“Smart Growth” and Land Use Issues

There are a number of issues having to do with land use that are affected by “Smart Growth”. The biggest excuse that “Smart Growth” advocates use for all their madness is the issue of how much land we have left in the United States. There are also many issues that have to do with land and property rights, however we will not touch on those as they are covered in depth on our Property Rights page.

“Smart Growth” advocates say that we’re living an “unsustainable lifestyle” and in so doing we’re running out of land, and more importantly that we’re running out of farmland. However, a quick check of the facts shows just how foolishly inaccurate that is. In the 400 years since this country was founded we have developed about 5% of the land area of the 48 contiguous United States. Even the federal government admits that development has had a trivial impact on land use in this country. As for the farmland situation, because of farm productivity improvements more farmland than the area of Texas and Oklahoma combined have been taken out of cropland and returned to open space since 1950. We’re actually gaining farmland. Also, between 1976 and 1996, one-and-a- half acres of land have been set aside for green space, or parks for every acre that was developed. The United States Department of Agriculture says that development is no threat to our food supply at all. An October 1999 Department of Agriculture report noted that “Crop land converted to urban uses is small relative to total crop land.”

Next come the land purchases. Federal and state governments already own over 18% of the land in Wisconsin, and now communities are getting into the act. The tiny farming community of Dunn is a perfect example of this. The Town of Dunn, which has a population of just over 5400 citizens, has spent over $3 million taxpayer dollars purchasing land, or the development rights to land, since they began their “Purchasing Development Rights” program in 1997. But the cost of these purchases is much worse then the dollars and cents spent for the land, it’s the fact that more land is out of the private individuals. As important as the issue of property rights, and the loss of them under “Smart Growth”, their loss would mean nothing if there isn’t any land worth owning the property rights to. The government should not be buying huge tracks of land, or any rights to those lands, for the sole purpose of keeping that land out of the hands of private individuals.

In the Town of Rutland, in south Dane County, a farmer who owns 100 acre of land can not give his 4 children a piece of that land so they can build their homes on the family farm. He is only allowed to split off pieces of his land 3 times, and there’s no way around it.

In a county in Virginia only farmers are allowed to live outside the urban growth boundaries that surround the urban areas. A person must make at least $80,000 a year farming to be allowed to live in the country.

Central City Comeback Dwarfed by Suburban Growth Data (PDF Document)

Portland's Ballooning Urban Growth Boundary: A Chartbook

American Dream Boundaries: Urban Containment & its Consequences By Wendell Cox

Corridors & Wedges: Los Angeles Far More Dense than Portland

APA's Growing Smart Home Forfeiture Agenda Heritage Foundation

Land Use and Obesity: The Deceptive Campaign

Sierra Club exposes 'smart growth' madness By Randal O'Toole

Census Bureau: 94.6 Percent of U.S. Is Rural Open Space