By AMY RILEY
One Citizen's Perspective

For the past week, I have been consumed by the news coverage regarding the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority and their grab for dominion over local governments and their land use plans.

I've spoken with several county commissioners, heard from citizens on both sides of the issue, and found some fascinating commentary on the Internet. This whole notion of new urbanism, in-filling growth and development to counter urban sprawl, would have been a great topic for my freshman philosophy class in college. It was there that I got my first taste of reason and debate.

My professor called the class “fetal logic,” because it covered all the basics of how to make supported arguments. For me, it was an introduction to the thread that runs through me. (Just ask my husband, who thinks I could argue the stripes off a zebra.) This new urbanism growth concept is an easy mark for those who like debate. It is chock full of false claims and faulty logic, and is a “bad moon rising” on our horizon.

First, let me say I like the Peachtree City concept of village development, where each little area has a grocery store, a school, some churches, a few shops, a few restaurants, pretty green belts, nature trails, play areas, and lots of pleasing subdivisions. I even like the idea of the Walt Banks/Hwy. 54 plan for mixed use development.

If I were a younger person or an “empty nester,” I would live in a loft over an aesthetically pleasing row of sidewalk shops, too.

That is NOT what GRTA is talking about when they advocate higher density development. We may argue over one house versus four houses on an acre of land. GRTA could conceivably demand 10 houses per acre, or more, and our failure to comply can mean that OUR tax dollars will be withheld from us and that every other development plan that we submit could be denied.

New urbanism as a growth concept is not something you apply after the sprawl has occurred. The concept has questionable merit even when it is preemptively applied, according to critics of the Portland, Ore. plan. In-filling sprawl with higher density development and public transit to prevent further sprawl and pollution is a preposterous plan.

It may be nice for Atlanta if people in the suburbs start riding trains to work instead of cars. I would ride the train to commute IF it was safe and efficient in both time and cost. But what about residents here who choose local jobs with less pay in exchange for a higher quality of life who suddenly find themselves dealing with Atlanta-like traffic conditions in their own backyards? We may get the federal money for roads, but we'll have a federal headache to boot.

One of the first things people will likely do, especially those who do not have school-aged children, is move a little farther out to get back that quiet, country setting they lost, sprawling “sprawl” even wider. Also false is the notion that people will walk, ride bikes, or in our case, ride golf carts to the train station and nearby stores. When is the last time you saw someone hauling plywood or PVC pipe from their local Home Depot in a bike basket or on a golf cart?

How would you like to take three young children grocery shopping on foot as a rule rather than the exception? How would you like to pay even more for retail items because congestion and planning has narrowed the scope of the market for retailers? The American “it's the economy, stupid” culture is not ready for the sweeping change in daily living that is necessary to cast off the automobile, no matter how noble the idea may be.

This is Atlanta, not Atlantis.

The fact that many people seem to believe that it is the government's role to decide all of this for us is the biggest fallacy of all. Wendell Cox, in “The Heritage Foundation Backgrounder,” called the president's new sprawl initiative “a program in search of a problem.”

We used to be a nation who headed off social problems with a sound moral foundation. Then we became a nation who sought “program” solutions to deal with social problems which emerged when we lost that foundation. Now we are a nation with a ruling elite who have pre-ordained the solutions, and need only to “create” the suitable problems to fit their socialist agenda.

Make no mistake — this “new sprawl initiative” wears a “Made in Washington” label. Just like the Education Reform Act, these are federal cookie-cutter designs being implemented piecemeal in governors' offices all over the country though the systematic creation of appointed superagencies.

These are NOT your grandma's cookies. We are allowing our representative system of government to be dismantled road by road by road, and we have not the reason or logic to fight it.

Your comments are welcome: ARileyFreePress@aol.com

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