II. Barriers to Valuing the Assets of CitiesWhat are the limits of performing this kind of asset inventory? Why, if the news about urban assets is potentially so good, do the public reports about cities and communities sound so challenging? What kinds of challenges do we face in trying to use this kind of asset-based approach? What are the barriers to a conservationist approach to systems development: making the most of existing social and economic networks and transactions? Such barriers include: 1. The speed of disinvestment from older to newer communitiesIn Chicago the region's land use grew by 50% from 1970-1990 and daily vehicle-miles of travel increased 49% while population grew by only 4%. During the same time frame metropolitan Cleveland spread out by 33% while its population dropped 8%. Philadelphia grew 32% and population grew 3%. San Francisco grew 45% against a population increase of 40%. In metro Seattle the figures were an 87% land increase vs. a 36% population growth. Baltimore's land use grew 101% against an 8% population increase. And metropolitan Los Angeles spread out 300% while the population grew 45%. This particular "sweepstakes" was won by (a) metro St. Louis, which lost half its central city population, still increased overall population by 35%, and experienced a 354% increase in utilized land; and (b) metropolitan Atlanta, which in the last ten years converted the largest amount of farmland, 1.1 million acres, to development, resulting in a twenty-county metropolitan statistical area.62 Whether population is growing, stable or shrinking, we are spreading out. The "independent variables" of public policy (subsizidizing of new infrastructure and built-in regional tax base inequities), marketplace practice, and shifting demographics (aging, immigration, and the "baby boom echo") are leaving their footprint on the land, and on our sense of community. The speed at which this occurs outstrips the rate at which current policy and investment toolkits can cope. At the same time, abandonment of older, central cities and "inner-ring" suburban areas have led to the all-too-familiar picture of vast tracts of central area abandonment. This has occurred even in the face of continued demand for developed land. Both metropolitan sprawl and older area abandonment are flip sides of the same phenomenon-the failure to renew our existing systems and places. It is been estimated that land in America is being consumed at three times the rate of household formation. 63A rule of thumb might be that for every 1% 64increase in use of land for development, daily metropolitan vehicle miles-traveled increases also by approximately 1%. The well-publicized tracking of transportation congestion in metropolitan America too easily masks the under-reported continued transportation efficiencies of older and existing communities. 65
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