Potential There For Needed Help

Urban sprawl has hurt Americans’ quality of life, said Vice President Al Gore on Monday, so the federal government ought to step in and help.

His first thesis is easier to accept than the second. But, depending on the strings that would be attached to the federal aid Gore proposed, it could indeed be a blessing to sprawl-afflicted communities like Spokane.

Gore was outlining a “livability agenda” that the White House will include in its budget proposal to Congress. The centerpiece is a “Better America Bonds” program offering $9.5 billion to state and local governments. The bonds would provide money to buy and preserve green space, create or restore urban parks, protect water quality and clean up abandoned industrial sites.

Too often, federal dictates and regulatory hassles have made communities regret it when they seek federal aid rather than rely on local resources. On the other hand, the inner city decay that sprawl has created is itself testimony to the fact that existing local resources - both private and public - are not sufficient to achieve better use of urban land.

Provided Gore’s program comes with reasonable rules and adequate flexibility to address local needs, the federal government’s ability to make available a large pool of funds could become an important asset. Certainly, that was true when the feds helped cities like Spokane reduce pollution by constructing better sewage treatment plants, for example.

Today, as Gore rightly points out, sprawl has become one of our nation’s most damaging environmental problems. It affects us daily.

Here in the Spokane-Coeur d’Alene area, the outward spread of suburban housing tracts, malls and strip malls continues to take good farm land out of production. Meanwhile, older residential and commercial areas are falling victim to underutilization and decay.

Sprawl in the Valley as well as in forests and fields to the north and south has created congestion on roads that were not adequately enlarged. Many new housing areas have gone in without the parks, schools and fire protection that a healthy community must have. Taxpayers have to subsidize this sprawl by constructing expensive new roads, sewers and other infrastructure.

Local land use planners are trying to stop the sprawl or at least require that suburbs include needed green space and infrastructure. But the market keeps concluding that it’s cheaper to buy and pave another wheat field than it is to put dense condos in an existing urban neighborhood or to reclaim old industrial land.

What’s lacking is financing for a better style of growth and redevelopment. Gore’s proposal, therefore, is a welcome act of leadership.