The American family farm gives way to a subdivision - a critical cultural…
Save Our Land, Save Our Towns
- Description
- Reviews
- Citation
- Cataloging
- Transcript
Vibrant towns or sprawl? Small town newsman (and Pulitzer Prize winner) Tom Hylton explores how America can save its cities, towns, and countryside in this one-hour program.
Save Our Land, Save Our Towns taps into a growing concern about sprawl among ordinary Americans. A poll by the Pew Center for Civic Journalism recently found that sprawl ranks with crime, taxes, and education as the top domestic concern of citizens across the country.
Americans are frustrated with traffic congestion, angry about the loss of open space, and perplexed by the decline of America's cities. Many think sprawl is inevitable. But it's not.
Save Our Land, Save Our Towns is a story of hope -- logical reasons why America's towns can be rebuilt and its countryside preserved from strip malls and subdivisions. The program is designed to be engaging and personal -- a voyage of discovery, rather than a mere recitation of facts, with moments of revelation, humor and emotion.
Filmed in Pennsylvania, England, Oregon, and North Carolina.
'Development and zoning issues normally make the eyes glaze...Tom Hylton makes them downright fascinating...You'll never look at a city or suburb the same way again.' Philadelphia Daily News
'This superb documentary examines causes and effects of...expanding suburban sprawl.' TV Guide
'Brightly written, tightly organized and cleverly illustrated, and if Hylton doesn't have suburbanites hanging For Sale signs on their McMansions at the end of the show, he may at least have them thinking about it.' Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
'Highly recommended...' MC Journal
'A compelling examination of the causes and effects of suburban sprawl, along with thoughtful recommendations and effective solutions for curbing the environmental and social consequences of this high-profile issue.' Midwest Book Review
'Save Our Lands is a valuable tool in the war against sprawl.' Ross Moldoff, APA Journal
Citation
Main credits
Eitzen, Dirk (film producer)
Eitzen, Dirk (film director)
Hylton, Thomas (host)
Other credits
Photographer, Max Zug, Sid Fox; music Simon Andrews.
Distributor subjects
Air Pollution; American Studies; Community; Consumerism; Design; Economics; Environment; Environmental Ethics; History; Humanities; Land Use; Law; Local Economies; Population; Public Policy; Science, Technology, Society; Social Studies; Sociology; Sprawl; Sustainability; Transportation; Urban Studies; Urban and Regional PlanningKeywords
WEBVTT
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.000
[sil.]
00:00:10.000 --> 00:00:14.999
Imagine that some foreign power seized our
cities, tore down our best neighborhoods
00:00:15.000 --> 00:00:19.999
and forced us to be nomads
in our own country.
00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:24.999
We’d be imprisoned in our cars, separated
from our loved ones by great distances
00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:29.999
and made to watch helplessly as our
farms and forests were laid waste by
00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:35.000
bulldozers and backhoes. Why there’d be
a revolution? Isn’t that right? Right.
00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:49.999
When my mom is here visiting,
she just can’t get
00:00:50.000 --> 00:00:54.999
over the amount of time that I spend
in the car. You plan your life
00:00:55.000 --> 00:00:59.999
around the schedules and the drives and
where you’re going. Uh… you look around
00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:04.999
on the ground, the day you see broken
bottles, you see leaves, you see trash,
00:01:05.000 --> 00:01:09.999
you know, drugs on that corner. People would
not work and so it’s like they don’t care.
00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:14.999
You see this house in the middle of a field and
you think, \"Why?\" You know, there’s development.
00:01:15.000 --> 00:01:19.999
Why must you wreck a whole farm?
There’s no large area of… of
00:01:20.000 --> 00:01:24.999
open space left in this entire area.
I can’t think of one.
00:01:25.000 --> 00:01:29.999
Now, it’s just house after house uh… you know,
pavement after pavement, stretching in a pavement.
00:01:30.000 --> 00:01:34.999
And you start when you’re going
through the orthodontist. You start
00:01:35.000 --> 00:01:39.999
\"You know, will a 4 o’clock appointment be fine, Mrs.
Whitlatch?\" Well, no, not a 4 o’clock appointment
00:01:40.000 --> 00:01:44.999
coming down Fruitville Pike or even nuts. The
people that have moved in here like us to…
00:01:45.000 --> 00:01:49.999
keep the farms open so that
they can snowmobile or hunt,
00:01:50.000 --> 00:01:54.999
but we, we’re not supposed to be on the road when they wanna
go to work. You don’t see the… the grandmothers today
00:01:55.000 --> 00:01:59.999
because they’re hostages and they’re
at homes. They’re afraid to come out.
00:02:00.000 --> 00:02:04.999
Uh… It’s like we don’t have
control about community today.
00:02:05.000 --> 00:02:09.999
I’m Tom Hilton and this is my house
of 27 years, 222 Chestnut Street,
00:02:10.000 --> 00:02:14.999
Pottstown, Pennsylvania. From
the front door of my house,
00:02:15.000 --> 00:02:19.999
this is what I see, a parking lot.
00:02:20.000 --> 00:02:24.999
Beneath that asphalt lies the thread
connecting all the stories you just heard.
00:02:25.000 --> 00:02:29.999
When my wife and I moved here back in 1973,
00:02:30.000 --> 00:02:34.999
I was starting out as a reporter for the local
newspaper, The Mercury, and my wife got a job
00:02:35.000 --> 00:02:39.999
teaching at the local elementary school. This house
was perfect for us. The paper where I work was
00:02:40.000 --> 00:02:44.999
just a block away and my wife’s
school was just a 15 minute walk.
00:02:45.000 --> 00:02:49.999
And across the street, on the side of that
parking lot, was a beautiful old high school
00:02:50.000 --> 00:02:54.999
which had been converted
into a middle school.
00:02:55.000 --> 00:02:59.999
I love the sounds of the kids milling outside
in the morning. I like listening to the music
00:03:00.000 --> 00:03:04.999
wafting out the auditorium doors on warm days.
Thinking of all the kids who would go in there
00:03:05.000 --> 00:03:09.999
over the years, the fountains of
powerful memories that were born there
00:03:10.000 --> 00:03:14.999
right across from my house. It broke
my heart when they tore it down.
00:03:15.000 --> 00:03:19.999
Declining involvements, they said.
Now, it’s just rubble under here
00:03:20.000 --> 00:03:24.999
and my neighborhoods never been the same.
What really outraged me was
00:03:25.000 --> 00:03:29.999
even as the wrecking ball swung,
00:03:30.000 --> 00:03:34.999
the suburban school district just outside
of town was building a new middle school
00:03:35.000 --> 00:03:39.999
at a cost of millions of dollars
on what had been farmland.
00:03:40.000 --> 00:03:44.999
Skyrocketing in Wyomissing,
just a couple of miles away
00:03:45.000 --> 00:03:49.999
and it wasn’t just Pottstown, it was
all over America. My whole life,
00:03:50.000 --> 00:03:54.999
I’d been seeing wonderful towns being torn down
bit by bit while we covered the countryside
00:03:55.000 --> 00:03:59.999
with strip malls and subdivisions.
I couldn’t understand
00:04:00.000 --> 00:04:04.999
why we were doing this? Why
it had to be this way?
00:04:05.000 --> 00:04:09.999
So I started to study it and write
editorials about it to figure it all out.
00:04:10.000 --> 00:04:14.999
It’s been a long journey which
is what this program is about.
00:04:15.000 --> 00:04:19.999
But one thing I knew even then, when
they tore down my neighborhood school,
00:04:20.000 --> 00:04:24.999
they weren’t just tearing down a building,
they were tearing down heritage, community,
00:04:25.000 --> 00:04:29.999
stability, everything that’s precious
00:04:30.000 --> 00:04:34.999
about a traditional town like Pottstown.
00:04:35.000 --> 00:04:39.999
[music]
00:04:40.000 --> 00:04:44.999
My love for traditional towns began
here, Wyomissing, Pennsylvania,
00:04:45.000 --> 00:04:49.999
where I was born, a town of
big trees and cozy streets.
00:04:50.000 --> 00:04:54.999
I joined our first, 4th of July parade
00:04:55.000 --> 00:04:59.999
when I was one year old. 50 years
later, it’s still going strong.
00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:04.999
Wyomissing has become a
pretty exclusive place,
00:05:05.000 --> 00:05:09.999
but it began as a factory town.
00:05:10.000 --> 00:05:14.999
My mother moved here as a toddler in 1918, when the town
was just starting to take form. We were the second half,
00:05:15.000 --> 00:05:19.999
the second family to move there, but in
about a year, all the houses were sold
00:05:20.000 --> 00:05:24.999
and I had plenty of playmates. Wyomissing
was started by two German industrialists,
00:05:25.000 --> 00:05:29.999
Henry Janssen and Ferdinand Thun, to be the
home of their Berkshire Knitting Mills,
00:05:30.000 --> 00:05:34.999
at one time, the largest manufacturer
of women’s hosiery in the world.
