National Issues Forums Guides


A Nice Place to Live: Creating Communities, Fighting Sprawl

This title and other NIF guides are produced by Public Agenda with the Kettering Foundation for participants in the hundreds of National Issues Forums discussions that are held around the country every year. General readers will also find the guides, written by former New York Times correspondent Michael deCourcy Hinds, to be helpful introductions to policy debates on the country's most pressing concerns.

Table of Contents

Introduction
2
Almost no matter where Americans live, their communities are under enormous stress. Cities are struggling to survive with fewer middle-class residents, older suburbs suffer from traffic congestion and overdevelopment, and many rural communities are overwhelmed with the explosive growth of new homes and malls. How can we strengthen communities facing such severe problems? As with other NIF issue books, this one provides an overview of the issue and, to promote public deliberation and citizen action, outlines several perspectives, or choices. Each choice speaks for one set of American priorities and views and, drawing ideas from across the political spectrum, advocates a unique and consistent approach to the issue. Some elements of the choices are readily mixed, but not others, as each choice takes the nation in a very different direction. (...click for full text)


Choice 1: Fulfill the Suburban American Dream
In this view, the American Dream is set in the suburbs — typically in a single-family home with a basketball hoop in the driveway and a backyard for barbecues. But that dream is disappearing before Americans' eyes: superstores, strip malls, and subdivisions are proliferating chaotically in and around their communities, and roads are clogging with traffic and air pollution. So we've got to do a much better job planning growth in keeping with community interests. And we must stop public spending that promotes sprawl and use those funds to improve existing suburban communities.

What Can Be Done?
7
In Support & In Opposition
10


Choice 2: Strengthen Cities, Stop Sprawl at Its Source
Sprawl is essentially the roadside litter left by millions of Americans as they migrate farther and farther away from cities in a frustrating search for a "livable" community. In this view, the best way to stop sprawl is to prevent this pointless and maddening migration. We can do it by improving city services, especially the schools, and making cities safer and more comfortable places to live. This approach eliminates the primary reasons families move away from cities, where they enjoy an unbeatable variety of jobs, sports, schools, and theaters — as well as the opportunity to raise children in culturally diverse neighborhoods.
What Can Be Done?
12
In Support & In Opposition
15


Choice 3: Free Americans to Choose Lifestyles
Americans are an adventurous, mobile people who have been pioneering new places to live for centuries. As needs or interests change, people move to the city, suburb, or country. It's a natural, dynamic process — and the less government interferes, the better. That's because public planning and zoning create the actual grid for unappealing aspects of sprawl, including those look-alike strip malls that take the place of town centers. In this view, individuals need more freedom, not less, to shape their communities. It's time to roll back overly prescriptive regulations and public subsidies that prevent communities from developing naturally.
What Can Be Done?
17
In Support & In Opposition
20


Summary: Carrot, Stick, or Neither?
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Comparing the Choices
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What Are the National Issues Forums?
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Questionnaires: Register Your Views
25

Acknowledgements, Credits, and Ordering Information
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