“Beware the siren song”

From the Asbury Park Press:

High-density development just another term for urban sprawl

Expect to hear a lot from developers about how high-density residential and commercial development will save New Jersey from high-density residential and commercial development. How is this miracle to occur?

In 25 years or more, all the open land in the state will be developed, according to dismayed, and I assume inconsolable, developers. To save us from this evil, bless their hearts, they’re touting a mixed-use concept called traditional neighborhood development.

This comforting description is a repackaging of bad planning practices to convince us that stacking apartments, condos, stores and offices atop of each other, like cord wood, can avoid that bugaboo developers have encouraged for decades — suburban sprawl. Our caring developers also hint it may extend their stay in New Jersey before they have to move on to despoil other states.

Suburban sprawl, meet thine sworn blood enemy, urban density.

To use a colloquial term becoming lost to us as Jersey farmlands yield to overdevelopment, “hogwash.” Packing as many dwellings, stores and offices per acre as possible doesn’t reduce suburban sprawl. It just replaces it with urban sprawl.

A recent salesman for high-density development is Ralph Zucker, a developer who describes his high-density packed projects as bucolic settings where residents, not needing cars, stroll along grass-lined walkways to shop and greet friends and neighbors. (“More densely developed housing can address state’s ills,” commentary, Jan. 7.) Idyllic, but nonsensical. They won’t have to commute to work, he claims; they’ll only need to shop at neighborhood stores and all their friends will live in the same project. His imagery conjures up an 18th century village, not any New Jersey community I’ve ever seen. Then he alludes to 19th century building practices by describing one project that incredulously will offer merchants living quarters above their stores.

It gets sillier. Road congestion will be reduced because his high-density projects will “get cars off the road by providing a market for mass transit.” This misleading statement alludes, of course, to our now non-existent statewide transit system. He’s thinking of Europe, not the United States. He also offers another old bromide: Dense mixed-use projects won’t require expensive municipal investment and will help keep a lid on taxes. However, every tax study proves what no developer wants you to realize: All development leads to higher taxes.
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Beware the siren song that high-density projects will solve New Jersey’s ills. The taxpayers will be stuck with rising tax rates as developers, the only real winners, take their new-found profits and live in those sprawling McMansions they pretend to decry.