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The magic of sprawl? Decidedly unenchanting

By ROBERT TRIGAUX
Published April 1, 2005

I thought I was getting up early Thursday to hear two experts in Tampa discuss urban sprawl. But I must have gotten lost on the way and landed on the set of a Saturday Night Live skit.

"Urban sprawl is not the problem, but the solution," said a beaming Randall Holcombe, a Florida State University economics professor and a member of Gov. Jeb Bush's council of economic advisers.

Sprawl, Holcombe continued, increases the housing supply and keeps prices down. Sprawl, he said, reduces traffic congestion and disperses pollution. Sprawl, he added, works because it's cheaper to build new roads than fix old ones.

And it's just a myth that Florida is overdeveloped, that people in the suburbs commute to city centers, or that a mass transit system can relieve traffic congestion, he said.

Say what?

Have we had it all wrong? Is more and more urban sprawl actually the magic elixir to ensure a strong, long-term regional economy? In a year when the governor and state legislators say they want to improve growth management, is Professor Holcombe whispering this advice into the ear of Gov. Bush?

Holcombe spoke at a breakfast at the Hyatt Regency Downtown as part of a series on regional issues sponsored by the Trenam Kemker law firm. He was joined on the podium by Reid Ewing, a research professor at the National Center for Smart Growth at the University of Maryland.

Ewing is the Anti-Holcombe.

"I disagree with everything I heard," Ewing told Thursday's audience. "Sprawl affects the quality of life."

Sprawl stresses regional transportation systems, harms air quality and public health, and sacrifices land to low-density development, he warned.

"Growth management in Florida," said Ewing - who once worked for the state government - "has not been very successful."

I'm always up for a spirited debate, but I left the breakfast deflated. If prominent experts still are at opposite ends of the ideological spectrum on urban sprawl, how can Florida's government - one so easily swayed by lobbyists and campaign contributions - possibly do the right thing?

When you don't know where you're growing, any road will take you there.

Consider the wide range of development thinking now in vogue in Florida.

In Tallahassee, Bush claimed in his recent State of the State address that new development in Florida needs to be linked directly to the infrastructure of roads, water and schools that such development demands.

"Our motto for economic opportunity in Florida has been, "If you build it, they will come,' " Bush stated in his remarks. "But we have to build all of it, including the infrastructure to support them when they get here."

That sentiment was echoed in Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio's annual State of the City address this week. She focused her remarks on efforts to revitalize the city's downtown, and to find ways to reduce the heavy traffic that increasingly clogs Tampa highways at rush hour.

"We have lousy mass transit. We have got to improve it," she said.

At the same time, state legislators were busy listening to developers and farmers. Developers complain Florida land near metro areas such as Tampa Bay has become too expensive. Farmers and citrus growers say they want more legal freedom to sell their increasingly high-priced acreage.

Earlier this week, the state House of Representatives passed the Agriculture and Economic Development Act. The measure, which awaits Senate attention, makes it tougher for local governments to stop development on agricultural land if 75 percent of adjacent acreage is developed.

Conventional antisprawl thinking says rampant low-density development, left unchecked, will eventually turn any metro area into a grotesque, 24-hour gridlock. Think Los Angeles. Or Tampa Bay in 2015.

Holcombe represents part of the antisprawl backlash. In a tour of Tampa's downtown, the professor cited the redevelopment efforts but noted a bunch of $240,000 condos won't do much to help the average Florida family.

With state government statistics showing about 190 people a day moving here - that's 1,330 people a week, more than 5,300 a month - the Tampa Bay area needs lots of new housing. And much of it needs to be reasonably affordable.

The honest outlook? Tampa Bay has no clue of the coming sprawl.

But there are hints. Like sitting bumper to bumper on the Tampa side of the Howard Frankland Bridge, or squeezing through Malfunction Junction, where Interstates 4 and 275 connect, trying to get downtown, at 8:30 a.m. on a workday morning.

Nationwide, the average one-way commute took 24.3 minutes in 2003, two minutes more than it did in 1990, according to a Census Bureau survey released this week.

Which Tampa Bay area county has the highest average one-way commuting time in that survey? Pasco County, at 28.5 minutes. Hillsborough County was less at 24.2 minutes, and Pinellas County was 23.1 minutes. Don't look for those commuting times to improve.

At Thursday's breakfast, one listener asked Holcombe: If urban sprawl is such a great thing, can he name any "great" cities that "embrace" sprawl?

"Tampa," the FSU professor said.

The answer did not sit well. Sprawl, we got. Embrace it, we do not.

[Last modified April 1, 2005, 00:36:19]