00:05:35.000 --> 00:05:39.999
Janssen, and Thun, didn’t think of mill
town had to be dirty, noisy and unpleasant.
00:05:40.000 --> 00:05:44.999
They hired the foremost town
planner of their day, John Nolen
00:05:45.000 --> 00:05:49.999
who laid out Wyomissing with tree lined
streets, and parks, and schools.
00:05:50.000 --> 00:05:54.999
Wyomissing had all the elements of
society in less than one square mile.
00:05:55.000 --> 00:05:59.999
Our little rural house was just three blocks
from the mansions of Janssen and Thun,
00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:04.999
and just two blocks from the Berkshire.
We walked to school. And we would
00:06:05.000 --> 00:06:09.999
uh… you know, pick up people as we went along and we’d get
to school in a great big group. It was a very nice way.
00:06:10.000 --> 00:06:14.999
And then we came home at noon,
daddy came home for… for lunch
00:06:15.000 --> 00:06:19.999
and my mother had the meal ready on
the table 12:15 and we had lunch
00:06:20.000 --> 00:06:24.999
and we didn’t have to hurry and then we got
back to school by 1 o’clock. My father died
00:06:25.000 --> 00:06:29.999
at a young age and my family in
reduced financial circumstances
00:06:30.000 --> 00:06:34.999
moved to an apartment in nearby
Reading, a city of 100,000 people.
00:06:35.000 --> 00:06:39.999
Like other American cities at that time, Reading was
perfectly safe. I walked to all my friends’ houses.
00:06:40.000 --> 00:06:44.999
I walked to school where I
had a wide range of friends
00:06:45.000 --> 00:06:49.999
from the son of a janitor to the daughter of a
neurosurgeon. There were adults in my life too.
00:06:50.000 --> 00:06:54.999
At least once a week, I would walk to my
grandmother’s apartment on North 10th Street.
00:06:55.000 --> 00:06:59.999
I’d run errands for here at the corner store usually,
I have at least 12 cents left over for a tasty cake.
00:07:00.000 --> 00:07:04.999
In the mornings on the way to school,
00:07:05.000 --> 00:07:09.999
I’d admire all the beautiful big houses
on center Avenue. I never felt poor
00:07:10.000 --> 00:07:14.999
even though we didn’t have much money. I fully
expected that someday, I’d own a big house
00:07:15.000 --> 00:07:19.999
like one of these. But 35 years later,
00:07:20.000 --> 00:07:24.999
Reading’s changed. My old elementary school
00:07:25.000 --> 00:07:29.999
is now a mini mart, the
factories are vacant,
00:07:30.000 --> 00:07:34.999
the downtown stores are gone,
00:07:35.000 --> 00:07:39.999
the theatres I frequented on Saturday
afternoons are parking lots,
00:07:40.000 --> 00:07:44.999
the neighborhoods have declined, and
the crime rate is among the highest
00:07:45.000 --> 00:07:49.999
in Pennsylvania.
00:07:50.000 --> 00:07:54.999
But, no city filled as far
as fast as Philadelphia.
00:07:55.000 --> 00:07:59.999
This is the Germantown
section of Philadelphia.
00:08:00.000 --> 00:08:04.999
In the 1950s, it was one of the most
fashionable neighborhoods in Pennsylvania.
00:08:05.000 --> 00:08:09.999
Then in the 1960s, like schools
divided Philadelphia neighborhoods,
00:08:10.000 --> 00:08:14.999
it started to go downhill.
00:08:15.000 --> 00:08:19.999
My wife who lived in Nice town(ph), walked to
Germantown shell which was about a 60 block walk.
00:08:20.000 --> 00:08:24.999
Civic leader, Joe Egan grew up in the
working class neighborhood of Hunting Park.
00:08:25.000 --> 00:08:29.999
If you look at six street here right… right down, we were
coming up to, you had grocery stores, you had taverns,
00:08:30.000 --> 00:08:34.999
you had bakeries. Everything was here.
And you could walk there easily.
00:08:35.000 --> 00:08:39.999
I could walk in this area any time in
night, any time a day, absolutely safe,
00:08:40.000 --> 00:08:44.999
and any section in this neighborhood, any
time during the ‘30s, ‘40s and ‘50s.
00:08:45.000 --> 00:08:49.999
You could walk to school, uh…
you could walk to your cleaner,
00:08:50.000 --> 00:08:54.999
you could walk to your baker. Umm… it…
it had, it had a… a scale about it,
00:08:55.000 --> 00:08:59.999
it made it very easy to live here.
In addition to that, the housing was
00:09:00.000 --> 00:09:04.999
very inexpensive and nice, straight
through, good quality stuff, even today,
00:09:05.000 --> 00:09:09.999
with all of the deterioration. There had housing staff,
you know, and this area is absolutely beautiful.
00:09:10.000 --> 00:09:14.999
You no longer have the jobs here anymore because the
industry that was here in the ‘30s, ‘40s and ‘50s is gone.
00:09:15.000 --> 00:09:19.999
It’s either in south or it’s off shore
completely. Okay, and when you saw,
00:09:20.000 --> 00:09:24.999
you know, apex or… or Keeblur, or SKF,
00:09:25.000 --> 00:09:29.999
and you saw that a lot, that those losses
of major industries and you could see
00:09:30.000 --> 00:09:34.999
the… the… the economics leave the neighborhood,
and then that led to the physical deterioration.
00:09:35.000 --> 00:09:39.999
I think one of the issues to the
wild card in cities is drugs.
00:09:40.000 --> 00:09:44.999
I don’t think anybody understood the impact of that
and enormity of the scale destruction that it’s run.
00:09:45.000 --> 00:09:49.999
I think fear is deadly to a city.
I think once you have fear,
00:09:50.000 --> 00:09:54.999
if people have an option
to move, they will move.
00:09:55.000 --> 00:09:59.999
Since World War II, the
city has lost more than
00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:04.999
a half million residents, most
of the middle class whites.
00:10:05.000 --> 00:10:09.999
Companies moved out just as quickly.
In 1960, Philadelphia had 2/3rd of
00:10:10.000 --> 00:10:14.999
the region’s employment that was
before it lost 250,000 jobs.
00:10:15.000 --> 00:10:19.999
As more of the city’s businesses
and productive citizens
00:10:20.000 --> 00:10:24.999
abandon the city, they fueled
a vicious downward trend.
00:10:25.000 --> 00:10:29.999
To compensate for declining tax base, the
city raised taxes and lowered services
00:10:30.000 --> 00:10:34.999
which drove away more businesses and middle class
residents. And when the middle class moved out
00:10:35.000 --> 00:10:39.999
taking their jobs with them, what
was left behind in many cases
00:10:40.000 --> 00:10:44.999
was the shell of the city. This is the (inaudible)
hotel. It was once an apartment building
00:10:45.000 --> 00:10:49.999
for middle class people that unfortunately,
it’s been abandoned for 30 years.
00:10:50.000 --> 00:10:54.999
Since 1950, we’ve lost uh… close
to 30% of the population.
00:10:55.000 --> 00:10:59.999
So we have housing units that
00:11:00.000 --> 00:11:04.999
uh… people don’t seem to want or don’t seem to need
anymore, and this has really placed a terrible burden
00:11:05.000 --> 00:11:09.999
on the city. We believe there’re about
22,000 vacant residential buildings
00:11:10.000 --> 00:11:14.999
in the city right now, umm… and about
00:11:15.000 --> 00:11:19.999
uh… 30,000 vacant lots that resulted from the demolition
of vacant houses that… that couldn’t be saved.
00:11:20.000 --> 00:11:24.999
The white middle class
also left behind the poor,
00:11:25.000 --> 00:11:29.999
African-Americans, Hispanics
and recent immigrants.
00:11:30.000 --> 00:11:34.999
Today, 70% of the students in the
Philadelphia School District
00:11:35.000 --> 00:11:39.999
come from poor families. To be
a child in this neighborhood
00:11:40.000 --> 00:11:44.999
umm… you know that safety is an
issue, and so… you’re not playing out
00:11:45.000 --> 00:11:49.999
on the street on a regular basis.
Uh… the other day, you might see,
00:11:50.000 --> 00:11:54.999
you know, drug activity on a regular
basis, walk by it, uh… homelessness,
00:11:55.000 --> 00:11:59.999
uh… there’s shootings and
uh… gun shots are heard.
00:12:00.000 --> 00:12:04.999
All of those things become natural to children who live in
this neighborhood. There’s no basketball place to go play at,
00:12:05.000 --> 00:12:09.999
there’re no trips or… or day camps and
things that keep kids busy. So what happens,
00:12:10.000 --> 00:12:14.999
7th and 8th graders get busy, and we
know what that is, they do get busy by
00:12:15.000 --> 00:12:19.999
uh… playing with each other or
they get busy by dealing drugs
00:12:20.000 --> 00:12:24.999
or all those kind of things because that’s
what’s available to them. Over a period of
00:12:25.000 --> 00:12:29.999
250 years, a wonderful
and efficient system of
00:12:30.000 --> 00:12:34.999
housing and employment for more than two
million people evolved in Philadelphia.
