Bigger, Faster, Stronger, Cleaner: Post-Sprawl, Post-Downturn Economics

Five top Democratic governors have called for a larger stimulus package than is presently being called for in Washington, precisely to fill in the gaps created by a loss of tax revenue in the states.

To help offset state budget cuts, a group of Democratic governors urged the federal government Friday to pass a $1 trillion economic stimulus package, significantly larger than the one under discussion in Congress.

The package would help states compensate for cuts to education spending that could cause long-term economic decline, as well as bolster infrastructure projects and benefits programs for the poor, the governors from New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Ohio and Wisconsin said in a news conference [...]

The governors recommended that the stimulus plan include $350 billion for infrastructure, including transportation, wastewater and broadband projects; $250 billion for anti-poverty programs such as Medicaid, unemployment insurance, food stamps and child care; $250 billion in flexible education spending to maintain funding for programs from pre-kindergarten to higher education; and middle-class tax cuts.

The money, disbursed over two years, would offset cuts needed to balance state budgets and would serve as a "bridge" until 2011, by which time the governors hope the economy will have recovered, said Massachusetts Gov. Deval L. Patrick.

Predictably, the Republican Governor's Association called it a "bailout" of the general funds of the various states.

Well, yes. The states, by and large, did not have the ability to get out from under the financial meltdown, and the consequent economic downturn that resulted shouldn't disproportionately affect the least of their citizens. Furthermore, given that the road to recovery is massive fiscal stimulus, having states cutting back on spending at this time, be it infrastructure, education or healthcare, is completely counterproductive and will do nothing but prolong the agony.

In the future, it will take more than backfilling state budget cuts in a downturn, but a more structured system, like a "Federal Infrastructure Finance Corporation," to ensure that state assets aren't sold off to private interests during a downturn. The days of creative borrowing and the crossing of fingers are over. We need new structures to manage economic volatility and avoid fiscal traps, PARTICULARLY in California, where the tax system too closely mirrors the boom and bust cycle.

In the near term, I imagine something like this will pass. Barack Obama today put out a call for "strategic investments" to create jobs and improve the long-term economic outlook simultaneously. The question locally is whether California's plans will actually accomplish that. CalPIRG is criticizing the state's wish list, saying that it relies too much on increasing highway and road capacity and not enough on cleaner energy investments:

The California Public Interest Research Group reports that the state plans to spend 31% of road money on creating new capacity instead of addressing long-deferred maintenance and repair projects. By contrast, the group said, Massachusetts would commit 100% of its road funds to repairs.

"We can't afford to waste precious resources on new highways at the expense of ready-to-go projects to repair and maintain existing roads and bridges and expand public transportation," said spokeswoman Erin Steva.

The group also faulted the California Department of Transportation's list, saying that only 37% of the funds would flow to public transportation. The group called for a higher percentage, citing the record ridership on California's mass transit systems, which have been hit by severe cutbacks in recent years. The proposed percentage is less than what is being planned in Tennessee, Wisconsin and Massachusetts, CALPIRG said.

It is elemental that the stimulus spending cannot prop up an unsustainable growth model based on sprawl. Experts up and down the state understand this, and one of the best examples is in this Merced Sun-Star editorial, which nicely explains the tension between speed and smarts:

The problem for the planners is that the stimulus must be geared toward putting people to work as fast as possible. That, many believe, argues for the traditional sort of public works, such as highways.

In many cases, plans are already in place to replace crumbling roads, highways and bridges. By contrast, plans for urban transit systems and intercity high-speed rail are less firm, meaning it may take more time to actually start turning dirt and generating paychecks [...]

We're confident that a solution exists that puts people to work right away and also lays the groundwork for a new approach to the nation's transportation needs.

It won't be easy, but it has to happen. We can't continue to simply build more transportation infrastructure on a model that's now more than a half-century old.

A new model for transportation is part of the change we need.

Read the whole thing. One good idea calls for phased stimulus spending, giving enough for critical highway and road repairs at the start, with the bulk coming later for transit and rail projects.

