Which Future Do We Want? One Created by Care or Efficiency?

A future full of opportunity and hope, a future where our children will flourish, a future inspiring the sacrifice required for its attainment, a future where human and biological diversities thrive, a future of health and prosperity and peace…isn’t that what we want?  It seems within reach. Income and opportunity have steadily increased.  Health and longevity are rising. Social connectivity and global awareness are exploding. Violence and war are waning.  Solutions to poverty and hunger are finally within reach.  Even the population bomb seems to be defusing at 10 billion (hopefully).

We are so close, yet so far.  Does arrogant individualism limit our collective goal?  Are we unwilling to continue the shared sacrifice this future requires? The progressive democratic dream of we-the-people fueled by a capitalist engine has stalled just as we near the final big push.  Our past successes were due in no small measure to us being able to marshal the political will to responsibly allocate our collective wealth to the building of moral, intellectual and physical infrastructures upon which we created a society of tolerance, opportunity, and progress.  But now we are mired in political paralysis, income inequity, fiscal irresponsibility, infrastructure neglect, religious intolerance and willful disregard of rationality and science.  We’ve lost the very qualities that brought us within reach of our goal.  The care and compassion that once motivated our sacrifices for a shared future are now trumped at every turn by worship of efficiency, faith in the market’s invisible hand, arrogance of individualism, blatant disrespect for institutions of shared governance, and a failure to steward the natural capital that makes everything else possible.

Our future will be created though countless decisions made by people and organizations pursuing their self-interests, each of us innovating and sacrificing, each of us constantly responding to the infinite dynamic, each of us evaluating what it takes to get from here to there. The magic bullet is not different leadership, new government policies, innovative technologies, or improved markets—although these will be necessary—but instead an examination of our self-interests.  Decisions motivated by a self-interest to care for others as we would like others to care for us will produce different outcomes and a different future than decisions motivated by the self interest of minimizing costs and maximizing profits.

Where do self-interests come from? We learn them from family, media, school, theologians, and life lessons. Anthropology documents that cultures differ from one another in how self-interests are defined and historians show how the self-interests of Americans have changed over time.  In this series of blogs I tag “landcare,” I contrast two assemblages[1] of self-interest—care and efficiency—in how they inform our decisions about stewardship of our land and infrastructure.  I strive to demonstrate that a self-interest motivated by care creates the future we want, while a self-interest motivated entirely by efficiency leads to a very different, less desirable future.



[1] I use assemblages because it is the analytical tool deployed by William Connolly in his 2008 book Capitalism and Christianity, American Style where he dissects and characterizes the “evangelical-capitalist resonance machine” that amplifies messages, stories, policies, institutions, and ideas promoting and celebrating cowboy capitalism, entitlement theology, and an ethos of existential revenge.  In it he provides the best characterization that I have found of the constellation of ideas that propel and promote the assemblage of efficiency.

 

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Tea Party Menu

Click here for a menu of essays about Tea Party and Sustainable Development

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Sarah Palin, Sustainable Development, Localism, and Self-Reliance

Tea Party criticisms of sustainable development expose major fault-lines in the American political landscape.  Sarah Palin targets these issues in her Iowa Tea Party stump speech.  Palin points to the “permanent political class” that can and does ignore most Americans. Second, she shines a bright light on “corporate crony capitalism,” the capture of government by big business so as to direct wealth and power to the 1% using tax breaks, subsidies, regulations, trade policies and other government powers. And, bravely, she admits that it is not big government that is the problem, but bigness:  General Electric, Bank of America, United Nations, Unions, ADM, Microsoft, Pepsi, Environmental Protection Agency, and the World Bank.  The size and hierarchical structure of these institutions threatens the independent, individual-rights oriented thinking and action that once defined America and remains the best hope for democracy and freedom.

