Santa Barbara News Press
April 29, 2001

Population Dumbs down 'Smart Growth'
By B. Meredith Burke

The News Press's account of the recent board of supervisors meeting should frighten anyone who wants to safeguard the livability of this area.. Santa Barbarans scarcely need reminding that our coastal communities are experiencing a massive housing crunch. Julie Bornstein, director of the state Department of Housing and Community development, told supervisors and their audience that vacancy rates statewide are the lowest on record.

"We know the population is growing," she said. "There's no longer a good argument for refusing to supply that growth."

Since 1970 California's population has grown from 20 million to 35 million. If present trends continue we will reach 50 million by the mid-2020's: five times the state's ecologically sustainable level of 10 million, last seen in 1950.

That amount of growth will override all efforts by communities to control their physical futures. For instance, Santa Barbara will add 150,000-220,000 by 2030 under these projections.

The state is now offering cash–about $3,000 per unit–to encourage the construction of homes, particularly multi-gamily and affordable homes, in counties and cities that issue 12 percent more housing permits this year than their average of the past three years.

Central Valley cities such as Bakersfield and Fresno have relied upon sprawl to accommodate their huge population jumps. But coastal cities, usually ringed by mountains and hills, have experienced densification–another term for "smart growth." Densification is the ultimate goal of smart growth advocates, who assume continued American population growth. But densification has its limits.

Sprawl feeds on two components: per capita land consumption (for the myriad activities–business, administrative, recreational, transport–conducted in the community) and population numbers per se. A new study by Leon Kolankiewicz and Roy Beck of Numbersusa, a Washington, D.C., organization, disaggregates the contribution of these two forces. The authors used the area covered by the 100 largest Census Bureau-designated urbanized areas 1970 to 1990 (year 2000 figures are not yet available). They found that land use choices about how residents work, live, and dwell accounted for exactly half (49.7%) of the increased urban area in that period. The other half (50.3%) was due to sheer population increase.

Sprawl can and does occur where only one force increases. Eleven urbanized areas including Detroit, Pittsburgh (which lost 9.1 percent of its population 1970-1990), and New York including its suburbs had static or declining populations in that period. Yet these cities experienced an average of 26 percent more sprawl due to increased per capita land consumption.

Population growth can co-exist with decreasing per capita land consumption, i.e., increasing density. This described nearly all California's large cities. Los Angeles, the country's most densely populated urbanized area in 1990, had a mere 0.11 acre per resident, down 8 percent from 1970. But to sop up 3.1 million or 36 percent more residents Los Angeles's urbanized area expanded 25 percent.

Where both forces increased sprawl was far greater. Areas with more than 50 percent population growth and decreasing density registered an average of 112 percent more sprawl.

Santa Barbara was too small to be included in this study. But in having to choose between a breathable density with view of mountains and ocean, and increasing conversion of neighboring farm land, it is clear that some regulations have to give. We can look to Portland as an example of a city that has done everything right in terms of sprawl control but is being transformed by endless newcomers. After enacting a "UGB" (urban growth boundary) in 1979 Portland increased density sharply between 1980 and 1990. But its urbanized area grew 39 square miles (25,000 acres) in this same period, reflecting a population gain of 146,000. Year 2000 census data show that the Portland metropolitan area accounted for over half of the nearly 600,000 statewide population increase, the largest decadal jump on record. Density in downtown Portland has increased 30 percent even as the UGB pushes outward.

Preserving our physical environment from human encroachment requires attacking both forces feeding sprawl. Stopping population growth must re-emerge as a national priority. It was a prominent one on the first Earth Day in 1970 as activists urged "Zero Population Growth." Only two years later the Commission on Population Growth and the American Future urged Congress to adopt policies to stabilize U.S. population at its then-200 million.

Baby boomers indeed displayed below-replacement fertility. But Congress rejected demographic accountability for its actions. It stimulated the other variable producing growth: increasingly expansive, non-environmentally accountable immigration policies accounted for roughly half of the 80 million American residents gained since 1970.

Indeed, essentially all 21st century population growth will be due to post-1970 immigrants and their descendants. This promises to be massive. The Census Bureau's mid-level projections released in January, 2000, anticipated 300 million more Americans by the year 2100, a total of circa 570 million. But the results of the year 2000 census suggest we are following the path of its high series, which leads to one billion Americans in the year 2100! From whatever source, population growth today incurs more severe consequences than in 1970 due to our increased per capita resource consumption.

Neither community nor state can craft an effective land use policy without a national commitment to stabilize U.S. population. What local efforts can maintain a livable Santa Barbara if U.S. population tops one billion and state population, 100 million: our year 2100 destination if we don't put the brakes now on population growth? University of Colorado professor emeritus Albert Bartlett put it best: smart growth without population stabilization is like a first-class ticket on the Titanic. Guaranteeing livable communities for the many years to come requires both a national population policy and espousal of "smart growth" principles that discourage automobile-centered land use. We environmental activists must rouse Congress to craft a responsible national population and land use policy for this century and the ones to come.

B. Meredith Burke, a demographer, is Sr. Fellow, Californians for Population Stabilization (www.cap-s.org).