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Redefining the California Dream: Darrell Steinberg's Smart Growth Plan

By Robert Cruickshank

Today Darrell Steinberg is expected to finally be elected as Senate President Pro Tem, bringing the failed leadership of Don Perata to a welcome end. George Skelton welcomes him to office with a column on the landmark smart growth bill that Steinberg has been pushing through the legislature. Although the bill won't pass this year, it has a big head of steam behind it, and faces good prospects in the 2009 session.

Steinberg's bill would link land use planning in California to the AB 32 global warming targets. From Skelton’s article:

"One issue everyone has been afraid to touch is land use," Steinberg says. "Everyone understands about using alternative fuel. But land use has been the third rail. AB 32 changed the equation because now land use has to be part of the solution to global warming. You can't meet our goal just with alternative fuels. You have to reduce the number of vehicle miles traveled.

"If people are going to drive -- and they are going to drive -- we need to plan in ways to get them out of their cars faster. That means shrinking -- not the amount of housing, not economic development, not growth -- but shrinking the footprint on which that growth occurs."

“Steinberg wants it to occur within a smaller circle around downtown.

“Basically the bill would work like this: Each metropolitan region would adopt a "sustainable community strategy" to encourage compact development. They'd mesh it with greenhouse emissions targets set by the California Air Resources Board, which is charged with commanding the state's fight against global warming.”

Also included are preferential funding for transportation projects that fit with the "sustainable community strategy" and an expedited permitting process for those developments that fit the law's and the community strategy's goals.

Tom Adams of the California League of Conservation Voters called the plan "the most important land-use bill in California since enactment of the Coastal Act three decades ago" and he's right to say it. But the plan does more than help the environment and reduce carbon emissions.

One year ago I called for "redefining the California dream" - restoring the economic security of California workers by abandoning sprawl and turning to urban density and mass transit. This is not just an environmental move, but it is absolutely necessary for job growth, affordable housing, and basic financial security.

California can no longer afford sprawl. The national housing bubble burst right here, in the exurbs of Stockton, Modesto, and Moreno Valley. As gas prices rise at a rate of 30% every year since 2002, sprawl becomes literally unaffordable for most Californians, with a devastating ripple effect throughout the economy.

Republicans will predictably be furious with Steinberg's plan, but that's because they represent the emergent "homeowner aristocracy" - certain (by no means all) households that bought their home prior to 1990 or so, those who want to preserve the conditions of the 20th century at all costs.

As Jerry Brown recognized when he was governor 30 years ago, and still recognizes today, density done right is the key to maintaining the middle-class California dream for the 21st century. Only by following the Portland model of strictly limiting sprawl and encouraging infill development and providing the transportation options needed to serve that development can we bring affordability back to California, and secure the economic future for new generations of Californians.

Steinberg's genius move is to link that strategy to the fight against global warming. It's nice to finally see some real leadership from Democrats on this matter and particularly from the new leader of the State Senate. SB 375 may not make it to the governor's desk this year, but it deserves our strong support in the 2009 session. It will transform California for the better, and there are few bills aside from SB 840 that can credibly make that claim.

Robert Cruickshank is a historian, activist, and teacher living in Monterey. He is a contributing editor at Calitics.com and works for the Courage Campaign, in addition to teaching political science at Monterey Peninsula College. Currently he is completing his Ph.D. dissertation in US history, on progressive politics in San Francisco in the 1960s and 1970s. A native Californian, he was raised in Orange County and educated at UC Berkeley.

Posted on August 21, 2008

Comments

Robert Cruickshank is another clueless Californian. How many times do we have to listen to yet another variation of "smart growth", i.e., "sustainable community strategy"?

Is anybody in Mexifornia paying attention to the Census Bureau's recently revised U.S. population projection for 2050? Does Cruickshank actually believe that your state or the country, for that matter, will effectively be able to cope with another 135 million million people added to our current population of 305 million?

Dave Gorak
Executive director
Midwest Coalition to Reduce Immigration
LaValle, WI

Posted by: Dave Gorak at August 21, 2008 11:17 AM

Yes, we do, look at Japan, they cope just fine with 125million folks in an area the size of california.

And most of them are in dense urban areas.

Even just accounting for normal (native if you wish) population growth, we need to preserve our farmland instead of turning it into suburbs.

You want to eat, don't you?

Posted by: Dude at August 21, 2008 12:38 PM

So Dude thinks the Japanese cope just fine? I wonder, for how many years did he live in Japan?
No space, no privacy. People on top of people. For an experience in togetherness, try riding the commuter rail lines at rush hour.
If we had not allowed the elites to open the borders for slave labor and votes for the democrats, our population would be under 300 million and slowing, and our farm land and water would be sufficient.
And our quality of life would be much better.

Posted by: Erik Kengaard at August 22, 2008 05:46 PM

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