Great Developments in Emission Reduction

This happened a couple days ago, but as it's crucial that the clean-truck program at two of the nation's busiest ports go forward, I think it's significant:

A federal court judge in Los Angeles on Monday tentatively denied a trucking association's bid to block a landmark clean-truck program at the nation's busiest port complex.

After a 40-minute hearing, U.S. District Judge Christina Snyder said she would probably allow the program to move forward, despite objections from truckers.

"The balance of hardships and the public interest tip decidedly in favor of denying the injunction," she said in court.

Under the program, the adjacent ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach would upgrade their aging fleet of about 16,800 mostly dilapidated rigs that produce much of the diesel pollution in Southern California.

Though the American Trucking Association is opposing the bill and filed the attempted injunction, the clean-ports program was borne of a true blue-green alliance between labor and environmental groups, which is the next level of how we're going to fight climate change in this country and build millions of new green-collar jobs. The courts are now on the record as saying that reducing greenhouse gas emissions are in the public interest. And the ATA is being a little coy here - a good number of the trucking firms are already upgrading, so their injunction effort was meant to satisfy a few big corporations. It didn't work.

The second exciting development is SB 375, which for the first time links emissions to urban planning, and could easily become a model for the nation. We have to make sure it's signed into law, of course, but if and when it is, it will represent a great leap forward for the environment, live/work issues, quality of life, and traffic reduction.

The measure, known as SB375, aims to give existing and new high-density centers where people live, work and shop top priority in receiving local, state and federal transportation funds. The idea is that such developments check sprawl and ease commutes, in turn cutting the car pollution wafting through the Golden State.

Authored by Sen. Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), the bill reflects California's push to slash its greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2020. Sponsors say the measure is part of a much-needed growth policy for a state whose population is expected to swell to 50 million from the current 38 million in two decades.

"Many places across the country have realized that if you just build spread-out developments, with the expectation that everyone will have to drive for everything, it should be no surprise when the result is excessive burning of gasoline," said David Goldberg, spokesman for Smart Growth America, a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit group that helps cities and towns plan more workable, environmentally friendly growth.

"SB375 breaks new ground, because it specifically links that pattern of development to excess driving and what we need to do to address climate change," he said.

Instead of trying to capture more resources every time there's an energy shortage, we can reorganize our lives to maximize existing resources while making our lifestyles far less stressful and more pleasant. It's the solution that works on all fronts.

The budget madness is super-depressing, but these developments are cause for optimism.

Density Comes To California

Via Matt Yglesias and Atrios, the city of Sebastopol is thinking about supporting increased density in their upcoming development plans.

The Sebastopol City Council kicked off deliberations of a controversial redevelopment plan Tuesday with a majority of members voicing support for higher-density buildings as the most environmentally sound approach.

"Density is what makes transit feasible, giving us the option of getting out of our cars," said Councilman Larry Robinson [...]

The redevelopment plan would allow 300 residential units and nearly 400,000 square feet of new business and civic space between the Laguna de Santa Rosa and downtown.

Supporters have said the plan encourages the most environmentally sound method of development and would help add economic vitality to the city.

This approach is not without critics. There remain those who consider tall buildings an urban blight, think that all development comes with traffic woes and want to maintain local "character" when talking about growth.

The point here is that we have to start to re-orient to a different kind of lifestyle. If basic necessities are within walking distance and a strong transit spoke can build out from denser development, the traffic problems are eliminated, the quality of life goes up, and people can get around and get to work without the need for their cars. Santa Monica is a pretty dense city, with several points of interest and commercial shops within walking distance and a strong bus system. It's not Manhattan and it doesn't have to be. But there's less of a reliance on the automobile, and ultimately reducing that reliance is the key to making us energy secure.

The alternative is areas like the Inland Empire, where runaway sprawl and persistent construction of single-family homes is not only unsustainable, it's unaffordable, as the mortgage crisis and soaring energy costs turn these developments into ghost towns. With 200 dollar-a-barrel oil on the horizon, urban planning simply cannot retain the status quo and expect to survive. There isn't one complete answer here - telecommuting and Internet delivery, increased mass transit (I can't wait for my subway to the sea), and density will all play a role. But we cannot sacrifice any of those options in the name of NIMBYism.