Cities, continued...

Riffing on the last post, I came across this article today from my home town newspaper, in which it appears a Raleigh developer is proposing the construction of the city's tallest building. News like this always excites me, as I'm a bit of a Triangle cheerleader, and I always enjoy evidence that North Carolina is arriving, but I think the reactions of City Council members reveal a great deal about city growth in general. Consider, for instance, this quote, from councilwoman Janet Cowell:

I would rather see ten 10-story buildings," she said. "That would be the kind of density that people of Raleigh would want. A 32-story building could retard development because it could jack up real estate rates so high that it would set precedent and everyone would think, 'I'm going to build a 32-story building.' How many of those are we going to need? We're going to have a 32-story building surrounded by a bunch of empty lots.

I have several thoughts on an attitude of this kind.

1) Since when do builders base their attitudes on precedents? How many buildings the size of the World Trade Center went up after it was built? Developers are concerned with bottom lines. That statement is dumb.

2)It's interesting to hear her reference desired density. Raleigh and the Triangle have battled for a decade at least with the problem of sprawl. In response to this, developers have been encouraged to build dense, mixed-use structures whenever possible, but most of these, planned for low-density neighborhoods, have come under intense opposition from local residents. Now we have a dense development planned for downtown, where everything is supposed to be dense, and the council is favoring lower densities.

3)Further, the Triangle has begun the process of establishing a regional light-rail line to alleviate the traffic problems caused by growth and sprawl. The project's critics routinely cite Raleigh's low population density as a reason that this line will fail. Understand that Raleigh has already ponied up money for this project, the success of which will depend upon dense neighborhoods around stations, several of which are downtown. Shouldn't the council be all for denser development around these stations, simply to improve the odds of success for their investment?

4)Of course, vanity projects can be uneconomical and drastically harm local real estate markets, but this is not government inspired construction plan, and Raleigh's not much for vanity anyway. Plus, the building is 32 stories tall. The Sears Tower it ain't. It looks like market-driven development to me.

5)Which leads to my final point. The Triangle area is consistently one of the fastest growing regions in the nation, and has been for over two decades. The metropolitan area will top 1.5 million people in the next year or so, and given demographic patterns, including inter- and intra- national migrations, it seems a safe bet that the Triangle is only going to get bigger. A lot bigger. In the early years of Washington, DC's Metro, the problem of poor ridership was a boondoggle for the system and its planners. After 20 years, half a million commuters rely upon Metro to get to work everyday, and the system is struggling to deal with the crush. The construction of suburban stations was ridiculed for the same density arguments that plague Raleigh's rail line, but today we see that transit planning fuelled and shaped construction. Density followed transit. In short, sensible planning and statistical awareness seem to suggest that one should support denser development in the Triangle whenever it is feasible.

Of course, the problem of local politics, or any politics, is that the voters of today have a say in things, not the voters of tomorrow. Poor city planning takes place for the same reason that Social Security and the environment are in danger: the residents of the future are underrepresented relative to the residents of the present (that, and uncertainty). This raises many questions about how to incentivize politicians, what are the responsibilities of an elected official (or a voter) toward future generations, and things of that nature. Luckily, common sense occasionally triumphs. In a city where congestion and sprawl are painfully visible to every commuter, it seems likely that planning for density will seem like a no-brainer. Let's hope Raleigh decides to place another silhouette on its skyline.