The other side

Claims without substance

"We will be happier, healthier, richer, more efficient and more
environmentally friendly if there are more of us per square mile."

A more dubious claim can hardly be imagined, but there it was in The Sunday
Denver Post Perspective section. The op-ed in which the sentence appeared
was written by two law professors at the University of Denver and the head
of the Rocky Mountain Land Use Institute, and called on Denver Mayor John
Hickenlooper to get serious about his "green" agenda by aggressively
promoting greater housing density.

Happier, they say? Well, some of us hanker to live cheek-by-jowl with our
neighbors and some of us don't. Why not let people decide for themselves
which arrangement pleases them?

Healthier? Not because of less exposure to auto pollution, surely. Per
capita miles traveled in cars tends to decline slightly in denser cities,
but per-capita exposure to pollution can increase because traffic is
typically more congested.

Richer? The primary way to induce higher density in a metro area (see
Portland, Ore.) is to restrict the amount of land available for new housing
and then mandate or offer incentives for certain kinds of development. If
you do that, however, housing prices will rise - as they have in city after
city that adopted growth controls. Some people do end up richer, but others
get fleeced.

More efficient? The claim that low-density housing wastes resources on
roads, utilities and public services such as trash pickup has been around
since at least 1973 when the Council on Environmental Quality released a
report titled "The Costs of Sprawl." But this conclusion remains a matter of
debate, and many serious scholars have taken issue with it over the years.

Equally to the point, if Americans value low densities and are willing to
pay the local taxes necessary to sustain them, why shouldn't that be their
choice to make?

More environmentally friendly? This may be the only true contention in the
list, but it too is arguable. Unfortunately, "smart growth" advocates peddle
so many extravagant charges regarding the impact of low-density housing that
they can't all be disposed of in today's space. So until the next set of
bogus claims regarding higher densities wanders into our sight . . .

Vincent Carroll, editor of the editorial pages, writes On Point several
times a week. Reach him at carrollv@RockyMountainNews.com.