00:12:35.000 --> 00:12:39.999
Center City Philadelphia remains vibrant,
00:12:40.000 --> 00:12:44.999
but slowly, inexorably, the
neighborhood surrounding Center City
00:12:45.000 --> 00:12:49.999
began to die and it
wasn’t just Philadelphia.
00:12:50.000 --> 00:12:54.999
Hundreds of American cities and towns
of lost population since the 1950s,
00:12:55.000 --> 00:12:59.999
owes accompanied by roading neighborhoods
and dilapidated buildings.
00:13:00.000 --> 00:13:04.999
In Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh lost nearly half its
population. Scranton, Johnstown Easton Harrisburg,
00:13:05.000 --> 00:13:09.999
Chester, Williamsport, York, Altoona,
and Reading, all lost anywhere
00:13:10.000 --> 00:13:14.999
from the third to a half
of their population.
00:13:15.000 --> 00:13:19.999
Meanwhile, the countryside surrounding these cities
was experiencing a different kind of crisis.
00:13:20.000 --> 00:13:24.999
When the 422 bypass was finished
00:13:25.000 --> 00:13:29.999
and the 202 around Norristown, (inaudible),
00:13:30.000 --> 00:13:34.999
100 was straightened out, if all that
pressure started get created in here.
00:13:35.000 --> 00:13:39.999
For five generations, Horace Mowrer’s family
tilt the soil of Northern Chester County
00:13:40.000 --> 00:13:44.999
about 40 miles outside Philadelphia.
That my great grandfather my grandfather
00:13:45.000 --> 00:13:49.999
and my father and myself and my son.
But in 1988, he sold his farm
00:13:50.000 --> 00:13:54.999
and moved west to Huntington County.
It was hard to leave,
00:13:55.000 --> 00:13:59.999
but the fact that I’ve, if I wanted the farm,
I was gonna have to go farm somewhere else.
00:14:00.000 --> 00:14:04.999
What happened to Horace Mowrer has been happening
to farmers all over Southeastern Pennsylvania.
00:14:05.000 --> 00:14:09.999
In the last 25 years, the area has lost
00:14:10.000 --> 00:14:14.999
a quarter of its farmland, even
as its population decreased by
00:14:15.000 --> 00:14:19.999
a 150,000 residents. State
wide, Pennsylvania has lost
00:14:20.000 --> 00:14:24.999
a million acres of farmland
in just the last 10 years.
00:14:25.000 --> 00:14:29.999
That’s an area nearly the size of
Delaware that will never be farmed again.
00:14:30.000 --> 00:14:34.999
About the time Horace Mowrer
was selling his farm,
00:14:35.000 --> 00:14:39.999
I was chastising the Chester County commissioners
on the editorial pages of the Mercury
00:14:40.000 --> 00:14:44.999
for their failure to do anything about
sprawling development. The urban megalopolis
00:14:45.000 --> 00:14:49.999
was surging down the room 202 high
tech corridor printing oppression
00:14:50.000 --> 00:14:54.999
into the heart of the countryside. Strip
malls and luxury class level towns
00:14:55.000 --> 00:14:59.999
were elbowing into the Brandywine Valley from
Delaware. Scattered development was battering
00:15:00.000 --> 00:15:04.999
from the new route 422 expressway
into northern townships.
00:15:05.000 --> 00:15:09.999
It was like a wave. It really was uh… a
wave that uh… people were very concerned.
00:15:10.000 --> 00:15:14.999
Uh… People can get out of their driveways.
Umm… farms were disappearing.
00:15:15.000 --> 00:15:19.999
Uh… traffic was increasing. Uh… the vistas
that people were used to were gone.
00:15:20.000 --> 00:15:24.999
People wanted development stopped.
What they didn’t understand was
00:15:25.000 --> 00:15:29.999
that the local municipalities
have control over uh… land use.
00:15:30.000 --> 00:15:34.999
So we decided to tackle the
problem with forming a task force
00:15:35.000 --> 00:15:39.999
umm… made up of people that normally don’t sit
around the same table and discuss these issues.
00:15:40.000 --> 00:15:44.999
And uh… from the task force, we
came up with a County work plan
00:15:45.000 --> 00:15:49.999
which led to the recommendation of the $50
million bond issue. Yeah, that the bond,
00:15:50.000 --> 00:15:54.999
the 1989 bond issue essentially was a, was
money being provided to manage growth
00:15:55.000 --> 00:15:59.999
and to protect open space in
Chester County. It turned out
00:16:00.000 --> 00:16:04.999
that a great deal of the open space that
people really cared about was farms.
00:16:05.000 --> 00:16:09.999
The only way to say farm land in Pennsylvania is
you either have to buy the farm and derestricted,
00:16:10.000 --> 00:16:14.999
persuade the farmer to give you the easement
which provides you with a development rights
00:16:15.000 --> 00:16:19.999
in exchange for some tax benefits or
you’re paying for the development rights.
00:16:20.000 --> 00:16:24.999
Since the original bond issue was passed, Chester
County has spent more than $100 million dollars
00:16:25.000 --> 00:16:29.999
to preserve 15,000 acres of farmland
in open space. But at the same time,
00:16:30.000 --> 00:16:34.999
the county lost even more land to
development then it preserved.
00:16:35.000 --> 00:16:39.999
Meanwhile, Pennsylvania has established the second
largest farmland preservation program in the nation.
00:16:40.000 --> 00:16:44.999
In the past 10 years, more than
$280 million dollars has been spent
00:16:45.000 --> 00:16:49.999
to buy development rights to farms. But in
comparison to the amount of land we’re losing,
00:16:50.000 --> 00:16:54.999
it’s still only a drop in the bucket.
00:16:55.000 --> 00:16:59.999
So far, this program has protected
barely 2% of Pennsylvania’s farmland.
00:17:00.000 --> 00:17:04.999
Developments like this
00:17:05.000 --> 00:17:09.999
are cropping up all across Pennsylvania displacing
farmers and destroying beautiful scenery.
00:17:10.000 --> 00:17:14.999
With every passing decade,
00:17:15.000 --> 00:17:19.999
we’ve been consuming more and more land for
each house, store, and office we’ve built.
00:17:20.000 --> 00:17:24.999
With every decade, hundreds
of thousands of acres of
00:17:25.000 --> 00:17:29.999
Pennsylvania countryside has been lost
forever to strip malls, parking lots,
00:17:30.000 --> 00:17:34.999
and monotonous sprawl. And
remember, at the same time,
00:17:35.000 --> 00:17:39.999
thousands of acres of formerly thriving
neighborhoods in our cities have been
00:17:40.000 --> 00:17:45.000
neglected and abandoned. What
happened to bring this lunacy above?
00:17:50.000 --> 00:17:54.999
We’re building these houses because this, there are the
kind of houses that people want in today’s marketplace.
00:17:55.000 --> 00:17:59.999
And in order to be a successful builder,
we have to build what the people want.
00:18:00.000 --> 00:18:04.999
What do suburban homeowners want? Yeah,
certainly umm… where I grew up, we lived
00:18:05.000 --> 00:18:09.999
uh… in a neighborhood where there was a community park and
that’s where everybody congregated and the kids played and…
00:18:10.000 --> 00:18:14.999
Well, I could go down to the barber shop
and I would walk to the barber shop.
00:18:15.000 --> 00:18:19.999
Down, I mean, we take kids for a walk around the
neighborhood, but there’s literally you cannot walk
00:18:20.000 --> 00:18:24.999
to… to anything as far as any stores
or… or anything. If you want to
00:18:25.000 --> 00:18:29.999
be with others, you generally have to drive somewhere. It
should be a five minute travel, but… …five mile drive,
00:18:30.000 --> 00:18:34.999
but it’s 20, 20 minute drive. 20 minutes to 45 depending on
the travel. 20 minute drive depending… Fridays’ 30 minutes.
00:18:35.000 --> 00:18:39.999
If I could change anything about this area, I
would like to have stores that I could walk to,
00:18:40.000 --> 00:18:44.999
a grocery store, a pharmacy company like that.
Perhaps, uh… a pizza shop, boutique shop.
00:18:45.000 --> 00:18:49.999
Grocery store that you go town to, you
know… A place we can just hang out
00:18:50.000 --> 00:18:54.999
or that might have… have… have a beer with somebody. You don’t
have any of that today, and we don’t even try to build that in.
