Image Via myuzishun’s Flickr…
The alarms should have rung long ago, not today when the stock market plunged 300 points on the news of dismal results coming from the nation’s top sprawl produces. It’s pretty disappointing to see that so much of the US economy is based on the growth of these development groups which continue to produce nothing but atrocious housing developments on the outer fringes of nearly American city. Its also ironic that what we consider to be an economic engine in our communities is also responsible for degrading our lifestyles, increasing congestion, straining our resources and with that likely costing us as taxpayers more in infrastructure needs and upgrades than the economic benefit we receive in return:“Disappointing results from home builders including Pulte Homes Inc. and D.R. Horton Inc. — squeezed by a sluggish environment from home sales and continued defaults in subprime loans — weighed heavily on the market.”
An Excerpt from Suburban Nation, The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream:
“…The primary goal of the [housing] industry remains to build and sell individual houses as quickly and profitably as possible, to “blow and go,” as they put it…Homebuilders, land developers, and marketing advisers are all constituents that must be won over if the campaign against suburban sprawl is to succeed. Their participation will be meaningful in the long run only if it is driven by the profit motive, because in America at the millennium, ideas live or die based upon their performance in the marketplace….A higher standard of development will become common place only if it offers greater profits to those who practice it.”
Manny Diaz’s Miami 21 plan encourages sprawl in Miami-Dade County because the DPZ consultants, DPZ, have reduced height and density throughout much of Miami. Higher prices and less affordable housing will result and people will leave. Miami 21 encourages pouring concrete over the Everglades. Sprawl results from Miami 21.
That’s quite a leap of faith - is this all you are basing your claim on?
Econ 101. If you reduce height and density you create less housing making housing either more expensive or you just encourage developers to create more sprawl or you achieve both goals. Since Miami 21 reduces height and density sprawl will result. Great news if you bought land in the Everglades, terrible news if you want to make people less dependent on cars.
Well you can have overly dense housing that discourages sprawl but becomes uncomfortable. I’ve seen more of a plan to increase density in many areas to row houses to make neighborhoods more livable. I wonder what your looking at. Not all neighborhoods are going to be affected in the County, that is separate from the city. One may wish to look at the whole plan rather than a blurb you hear or see. Also, I believe Miami21 attempts to make driving less desirable and encourages transit. The argument now is whether you build the transit first or change the code first. (Build the transit).
Well, unfortunately “econ 101″ wouldn’t provide you with the necessary knowledge to understand the relationship between Miami 21, density, zoning, and sprawl. That view is entirely over simplistic and is right out the sprawl-apologist/ Joel Kotkin/Wendell Cox playbook.
Miami 21 doesn’t systematically downzone or inhibit density - this only happens in a few instances, most of which are totally insignificant in terms of urban design/land-use, essentially making mid-rise structures smaller mid-rise structures, etc.
Miami 21 certainly does more increasing of density than decreasing. Plus the focus on transit expansion necessarily means more intensive land uses, which definitely don’t fuel sprawl (of course, we need the transit to actually EXPAND).
And if you think there’s some sort of housing shortage in the city (other than affordable, of course), then you’ve missed something. Thousands and thousands of units are yet to be lived-in citywide, and many of those units will stabilize in price now that the housing boom as slowed.
Bottom line: An increase in density is very important and very necessary for the future of Miami and South Florida, however, you don’t need super high densities everywhere to avoid “fueling sprawl”.