On beyond infill

The operating system of our development pattern - standard zoning - is not compatible with the direction that our cities need to take to remain financially viable. To rectify the massive financial imbalances suburban-style development has created for our cities, we need to make dramatically better use of the infrastructure investments we have already made. This goes far beyond the concept of infill, something standard zoning handles poorly. To prosper in the New Economy, cities need to throw out their zoning codes and replace them with a form-based alternative.

Members of the planning profession that want to be considered "enlightened" by other members of the planning profession are obligated to give support to the concept of infill. Infill is the idea that we should identify gaps in the development pattern -- the places passed by -- and fully develop those prior to expanding out into undeveloped, or lightly developed, lands. To say that you support infill as a planner is to indicate that you believe these gaps should be filled first.

One reason why support for infill is a mandatory belief in the profession is because infill is thought to be the opposite of greenfield development. And greenfield development -- the expansion of the development pattern into undeveloped or lightly developed areas -- is held to be very bad. It is bad for the environment, it causes sprawl, creates auto-dependency, hurts cute little animals, yada yada yada....

The planning profession largely pays obligatory homage to the notion of infill in plans and reports, but in practice, the concept is largely discarded. There are many reasons for this that can be summarized by the observation that infill is currently difficult to implement. There is a reason why most of those gaps in the development pattern were passed by, from difficult terrain to difficult ownership and everything in between. Greenfield development is so much easier, especially politically.

With greenfield development, typically the current owner of the site -- often a longtime resident who is simply looking to "cash out" -- lines up with the development team in a combination that is difficult for local government officials to resist. Conversely, with infill, the neighbors, who have grown accustomed to their neighborhood just the way it is, line up in logical opposition. I say "logical" because, if we're honest with ourselves, most infill projects are a variation on this obnoxious theme:

Click photo for source document 

I'll suggest that there isn't anyone reading this post who, if they were the occupant with a 30-year mortgage on the single-family residence pictured, would support the construction of the neighboring poverty-experiment. Infill is so logical in theory, but in practice it is anything but. That must change, and change quickly, because we need to go far beyond infill in order to make our cities financially viable. 

The only analogy that comes to my mind to describe what needs to happen is theological, but since it is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. day, I'll proffer it. Moses brought us the Ten Commandments, number seven of which instructs us to not commit adultery. Jesus took it further and framed this commandment for his followers, showing them how to not only read the commandment but to ingest it into their very souls, when he said in Matthew:

You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to desire her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

For a married person, committing adultery is the end of a journey that begins with having feelings for someone other than your spouse. As an instruction to his disciples, Jesus was saying that, if you want to follow the seventh commandment, don't even start on that journey. If you truly want to reach your spiritual destination, each step on your path should bring you closer to - not further from - your ideal.

When it comes to greenfield development, the planning profession lives in a world akin to Moses', where there is a commandment -- Thou shall not develop greenfields -- but an operating environment that surrounds us with every type of debauchery and enticement possible to get us to vary from this rule. Not only do we have all of the federal and state subsidies, all of the transportation spending, all of the banking, insurance, underwriting and real estate systems, and not only do we have a Ponzi-scheme, local finance system that depends on new growth, but the planning profession has one very specific tool that makes compliance with the greenfield commandment impossible.

That tool is zoning.

Our modern system of zoning, which separates everything into pods of different micro-uses and then connects each pod with a hierarchy of transportation, handles greenfield development brilliantly. That is, it is handled in a very predictable, efficient manner. On the other hand, modern zoning is brutal to infill. Small infill projects not only have to withstand neighborhood opposition, but the bureaucratic encrustation of paperwork, hearings, plan reviews and minutiae that don't scale down well, especially on sites that tend to be more challenging (the reason they are gaps in the first place).

The difficulty that standard zoning creates for infill needs to be appreciated, because infill is just the start. We need to get far beyond the concept of infill. What we need is a system of development that allows neighborhoods to establish, grow and mature over time. Single-family homes need to evolve into duplexes. Duplexes need to mature into row houses. Row houses need to grow into low rise, mixed-use flats. The operating system of our cities needs to allow places to mature in this way. It needs to be easy, intuitive and - most of all - desired by everyone involved.

In other words, it is not enough to simply say, "Thou shall not develop greenfields," but then continue to operate in a system where greenfield development is the natural conclusion of nearly every journey. If we agree that greenfield development is bad, then we need a radically different mode of operation. We need a new operating system, and that begins with a national book burning to rid ourselves of our destructive zoning codes. (Politically speaking, I strongly suspect that such an event would be a bi-partisan affair.)

