Photo Credit: Alex MacLean. Copyright Landslides.
Housing sprawl in Essex, Vermont.

Growth Gamble

New England: New Century, New Game

By Neal Peirce and Curtis Johnson

It’s the worst possible combination: New England’s evil twins of aging, slow or no growth population and land-gobbling, spread-out development.

The six states are allowing their signature asset – their picturesque towns, rolling hills, small farms and verdant forests – to be carved into just another bunch of manufactured subdivisions and strip malls stuck here or there. They’re fast losing their seed corn – their youth – to other sections of America. Town resistance and ferocious housing inflation are closing off housing options for residents and newcomers alike. The spirit, the very character of New England seems in peril.

Check around for solutions and you find that go-it-aloneism – town by town, state by state – is so ingrained it’s tough for New Englanders to think “outside the box” to find common cures. Sure, there are big mitigating factors: town officials have to operate with the hand they’re dealt, from property tax reliance to residents’ suspicion of new development. And a growing number of spirited “smart growth” and affordable housing efforts have sprung up across the states. Still, the region as a whole seems bereft of an urgent need to act, to shape a coherent strategy that preserves its rich heritage while securing its future.

Right now, the cards show a foreboding deck:

Sprawl. Standard zoning and exurban development are eating away at the innards of New England’s character and way of life. Townspeople often refuse stubbornly to allow much change, not even chances to fill in sites where more people could live and work. Subdivisions get randomly plopped down, while the rich carve out starter-castles on the sides of hills surrounded by their private forests. Key transportation arteries become so congested that the economy of whole subregions is in jeopardy. Water supplies are threatened. People walk less, imperiling health. The poor, minorities, senior citizens are increasingly isolated. Supplies of affordable housing dry up. Convenient downtown stores close their doors. Struggling family farms finally give way to developer dollars.

Not just an urban phenomenon, sprawling development is reaching into northern New England as dairy farming shrinks and seasonal home complexes burgeon. More than 1 million acres of open space and agricultural land has been lost to development in the last 20 years, more land than it had consumed in all its prior recorded history.

Youth drain. New England’s young families are heading off to the Atlantas, Denvers and Phoenixes of America in search of better jobs and affordable places to live. Birth rates in all its states are well below the U.S. average. Of the hundreds of thousands of New Englanders who moved away in the 90s, roughly three-quarters were between the ages of 18 and 34, many well educated. New England is already the nation’s oldest region; by 2030 Maine, at 46.9 years median age, will be America’s oldest state, and all six states older than the national average.

The economic repercussions can be grave. Maine’s former Attorney General James Tierney warns: “Do we really think employers won’t notice our aging workforce – and that there are no young people to fill the ranks?”  All the “business climate” factors normally noted – the tax rate, workmen’s comp and the like – “are nowhere near as significant as the aging of our population,” Tierney asserts.

Some New Englanders shrug off population and youth flight, saying they don’t want more people and congestion in their towns anyway. It’s a dangerous attitude.  Without the energy, the risk-taking, the imagination of youth, what’s any region’s future?

Housing crisis. Soaring housing costs are fueling New England’s youth exodus and its ability to attract new workers – white or blue collar. The inflation is most severe in the Boston-Providence-Portland area, in Connecticut’s Fairfield County and hot growth spots like the Maine coast and the Upper Valley region on the New Hampshire-Vermont border. Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and New Hampshire rank among America’s 10 least affordable states for renters. The median cost of owner-occupied homes, plus the percentage of million-dollar homes, are higher in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island than 41 other states.

It’s a dangerous development. Consider the 2005 survey of Bay State residents commissioned by the mega-cranberry producer, A.D. Makepeace. Some 68 percent said it was either “very difficult” or “nearly impossible” for young families “to buy an affordable house and raise a family in Massachusetts.” Latest reports underscore the peril of soaring housing costs. In 2004, Massachusetts was the only state in America to drop in total population; in 2005, it was still losing, now joined by Rhode Island.

Anti-family culture. Across New England, towns are resisting new housing for families with children. Why? Fears that affordable housing will “flood” the schools with children, forcing increased property taxes to pay the bills.

The practice is even starting to threaten New Hampshire, long successful, with its low-tax climate, in siphoning off jobs and investment from Massachusetts. Peter Francese of Exeter, the respected founder of American Demographics Magazine, wrote Gov. John Lynch early last February: “Our state is committing slow economic suicide.” New Hampshire’s rising prosperity of recent decades, warned Francese, “will soon turn into rapid decline” as young families despair of finding housing and leave.

We found fear of young families and increased school costs everywhere. Some even dub it “vasectomy zoning.” The six states’ construction rate of multi-family housing – the kind more often affordable for young families – placed between 40th and 50th among U.S. states in the ‘90s.

Worse, towns increasingly restrict new housing developments (especially affordable ones) to age-55-and-up residents, and offer tax abatements to seniors. Older residents are thought to demand less from local treasuries. But the towns’ short-term gain may be their states’ long-term risk: more elderly translate into spiraling state expenditures for Medicaid, assisted living and prescription drug costs.