Palin, Giridharadas argues, reframes the political landscape. She refocuses our attention on abuse of power by big organizations.  It is not government that is a problem, it is instead the benign neglect or outright abuse of power that bigness promotes, including big government.  Stated differently, using a positive rather than a negative framing, Palin appeals for more autonomy, individual responsibility, and self-reliance.

I think Palin uncovers some higher ground where adversaries can become allies, where, for example, the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street might uncover agreement.  Rather than the strained Tea Party’s critique that local government is implementing a United Nations Agenda to subvert the US Constitution, we should instead focus our attention on lost control over our future.

Self-reliant, autonomous individuals and communities want control and sovereignty over their lives and futures.  But our lives and communities are moving in the opposite direction.  Globalization and the sheer scale of humanity have made us economically interconnected, ecologically interdependent, and socially integrated.  Carbon emitted by the rapid expansion of Chinese coal-fired electricity generation plants affects farmers in Africa.  A US debt crisis sends European stock markets into free fall.  Revolution in Egypt sparks world-wide political debate.  Biotechnology invented in Cambridge changes agriculture in India.  Investment capital providing jobs in our communities relocates overnight, without barriers or restraint.  The food on our dinner tables and the medicines in our cabinets are produced beyond our boarders where our public health inspectors have little regulatory power.

No wonder we feel a loss of control over our daily lives and alienated from our future.

I suggest it is no coincidence that we also see a rise of localism and advocacy for local foods, community investment banks, and “Made in the USA” labels.  These programs are based on the (uncritical) assumption that local is good, or better, than global. David Hess examines these trends in detail.  His recent book, Localist Movements in a Global Economy, examines the environmental, economic, and social impacts of projects that promote local media, local businesses, local shopping, local food, local investment, and so forth.  The results are mixed, not so much as to warrant abandoning localism, but rather to make us think more critically about what we want from localism.

Localism is not always good, as some sustainable developers assert.  Just like government is not always bad, as some Tea Partiers assert.  The Tea Party and localist advocates need to be more reflective than ideological.  Palin helps us refocus on bigness and crony capitalism rather than government as the problem.  Hess helps us focus on economic opportunity, environment quality, and community capacity as desired outcomes rather than just being local.

Some solutions might be best when local.  I think that is probably the case with sustainable development.  Solutions to the enormous and pressing challenges of sustainable development will require local action, an active government, and an engaged citizenry.  Hopefully we can get beyond name-calling and ideology to economic and community development that is sustainable.

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Tea Party is Wrong about Local Government

The national Tea Party movement is obsessed with big government.  Motivations behind this critique are tangled and confusing, but often echo Ronald Reagan’s “morning in America” mantra that “government is the problem.”  Distrust of government is furthered by the rise of neoliberial philosophy, the Washington Consensus promoting an unregulated global economy, and the reallocation of wealth in America to financial services, multinational corporations, and the top 1%.  Forces that concentrate power and wealth have much to gain by weakening democracy and governance; it allows them to continue to externalize costs to the public’s commons and capture subsidies from the public’s treasury. Sarah Palin, bravely, is redirecting this diffuse anti-government Tea Party focus towards a more logical target: Crony Capitalism—the capture of government by large corporations.  And here Tea Partiers overlap with the Occupy Wall Street.

Where Tea Party logic seems to confuse ideology with facts and lose touch with reality is when it preaches market fundamentalism—the belief that market outcomes are good, right, and to be accepted without question.  Tea Partiers seem to worship efficiency as the theological equivalent of the golden rule.  The market is always right; the market is efficient; so efficiency is always good.  Big government is often inefficient, so it is bad.

Sorry, but that logic is flawed and it causes Tea Partiers to take their eyes off the prize.

Yes, the government is inefficient. But it is not designed to be efficient.  It is designed to make and implement the difficult, value-laden choices that decision-experts call “wicked” because someone loses and no easy, optimal, or win-win solution exists.  The Founding Fathers wanted government to be inefficient so that these wicked choices would be made infrequently, and hopefully only after careful and prolonged debate.

