for Hometown Democracy to pass. I think they're right. The passage of SB 360 will only harden local resistance to sprawl, and the seemingly impossible notion of attaining real growth management regulations from the state will only drive more moderate environmentalists and Floridians into the arms of Hometown Democracy.

I actually consider myself among the latter group. I have my qualms with Hometown Democracy, mainly because I think sprawl can be stopped and new urbanism promoted through stronger and more consistent community organizing at the county level (something that really doesn't exist right now throughout Florida.) However, I know that for the sake of our state's future, sprawl has to be stopped in the next few years. I'm willing to embrace Hometown Democracy if the developers, the Chambers of Commerce, and the Builders Associations keep pushing for the kind of nonsense "solutions" like SB 360 that merely advance their bottom line at the expense of everyone else.

Should Hometown Democracy make it onto the ballot (an increasingly likely prospect) and pass the necessary 60% mark, it will be due both to the hard work of the Hometown Democracy movement, and the developers' own short-sightedness and utter greed.

No county commission or local governing entity, regardless of partisan composition, is "safe" from big developers, special interests, or bad policy making.

This, for me, was the big lesson learned from Progress Florida's recent local campaign fighting an awful proposed development in Leon County. I call it the "Mahan Doctrine." I'll explain more in a bit. First, a little background.   Read More »

In 1985, Florida enacted one of the more far-reaching pieces of legislation dealing with land use before or since. This was the Growth Management Act of 1985, which mandated local governments develop comprehensive plans regarding their growth and development. These plans would be sent through the state's Department of Community Affairs for approval or denial based on consistency with state and regional comprehensive plans.

While the act served as a good step in the right direction, it has since been undermined repeatedly. Individual county commissions, mostly bought off by interest-seeking developers, have continually amended what were supposed to be 10 year plans to serve the interests of their campaign contributors.

Twenty years ago, land use specialist Charles Siemon in the academic journal Environmental and Urban Issues discussed the dire growth management situation, which still exists today, despite the efforts of the 1985 act:

The state is threatened with s precipitous decline in economic well-being, either because of loss of character and attractiveness, or because the citizens of the state will rise up and say "enough" and impose a no-growth philosophy on the State as a matter of majority rule.

Conservatives have argued that the Florida Hometown Democracy amendment is the incarnation of the latter statement by Siemon. As usual, they're incorrect. While perhaps a more radical change, FHD would essentially halt the approach of more unnecessary growth and render existing developer power useless. FHD would force any amendment to a county's land use change to be put before county voters for an up or down vote.

Perhaps a less drastic change is being explored in California, where this week one of the largest changes in the state's land use law took place. Here are the highlights via the Progressive State's Network:

Key Features of SB 375 include:

1. Transportation and planning: The California Air Resources Board (CARB) will set regional greenhouse gas reduction targets, which will then be incorporated into each region's Regional Transportation Plan (RTP).



2. Housing Planning: Local jurisdictions' share of regional affordable housing will become aligned with the land use plan.



3. Anti-Sprawl Incentives: New developments that follow transportation planning needs will get quicker approval under state environmental review systems. Local governments will also have regulatory and other incentives to encourage more compact new development and transportation alternatives.

...
California's SB 375 is building on a range of smart policies, from inclusionary zoning to financial incentives for higher density communities, in order to better coordinate state planning and local municipal zoning while also promoting more affordable housing and smarter, more environmentally sustainable growth in California.

I think the debate over growth management and the sub-debates that roil underneath (affordable housing, transportation, energy) will be the most interesting to observe over the next decade.

I don't really think the overwhelming call for reform in the growth management sector can further be ignored by our state's leaders. The question is what the next round of reforms will look like. Will they be radical right-wing driven half measures that really don't do much of anything, or will they be strong progressive pieces of legislation that truly incorporate smart growth principles?

Progress Florida continues to add to Florida's growing progressive infrastructure by launching it's Job Bank.

In my view, there are too many talented progressives in this state who aren't compensated - this is one step towards correcting this problem.

If you're looking for a job, check out the Job Bank regularly. If you're an employer, you can post a job by emailing us at "jobs at progressflorida dot org"

James Gustave Speth, Dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, is one of the clearest writers on the imperatives of global warming. As the current oil crisis escalates, Speth has the insight from an earlier crisis: he was chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality during the Carter administration when OPEC jacked up the price of oil to the equivalent, in today's dollars, of $200 per barrel.

Speth is emphatic: at that time, it was clear that global warming was a real and present danger. The relenting of oil prices sent the American public into two decades of complacency. With the advent of climate change, we are at the end of complacency.

The Seattle Times reports ("Acidified seawater showing up along coast ahead of schedule, May 23, 2008"): "Climate models predicted it wouldn't happen until the end of the century. So a team led by Seattle researchers was stunned to discover that vast swaths of acidified seawater already are showing up along the Pacific Coast as greenhouse-gas emissions upset the ocean's chemical balance."

Indeed, we are surrounded by evidence with scant little to show for change, or, that our elected officials are motivated to lead the way in reforming the US economy--not just to rescue us from the worst series of crises since the Great Depression--but also to save us from ruining the planet for any kind of civil society.

Speth writes, "George Bernard Shaw famously remarked that all progress depends on being unreasonable. It's time for a large amount of civic unreasonableness."

The deeper critique that Speth calls for begins with the recognition that the current path for the economy, based on the so-called "free" market, entail a deep rooted system of subsidies for growth that is, at its heart, unsustainable.

All the battles progressives fight over lines; whether for the urban development boundary, or, separation of church and state, or, a woman's right to choose, or domestic benefits based on sexual orientation contain, in their essence, the conservative imperative to engineer society in a way that is unsustainable.

In a weekend editorial in The Washington Post, writer James Howard Kunstler gets to the bottom of it: "We don't have time to be crybabies about this. The talk on the presidential campaign trail about "hope" has its purpose. We cannot afford to remain befuddled and demoralized. But we must understand that hope is not something applied externally. Real hope resides within us. We generate it -- by proving that we are competent, earnest individuals who can discern between wishing and doing, who don't figure on getting something for nothing and who can be honest about the way the universe really works."