The Small Town Project

Washington state example shows property tax rates correlate strongly with population growth. [1] Image source: San Juan County Futures Information Resource

Previously here I’ve debunked a number of myths concerning growth and so-called “development.” The very first was the myth that residential development brings in needed tax dollars. Despite the information provided here, however, what I hear around Mount Vernon suggests this is the myth in which residents and policymakers remain the most interested. No doubt the local growth machine would love to show that Mount Vernon is an anomaly, a community where residential growth does pay for itself. It is not impossible, after all, for development to pay for itself. Very specific forms of development sometimes do.

However, apart from biased or otherwise flawed studies (in my opinion, a very real risk in the local instance), their chances of showing that development pays for itself here are slight. (more…)

Edwin Stennett’s book — important reading. Growth Education Movement

Not long ago we examined an important Brookings Institution paper by Paul Gottlieb titled Growth Without Growth. Gottlieb shows convincingly that population growth is in no way necessary for a U.S. city to see per-capita income growth. His findings go a long way toward debunking the myth that population growth is necessary for per-capita economic wellbeing.

Edwin Stennett expands on Gottlieb’s finding in In Growth We Trust. This book is a key work on the relationship between sprawl and population growth. I recommend it to anyone serious about studying the issues covered on the Small Town Project.

In it, Stennett reviews the Growth Without Growth paper, then looks at the same question on the level of nations. (pp 61-62) He examines the relationship between rate of population growth and rate of growth of per-capita gross domestic product (as percentages per year) for the United States and 15 western European countries. [1] (The latter data came from U.S. Census Bureau tables.) Using the time span from 1970 to 1998, he finds no significant correlation between the two variables in question. [2] His scattergram shows the individual countries spread essentially randomly around an almost horizontal trendline. Notably, the United States shows by far the most population growth among the 16 countries, yet is only about average in per-capita gross domestic product growth. This is a strong indication that population growth is simply not an important factor in creating or explaining a country’s per-capita economic health. (To be consistent with our series exposing the myths of growth, we can label as “myth #5″ the notion that a country does need such growth.)
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There has long been a tendency in the U.S. to link economic growth with population growth. Many in the growth industry even argue that you need population growth in order to have economic health. We’ve already looked at aspects of this in some of our previous articles showing various growth industry assertions to be myths. We’ve detailed the nature of some of the data, for example, which refute the claim that residential growth brings in needed tax revenues. Now we turn to the more general linkage between population growth and economic growth.
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Three stages in the growth of sprawl:

Novak: An early stage of development in a future tract of sprawl.

Stonebrook: A development at a slightly more advanced stage of growth.

Just a bit of exponential growth goes a long way. Typical, well developed sprawl hints at a possible future for our area. Image source: nativeecosystems.org/Jacob Smith and LightHawk

We’ll conclude here our three part series on the myth that “the new developments pay for the old developments.” In Part I we exposed the unwitting admission the growth machine makes in asserting this myth. They can’t spread this notion without admitting that another of their assertions, “Residential development brings in needed revenues,” is untrue. In Part II we demonstrated that the notion, “the new developments pay for the old ones” is indeed a myth, another attempt on the part of the growth industry to bamboozle us so that they might destroy our open spaces and small towns in pursuit of profit. Now we’ll look at what this myth implies about the attitude toward our future held by those who spread the myth.
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This week I attended the League of Women Voters candidates’ nights in both MV and Lisbon. In MV, residential growth quickly emerged (with no prompting from me!) as the central issue of discussion. Our city government has a good deal of progress to make in recognizing the difference between improvement and mere physical expansion. But I see hints of progress. There are a few officials and candidates who are at least thinking about some of the right questions. Ivan Vonk and Carine Klein, for instance, are capable of a degree of independent thought which has been scarce in recent city government decisions. (more…)

In historic Lisbon — definitely not paid for by newer developments.

In our last installment in this three part series we showed how an assertion heard around here, “The new developments pay for the old ones,” implies an unwitting admission on the part of those in the growth machine, an admission that nearly all our residential development fails to pay for itself. Now that’s something the Small Town Project and the growth machine agree on! Continued residential development costs more to serve than the revenues it generates, and creates a deficit, sucking up the revenues generated by farmland, open land, and commercial property. Ultimately it leads to tax increases for all of us, and diverts money away from beneficial community projects. We covered much of this in the first of our myth-debunking essays.
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Monday night: Today I received an anonymous email from someone who disagrees with some of my views on the site. Well, probably all of them. First, I want to mention that I’m not much interested in private debate with anonymous emailers as it does nothing to bring information to the citizens of our communities. I have therefore made additions to the “contact the author” form and the comment policy to minimize this sort of thing.

With that in mind, I invite the emailer to comment under this article. Can you support your position with logic or data? Let’s discuss it. (more…)

Stonebrook — They claim this pays for the rest of the town. Hmmm…

So far on the Small Town Project, we’ve debunked two common assertions made by the “growth machine,” showing how they are in fact myths. When you examine the various arguments these folks toss about in their efforts to justify unending residential development, it’s not only the disinformation which shines through; it’s the illogic as well. And as we’ve seen, the two sometimes overlap.

Now we come to a myth which flatly contradicts another. (more…)

There is more debunking to do! Growth and development myths are pernicious little creatures. Thankfully, some are based on such blatantly flawed bits of logic that we can do away with them with one hand tied behind our back. Well, figuratively speaking; I gotta type here. Let’s look at one I’ve heard applied to Mount Vernon. (I suspect you hear it around Lisbon too, but would appreciate any confirmation or correction.)

Myth #2 — “We need growth and so must continue building. But don’t worry, we won’t grow too big — only out to the city limits.”

Okay, so those two sentences together are more an error of logic than a myth per se. (Still, the first sentence is simply a broader version of the myth we exploded in our last article.) But raise your hand if you already see the problem here. Seriously, I’ve heard each of the two sentences above multiple times from MV city officials. No, probably not right in sequence as they’re written here, but so what; these are two ideas that some in power accept and espouse without blinking.
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Sometimes they tell lies
and put ‘em in a truthful disguise. — Gil Scott-Heron

We’ve all heard it: “This town must grow to thrive!” or “We have to grow or die!” This is the major tenet the “growth machine” — that network of people in every community which profits from residential development — repeats constantly as a large part of its justification for ceaseless residential expansion.

Sprawl in Marion. Does this have to be MV/Lisbon’s Future?

There’s just one problem with it: It’s a myth. It’s propaganda spread by an industry which needs to justify itself to continue reaping the enormous profits generated by subdivision construction and suburban sprawl, regardless of what happens to existing towns as a result.
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