The market, on the other hand, works well for the easy choices—how much vanilla ice cream to make and what to charge for it.  Our system of governance was designed to make moral choices that set the boundaries within which the market operates, such as when profit making becomes immoral (child labor, slavery), how much of a toxic body burden is acceptable (Clean Air, Clean Water acts), what should we do with the destitute and down cast in our community (Medicaid, mental health services, social security), when are marketing claims misrepresentations and thus wrong (free speech), and when does the right to life liberty and pursuit of happiness begin (Roe v Wade).  We don’t want markets making these decisions.

The point I want to make in this essay is that local Tea Partiers are mistaken when they critique local government using the same logic that they use to critique federal government.  They accept the national Tea Party critique of federal government and assume, without question, that the critique applies to local government as well.  I agree with the critique of corporate cronyism.   That problem will bring down America.  Let’s fix it.  But that same critique does not translate to local government, so the Tea Partiers vehement anti-government critique of all government, including local government, is misguided.  It can even be dangerous if it derails decision-making processes for decisions that must be made.  We need government at the local level to allocate resources to infrastructure, resolve disputes among property owners, and mobilize a vision of the future that residents will want to create and towards which they will contribute their resources.

Yes, local government will be inefficient and it will make decisions later deemed wrong and wasteful. That is the price we pay for justice, freedom, and equal opportunity.  It is a consequence of humans not being omniscient.  We must muddle our way into the future, creating it one step at a time, evaluating what we create and deciding whether to continue or redirect.  That is democracy.  Local government and planning processes are essential to this process.  Local programs and policies all evolved to serve the public interest.  Those interests have and will change over time, so must local programs and policies change.  But to dismiss and berate the essential role of local government in our lives is wrong-headed.  It asks us to throw out the baby with the bathwater.  Yes things need to change. Yes, difficult decisions must be made. Yes, some people will win and other will lose.  For these reasons we must continue to make decisions, we must continue to make local government work.

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Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street Agree?

Occupy Wall Street

Where they Agree?

Tea Party

  • Government is corrupted, flawed but necessary
  • Market externalizes costs, exploits labor for profit, the invisible hand needs a guide.
  • Environmental science identifies real limits (climate)
  • Agnostic or Creation Care.  Nature has inherent value.
  • Wealth inequity has increased to historic and unacceptable levels
  • Property rights are socially constructed and have changed over time.
  • Alternative values and lifestyles, less materialism
  • Focus on community
  • Pro Planning
  • Highly educated, young, in debt, out of work

 

  • Crony capitalism: big business has captured  government so that it gets favorable regulations, subsidies, and projects
  • Wealth gets access to government power
  • Loss of opportunity for middle class life, jobs, status, security, hope
  • We need more autonomy
  • People need to accept more responsibility
  • Localism

 

  • Government is the problem.
  • The market is good.  Its outcomes are good, natural, God-given or otherwise accepted as given.
  • Environmental science is alarmist (climate, scarcity, pollution)
  • More fundamental Christian:  God will provide, humans > nature
  • Against socialist wealth redistribution programs such as smart growth that invests infrastructure to service urban areas (where elites and minorities live)
  • Property rights are inviolate
  • American values & exceptionalism, consumerism, grow our economy and world power
  • Focus on individual
  • Anti-Planning
  • Midde class, older, anti-intellectual
see:LessigGraeber

 

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Trumping Climate Science with Spin Endangers Democracy

Big Government is a blog that tends to be critical of government.  Echoing concerns of the Tea Party, it starts from the assumption that government is a problem, not a solution.   Social, environmental, or economic challenges (such as climate change) whose resolution requires using government powers and processes get discounted or dismissed because acknowledging these challenges leads one toward the conclusion that dreaded government actions such as regulations are good, desirable, necessary parts of modern life.  If science identifies climate change as a problem that merits collective action, then that science must be wrong.  But if  science supports that there is no problem, then that science must be acted on, without question, and  used to justify broad scale inaction.

