How sprawl makes us poor

by john a. powell

Published Wednesday, March 22, 2000, The Albuquerque Tribune

FRAGMENTED REGIONS WASTE VALUABLE HUMAN AND ENVIRONMENTAL RESOURCES

Sprawl and its resulting jurisdictional fragmentation are among the most destructive dynamics in our society today. These dynamics threaten both social justice and the environment. And left unabated, they threaten to sap both the economic and political vitality from our society.

It is common place today to think of sprawl as a natural part of the American dream. But behind the myth of individual choice and the force of the marketplace, we see very deliberate government policies, supported by the public purse to the tune of well over $1 trillion.

Many are surprised to learn that the destructive and wasteful process of sprawl has been heavily subsidized by federal, state, and local governments. Since the early 1940s, our national policy has supported the proliferation of urban sprawl and the attendant flow of dollars from central cities.

Only recently have we begun to question the wisdom of spending billions to build new roads, schools, and infrastructure at the edge of our metropolitan regions while divesting from our cities. And only recently have we begun to appreciate that what is happening in our urban cores affects development at our regions' peripheries.

Sprawl and regional fragmentation on the one hand, and concentrated poverty and social inequity on the other hand, are flip sides of the same dynamic. The federal government defines concentrated poverty as a census tract with 40 percent or greater of its residents living below poverty level. It is important to note that research clearly demonstrates that this level of neighborhood poverty functions differently and much more destructively than individual poverty.

As you can see by looking at the race and poverty maps of the Albuquerque metro area, concentrated poverty is also a racial issue. The vast majority of those living in concentrated poverty are either black or Latino. When the government first put its national purse behind sprawl, it was explicitly stated in racial terms. The suburbs were designated for whites and heavily subsidized by federal mortgage programs, while the cities, where minorities primarily lived, were redlined and excluded from participating in these federal programs.

With the white middle-class -- and more recently the black and Hispanic middle-class -- driving sprawl, most low-income blacks and Latinos have been isolated in the declining core away from jobs and resources.

GOVERNMENT SUBSIDIES HAVE PLAYED AN UNDENIABLE ROLE

As we have encouraged and provided subsidies for people to leave the central cities, there has been powerful incentive to both sprawl further and further out and to create as many separate communities as possible. It is not unusual to find metro areas with hundreds of small towns -- all trying to support their own schools, fire departments, water systems, housing and so on.
This effort is wasteful and is largely based on a myth. People's lives are more organized around regions than around separate towns or communities. We cross several jurisdictions a day: on the way to work, to drop off our children at school, to go to a play, or to shop for food or clothes.

And indeed, the health of our own individual town or neighborhood is closely tied to the health of our region. Yet to avoid taxes and pay for all of our regional responsibilities, including our poorer and minority neighbors, there is a powerful inclination not to just move from the city, but to close the door as we leave.

Fragmented regions are not just wasteful in terms of straining our fragile ecosystem -- they are also the regions with the greatest racial and socio-economic disparity and segregation. Chicago is consistently cited as one of the most -- if not the most -- racially segregated regions in the country. It is also the most fragmented, with more than 1,300 governmental jurisdictions.

ALBUQUERQUE'S ANNEXATION ANECDOTE

Fortunately, Albuquerque is not Chicago. New Mexico has taken a significant step in curbing one of the most negative effects of fragmentation and sprawl. Local policymakers have been very innovative in limiting jurisdictional fragmentation. Through the process of annexation, your metro leaders have been able to develop a regional structure that limits that kind of fiscal and racial segregation that is all too familiar in Chicago.

Like other regional forms of government, the ability to annex adjacent territory reduces fragmentation of urban areas, thus minimizing the incentives for, and the ability of, different demographic groups to enact insular policies and empowers the central city to prudently control regional growth.

By preventing the development of geopolitical boundaries, annexation precludes sub-regional populations from cutting off the tax base of the expanding metropolis from the older core city. Consequently, Albuquerque does not suffer from the severe fiscal disparities that plague many central cities in the United States and is able to avoid the conundrum that arises where poor central city residents pay disproportionately high taxes to fund inadequate public services.

NARROW FOCUS ON BUSINESS HAS ITS COSTS

New Mexico's weak economy has forced state and local officials to be extremely pro-business, which is good for the region. But they have pursued this narrow focus on business to the exclusion of other critical institutions. It would be more effective to adopt a holistic approach that includes business as an important component, but which also addresses the ills of concentrated poverty and racial segregation.