00:18:55.000 --> 00:18:59.999
I’d say if we had a little bit better
sidewalks, we had some at all,
00:19:00.000 --> 00:19:04.999
that would make it a lot easier to move around. When
I grew up, we had sidewalks, we had street lamps,
00:19:05.000 --> 00:19:09.999
and it would have been nice uh… not only safety
wise for the kids walking around. It gives you that
00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:14.999
uh… more the feel of the town rather than we just out here
where it’s so barren, you’ve got houses and you’ve got land.
00:19:15.000 --> 00:19:19.999
I think that the only limitation
without having sidewalks for the kids
00:19:20.000 --> 00:19:24.999
is that you really don’t get to know the other kids
in the neighborhood unless, you’re in the same school
00:19:25.000 --> 00:19:29.999
or the same class, and… many of the kids in
the neighborhood don’t go to public school.
00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:34.999
Umm… I’m a very accepting
person of all incomes.
00:19:35.000 --> 00:19:39.999
I don’t think you need to be a doctor or lawyer. Umm… To live in
a certain neighborhood, I think all jobs are equally important.
00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:44.999
There’re very few people
of my age for example.
00:19:45.000 --> 00:19:49.999
Well, it’s a shame, they don’t get to see more of uh…
you know, the older generation hear more about it.
00:19:50.000 --> 00:19:54.999
And uh… it’s again one of the tradeoffs.
Our big concern
00:19:55.000 --> 00:19:59.999
is the uncertainty of what’s going to happen with the
farm, right next door. That end. Because right now,
00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:04.999
it’s great because we’re, we’re living
that end, but if that ever gets developed
00:20:05.000 --> 00:20:09.999
which probably will then… uh… it may
not be as part of the street anymore.
00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:14.999
We can build developments that
allow people to walk to work,
00:20:15.000 --> 00:20:19.999
to walk to shopping, and have a
close relationship with nature
00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:24.999
as long as we can create zoning
and planning that will allow.
00:20:25.000 --> 00:20:29.999
Builders and developers are not in the business
to… to fight the existing zoning laws.
00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:34.999
It takes too much time, too much
effort, too much money. And so…
00:20:35.000 --> 00:20:39.999
It turns out that it’s not just the market,
but regulations that shape our communities.
00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:44.999
The story of sprawl began in the 1930s.
00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:49.999
Times were hard because of the great
depression. In order to make it easier
00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:54.999
for Americans to buy homes, Franklin Roosevelt
created the Federal Housing Administration.
00:20:55.000 --> 00:20:59.999
The FHA insured bank loans for homes
00:21:00.000 --> 00:21:04.999
making it possible for the first time for
citizens to buy a house with just 10% down.
00:21:05.000 --> 00:21:09.999
But, there were a couple of rules.
00:21:10.000 --> 00:21:14.999
It had to be a nice home in a good
neighborhood. The government to find that
00:21:15.000 --> 00:21:19.999
to mean things like a certain
minimum set back from the street,
00:21:20.000 --> 00:21:24.999
no stores, just single family
houses, space between buildings
00:21:25.000 --> 00:21:29.999
and new construction was favored over…
over houses. This meant that the house
00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:34.999
your parents and grandparents
grew up in just wouldn’t do.
00:21:35.000 --> 00:21:39.999
And if you happen to be
black, forget about it.
00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:44.999
Naturally, this was disastrous
for city neighborhoods.
00:21:45.000 --> 00:21:49.999
But in a boom years following the 2nd World
War, it created thousands of acres of
00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:54.999
white middle class suburbs in fringe
of every metropolitan period.
00:21:55.000 --> 00:21:59.999
In 1954, President Eisenhower appointed
00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:04.999
a commission to study the need for
new highways. To held the committee,
00:22:05.000 --> 00:22:09.999
he appointed General Lucius Clay, a
member of the Board of General Motors.
00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:14.999
Two years later, the Interstate
Highway Act worth arise
00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:19.999
41,000 miles of new highways with
the federal government picking up
00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:24.999
90% of the tab, meanwhile,
public transportation systems
00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:29.999
got no support and many went bankrupt.
In the same way,
00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:34.999
the government subsidized new water and
sewer systems in sandy, rural areas
00:22:35.000 --> 00:22:39.999
and neglected urban the infrastructure.
To add insult to injury,
00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:44.999
the government built all its subsidized
housing for the poor in the cities.
00:22:45.000 --> 00:22:49.999
Instead of encouraging diversified neighborhoods
with equal opportunities for all,
00:22:50.000 --> 00:22:54.999
this concentrated poverty in
inner city neighborhoods,
00:22:55.000 --> 00:22:59.999
some of these projects
have proved so unlivable
00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:04.999
that they’ve been abandoned.
00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:09.999
Here’s an example of still
another good idea go on a ride.
00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:14.999
In 1980, new federal environmental regulations
made the owners of vacant industrial properties
00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:19.999
responsible to clean them up them up to
almost pristine Garden of Eden standards
00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:24.999
before redeveloping them. As
a result, it’s far cheaper
00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:29.999
to build on farmland in
the country than to reuse
00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:34.999
prime real estate in the city like this.
Policies like this,
00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:39.999
once they’re put in place
are really hard to change.
00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:44.999
In Pennsylvania, a lot of the
bad planning of the past is
00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:49.999
affectively nailed in place by zoning laws.
We’re in Allegheny County
00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:54.999
here where Pittsburgh is located.
Allegheny County has
00:23:55.000 --> 00:23:59.999
128 individual municipalities.
00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:04.999
As many other states, each local
municipality does its own zoning
00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:09.999
with little or no cooperative planning a
regional oversight. In Allegheny County,
00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:14.999
that means there must be zones to
accommodate a 128 strip malls,
00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:19.999
a 128 corporate centers, a 128 landfills.
00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:24.999
Not to mention a 128 of every
kind of residential development
00:24:25.000 --> 00:24:29.999
from apartments to resorts.
00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:34.999
So if Wal-Mart wants to build a store
right here in the middle of a farm field,
00:24:35.000 --> 00:24:39.999
and the municipality wants
to say, \"No\", state law says
00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:44.999
this little municipality has to
find some other spot to put it
00:24:45.000 --> 00:24:49.999
even though there may be six other Wal-Mart’s within
20 miles. Thanks to this crazy quilt zoning system.
00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:54.999
Suburban municipalities
continue to attract development
00:24:55.000 --> 00:24:59.999
while cities like Pittsburgh
continue to lose it.
00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:04.999
What all these policies that
up to is a huge historic
00:25:05.000 --> 00:25:09.999
government subsidy for suburban living.
It’s no wonder Pennsylvania’s countryside
00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:14.999
has gotten all build up and the
city neighborhoods neglected.
00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:20.000
The real wonder when you think about it
is that our cities have survived at all.
00:25:25.000 --> 00:25:29.999
For a long time, I thought that’s
just the way things have to be.
00:25:30.000 --> 00:25:34.999
Urban decay and suburban sprawl are a fact of
life, the price of living in a modern society.
00:25:35.000 --> 00:25:39.999
But then, I had a revelation.
00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:44.999
I was traveling here in England, the
first time I’d ever been abroad.
00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:49.999
I’m wondering about London on my first
day with my little flash map in hand,
00:25:50.000 --> 00:25:54.999
all excited about seeing the famous
landmarks I had read about for years.
00:25:55.000 --> 00:25:59.999
I’ve rounded the Tower of London
00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:04.999
and I’m heading back to my hotel
when suddenly dome sounded.
00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:09.999
[music]
00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:14.999
I have just seen practically the whole
history of England and it’s only taken about
00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:19.999
an hour and a half, one foot.
All these parks and landmarks,
00:26:20.000 --> 00:26:24.999
museums, theaters, train stations are
packed into an incredibly small area,
00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:29.999
so small, I can hardly believe it.
00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:34.999
And in the days that followed, I
made another amazing discovery.
00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:39.999
Except in the commercial areas, London
didn’t feel the least bit crowded.
00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:44.999
Every day, I sat down on this bench
on the south side of the Thames,
00:26:45.000 --> 00:26:49.999
keep in mind, this is a city
of seven million people
00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:54.999
in the height of the tourist season. In front
of me is the most famous Vista in England
00:26:55.000 --> 00:26:59.999
and every time I come here, I’ve
got the whole bench to myself.
00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:04.999
It occurs to me, you know, it’s really
easy to get around this place on foot
00:27:05.000 --> 00:27:09.999
and when people are on foot, they
really don’t take up much space.
00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:14.999
Think about it. This is me walking,
00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:19.999
if you measure the space around me, it’s
about 4 square feet. And here’s my house,
00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:24.999
back home in Pottstown. 2500
square feet, actually larger
00:27:25.000 --> 00:27:29.999
than the average house currently built in
America. There’s my wife working in our yard.
00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:34.999
Our lawn is 1/10th of an acre. That’s
just the right size to give us
00:27:35.000 --> 00:27:39.999
all the yard we want and no more than we can handle.
Now, what happens if we move to the suburbs?
00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:44.999
The first off, since we can’t
walk anywhere, we need two cars,
00:27:45.000 --> 00:27:49.999
one for my wife and one for me.