Now, do we at Strong Towns suggest there should be neighborhood anarchy? Of course not. We need an operating system for the future of our neighborhoods. The best place to start would be the SmartCode or similar form-based alternative. In a form-based code, we see regulations that are permissive (state what they want) and not restrictive (state what they oppose), address primarily the form the property takes and not the use, create a predictable development pattern that is compatible with existing neighborhoods and streamline the bureaucracy to make approvals quick and easy.

The key insight about form-based codes, however, is how they create a pattern of development where neighborhood growth is positive for the people already living there. Since all form-based growth builds on the existing pattern of the neighborhood, new development is not a threat to the current order but instead, by definition, enhances it. As our neighborhoods mature in a form-based operating system, gaps are filled in, then places are connected, then destinations are naturally created and, over time, expanded and enhanced. There is no step backwards in a form-based system, just forward.

If we don't want greenfield development -- and at Strong Towns we agree that it has little redeeming value, especially as society is starting to comprehend the financial impact of two generations of horizontal growth -- we need something more than a commandment that few follow. We actually need a different path to follow, an entirely different operating system that will continuously make our cities stronger. That is what it means to build Strong Towns.

Some additional reading and information:

• Understanding Downtown (October 5, 2009)
• The Cost to Cities of Auto-centricity (May 12, 2010)
• SmartCode Central
• Center for Applied Transect Studies
• Form-Based Codes Institute
• Placeshakers (experts in Form-Based Coding)

An unrelated comment to share with you in passing today. My wife and I have two daughters, ages 6 and 3, and felt it was important to talk to them about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. My oldest was singing a song they learned in school about MLK, which she taught to the other daughter, and that prompted our discussion. We don't live in the most multi-racial place here in the middle of Minnesota, but it is far more diverse than when I grew up. As we had this discussion, the two girls had blank, puzzled expressions. It took a while to dawn on us that they had no clue what we were talking about. They did not comprehend a reason why someone with a different color of skin is in any meaningful way "different". We didn't even broach the fact that at one point in history we had different water fountains and seating arrangements - that would have been as absurd to them as burning "witches" in medieval times is to us today. Why would anyone who is not crazy do that? The conversation made me very hopeful, not just about my kids, but about King's dream and the ability of humanity to engage in collective self-improvement. Someday we'll make sure our kids know the history we need to understand and remember, but my hope is they will absorb it through the truly colorblind lens they each currently posses.

If you value what you read here, consider a donation to help spread the Strong Towns movement. We're just three guys trying to change the world. Your contribution would make a big difference.

Comments

[Tom H.]

Wonderful post. One thing I would like elaboration on is the concept of neighborhood evolution that you mention:

Single-family house -> duplex -> rowhouse -> low-rise flats

This seems intuitive enough, but what are the dynamics of this process? Is this a process of tearing down old structures and replacing them with new, or adding on to the old? Also, how does this process maintain diversity in the housing stock? Wouldn't the inevitable conclusion of this process be a homogeoneous mass of low-rises, at the total expense of the other living arrangments? I'm not saying that I don't approve of your vision of "neighborhood maturation", I'm just a little confused on the specifics.

[Mike Grant]

I certainly am sympathetic to your goals on this website but the idea that form-based coding would change much seems a bit naive to me. I think it's just obvious that once people invest in owner-occupied single-family housing they are almost universally resistant to upzoning to duplexes, then rowhouses, etc etc. I suppose a form-based code could be put in place but as soon as it threatened the SFR status quo, then out the code would go. Until gas hits something like $7/gallon you're not going to see much more interest in density and mixed-use than there is now. That is, until it's an economic imperative for people to drive less to perform their ADLs. And, even then, I believe that it many states it will also take state governments stepping in and forcing local governments to allow more density.

[Jeffrey Jakucyk]

To address Tom H's question, there's an interesting way this manifested itself in Cincinnati. Here in the 1920s-1940s many single-family houses were demolished and replaced with 4-unit apartment buildings. Presumably a number of them were also built on undeveloped land too. Still, while a lot of them have a decidedly art deco/moderne look, many also have a more traditional sort of colonial design that at first glance looks just like any other decent sized house.

Another way areas have densified is by subdivision. There's many old estates and farms around that were subdivided for smaller lots. In many cases the original house remained, perhaps as it was, or subdivided into a few apartments, but without a huge yard anymore. This isn't something so easy to do nowadays with the somewhat denser suburban pattern that doesn't have room to subdivide.