Consider the climate science recently published in Nature suggesting that, if the conditions are just right, clouds could be formed by cosmic rays. The Big Government interpretation of this article is a brilliant exercise in rhetoric.  It weaves together digs at Al Gore, dredges up climate-gate quotes put to rest long ago, and repeats Exxon-funded Heritage Foundation claims that the politically-abandoned carbon cap and trade bill would have raised the price of gas—all this hyperbola woven together in an effort to argue that climate change is NOT a problem and government action is NOT necessary.

The authors of the study in Nature, as far as I can tell, make none of these extrapolations to global climate change from their simple, single study of bombarding water vapor with radiation generated by the European super collider. In fact, the lead author is quoted as saying: “At the moment, it actually says nothing about a possible cosmic-ray effect on clouds and climate, but it’s a very important first step.” Dot Earth puts the findings in context and does so without much spin, but frankly that is not what should concern us about this Big Government blog.

What should concern us is that debates about problems such as climate whose solution require an active and capable government are disguised as debates about facts and science but actually are debates about political values and belief systems.  Here is a recent study by the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication:

  • Majorities of Democrats (78%), Independents (71%) and Republicans (53%) believe that global warming is happening. By contrast, only 34 percent of Tea Party members believe global warming is happening, while 53 percent say it is not happening.
  • A majority of Democrats (55%) say that most scientists think global warming is happening, while majorities of Republicans (56%) and Tea Party members (69%) say that there is a lot of disagreement among scientists about whether or not global warming is happening.
  • A large majority of Democrats (72%) worry about global warming, compared to 53 percent of Independents, 38 percent of Republicans, and 24 percent of Tea Party members. Over half (51%) of Tea Party members say they are not at all worried about global warming.
  • Tea Party members are much more likely to say that they are “very well informed” about global warming than the other groups. Likewise, they are also much more likely to say they “do not need any more information” about global warming to make up their mind.

We need government.  Go back and read the founding fathers Adams or Madison or look back further to Locke or even to Hobbes and find compelling arguments FOR government.  It may be inefficient, bloated, corrupt, and in need of improvement, but government is nonetheless necessary and essential. Abandoning facts, rationality, and honesty will destroy democracy (to see how close we’ve been pushed to the edge, read the laments of veteran congressional staffer Mike Lofgren.) For a democratic system to survive we must all play by the rules of rationality and honesty (at least for most of the time; a little passion is good too!).  There are other systems of governance.  Democracy is preferable to all of them.  But it takes work, and reason, and honesty.  Let’s make it work.

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Education, Propaganda, or Brain Washing?

Sustainable developers sometimes act like zealots.  They believe that past patterns of land development are deeply flawed and unsustainable.  They know climate change will place huge burdens on our industry and agriculture.  They are confident that the ecological systems providing our life support services are dangerously degraded. They accept that traffic problems will be made worse by sprawling more roads and that we are already stretched thin trying to maintain our current, crumbling infrastructure.  They see Earth as finite and our resources limited, and thus question whether a consumption-based economy is in our long-term interests.

To people that don’t share these beliefs, sustainable development communication and education programs can feel like propaganda.

Consider the following quote, from page iii of a 2003 EPA document titled Getting in Step, which was developed to help communities promote sustainable behaviors:

“Most people don’t realize that many of the things they do every day in and around their homes contribute to [problems]. Those individual behaviors need to be changed. Making a change from [these bad] behaviors to [better] behaviors will require education, enlightenment, and new attitudes. When people know, understand, and change how they do things, [the] problems can be solved.”