Intensifying problems, towns hungry for higher tax yields often clamor to land malls, then welcome shoppers from other towns, but refuse to make space for housing for the same mall’s workers and local customers. There’s some good news: recent campaigns to arouse awareness of the need for affordable housing, reported in all six states. Still, many local development decisions suggest a raw me-first-ism that would make New England’s ancestors, from the Puritan elders forward, flinch with shame.

What’s to be done? The time seems right to reshuffle the deck, protect New England’s strong suits, play some new cards:

* Every community for all classes. The idea of democratically shared town and neighborhood life, rich and poor sharing the same communities, was literally born in New England. Recent decades have seen the affluent concentrate more in exclusive towns, the poor shunted into depressed city neighborhoods or lower-value suburban areas far away from vital job markets. The results include school segregation, deep social inequities, lack of civic discourse and economic opportunity. New England leaders – political, spiritual, civic – should champion a return to the historic democratic ideal, starting with a mix of housing types (single-family homes, apartments, expensive and affordable) in every city, town and neighborhood.

* Stand up for quintessential New England. From historic town green communities to mill towns, from small farms to seacoast villages, New England has a distinctive character, the region’s special birthright. Proposed new developments should pass a litmus test: Do they respect the community’s character and design? Do they preserve, enhance the community’s sense of place? Do they increase chances for getting around – walkable growth, scaled for personal interaction? Do they create a vibrant mix of uses – homes, stores, offices? Do they increase housing options?

It’s no secret – from big boxes and hotels in the middle of nowhere to tacky sign-laden arterials – lots of today’s development fails those tests. To the degree New England takes on the sameness of spread-out, Generica U.S.A., it loses character, not just for tourists but the bright, footloose knowledge workers critical to its 21st century economic success.

* Democratize development – but in a regional context. Make planning – from rural roads to town centers to areawide retail facilities – less of a decision for single developers or owners, or even for a single town, but more of an issue for vigorous citizen debate on impacts and regional responsibilities. It’s critical to note that roadways, transit, parks, watersheds, roadways, retailing – 90 percent of the decisions that count – impact multiple towns. Town meetings are a splendid embodiment of direct democracy, but they’re insufficient to handle the emerging new issues. Regional planning agencies – to provide information and expertise, to suggest choices – must be strengthened, working both with citizens and the local governments.

Veteran town watcher Edward McMahon of the Urban Land Institute offers two rules for successful development. First, limit commercial strips – after they spread out so far, just say “no” to more, because they obliterate town identities. And second, “build to the edge,” right up to the street line, pushing seas of car-serving asphalt to the rear.

McMahon’s other counsel: fight the national franchises’ off-the-shelf, gaudy signs and building designs. “Don’t be bluffed. If it’s a profitable location, they’ll do anything to get clearance.” Indeed, check around the six states, and you find many town champions anxious to repel the national chains altogether. And why not? If any U.S. region has a stake in maintaining its towns’ distinctiveness – for sentiment and to stay competitive – it’s New England.

* Think 21st century. This era of mounting energy crises is the time to build, retrofit, think “green.” As the baby boomers approach 65, many driving less or not at all, it’s time to rethink city and town plans for walkability, parks and services and welcoming streetscapes. Many of today’s workers telecommute or work at home; why not encourage “live-work” units and restore daytime activity to sleepy residential streets? As older strip malls succumb to competitors, plans for a radical mixed-use, townlike remake – like the pioneering Mashpee Commons that replaced a dead shopping center on Cape Cod – need to be advanced.

* Encourage development in the seasoned old cities. Like today’s restored Boston, plucky Providence and comeback Lowell, all of New England’s older cities have immense assets – recyclable old mill buildings, wonderful parks and neighborhoods.

Affordable housing? Economical places to locate businesses? There are locations in waiting: just check from Bridgeport to Bangor, or directly on commuter rail lines spread from Worcester to Lawrence to New Bedford. Indeed, old cities are perfect fits for more density and transit-oriented development – the modern idea of building homes, offices, stores near transit stops – to reduce traffic and increase convenience.

There’s also a major role for states, especially in providing financial incentives for better development. Some are testing the waters but much greater leaps are sorely needed.

Some extraordinarily breakthroughs have begun – witness the now largely vacant South Weymouth Naval Air Station, just 10 miles from downtown Boston and directly connected by commuter rail. We were stunned both by its 1,432-acre size – ample space for thousands of homes. Originally it seemed impossible the three local towns could agree on using the site for anything more than a monster mall and housing for seniors only (again, no kids please!). But with counsel from outside environmental advocates and the appearance of a major national developer willing to negotiate extensively with the towns and their citizens, a vision of a rounded, full community emerged – a new village center, pedestrian-friendly streets and neighborhoods, close to 3,000 new housing units of varied prices, and generous new park and recreation areas. Confounding earlier fears, each of the local town meetings then agreed.

But one finds surprisingly little New England wide dialogue – among towns and cities, developers, major businesses, tourist interests, state government leaders, regional agencies – to determine how the six states could learn from each other, harmonize their tax and development practices, work toward a compelling regional growth agenda. The growing numbers of “smart growth” organizations and the New England Association of Regional Councils might be logical catalysts – more likely to start the ball rolling than politically hesitant governors, legislators and town officials. Once launched, the agenda shaping might take on a life of its own to assure a New England that’s not only lovable for its past, but a vibrant, adaptive, exciting part of 21st century America.

[Originally published January 2006]