State & Local News Vol. 22, No. 3, Spring 1999 Economic Erosion: The Case Against Urban Sprawl By Paul Oyaski Urban sprawl is real. Evidence can be seen in deserted Collinwood storefornts and the opulent new shopping malls located on former farmland. Urban sprawl is a statewide concern as much as environmental protection. Urban sprawl causes damage to the environment through the development and deforestation of virgin and rural land. More fossil fuels are burned to drive farther distances. Urban sprawl, or as I call it economic erosion, has been ongoing since the end of World War II when automobile usage grew exponentially and the interstate highway system blossomed. It has continued unabated until very recently when the need to regulate growth in outerbelt areas gained public recognition. Public awareness of the issue and the consequences to older neighborhoods must increase. Bishop Anthony Pilla has written on the subject: "Government policies which support development of new suburbs while neglecting the redevelopment of older cities have contributed to the problems caused by outmigration." A house is only as strong as its foundation and the economic welfare of a region like Greater Cleveland is similarly dependent on the economic vitality of the inner ring suburbs and Cleveland itself. Commuting long distances to new subdivisions in the hinterlands wastes time, money, and natural resources. If the State of Ohio is subsidizing the urban sprawl, then the public policies at work must be re-examined. The total wealth of the Greater Cleveland region as well as the population has been relatively static for many years. Redistributing wealth, property values, and population to newer undeveloped areas, which is the essence of urban sprawl, serves to benefit not the public at large but the real estate developers and speculators and the politicians they support. I propose that all new highway projects funded by the state or federal government, involving roads, new lanes, or new interchanges in undeveloped or underdeveloped areas be scrutinized to determine the detrimental effects and damage they will cause to older nearby areas. Projects that will cause or contribute to substantial disinvestment or job loss or population loss should not be funded. The Ohio General Assembly did try to address this issue regarding tax abatement policy when it passed Senate Bill 19 in 1984. Highway policy must be addressed as well. Mr. Platt of the Ohio Department of Transportation told the NOACA board on September 13 that its priority process for evaluating major new highway projects consists of : "a 100 point system. Transportation criteria make up 70 points and include traffic counts, accidents, capacity, and macro corridors. Economic development is 30 points and includes job creation/retention." Nothing is included about the negative consequences. Therefore, the process is, in my opinion, incomplete and inadequate. Any decision-making process for major new highway construction or tax abatement authorized or administered by the state must take into account the effects of urban sprawl. The Ohio General Assembly must address this issue when it considers legislation next year establishing the Transportation Review Advisory Council. The long-term effects of urban sprawl are immense. Wealth, population, and property values are moved from one area of the region to another. One area’s investment and job creation is another area’s disinvestment and job loss. Gains in property values in one area are offset by losses in another. Virgin land is paved over, agricultural and rural areas disappear, while elsewhere brownfields, boarded-up buildings, and vacancies proliferate. What are the environmental costs to us all of developing rural areas and increasing commuting time and distance? More than the benefits achieved from E-Check and Ozone Alerts put together. The demographic statistics document the phenomenon: population and property values increase in the newer cities in the outerbelt. Meanwhile, in the areas left behind, the numbers are down. The effects are being felt not only in Euclid but in Willoughby, Wickliffe, Eastlake, and Willowick, where average household income has fallen below regional averages in the last twenty years. A recent Cleveland State University study showed that residential property values in the inner ring suburbs in the county rose 7.6 percent after inflation in the decade of 1983-93. Meantime, property values for residential property in the counties adjacent to Cuyahoga increased 28.1 percent during the decade or nearly four times faster appreciation. People’s homes are their biggest investment and urban sprawl is eroding their values. And think of the effect on school systems that are dependent on property taxes. Who benefits from building new communities, new hospitals, new schools, new infrastructure while abandoning similar facilities near the city? Communities and neighborhoods are not disposable commodities, to be discarded at will. Rebuilding, renovating, and re-investing in existing neighborhoods is a better policy. There is an undeniable competition between cities and historic freedom of citizen mobility, to be sure. But the State of Ohio should not be in the business of subsidizing the new at the expense of the old. If city "X" in the outerbelt wants a new interchange that will increase urban sprawl, let city "X" pay for it and let the adjacent property owners whose property values will escalate pay for it through assessments rather than have the Ohio taxpayers foot the bill. Oregon has had growth regulations to control sprawl for nearly twenty-five years with no detrimental effects. The environment will benefit from growth controls. Gasoline, farms, and forestland will be preserved. The old neighborhoods will be revived and Downtown will be "Downtown!" again. Absent regional government with real regional zoning controls, the state must act to control urban sprawl and defend the property values of county residents. The state is the logical entity to lead the way. I remember a poem form a high school English class that is apropos: "Turning and turning in a widening gyre, the falcon cannot hear the falconer." This passage symbolizes the increasing chaos of modern society. As more development funded or subsidized by the state spins further and further away from the central city, the "falconers" who are the taxpayers and property owners in the older neighborhoods must raise their voices to be heard. Paul Oyaski is mayor of Euclid, Ohio. State & Local Law News home page | Table of Contents