Standing still, each car takes about
00:27:50.000 --> 00:27:54.999
25 times more space than a human being.
But, put them in motion
00:27:55.000 --> 00:27:59.999
and they are really indeed machines.
At 60 miles an hour,
00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:04.999
my car needs about 1000 square feet of pavement, you
know, that are really expensive pollution insurance.
00:28:05.000 --> 00:28:09.999
Of course, everywhere I go, I need
a parking space at the other end.
00:28:10.000 --> 00:28:14.999
Office, grocery store,
mall, the health club,
00:28:15.000 --> 00:28:19.999
since I’m not walking anymore. Experts
estimate there are six to seven parking spaces
00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:24.999
for each of the 130 million
cars registered in America.
00:28:25.000 --> 00:28:29.999
That’s a lot of pavement. Not
to mention the ugly billboards
00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:34.999
advertisers are thrown up to
catch my eyes I’m speeding by.
00:28:35.000 --> 00:28:39.999
I think you get the picture. Now,
where am I? Can you find me?
00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:44.999
Here I am, just a little dot surrounded by
all that unnecessary grass and asphalt.
00:28:45.000 --> 00:28:49.999
If you look really… really closely,
00:28:50.000 --> 00:28:54.999
you can see that I’m studying my bank balance
trying to figure out where all my money went.
00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:59.999
Anyway, I’m in London thinking
about all this and I wonder,
00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:04.999
\"What if the British Suburbs look like? What do
they do with their subdivisions and strip malls?\"
00:29:05.000 --> 00:29:09.999
Low and behold, there’s another surprise.
You get to the edge of the city
00:29:10.000 --> 00:29:14.999
and it just stops. There’re no strip malls,
00:29:15.000 --> 00:29:19.999
no endless line of car dealerships,
no subdivisions called Country creek,
00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:24.999
or pleasant festa(ph), just an
honest to goodness country view.
00:29:25.000 --> 00:29:29.999
Keep in mind, England is only slightly
bigger than Pennsylvania in land area
00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:34.999
and it has four times as many people.
00:29:35.000 --> 00:29:40.000
Clearly, somebody did something right.
And I discovered something else here.
00:29:45.000 --> 00:29:49.999
Remember, Wyomissing, where I was born.
00:29:50.000 --> 00:29:54.999
Wyomissing has always been a model
for me of the ideal communities.
00:29:55.000 --> 00:29:59.999
Well, it turns out
00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:04.999
Wyomissing was designed after this
town, just 30 miles north of London,
00:30:05.000 --> 00:30:09.999
Letchworth Garden City.
00:30:10.000 --> 00:30:14.999
Back in the frontier days, when the U.S.
government was giving away land in the West,
00:30:15.000 --> 00:30:19.999
it probably seemed to most Americans
that we’d never run out of space.
00:30:20.000 --> 00:30:24.999
In England by contrast, there hadn’t
been any free land for centuries.
00:30:25.000 --> 00:30:29.999
The cities were getting crowded and
polluted and there was no place to escape.
00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:34.999
In 1898, a visionary Englishman
named Ebenezer Howard,
00:30:35.000 --> 00:30:39.999
proposed dealing with this problem by building
small satellite cities in the countryside
00:30:40.000 --> 00:30:44.999
called \"Garden Cities\" that would
allow people to live and work
00:30:45.000 --> 00:30:49.999
and lush leafy neighborhoods immediately
surrounded by large areas of open space.
00:30:50.000 --> 00:30:54.999
Letchworth was the first modern city.
00:30:55.000 --> 00:30:59.999
Today, Letchworth has 33,000
residents and 14,000 jobs
00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:04.999
plus schools, churches, and parks, all
within walking distance of each other,
00:31:05.000 --> 00:31:09.999
and all surrounded by a permanently
protected expanse of open country called,
00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:14.999
\"The Greenbelt\" which residents are free to
enjoy. The nearby Garden City of Welland
00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:19.999
is designed around the Green
Central Square surrounded by shops
00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:24.999
and anchored by a large mall. On the inside,
the mall looks like any American Galleria,
00:31:25.000 --> 00:31:29.999
but shoppers can walk to this mall and
much of the parking is underground.
00:31:30.000 --> 00:31:34.999
The English have firmly embraced
00:31:35.000 --> 00:31:39.999
Ebenezer Howard’s ideal of
carefully planned towns.
00:31:40.000 --> 00:31:44.999
After the Second World War,
00:31:45.000 --> 00:31:49.999
instead of scattering development random
all over the countryside as we did,
00:31:50.000 --> 00:31:54.999
the English continued their tradition
of building, self-contained towns,
00:31:55.000 --> 00:31:59.999
connected to larger cities by public transportation
and surrounded by permanently protected open space.
00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:04.999
Historic cities like Bath(ph),
00:32:05.000 --> 00:32:09.999
have also been surrounded by green belts to
keep them from sprawling into the countryside.
00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:14.999
Nearly 60% of all new
housing built in England
00:32:15.000 --> 00:32:19.999
is built on recycled land like
this former industrial tract
00:32:20.000 --> 00:32:24.999
outside of London. Now I
know what you’re thinking,
00:32:25.000 --> 00:32:29.999
this is England. America is the land
of large lots and lavish lawns.
00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:34.999
Besides, we don’t want the
government telling us where to live.
00:32:35.000 --> 00:32:39.999
But the fact is until the 1950s,
00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:44.999
most Americans did live in cities and
towns in close knit neighborhoods
00:32:45.000 --> 00:32:49.999
like this one in Letchworth.
It wasn’t until
00:32:50.000 --> 00:32:54.999
big government came along with
everything from highway subsidies,
00:32:55.000 --> 00:32:59.999
the zoning regulations that sprawl
became the law of the land.
00:33:00.000 --> 00:33:04.999
But now, there’re actually places
in America that have succeeded
00:33:05.000 --> 00:33:09.999
in changing such laws.
00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:14.999
[music] This is the Willamette Valley
00:33:15.000 --> 00:33:19.999
which stretches South of Portland, Oregon, one of the
fastest growing metropolitan areas in the United States.
00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:24.999
I’m with Hector Macpherson whose
family has formed this land
00:33:25.000 --> 00:33:29.999
since the 1920s. Uh… We have a,
what I, what is the Peoria Road
00:33:30.000 --> 00:33:34.999
which is a road that leads directly to Carlos about
six or seven miles away and people were leaking out
00:33:35.000 --> 00:33:39.999
and buying small cracks of land along that.
This was simply development right along
00:33:40.000 --> 00:33:44.999
the… the major road to that area.
Um-hmm! But, then we also saw
00:33:45.000 --> 00:33:49.999
there’re… there’re certain actual
uh… subdivisions way out beyond
00:33:50.000 --> 00:33:54.999
any possible city services that were moving
in to take up the land, and to move out
00:33:55.000 --> 00:33:59.999
not just one or two, but in mass. And uh… you
know, this was the kind of thing that I feared.
00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:04.999
And there was no… no brakes. There was
nothing in Linn County that I could turn
00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:09.999
to… to help me. There was absolutely no
planning or zoning, no construction controls,
00:34:10.000 --> 00:34:14.999
no… no anything in… in the county.
So we finally, we were able to
00:34:15.000 --> 00:34:19.999
get a uh…petition pass by
the County commissioners to
00:34:20.000 --> 00:34:24.999
invite the first, to appoint
the first Planning Commission.
00:34:25.000 --> 00:34:29.999
Macpherson served on that Planning Commission and a
few years later, went to seek in the state senate.
00:34:30.000 --> 00:34:34.999
I did not go up to the, to the state with the idea
that I was going to uh… solve the Oregon problems
00:34:35.000 --> 00:34:39.999
and in land use planning. I went with
the idea that I wanted to uh… do
00:34:40.000 --> 00:34:44.999
uh… do something significant. And when I got there, I found
that I knew more about land use planning than most of my
00:34:45.000 --> 00:34:49.999
uh… contemporaries, senators and
representatives. And so at that point,
00:34:50.000 --> 00:34:54.999
I decided that it was time for me to put together legislation
which would help cure the problems that I saw in Oregon.
00:34:55.000 --> 00:34:59.999
Thanks to this legislation, 25
million acres of land in Oregon
00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:04.999
are now zoned exclusively
for farming and forestry.
00:35:05.000 --> 00:35:09.999
And a whole purpose of the
land use planning that I
00:35:10.000 --> 00:35:14.999
uh… believe in is to simply make the best
choices. And that’s what we’re trying to do here
00:35:15.000 --> 00:35:19.999
is to make the best choices. We have to allow a room
for people, but they can’t just go anywhere in Oregon,
00:35:20.000 --> 00:35:24.999
and expect to be able to uh… buy a
bare piece of land and build a house.
00:35:25.000 --> 00:35:29.999
Oregon’s main planning tool is the growth boundary.