I inserted “problems” for “polluted runoff” and inserted “bad” for “pollution-generating” to make the text seem uncomfortably Orwellian and to illustrate how public education programs  focus on changing behaviors.   Allow me one more example, this time from the United Nations program focused on sustainable consumption and production:

Education, at all levels and in all its forms … will help build capacities for sustainable lifestyles at all levels of society. (Visions for Change: Page 74)

The authors explain the desired outcome from this education earlier in the same document:

Creating sustainable lifestyles means rethinking our ways of living, how we buy and what we consume, but not only that. It also means rethinking how we organize our daily life, altering the way we socialize, exchange, share, educate and build identities. It is about transforming our societies towards more equity and living in balance with our natural environment.” (Introduction, page 15)

Government funded programs with intentions to fix bad behaviors, change lifestyles, or manage demand understandably feel like big brother is doing more than watching.  As I’ve blogged elsewhere, the values of sustainable developers differ from the values of tea partiers.  Education of the types illustrated above may threaten the core values of people who champion individual autonomy, advocate “free” markets, and who believe the ultimate resource is not soil or oil but human ingenuity and American entrepreneurship.

Let me be clear:  I’m not arguing against education for behavioral change to promote sustainability.  In fact I’ve offered tips on how to do it better and I recommend resources such as Weathercocks and Signposts. I fall in to the camp of people advocating change.  I believe the issues in the first paragraph are real and pressing.

The purpose of this blog is to drive home the point that sustainable development involves a tournament of values.   Promoters of environmental education such as EPA and NAAEE are well aware of these concerns and go to great lengths to point out that “Environmental education does not advocate a particular viewpoint or course of action. Rather, environmental education teaches individuals how to weigh various sides of an issue through critical thinking and it enhances their own problem-solving and decision-making skills.”

Nonetheless, communities pursuing sustainable development must accept that they are engaging in difficult discussion about core values.  Identities will be challenged.  Traditions might need to change. Fundamental issues such as property rights and liberty are at stake.  Tea Party charges of socialism and communism signal that some members of our communities feel core American Values are being challenged by sustainable development.

Therefore sustainable development efforts must proceed openly and with respect.

Ultimately which development trajectory we pursue is a political decision and citizens must engage in the tournament of values to persuade one another which future we want to develop.  I  continue to advocate sustainable development.

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Is the Agenda Set?

An increasingly common complaint voiced at local planning meetings and repeated on Tea Party blogs is that sustainable development planning efforts have pre-determined outcomes: all the big decisions have been made before citizen engagement begins. Planners and their plans, according to this criticism, are restricted in what they do by federal programs that fund their planning projects.  Moreover, smart growth and green infrastructure principles that underlie these projects come pre-defined by federal agencies such as the EPA and by national and international professional organizations such as American Planning Association and ICLIE.

These complaints are not without justification.

In my own community the politics have become heated and Tea Party activists are demanding county Board of Supervisors terminate participation in a regional “livability” planning project or face impeachment. They point to a HUD, EPA, DOT federal program that gave local planners a million dollars to promote smart growth and worry the process is rigged.

They argue, correctly in my opinion, that smart growth principles are pre-defined to include compact buildings, walkable neighborhoods, and preserving open space. “Livabilty” principles, likewise, come pre-defined as practices promoting equitable and affordable housing.  Green infrastructure principles, as another example, are already established as growth boundaries, hubs and corridors.

These “principles”—which get handed down to communities—feel like pre-determined solutions to pre-identified problems. Are the communities that participate in sustainable development planning efforts being told by outsiders which problems to solve and how to solve them?  If so, it is understandable that citizens are concerned about losing control.

In earlier blogs I contrasted how Sustainable Developers differ from Tea Partiers in the core values they hold.  Tea Partiers do not accept the Sustainable Developer worldview; they see different problems and therefore may desire different solutions.