Nevertheless, the shift to a more form-based code is something that seems like substituting one evil for another, but the subtle differences are really quite powerful. Traditional zoning is very focused on metrics, such as units per acre, minimum lot sizes, occupancy limits, etc. Form-based codes don't care about that at all, they're about physical relationships and, well, form! The 4-unit apartments I mentioned before are a perfect example of how a form-based approach (though it was just business as usual back then) can inject more density into an area that's still compatible with everything else. Not only are those buildings roughly the same size as the houses the replaced or are interspersed with (thus they're smaller and much more affordable units), but they have the same palette of materials, the same setbacks, and they still present a front door to the street.

When a traditionally zoned area is upzoned, or a planned unit development is created to try to get higher densities, you end up with the situation pictured above by Chuck. There's no consideration of scale. You see this a lot in commercial development too. A "mixed retail" zone can have anything from small shops and drive-through restaurants to large strip centers or even huge super-regional malls. Since it's all retail it's deemed ok by traditional zoning, even though the individual buildings vary wildly in size.

A problem that relates to infill is that it's usually not cost-effective to do infill on the scale that's allowed by existing zoning. The solution, at least in my mind, isn't to allow massive high-rise superstructures, but to find a middle ground, and that's usually a more form-based approach. A simple height limit can go a long way for instance. Rather than a single-family neighborhood invaded by a 6 story apartment block surrounded by parking, you instead get a few 3 story courtyard apartment with basement garages or parking hidden around the back. That's much more palatable to neighbors than one big super project.

The tough sell in all this is realizing the true value of land. Traditional zoning both "protects" land values, but also depresses it at the same time. An underlying, even subconscious, rationalization for NIMBYism against upzoning or densification in general is that by increasing the supply of housing will cause prices to drop through the simple economics of supply and demand. There's also the question of parking problems and increased traffic where there's no viable transit, but of course that's a catch-22 whereby no new transit can be expected in an area that's not already dense enough to support it. There's also the issue that these new developments are almost always worse, both spatially and architecturally, than what they replace.

So anyway, NIMBYism comes out from people who have already bought into the neighborhood, and they don't want to see their property values go down because of ugly new developments and traffic, and also though a simple increase in the supply of housing. On the other hand, by artificially limiting the development potential of land through zoning restrictions, it also depresses property values since it can't be developed more intensely. If zoning regulations were lifted, the value of land would increase as developers can build more intensely on it, so they'd be more willing to pay for it. The homeowner wouldn't need to sell, but with more valuable property they might be forced to through higher property taxes realized by the more valuable land. So while they might not like the idea of being priced out of their own home, the reality is that they can still cash in (or would that be cash out?) of the situation by selling their home at the much higher value and moving into an apartment or condo in the same place where that tax burden is distributed among more people.

Of course this is why it's a tough sell. People think they have some right to live in a particular place in a single-family house on a large lot even if the reality of economics dictate that it should be a dense neighborhood of apartments or row houses. Traditional zoning creates an artificial scarcity of land, thus raising prices, but at the same time it induces sprawl because that land can't be sold at a profit to someone who can put it to more productive use.

[Doug]

In Houston, TX., there is no zoning and not the liklihood of it. Only the RICH are able to keep their DEED RESTRCTIONS solid. Most other neighborhoods are fodder for developers and the ponzi-scheme tax incomes for the city. The past 10 years have brought MANY of the ugliest buildings into once beautiful neighborhoods you'll ever see. As the owner of a 1946 stilted brickwork 1700 sf abode, I am constantly threatened by cookie cutter townhome developments. There are very little or NO incentives to keep history alive.

[anonymouse]

I would agree about what the occupant of that single family house with a 30-year mortgage would think, but I would also like to point out that the 30-year fixed rate mortgage can only exist as a result of massive government subsidies. In other countries without such subsidies, mortgage terms are much shorter, and thus people can't afford to buy such expensive houses and have so much of their net worth invested in a single, illiquid asset whose value is subject to all kinds of fluctuation due to what goes on around it. In conclusion, Fannie and Freddie bred generations of NIMBYs.

[Mike Grant]

I would echo anonymouse's comment as well as add that many states provide homestead tax incentives for people not to move from their primary residence. Michigan, for example, caps the rate at which the value of your home can increase for purposes of your property taxes. Which, of course, creates an enormous incentive for people never to move and to fight any proposal that would change the character of their neighborhood away from SFR.

[Stu]

I also have to question the assumed one-way linearity of your neighborhood maturation model. It's a little simplistic and probably just as shortsighted as assuming that everyone first buys a small "starter home" and continues upward in square footage throughout their lives.