Cities are like living organisms. Just as in a living organism, if a single organ or system (respiratory, circulatory, pulmonary, neurological) gets sick, and the problem is left unaddressed, it creates an imbalance that will spread to other parts of the organism, and eventually the whole organism will die.
Likewise, if a single sector within a city (housing, environmental quality, employment, education, transportation) gets out of balance, the problem will spread to other sectors, and eventually the whole city will begin to die.
When a city’s housing costs become so high that people begin to move out, corporations that need qualified employees begin to move because they can’t find or retain qualified workers. And that’s how cities begin to die.
Take the rust belt industrial cities around the Great Lakes.
When the factory jobs moved overseas, the people who could move, did, the sickness spread to every sector of those cities, and they began to die. Other examples include the environmental pollution problems in Flint, Michigan, or Jackson, Mississippi; water shortages in the Southwest; sea level rise in New Orleans or South Florida: all serious problems that will kill those cities if not adequately addressed. It doesn’t matter what the issue is, if it’s out of balance without remediation it will get worse and spread to other sectors.
In the Twin Cities we have several problems that need addressing.
We have a labor shortage that’s affecting the many large companies we’re lucky to have. We have a housing supply and affordability issue, meaning that people with average incomes don’t come close to being able to afford the average house. There are significant racial disparities in almost every category, we have pollution issues that must be addressed, and we’re already considered a high tax area.
In the Twin Cities two policy prescriptions stand out as remediation for the list of problems we face.
First, slow the expansion of sprawling suburbs and add density to currently developed areas. Experts tell us that as much as 25% to 50% of the cost of housing is regulation, and much of that is zoning designed to maintain single family residential neighborhoods.
The Minneapolis 2040 Plan is an example of zoning policy designed to add density without destroying the character of our neighborhoods. The plan calls for adding more multifamily development along transit lines and in designated nodes, and eliminating single family zoning in favor of duplexes and triplexes.
Second, as part of the suburban migration promoted by post WWII economic policies, the Twin Cities abandoned the streetcar system and focused instead on automobile-based transportation. Today the typical household pays approximately 20% of its take-home income on transportation costs. Without viable transportation options, our roads are congested, our air polluted, and our households are car-poor and unable to afford other necessities.
As with any living organism, it’s important to focus attention on policy prescriptions designed to alleviate the problems we have. In the Twin Cities, as in many other cities around the country, that means limiting sprawl, reasonable increases in density to the already developed areas, and recreating a legitimate multi-modal transportation system.
I live across the street from the Southwest Light Rail line construction, and while I share my neighbors’ frustrations with the timing and cost overruns, the pain of construction is meaningful because it’s necessary to make the city we love viable and healthy into the future.