Cities and Counties in Oregon work together
00:35:30.000 --> 00:35:34.999
to draw boundaries around their
traditional cities and towns.
00:35:35.000 --> 00:35:39.999
They allow enough room for all foreseeable
growth for 20 years. Then they say, \"That’s it.
00:35:40.000 --> 00:35:44.999
We’ll talk again in 10
years.\" Inside this line,
00:35:45.000 --> 00:35:49.999
development is given the red carpet
treatment. Outside, it’s heavily restricted.
00:35:50.000 --> 00:35:54.999
To see the impact this has had,
compare Metro Portland with
00:35:55.000 --> 00:35:59.999
Allegheny County, Pennsylvania.
Portland has the same number of people,
00:36:00.000 --> 00:36:04.999
but living on half the land area.
We’ve achieved the livability
00:36:05.000 --> 00:36:09.999
and that’s the word I should get in here and
emphasize. Livability is the key word in Oregon
00:36:10.000 --> 00:36:14.999
and we want to have livability above all
else. But I had, of course, a specific thing
00:36:15.000 --> 00:36:19.999
that I was trying to say farmland, and that came
out very strongly in the legislation that we have.
00:36:20.000 --> 00:36:24.999
The remarkable thing is, Oregon’s
land use law initially designed to
00:36:25.000 --> 00:36:29.999
protect the countryside has made Oregon
cities among the healthiest in the nation.
00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:34.999
Metro Portland is thriving.
00:36:35.000 --> 00:36:39.999
Instead of development continually pushing outward,
a roading the economic base of the center,
00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:44.999
abandoned land in the
city is being recycled.
00:36:45.000 --> 00:36:49.999
Instead of government pouring money into
new highways to keep up it’s sprawl,
00:36:50.000 --> 00:36:54.999
it’s invested in new light rail lines
which also helps keep the downtown
00:36:55.000 --> 00:36:59.999
from being clogged with cars. Living in the city
doesn’t have to mean townhouses and apartments.
00:37:00.000 --> 00:37:04.999
Most residents of Metro Portland live
in single family detached houses
00:37:05.000 --> 00:37:09.999
with private backyards. In the 25 years,
since Macpherson’s bill is passed,
00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:14.999
residents and even developers have
come to wholeheartedly support it.
00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:19.999
Oregonians prefer to live
close to the outdoors
00:37:20.000 --> 00:37:24.999
and enjoy it whole rather than
carving it up for suburban sprawl.
00:37:25.000 --> 00:37:29.999
Portland is proof that just because America
has a lower population density than England,
00:37:30.000 --> 00:37:34.999
doesn’t mean we have the sprawl. After all,
Oregon has twice the land area of Pennsylvania
00:37:35.000 --> 00:37:39.999
and only a quarter as many people.
Clearly, sprawl is not the inevitable
00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:44.999
result of having lots of land,
it’s the result of bad planning.
00:37:45.000 --> 00:37:49.999
Still, this part of natural
Portland is no garden city.
00:37:50.000 --> 00:37:54.999
It’s not nearly as nice as
Letchworth or Wyomissing.
00:37:55.000 --> 00:37:59.999
In fact, looks a little uh…
haphazard, in fact It is haphazard.
00:38:00.000 --> 00:38:04.999
In Portland, growth is contained,
00:38:05.000 --> 00:38:09.999
but not organized. It’s still a hodgepodge
rather than the carefully laid out
00:38:10.000 --> 00:38:14.999
mix of spaces that make Letchworth
and Wyomissing so attractive.
00:38:15.000 --> 00:38:19.999
Portland drew a line around the outside, but
there’re a handful of places in the U.S.
00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:24.999
that are planning from the middle as well.
This is Charlotte, North Carolina,
00:38:25.000 --> 00:38:29.999
another rapidly growing metropolitan area.
00:38:30.000 --> 00:38:34.999
David Walters, a professor at the
University of North Carolina here
00:38:35.000 --> 00:38:39.999
was asked by several towns in the Charlotte region
such as Davidson, how they could plan their growth
00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:44.999
to create real communities
instead of sprawl?
00:38:45.000 --> 00:38:49.999
Walters’s English so we turned to
England’s garden cities for inspiration.
00:38:50.000 --> 00:38:54.999
And we began by identifying the flood plains,
the steep slopes areas that you couldn’t build,
00:38:55.000 --> 00:38:59.999
and then we moved on to choose areas of
particular scenic beauty along highways
00:39:00.000 --> 00:39:04.999
and so forth that were particularly valued by
the community in which they wanted to preserve.
00:39:05.000 --> 00:39:09.999
Then we linked these with Greenways and pops and
ball fields and made a series of green edges to
00:39:10.000 --> 00:39:14.999
uh… neighborhood so that the edges
were defined by the natural landscape.
00:39:15.000 --> 00:39:19.999
Then what happened was this map became the
basis for the official zoning maps of
00:39:20.000 --> 00:39:24.999
the towns adopted, and the
design standards in this design
00:39:25.000 --> 00:39:29.999
became integrated with the design
standards in their zoning ordinances.
00:39:30.000 --> 00:39:34.999
So far, six towns in the Charlotte area
have adopted new zoning ordinances
00:39:35.000 --> 00:39:39.999
to promote the development of traditional
neighborhoods. Residential areas have houses
00:39:40.000 --> 00:39:44.999
drawing close to the street on each
other to give them a traditional feel.
00:39:45.000 --> 00:39:49.999
Abundant sidewalks lined with large
shade trees encourage walking.
00:39:50.000 --> 00:39:54.999
Garages are placed behind the homes on
alleys so you can see front porches
00:39:55.000 --> 00:39:59.999
instead of driveways. The
town center district
00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:04.999
encourages a mix of single family detached
houses, apartments, offices, and shops
00:40:05.000 --> 00:40:09.999
so long as the buildings blend together.
Parking lots are placed in the rear
00:40:10.000 --> 00:40:14.999
to maintain attractive streets in a
pleasant environment for pedestrians.
00:40:15.000 --> 00:40:19.999
Well, interestingly enough one of the main
uh… uh… catalysts in this whole process
00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:24.999
was a big residential development here that
in one of our countless public meetings,
00:40:25.000 --> 00:40:29.999
he stood up and said, \"Now Walter, you’ll just make a complete
build out plan for the whole community just like towns
00:40:30.000 --> 00:40:34.999
used to do that way everybody will know what
the rules are.\" See one of his main fields
00:40:35.000 --> 00:40:39.999
is as a developer trying to do high quality
development was that somebody would come in next door
00:40:40.000 --> 00:40:44.999
and just produce some (inaudible) mediocrity
and under cut all his good efforts.
00:40:45.000 --> 00:40:49.999
So it was in his own economic self-interest
to have a master plan that would embody
00:40:50.000 --> 00:40:54.999
the high standards that apply to everybody.
And for complying with these standards,
00:40:55.000 --> 00:40:59.999
the developers are rewarded by incentive bonuses
and the freedom to mix and match housing types
00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:04.999
to be creative in their own development to
make the most of the market opportunities.
00:41:05.000 --> 00:41:09.999
From a developer standpoint, you’re not building one
neighborhood that’s burned up and potted over here
00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:14.999
from 150 to 180 and wondering if
you can hit that price point.
00:41:15.000 --> 00:41:19.999
Otherwise, I can hit… hit price points
from 120s to 140s, 140s to 200s,
00:41:20.000 --> 00:41:24.999
200s to 210s. One of the things from a
developer standpoint makes it attractive
00:41:25.000 --> 00:41:29.999
is that in one neighborhood, you really have five or six
combined, and you could also sell commercial property.
00:41:30.000 --> 00:41:34.999
We have a restaurant sites or tavern
sites, we have several sites here to build
00:41:35.000 --> 00:41:39.999
little neighborhood office buildings. So I can be a
commercial developer, a affordable housing developer,
00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:44.999
a high end developer, all in one spot.
00:41:45.000 --> 00:41:49.999
It’s really become more of a quest than… than in building a development.
It’s really trying to build something that people can enjoy,
00:41:50.000 --> 00:41:54.999
that people can always look at where people go
on vacation. They go to places like Savannah
00:41:55.000 --> 00:41:59.999
or trial stand. They go for a walkable neighborhood. And
my feeling is you can have that kind of neighborhood
00:42:00.000 --> 00:42:04.999
and live in it every day. You don’t have to be a tourist going
to these type of older neighborhoods that have survived.
00:42:05.000 --> 00:42:09.999
In Celebration Florida, we can see
00:42:10.000 --> 00:42:14.999
a town like this that is well underway.
00:42:15.000 --> 00:42:19.999
This town was made possible
00:42:20.000 --> 00:42:24.999
because Disney Development Corporation
owned all the land and had a vision
00:42:25.000 --> 00:42:29.999
to design the ideal community of tomorrow.
