Leinberger argues for walkable urbanism

Live chat interview

Vilas Bhuchar, Jun 07, 10.

Christopher Leinberger, “Metropolitan Land Strategist,” developer, and author, argued that several non-market forces, including bank lending practices, stand in the way of walkable urbanism during a live chat interview with Greater Greater Washington last week.

Highlights from the interview include the following:

Leinberger on banks that only want to lend to specific cookie-cutter projects (usually not mixed use):

The financing problem has obviously gotten worse…worse for all real estate and possibly especially for walkable urban development. The reason for this is that WU development is by its very nature more risky and the banks are scared stiff, hence looking for safer loans. Whether this will change as progressive developers bring only walkable urban deals to them and the continued failure on the fringe, we will see.

Leinberger on whether the Obama administration has improved things at Fannie Mae, Housing and Urban Development:

...big questions about the F/Ms and FHA…HUD knows they have to make major reforms but from what I hear from my friends on the inside, they do not have a clue about how to do it and do NOT want to tamper too much with the fragile economy….the homebuilding industry going down a second time would be a disaster for the country and the administration.

Leinberger answering an audience question about whether he believes smart growth should be driven by the government “tip(ping) the scales towards urbanism” or whether the solution is to “simply remove govt interference from planning decisions”:

I would prefer the latter since we will always screw up the incentives and will distort the market in some way. Putting new incentives in place to offset the old incentives seems pretty silly to me. Having said that, gov’t has a HUGE role in making transportation investments since TRANSPORTATION DRIVES DEVELOPMENT. Those decisions are gov’t and we have basically been building roads…think the stupidest highway project of our day, the ICC, and we have to fundamentally reform that.

Leinberger on his love of streetcars and how public-private partnerships could help drive them :
I love streetcars…I lead a Brookings study of the H Street streetcar line, using the case studies of Portland, Seattle and Tampa. Great real estate value creation and the potential for that increased value to help pay for a portion of the construction cost. Plus, streetcars will help put in the lateral rail transit, connecting the radial Metro lines.

Transportation has always added real estate value for the last, oh, 6,000 years. DC was built as a giant real estate play; the lot sales paid for the road improvements. We as a country are broke and we have to go back to how we paid for rail transit a hundred years ago; having the increasing land values help pay for the rail transit.

Leinberger answering an audience question about whether the government should be involved in incentivizing and/or mandating affordable housing:

Yes, government needs (to) get involved in affordable housing far more than it does now. The reason for gentrification is the lack of supply of walkable urban places and land…but we have plenty of land just not enough walkable urban places. The problem will eventually be ‘solved’ by more supply but that will take at least a generation. Therefore, we need a conscious affordable housing policy to replace our current one, which is ‘drive until you qualify’.

Arlington and Montgomery County are two great role models. They are using serious annual investments in creating more PERMANENT affordable units and inclusionary zoning to create a fairly impressive number of units…more must be done even in these two jurisdictions.

BTW, value capture could be used for affordable housing as well….gentrification can be used to pay for affordable housing…take from the rich for the not as well off.

Leinberger on the difference between his and Randal O’Toole’s views on the free market’s role in transportation and development:

“O’Toole mistakenly thinks we are seeing the free market at work today in drivable su-urban development…as does David Brooks, Joel Kotkin (who I have recently and will again debate…next time in NYC next month) and others. It is a massively subsidized system today that has engaged in the largest social engineering experiment in US history.

If the subsidies would be taken away and we were given a CHOICE in how to get around and how to live, you would see a very big difference in what land use patterns would look like. How do I know this: The huge price premiums in walkable urban places vs drivable sub-urban…that is the market telling us something profound.”

Finally, Leinberger on various government measures that might help ensure affordable housing:

You raise very good points…any government intervention has to be thought through very carefully. There are 8-10 mechanisms I have been working on to achieve a conscious affordable housing strategy. Inclusionary zoning, value capture, direct local government subsidies, Federal and state subsidies, granny flats (a great, low cost and benefical to the middle class approach) and many others.

Leinberger spoke at the Texas Triangle Megaregion conference, co-hosted by Houston Tomorrow and America 2050, in September. He told the audience, “Transportation drives development. It dictates what we in real estate can build.”

Full interview