Q & A with Urban Planner Emily Talen of Arizona State University

Yes, I would say that is true. I have no problem with the characterization.

There is indeed overlap between liberals and conservatives on the issue of big government investing in the wrong kind of things – nobody likes it. By the same token, I agree with my conservative colleagues in fostering a bottom-up entrepreneurship that allows a fine-grained community to thrive at every economic level. We all want to get rid of the rules and regulations that impede small-scale urbanism.

The ideological gulf comes with the right’s romanticized view of free enterprise. They believe that if you just get big government out of the way, good urbanism will follow. In a market economy, the notion that high-quality, richly serviced, walkable neighborhoods will somehow spontaneously supply affordable housing and social diversity is ludicrous. You must have a public component to achieve both affordable housing and public spaces. And these things are not optional if you want successful urbanism. Economic and social diversity underpin urban sustainability.

Obama has been a disappointment. He still talks about building highways in the same breath as he mentions rails and public transportation. There have been too many highways built under Obama. If I were in charge of the Department of Transportation (DOT), we would invest in commuter rail and streetcars and immediately cease and desist building more highways. In fact, I’d get the DOT into the business of tearing down highways that go through neighborhoods, and there would plenty of good jobs in demolition.

If there was a private sector large and rich enough to do this, the corporations would be so large that they would be just as inefficient as the federal government. This sort of inefficiency is a product of size, not public vs. private interests. Look, there’s too little, not too much, federal involvement in transit and affordable housing. We do a fraction of what other countries do in terms of investment in affordable housing and public transit and need to do a lot more.

We all agree in getting rid of bad regulations, such as eliminating zoning rules that inhibit retail in residential neighborhoods and ridiculous parking requirements. I’m not suggesting we get rid of every law: we may not want car repair in the front yard, but it may be OK in the back. We need to take care of the public realm, but relax what can be done. You do this by putting in place design-oriented rules that allow for greater flexibility of use while still protecting the public space.

I’d start with a very practical reconciliation that does not require congressional approval. I’m actually working on it right now, and that’s trying to bridge the artificial chasm that’s developed between the nonprofit community land trust groups devoted to creating affordable housing and the design-biased New Urbanists. These two camps had joint roots in the 19th century but then diverged.

A community land trust (CLT) is a private, nonprofit organization that owns land for the purpose of providing affordable housing. New Urbanists should take advantage of the growing CLT movement for the simple reason that our best urban places are currently unaffordable and often exclusive.

Successful community building needs to be open to all levels. The mixed income component is foundational. You can’t get all the other benefits in a community if it’s not economically and culturally inclusive. New Urbanism tends to be higher-income / affluent, but unless there’s an affordable housing component (which is now very limited), the long-term success of this movement will suffer. These two movements need to reconnect. Government can help by getting out of the rule-making business while providing economic support to affordable housing and public transit.