00:42:30.000 --> 00:42:34.999
As it turned out, the ideal
community of tomorrow
00:42:35.000 --> 00:42:39.999
looks an awful lot like the
ideal town of yesterday.
00:42:40.000 --> 00:42:44.999
My daily routine here in Celebration is the kids
walk to school. We have about five houses down
00:42:45.000 --> 00:42:49.999
from the school. I walk on to work after school,
my daughter walks over here to the store,
00:42:50.000 --> 00:42:54.999
hangs out with me for a couple of hours and then we get to
walk home together. We’ve done away with one of our cars
00:42:55.000 --> 00:42:59.999
so we’re a one car family now.
And it’s a great place for kids.
00:43:00.000 --> 00:43:04.999
We feel very safe here. We feel like
the… the bigger kids are looking after,
00:43:05.000 --> 00:43:09.999
and we feel like the other adults around know them. You can’t
walk to downtown without seeing someone that you know.
00:43:10.000 --> 00:43:14.999
You can’t sit on your porch and have your cup of coffee without
going. \"Oh, there’s so and so. I wonder what they’re working on.
00:43:15.000 --> 00:43:19.999
Hey, what are you working on over there?\"
There’s truly a sense of community
00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:24.999
and it’s a very comfortable sense of community. The
variety of homes available allows all the different
00:43:25.000 --> 00:43:29.999
umm… individuals with different create patterns to pick
a home that’s best for them and their family members.
00:43:30.000 --> 00:43:34.999
You meet people that you wouldn’t on
ordinary circumstances in… in life.
00:43:35.000 --> 00:43:39.999
You’ll meet, every, anybody is in Celebration.
If you have retirees, you have young families,
00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:44.999
you have uh… double income, no children.
It’s not \"Oh, this side of town has
00:43:45.000 --> 00:43:49.999
great big homes and this side has smaller
homes.\" Nobody really looks at those things.
00:43:50.000 --> 00:43:54.999
Well, my wife and I like to do on date nights.
Umm… My mom will keep the kids for us
00:43:55.000 --> 00:43:59.999
or we’ll hire a babysitter. My wife and I’ll get
on our bicycles, we’ll ride down, park our bikes,
00:44:00.000 --> 00:44:04.999
go to the movie, then go to
dinner and uh… come back home
00:44:05.000 --> 00:44:09.999
and we don’t even have
to leave the community.
00:44:10.000 --> 00:44:14.999
This is Lancaster County, Pennsylvania,
00:44:15.000 --> 00:44:19.999
the richest farmland
east of the Mississippi.
00:44:20.000 --> 00:44:24.999
For decades, traditional Amish and Mennonite farmers in
Lancaster County have been getting pushed aside by developers.
00:44:25.000 --> 00:44:29.999
At the same time, the city of Lancaster
00:44:30.000 --> 00:44:34.999
has been struggling to deal with the
flight of wealth to the suburbs.
00:44:35.000 --> 00:44:39.999
Now, we’ve seen in Oregon, how growth boundaries
protect the countryside and revitalize towns.
00:44:40.000 --> 00:44:44.999
And we’ve seen in North Carolina,
how zoning walls can be changed
00:44:45.000 --> 00:44:49.999
to make it possible to build
traditional communities once again.
00:44:50.000 --> 00:44:54.999
Why can’t we apply these ideas here?
00:44:55.000 --> 00:44:59.999
Well, Lancaster County has been trying to follow
the model of places like Portland and Davidson,
00:45:00.000 --> 00:45:04.999
but as in other parts of the country,
antiquated land use laws get in the way.
00:45:05.000 --> 00:45:09.999
We have established urban growth boundaries to separate the
areas of the county that are appropriate for development
00:45:10.000 --> 00:45:14.999
in those areas that are not. Okay, so what
do we need to make these growth boundaries
00:45:15.000 --> 00:45:19.999
and Lancaster county or anywhere else in America really
effective? To be really successful in Pennsylvania,
00:45:20.000 --> 00:45:24.999
there are three things we need to do.
First, we need to change
00:45:25.000 --> 00:45:29.999
the laws that govern planning and zoning and taxing
in the state because these laws as they exist today
00:45:30.000 --> 00:45:34.999
encourage sprawl. We need to change
the law to give the power to counties
00:45:35.000 --> 00:45:39.999
and municipalities to plan on a regional
basis and to enforce growth boundaries.
00:45:40.000 --> 00:45:44.999
Secondly, we need to build traditional communities
like they’re building in other states.
00:45:45.000 --> 00:45:49.999
And finally, number three, we
need to encourage re-investment
00:45:50.000 --> 00:45:54.999
in our existing cities and towns.
America has thousands of acres of land
00:45:55.000 --> 00:45:59.999
strategically located with needed
infrastructure already in place
00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:04.999
just waiting to be developed. It’s
all those abandoned factories
00:46:05.000 --> 00:46:09.999
and other vacant lands
in our cities and towns.
00:46:10.000 --> 00:46:14.999
Here’s island directly across the Allegheny
River from Downtown, Pittsburgh was for years
00:46:15.000 --> 00:46:19.999
derelict and polluted, the sight of an
abandoned meat packing plant and scrap yard.
00:46:20.000 --> 00:46:24.999
Thanks to financing and tax incentives. It
has been turned into a lovely residential
00:46:25.000 --> 00:46:29.999
and office development called,
‘Washington’s landing’. The development is
00:46:30.000 --> 00:46:34.999
a leading example of Pennsylvania’s land
recycling program which offers grants and loans
00:46:35.000 --> 00:46:39.999
to clean up and reuse
vacant industrial sites.
00:46:40.000 --> 00:46:44.999
But it’s hard to imagine a less likely place
to build a neighborhood, the Nine Mile Run,
00:46:45.000 --> 00:46:49.999
a polluted stream running
through a gigantic slag dump
00:46:50.000 --> 00:46:54.999
along the Monongahela River in Pittsburgh.
From the 1920s to the 1970s,
00:46:55.000 --> 00:46:59.999
dozens of train loads of slag from nearby
steel mills were dumped here every day
00:47:00.000 --> 00:47:04.999
creating 250 acres of hideous moonscape.
00:47:05.000 --> 00:47:09.999
The same Pittsburgh architects who
helped design Celebration Florida
00:47:10.000 --> 00:47:14.999
have finished plans to transform this
dump into thriving neighborhoods.
00:47:15.000 --> 00:47:19.999
Not only a week reclaiming a
Brownfield site in a city,
00:47:20.000 --> 00:47:24.999
but what we’re putting in its place is the great
American neighborhood. One of the great inventions
00:47:25.000 --> 00:47:29.999
we’ve had in our country is the neighborhood, the
American neighborhood which is front porches
00:47:30.000 --> 00:47:34.999
and back alleys and streets, and neighborhood
parks, neighborhood schools, those are things
00:47:35.000 --> 00:47:39.999
that exist in the United States. And here, we
have the example of Brownfield reclamation
00:47:40.000 --> 00:47:44.999
and a great new traditional American
neighborhood coming together in one place
00:47:45.000 --> 00:47:49.999
and celebrating our diversity by making sure that
people of all incomes could live in this neighborhood.
00:47:50.000 --> 00:47:54.999
But the big idea is the park that’s gonna
be created right down here, Nine Mile Run
00:47:55.000 --> 00:47:59.999
which is now a polluted stream.
It’s going to be transformed
00:48:00.000 --> 00:48:04.999
with… with… with the most current techniques for transforming
streams and clean it with no wetlands will be created.
00:48:05.000 --> 00:48:09.999
The slopes themselves which you see now are
un-forested will be forested with new techniques.
00:48:10.000 --> 00:48:14.999
And so the front door, the address of this
neighborhood Somerset will be the extended
00:48:15.000 --> 00:48:19.999
(inaudible) park that will take you all the way of the
Mon River, right there. And we haven’t even mentioned
00:48:20.000 --> 00:48:24.999
the environmental consequences
of sprawl, air pollution,
00:48:25.000 --> 00:48:29.999
groundwater contamination, even global
warming. The governor commissioned a study
00:48:30.000 --> 00:48:34.999
uh… that worked for a year and produced a
report that said among other things that
00:48:35.000 --> 00:48:39.999
suburban sprawl was a biggest threat to
Pennsylvania’s environment in the 21st century.
00:48:40.000 --> 00:48:44.999
The Commission found that sprawl choose up farmland
and open space that destroys natural habitat
00:48:45.000 --> 00:48:49.999
for animals and plants, and it increases
both air and ground water pollution.
00:48:50.000 --> 00:48:54.999
Projects like Nine Mile Run are a big part of the solution
to urban sprawl. They reuse land we’ve already developed.
00:48:55.000 --> 00:48:59.999
They clean up sites that are polluted.
They reduce the pressure to develop farms
00:49:00.000 --> 00:49:04.999
and other open space and
they’re good places to live.
