business

Thirty-five years ago, at a national convention of urban planners, I heard an ominous message that still resonates.

In his keynote address, Sen. Fred Harris of Oklahoma said: "Every morning, 423,000 people in Westchester County, New York, get up, get in their cars and drive into the city of New York to go to work. And, every morning 418,000 people in the city get up, get in their cars and drive to Westchester County. And you planners think we have a transportation problem!''

That story still is being repeated in every major urban area. Planners, and the elected policymakers they work for, haven't done much to prevent urban sprawl. We keep building on the outskirts, far away from job centers, and wonder why we have so much congestion on the roads, so much damage to the environment and so many unnecessary costs. Now add in gasoline at $4 a gallon.

We cannot stay on this road. Too much is at stake, from keeping housing affordable for working families to long-term climate change, harmful health effects of traffic congestion and energy dependence on scarce and increasingly costly energy resources.

The cost of urban sprawl can be viewed though the lens of the average consumer. Families move to communities far from their jobs because they want to save money -- the land and the housing are cheaper. However, a study of 28 metropolitan areas by the Center for Housing Policy, the research arm of the National Housing Conference, concluded that working families moving further from jobs to get affordable housing actually ended up spending more in increased transportation costs than they saved on housing. And that study was completed when a gallon of gasoline cost half what it does now.

It is time we started connecting the dots among affordable housing development, transportation and energy policy.

We could start by not rewarding bad behavior. Consider this: Federal transportation funding has been distributed to urban areas with the highest number of vehicle miles traveled (VMT). Why not do more to reward communities that are taking positive steps to reduce VMTs?

Connecting the dots will require actual communication among residential developers, transportation planners, energy policy leaders and others. Too often, those professionals operate in their own silos and don't talk to the folks in the other silos. And we can't forget the important role of our elected officials who ultimately shape public policy.

There are some hopeful signs. During a recent trip to Washington, I was introduced to a new campaign called Transportation for America, a major multidisciplinary effort to reform transportation policy.

The key to success is the diversity of groups that have been invited to sit at the table with "traditional" transportation planners. They include Smart Growth America; the National Association of Realtors; U.S. PIRG (federation of state Public Interest Research Groups); Reconnecting America (sponsor of the Center for Transit-Oriented Development); the American Public Health Association; AARP, and the National Housing Conference, the oldest and largest housing advocacy group in the nation.

T4America, as it's called, will be doing the hard work of building a national media campaign and network coalition to put pressure on policymakers to do the right things.

It's about where we build and how we build. Residential developers have to do more to improve energy efficiency in construction, rehabilitation and operation of affordable homes. Development patterns must reduce our reliance on cars through increased density near public transit and job centers and the creation of more walkable communities. We have to preserve the housing we have and make it more energy-efficient. We should adopt zoning laws that require developers to reserve a share of units in new developments for affordable housing. We have to overcome our fear of higher-density development. Those are the keys to a sustainable urban development policy.

All of this requires thoughtful, comprehensive and coordinated public policies that ultimately will be shaped by the people we elect, from the future occupant of the White House to the U.S. Congress and state and local government leaders.

Let's ask the hard questions of the candidates during this election season. Let's talk about these important issues with our city councils, county boards and members of our state Legislature.

If we connect the dots among transportation policy, affordable housing and energy efficiency, we will start to address the challenge that Fred Harris put to us 35 years ago.