The Conservative Case for Transit

All too often support for transit is seen as a liberal weenie tree-hugger phenomenon.  While I share the view that protecting the world we live in is a moral imperative, It makes it too easy for conservatives to dismiss it in favor of their SUVs.  However, there's actually a very compelling argument for public transportation rooted in conservative principles.  David Schaengold of Plumb Lines makes a nice case for transit and neourbanism that I've made previously here and here.

Consider how small businesses are affected by Americans’ dependency on cars. Since businesses are obliged by zoning restrictions to locate far away from residential areas, most Americans drive to every store they visit. This means that store visits are often discrete trips that must be undertaken consciously and planned out ahead of time. As a consequence, shoppers will want to visit stores that carry the most diverse inventory—Wal-Mart, Costco, et al.—and avoid shops that specialize in one particular kind of good—the local paint store or flower shop, for instance.

Isn't it ironic that small towns, my own included, that fight so hard to preserve small business and against big box chain stores are in fact actively promoting conditions that favor the corporate invaders?  We often fight to preserve the "character" of our community by sanitizing our residential neighborhoods of all things commercial destroying the character of that community in the process.  Cul-de-sac's do more to hurt our communities than corner stores.  Which do you find more of these days?

David goes on to note that these conditions make entrepreneurship a remote possibility, in effect killing the "ownership society" conservatives would prefer to create. 

Does this mean we should trash our zoning codes to help transit and small business?  No.  Unfortunately our society is so set up to favor the automobile and in turn, strip malls... we'd simply see their impacts become more offensive.  But we do have to change the way we think about zoning.  Euclidean zoning (that's planner geekspeak for separating uses from each other) has to be limited to rural areas.  We should allow different uses and instead regulate intensity of use.  We have a tendency in local government to project our own tastes and desires on land use policy.  If we don't think that people would want to live in a noisy industrial area or in business districts, our policies reflect that.  In fact many people would be more than happy to live in such places if they could.  The decline of affordable housing is a direct result of this misguided attempt to "protect" our homes from the hum of our communties.

In short, we're loving our cities to death.