00:49:05.000 --> 00:49:09.999
There are reasons for optimism
00:49:10.000 --> 00:49:14.999
all across America. More than 20
states from Maryland to Arizona
00:49:15.000 --> 00:49:19.999
have begun efforts to curb sprawling development.
Builders environmentalist and businessmen
00:49:20.000 --> 00:49:24.999
are finding common ground in a new
concept called, ‘Smart Growth’
00:49:25.000 --> 00:49:29.999
that concentrates development
in and around existing towns
00:49:30.000 --> 00:49:34.999
and transportation corridors. Dozens of
traditional neighborhoods, places like
00:49:35.000 --> 00:49:39.999
Celebration are being built in rapidly
growing areas like Florida and California.
00:49:40.000 --> 00:49:44.999
Elsewhere, they’re being designed for
vacant lands in existing cities and towns,
00:49:45.000 --> 00:49:49.999
and there’s renewed interest in
preserving the wonderful neighborhoods
00:49:50.000 --> 00:49:54.999
and Main streets we already have. Public
interest groups are also involved
00:49:55.000 --> 00:49:59.999
and we’ll list a few websites and phone
numbers at the end of this program.
00:50:00.000 --> 00:50:04.999
But frankly, America will never save
its cities, towns and countryside
00:50:05.000 --> 00:50:09.999
as long as the dream home for most of us
00:50:10.000 --> 00:50:14.999
includes a half acre lot in the countryside
that’s far from stores, schools, and jobs.
00:50:15.000 --> 00:50:19.999
Sure a sprawl seems natural to us because
that’s what we’ve known in our lifetimes.
00:50:20.000 --> 00:50:24.999
But in the whole sweep of recorded
history, it’s just been a
00:50:25.000 --> 00:50:29.999
couple of ticks on the clock, a
recent experiment that’s proving
00:50:30.000 --> 00:50:34.999
disastrous for America. Just look
at where sprawls brought us.
00:50:35.000 --> 00:50:39.999
We’ve neglected our cities and towns,
we’ve turned beautiful landscapes
00:50:40.000 --> 00:50:44.999
into strip mall junk scape,
we’ve subdivided and paved over
00:50:45.000 --> 00:50:49.999
vast expanses of prime farmland,
we’ve condemned ourselves
00:50:50.000 --> 00:50:54.999
to a wearisome life of constant
driving, and perhaps worst of all,
00:50:55.000 --> 00:50:59.999
sprawl has helped to isolate us
black and white, rich and poor,
00:51:00.000 --> 00:51:04.999
and make us fearful of one another.
That’s no way to live
00:51:05.000 --> 00:51:09.999
and it doesn’t have to be that way.
Going back thousands of years
00:51:10.000 --> 00:51:14.999
from the days of the ancients
to the medieval era,
00:51:15.000 --> 00:51:19.999
colonial times, right up to
the 1950s here in America,
00:51:20.000 --> 00:51:24.999
the vast majority of people have
lived in villages, in towns,
00:51:25.000 --> 00:51:29.999
in the neighborhoods of cities because
they make so much sense as a way of life.
00:51:30.000 --> 00:51:34.999
Sure, our cities and towns were
far from perfect in the 1950s,
00:51:35.000 --> 00:51:39.999
but had we continued to invest in
them instead of abandoning them
00:51:40.000 --> 00:51:44.999
they could have become beautiful,
convenient and enriching places to live.
00:51:45.000 --> 00:51:49.999
And it’s not too late, we
still have the ability
00:51:50.000 --> 00:51:54.999
to rediscover and rebuild our
wonderful cities and towns.
00:51:55.000 --> 00:51:59.999
Just down the street from my house
here in Pottstown for example,
00:52:00.000 --> 00:52:04.999
is a vacant factory site, a former pine
manufacturing plant. Now, let’s think how we could
00:52:05.000 --> 00:52:09.999
reuse that site to make
a great place to live.
00:52:10.000 --> 00:52:14.999
Some of the old buildings are definitely
worth keeping. We could put shops
00:52:15.000 --> 00:52:19.999
on the 1st floor and offices upstairs. We don’t
want to place that only rich people can afford
00:52:20.000 --> 00:52:24.999
and we certainly don’t want another place where
just poor people live. So we’ll put in a mixture of
00:52:25.000 --> 00:52:29.999
large and small houses and attractive apartment
buildings. Play space for the children
00:52:30.000 --> 00:52:34.999
is really important so we put in lots of public
reins in playgrounds no more than a few blocks
00:52:35.000 --> 00:52:39.999
from every house. There’s a lot of
work in and right around Pottstown
00:52:40.000 --> 00:52:44.999
so we won’t need to drive long distances
to work. Still we’d like to be
00:52:45.000 --> 00:52:49.999
able to get to Philadelphia easily. So we’re gonna
turn this former Pennsylvania railroad line
00:52:50.000 --> 00:52:54.999
into a light rail line. In fact, there’s
already a plan in the works to do just that.
00:52:55.000 --> 00:52:59.999
We’ll give our development a village feel
by putting in front porches and sidewalks
00:53:00.000 --> 00:53:04.999
and street lamps and lots of shade trees.
That’ll make it safe
00:53:05.000 --> 00:53:09.999
and convenient for kids to walk to
the nearby schools and for parents
00:53:10.000 --> 00:53:14.999
to walk to Pottstown shopping district just a few
blocks away. We’ll get excess cars off the street
00:53:15.000 --> 00:53:19.999
by putting alleys and garages
behind the houses. What else?
00:53:20.000 --> 00:53:24.999
Well, we’d like to feel as close to the
countryside as we are to the downtown.
00:53:25.000 --> 00:53:29.999
So why don’t we create a wide green
way along the Schuylkill river
00:53:30.000 --> 00:53:34.999
with biking and walking trails? As it
happens again, there’s already a plan
00:53:35.000 --> 00:53:39.999
to make this area part of a green way that
stretches from Fairmont Park in Philadelphia,
00:53:40.000 --> 00:53:44.999
35 miles down river to
Pottsville, 50 miles up river.
00:53:45.000 --> 00:53:49.999
This wouldn’t be just another development.
It would be a real neighborhood.
00:53:50.000 --> 00:53:54.999
And you know, every town has a site like our Old
Pie Factory just waiting to be transformed.
00:53:55.000 --> 00:53:59.999
I love living in Pottstown.
00:54:00.000 --> 00:54:04.999
I like the sense of place. I like waking
up in the morning to that shines of
00:54:05.000 --> 00:54:09.999
the Trinity Church Caroline. And
every walking errand takes me past
00:54:10.000 --> 00:54:14.999
someone I know or something I love.
00:54:15.000 --> 00:54:19.999
I grew up in a white world,
00:54:20.000 --> 00:54:24.999
but 27 years of living in an integrated
neighborhood have taught me to respect blacks,
00:54:25.000 --> 00:54:29.999
Hispanics, and other people whose background
in education are not the same as my own.
00:54:30.000 --> 00:54:34.999
I didn’t move here because I’m
big on peace and brotherhood,
00:54:35.000 --> 00:54:39.999
I moved here because I wanted to walk
to work and I like the architecture.
00:54:40.000 --> 00:54:44.999
But now that I do live among people
of all ages, races, and incomes,
00:54:45.000 --> 00:54:49.999
I find I’m rather proud of it.
That’s what democracy is all about.
00:54:50.000 --> 00:54:54.999
That’s what William Penn had in mind
00:54:55.000 --> 00:54:59.999
when he founded Pennsylvania.
00:55:00.000 --> 00:55:04.999
Sitting on the patio behind my
home in a pleasant fall evening,
00:55:05.000 --> 00:55:09.999
looking over moonlit move tops of the clock
tower of Transfiguration Lutheran Church
00:55:10.000 --> 00:55:14.999
which has been standing since
the days of Abraham Lincoln,
00:55:15.000 --> 00:55:19.999
I feel a sense of kinship with my
neighbors and the generations before me
00:55:20.000 --> 00:55:24.999
that have lived under its glow. If we
want to encourage caring in America,
00:55:25.000 --> 00:55:30.000
I’ve come to believe, we
need places to care about.
00:56:05.000 --> 00:56:09.999
Funding for this program was provided by
00:56:10.000 --> 00:56:14.999
the Heinz Endowments, Wyomissing Foundation,
Chester County Community Foundation,
00:56:15.000 --> 00:56:19.999
Susquehanna Pfaltzgraff Company,
Montgomery County Lands Trust
00:56:20.000 --> 00:56:25.000
and the National Trust for
Historic Preservation.
Distributor: Bullfrog Films
Length: 57 minutes
Date: 2001
Genre: Expository
Language: English
Grade: 7-12, College, Adult
Color/BW:
Closed Captioning: Available
Existing customers, please log in to view this film.
New to Docuseek? Register to request a quote.
Related Films
Suburban sprawl: causes and remedies.
Looks at the impact on a small town when Wal-Mart plans to build a mega-store…