Perhaps regional sustainable development planning efforts should start by letting citizens define the problems they want to solve. For example:

  • The US population is expected to increase by 150 million by 2050.  How many will be living in our community?  Where should we build the schools, roads, hospitals, water supply, and other infrastructure that will make these new residents welcomed, productive, thriving members of our community?
  • Is energy independence a problem?  Will rising gasoline prices make commuting unaffordable?  What development patterns will best address these challenges?
  • Are inequities in wealth, housing, and opportunity a problem in our community?  If so, how should they be addressed?  Is the problem sufficient to justify government intervention?
  • Is water becoming sufficiently scarce and polluted to justify action?  What are the most cost efficient strategies to store and filter water, prevent flooding, and protect public health?
  • What sorts of road, energy, waste, water, and information infrastructures do our community need to remain viable?  Can we afford to maintain what we have now if we continue business as usual?
  • Are we losing jobs, economic development opportunities, and community vitality to an increasingly competitive global market?   If so, how should we respond?

Many planning professionals, and apparently these federal programs, share the worldview and value set of sustainable developers. They believe that there are real and pressing problems related to how we manage water, transportation, energy, and economic development.  They also accept that smart growth principles offer effective solutions to these problems.  As a result, their programs and processes jump right to smart growth solutions and bypass local community identification of the problems communities want their planners to solve.  The local planners can’t be faulted for this, they are just beginning where they are told to begin, and where for many of us it makes sense to begin.

However, around the country local planning meetings and public hearings are being challenged by Tea Party politics.  Decisions that a few years back seemed technical and mundane are now hotly contested, drawing huge crowds and strenuous objections.  It really is a great moment in local governance—even if meetings get bogged down in overheated rhetoric and grandstanding—because people are engaged, can learn from one another, and inform decisions shaping our shared future.  Local leaders should take advantage of this rare opportunity to build new collations and break the gridlock stalling needed responses to pressing problems. One way to make this happen is to begin at the beginning, which means agreeing on the questions being asked and the problems being solved.

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The United Nations Agenda?

Since the earliest days of civilization, cities have been plagued by outbreaks of cholera and other illnesses that killed or disabled residents and workers.  In 1854, a London physician, John Snow, demonstrated that cholera was caused by sewage leaking into drinking water.  As a result, London developed new sewer and water infrastructure technologies to protect public health.   Word spread.  Communities around the world refined, adapted and implemented those ideas to protect their citizens

More recently, communities were bleeding jobs and residents to economic restructuring and globalization. They learned from other communities—Silicon Valley in California being an oft cited example—that by clustering business, technology, industry, and research organizations they could fuel local innovation and workforce development, and attract investment and talent into the region. Michael Porter popularized this in 1990 and now communities around the world are refining, adapting, and implementing these ideas to create jobs for their citizens.

Now consider ideas about smart growth and sustainable development. Recall that the world population in the early 1900s was 2 billion, which doubled to 4 billion in the 1970s, and has about passed 7 billion on its way to doubling again.  Recall, also, that during that same time period, most people moved off rural lands and out of agricultural jobs into urban or urbanizing areas.  Recall also that many people—still as many as 2 billion—live in deep, horrible poverty without access to clean drinking water, sanitation, jobs, or dignity.  Communities around the world were struggling to deal with these trends, so much so that by 1992 they convened a conference through the United Nations to attract attention and resources to the problems they faced.  They argued that 20th Century solutions to these problems were not sufficient and that a new way of doing business was needed for the 21st Century, so they proposed an approach to assist communities around the world. They called it Agenda 21.

There is nothing sinister in Agenda 21.  It is a call for communities  to engage in strategic thinking, intentional planning, and all out action to respond to the trends changing the face of our communities, straining resources and budgets, and causing hardships.  Looking carefully at the document, one finds that the United Nations effort advocates local control. It emphasizes local decision-making and local solutions to local problems. Moreover, it advocates making community planning more open than it had been in the past and more inclusive of local stakeholders, especially economic development interests.

