Texas: The new smart growth state

Note: The Wall Street Journal refused to run the following letter from Arthur C. Nelson:

In “Florida Sheds Its 'Smart Growth' Dunce Hat,” Wendell Cox alleges in the WSJ (10/18) Florida’s “smart growth” policies are to blame for its recent woes while Texas is an example for the rest of the nation to follow because it does not practice smart growth. 

Mr. Cox has it backwards.

Florida attempted smart growth through its “Growth Management Act” (GMA) launched in the middle 1980s. Among many things, through a state-local partnership, the GMA would use various state and local tools to match housing supply with demand to avoid over-production that tanked the state’s economy historically.

For a while, the GMA worked. In 1990, before the GMA took hold fully, the statewide housing vacancy rate stood at 15.3% while the median home value to median household income ratio was 2.9. In 2000, a decade into the GMA, the vacancy rate dropped to 12.8% while the home value-to-income ratio dropped to 2.7.

But the 2000s saw a succession of Republican governors dismantle the state-local partnership allowing local governments to approve developments far in excess of demand. By 2010, Florida’s vacancy rate shot up to 17.4%, the home value-to-income ratio rose to 3.0, and Florida led the nation in foreclosures. Over-production of housing once again tanked Florida’s economy.

In the meantime, Texas has become a “smart growth” state. Consider:

• As governor, Republican George W. Bush engineered a law limiting mortgage debt to 80% of appraised value. This reduces housing production in excess of demand; very smart.

• The Dallas metro area has the nation’s largest light rail system and development is booming around its well-planned station areas; very smart.

• Houston, which has no zoning though one of the nation’s most complex planning schemes, has launched a light rail system to meet new development demands; very smart.

>> Austin, the state capital, is a national poster child for smart growth. One key ingredient is facilitating partnerships to meet demand for downtown condos and apartments; very smart.

• San Antonio protects itself from subsidizing suburbia by outflanking sprawl through one of the nation’s most aggressive annexation policies; very smart.

• During the 2000s, land use patterns in Texas’ five largest central counties became more compact, integrated, and accessible to transit than Florida’s five largest central counties; very smart.

The payoff is evident. Florida’s smart growth efforts during the 1990s did a better job of matching housing supply with demand than the economy-tanking dismantling of the GMA state-local partnership during the 2000s. Through innovative smart growth measures, Texas, which was the poster-child for economy-tanking excessive development in the 1980s, now matches housing supply with demand; very smart.

Arthur C. Nelson is Presidential Professor of Planning and Adjunct Professor of Finance at the University of Utah. He is the author of Reshaping Metropolitan America (Island Press 2013).