In this week’s issue of the Sun, Jerry Niederhauser, a local realtor, takes issue with my letter to the editor from last week as well as some comments he found here. I’ll address Jerry directly.

First Jerry, I can hardly blame you for being pro-residential-growth. You make your living selling real estate, so you probably assume you’ll profit most from as much growth as possible. You may even see me as trying to undermine your livelihood. I can understand how it might look that way. Yet I believe if you investigate the issues in depth you’ll see that my suggestions, if implemented, might actually serve to protect and enhance your livelihood. Consider, for instance, that population growth will mean more realtors moving here, so while the number of properties to sell goes up, so does the competition. It could become harder to do well.

Additionally, a small community which has preserved its charming character will often fetch higher home prices than one which has allowed itself to turn into just another homogeneous mass of nondescript sprawl. Towns like Carmel, California and Santa Fe, New Mexico (before it began to struggle with its own brand of sprawl) come to mind. Over time, retaining the character we have now could well mean more profits for a realtor here. Think about it. You might find my suggestions less threatening than you’d thought.

Jerry, I’m glad my letter to the editor prompted you to write your own letter. I’m sure you agree we need to get this debate into public view so citizens will have a chance to assess the merits of both the pro-residential-growth view and the pro-sustainability view. I was disappointed, though, that you didn’t attempt to challenge any of the three points from my letter. In essence, they were:

1) Continued growth will inevitably end MV and Lisbon’s status as small towns while turning them into just another area of nondescript suburban sprawl. I believe most here would rather retain our small town character.
2) Residential development means environmental destruction at a time when the earth is under more human-induced environmental stress than ever.
3) Expansion is unsustainable. It can’t continue forever. Trying to rely on it for our economic health (misguided as that notion might be) therefore guarantees us eventual failure.

Since you didn’t respond in your letter to the substance of any of those points, I hope you’ll do so here. I invite you to post your thoughts on how any of those three assertions might be wrong. Of course you’re free as well to comment on any other argument on this site. For instance, you’ll find, so far, several essays illustrating how certain common growth industry assertions are myths. I’d be interested to see if you can show where my data or logic is wrong in those essays.

Though your letter was rather long, it appears the comments you offered to address any issue of substance come to four sentences. They are:

Market forces will determine whether or not we grow.

The economics issue he touched on is real and will have to be addressed.

I don’t think all this environmental, “The sky is falling,” rhetoric is necessary and it blurs the real issue. You like things the way they are and you don’t want them to change.

In all the rest of your letter I find only misquotes (You misquoted me in nearly every instance. Why?), sarcastic jabs at my wording, some stuff about how you grew up here, and a couple of sentences repeating your assertion that only market forces determine the rate of growth. That’s a shame because you had an opportunity, as a representative of the growth industry, to do something productive, to put your argument out there, in the best possible light, for all to see. But you passed on the chance.

So I’ll respond to those four sentences. If somehow I missed something else of substance, let me know and I’ll address that too.

You said,

Market forces will determine whether or not we grow.

Okay, to be thorough I’ll include your reiteration:

…market forces of free enterprise will prevail, they always do. If it is profitable enough for enough people and there is enough of a demand for more, we will continue to grow. If it is not, we won’t.

Surely you must know market forces are only one factor. If the citizens want less residential growth or no growth, there are numerous methods of growth control they and the city can implement. We’ve begun to touch on those here and will continue to do so. Market forces play a role, but so do citizen and government initiatives. The people of Boulder, where the city has purchased 43,000 acres of land to save it from development, would have to question your assertion that only market forces determine the level of growth.

You said,

The economics issue he touched on is real and will have to be addressed.

We’ve looked at that in some detail here, (Here’s one example.) and will do so again. You fail to mention that the great majority of studies of that issue have concluded that residential development fails to pay for itself, and is subsidized by the taxpayers.

Moreover, you ignore more important items such as the three in my letter to the editor. Another you ignore is how easily many growth industry assertions can be shown to be false, indicating that the industry is lying to us.

You said,

I don’t think all this environmental, “The sky is falling,” rhetoric is necessary and it blurs the real issue. You like things the way they are and you don’t want them to change.

The environmental concern doesn’t blur the issue, but if you feel a need to pursue growth I can understand why you’d like to avoid dealing with it. The environmental facet is clearly the most important part of the issue for future generations. Residential development means environmental destruction at a time when the planet is stressed too much. Locally, we live down the road from an “impaired” river. We’re losing large tracts of farmland to subdivisions. Experts say our country long ago exceeded its “carrying capacity.” Suburban development is also colossally inappropriate as we near the end of cheap oil. These things don’t blur the issue; to a large extent they are the issue.

You say I want things to stay the same. Actually, I’d like to see some big changes. I’d like to see the ol’ boy network lose its influence, with the result being a return to more open government by the people. I think we’ve begun to make progress in that direction. I’d also like to see a change in our respect for the environment and a change in our respect for the qualities of these towns which we’ve inherited from those who were here before us. We need to respect them enough not to ruin what we have.

I hope you’ll try to respond below, Jerry. I could send a brief letter to the Sun as well, but we could better continue the discussion here as the Net is a better vehicle for debate. On it, we can cover much more ground much faster. (Nevertheless, if you’re willing to continue the debate here, perhaps the Sun could reprint selected pieces of it for anyone not online. Just a thought.)