Communities around the world are refining, adapting, and implementing these ideas to solve challenges they face.  No one is forcing communities to do this.  The United Nations does not have authority over decisions made by communities around the world, but it can share ideas, share technology, and help build capacities in local communities to adapt and apply these ideas to local conditions.  Most local governments, however, do not have enough staff to address these issues and some of the staff they have are not well versed in the necessary tools, techniques, and processes. That is where organizations such as ICLEI come in (The International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives- Local Governments for Sustainability).  They help communities avoid the costs of reinventing the wheel.  They share lessons learned, offer training sessions, and help communities get started.  Concerns by Glenn Beck and Newt Gingrich notwithstanding, there is no collusion or conspiracy here, except to share and test ideas.

Good ideas spread.  Look at capitalism, calculus or Christianity.  Communities, organizations, and people around the world learn from one another.  Just because we adopt someone else’s approach, use a similar phrasing, or learn from their success and failures does not mean we are being duped.  It is, in fact, just the opposite: it means we are being smart.  In our highly complex, interconnected, competitive global economy we have unprecedented opportunity to learn from one another and improve our standards of living.

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Higher Ground in the Tea Party Sustainable Development Debate

The intense focus on sustainable development by the Tea Party creates a valuable learning opportunity.   It exposes core values and unstated assumptions, forcing us to be honest about our own motivations, hopes and dreams and to learn about the motivations, hopes, dreams, and unstated assumptions of people on the other sides of the debate.  It also provides an opportunity to build strength out of the diversity in our community and pride in the good fortunes we share.

Conflict can be good; it means we are digging into issues that matter and, hopefully, we are about to make important decisions leading to action. Public attention rarely focuses on sustainable development. Local land use planning meetings don’t normally overflow with concerned citizens demanding a voice.  We need take advantage of these opportunities in our communities to engage in and promote deliberation, civility, learning, and action.  Rather than getting mired in analysis paralysis, name calling and grand standing, let’s search for some higher ground.

Higher ground is where resolutions to conflicts exist.  Higher ground moves us beyond the lowest common denominator sometimes produced by compromise.  It is the sought after win-win-win solution that makes everyone better off.  It may be hiding in plain sight or it might be walled off by ideological feuds.  Or it might need to be constructed.  Regardless, finding and building higher ground requires trust, respect, and courage to participate in community deliberations and decision-making—and a willingness to live by the decisions reached through a fair and open process.

Where is the higher ground in the Tea Party – Sustainable Development debate? I suggest we focus on investment: investment in us, in our future, and in our infrastructure.

Sustainable development and smart growth often boil down to making decisions about infrastructure:  How should we build and maintain our communities in a rapidly changing world?  How should we plan to accommodate growth?  How can we do so in ways that don’t burden our future and ensure equal opportunities to the American Dream?

Infrastructure has many types: grey, green, hard, and soft.  It includes the transportation, information, and power systems as well as the food, water and waste systems, as well as finance, governance, and education systems.  Infrastructure creates jobs, not just to build and maintain it but by attracting businesses and residents to use it.  An efficient infrastructure also saves future taxes.  Because transportation, water, and education systems are dearly expensive, we should build them in ways and in locations that minimize their extent, maximize their access, and reduce long-term maintenance costs. For example, The American Society of Civil Engineers reported in Failure to Act: The Economic Impact of Current Investment Trends in Surface Transportation Infrastructure that deficiencies in transportation infrastructure cost Americans billions of dollars per year and hundreds of thousands of jobs. As another example of how infrastructure can save money, consider the potential erosion of our green infrastructure, which, up until recently, has protected our family and property from floods, filtered and stored clean drinking water, provided local access to fuel and food, and supplied opportunities for rest and relaxation, all free of charge.

Through wise investments in infrastructure we create jobs, improve human health, make a future for our children, save money, and create a strong America.  Without infrastructure these things are at risk and our communities will wither as hope and opportunities migrate to where better investments in infrastructure are made.

So how much should we invest? In what should we invest? Where should we invest it?  And how can we do this in ways that respect the freedoms and liberties that make America great?  Focusing on these questions will produce productive community deliberations.  Hopefully the answers will lead to higher ground.

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