Beyond the city limits of Albuquerque lie areas of extreme racial and economic segregation. While Albuquerque has used its annexation power to capture and benefit expanding industrial and commercial areas, it has bypassed these poor segregated areas. In exercising its annexation power this way, Albuquerque provides infrastructure service to the region's industrial and commercial growth and in return captures the benefits of that growth within its tax base. Unincorporated in these developed areas, however, pay costs for which they receive no benefits.

There is also racial and economic segregation within Albuquerque, and despite its nearly metropolitan-wide governance, Albuquerque has not sufficiently exercised its authority to benefit these poor segregated communities. Surprisingly, despite its strong pro-business bent, Albuquerque has done little of substance to address the unemployment problems within its poor communities. There is an affordable housing crisis developing in Albuquerque that is confining poor people of color to impoverished and segregated neighborhoods.

Finally, Albuquerque has failed to use its annexation power to control urban sprawl -- a fact that is already creating environmental problems and, if unchecked, will lead to the spatial problems that have created big concentrations of poverty and people of color in larger metropolitan areas.

Most of the jobs created through the development of Albuquerque have been in high technology industries and have gone to highly educated middle- and upper-class whites.

Of the workers living in census tracts that are 80 percent or more white, half are in executive, administrative, managerial, or professional positions. Conversely, of the workers living in census tracts that are 80 percent or more people of color, only 15 percent have these higher level, higher paying positions.

Although job growth is generally perceived as beneficial to an area, this may be less the case in Albuquerque, since it is estimated that a staggering 70 percent of new jobs go to workers brought into the Albuquerque area by their employers.

In addition, there is little residential choice for Albuquerque's poor. The majority of older housing stock that is affordable to low- and moderate-income families is located in Central, adjacent to the downtown business district. In Albuquerque's current rental market, the average market-rate rents are no longer affordable to households below 80 percent of the median income at normal occupancy levels.

Approximately 75 percent of low-income renters in Albuquerque in 1993 were spending more than 30 percent of their gross income on rent and utilities. Since 1993, rents have been rising at a rate of 10-12 percent annually. Affordability problems are especially severe for large low-income households.

MIXED HOUSING AND LAND-USE REGULATIONS COULD ADDRESS DAMAGE DONE BY SPRAWL

Despite its metropolitan-wide jurisdiction, Albuquerque has yet to exercise its authority to require that developers build a mix of housing, including multi-unit housing and affordable single family units; to rezone its land to stop the destructive pattern of single-family units on unnecessarily large lots of land; and to encourage in-fill of land by limiting outward growth and reducing barriers to in-fill, such as zoning.

Albuquerque's actions and omissions in both the housing and industry arenas have contributed to urban sprawl and its attendant environmental problems. Air quality, particularly during winter months, is a serious problem in Albuquerque, due to urban sprawl, and the related forces of increased population, increased automobile use and increased use of fireplaces. Albuquerque continues to attract business and industry to the fringe of its metropolitan area by promising annexation and infrastructure, rather than leveraging more prudent and dense development.

Albuquerque is far ahead of the curve compared with many U.S. metro areas in terms of its commitment and ability to manage jurisdictional fragmentation in its metro area. While there are segregated neighborhoods in Albuquerque, because they are not jurisdictionally isolated, there is a greater degree of sharing both the benefits and the responsibilities of the region.
In most fragmented regions, each locality or jurisdiction must raise its own money for schools. In New Mexico, taxes for school funding is levied on a state-wide basis, which decreases disparities in funding.

However, while the city and state have done a better-than-average job of dealing with fragmentation, efforts to address sprawl have not been as effective.

During the next decade, state and local leaders must focus on ways to address the environmental damage, such as air quality, created by urban sprawl while balancing the need to take advantage of more of the native human resources. Minorities deserve to share in the area's business growth. In order to do so, they must receive job-training support and opportunities to obtain higher education. Minorities must also be included in critical regional decision-making.

Given the track record of this state and region with regard to solving some of the issues created by jurisdictional fragmentation, I believe New Mexico can and will demonstrate additional leadership in housing, land use and education.

john a. powell, Executive Director, Institute on Race & Poverty (IRP) and Marvin J. Sonosky Professor of Law and Public Policy at the University of Minnesota Law School in Minneapolis, Minn. Powell spoke on March 18 at an event sponsored by the 1,000 Friends of New Mexico. Part of his commentary was excerpted by a report produced by IRP in May 1999. The title of the report, which features Albuquerque and four other U.S. metro areas is "Concentrated Poverty and Racial Segregation: Evaluating Programs and Policies." It can be accessed via IRP's web site at www.umn.edu/irp.