News & Events
August 15, 2007
Solid Midwestern Values
Under a blazing blue sky, I flew into Des Moines this week to talk metropolitan Smart Growth with Iowa’s civic leaders. Here at the invitation of 1,000 Friends of Iowa with the kind support of the Smart Growth Leadership Institute and EPA’s Office of Smart Growth, I’m offering new perspectives on land use strategies and metropolitan governance. Or, I’m supposed to be.
In fact I’m learning as much as I’m teaching, realizing that the challenges we face in metro Detroit, though perhaps more extreme due to scale, are very much the same as the issues that are plaguing Des Moines area leaders.
Des Moines is a city of 200,000 sitting in a metro region of about three times the size. There’s bus transit but the interurban rail has long been abandoned. The suburbs have largely cut off access to new land, leaving Des Moines with redevelopment as its major strategy for increasing tax base. The federally designated metropolitan planning organization (a role played in southeast Michigan by SEMCOG) hones in on transportation to the large exclusion of other metropolitan issues, like affordable housing dispersion or coordinated land use. The region is growing, mostly in the suburbs, which is threatening prime farmland and creating new environmental challenges, like the dramatic runoff problems through the hilly northeast of the metro.
It all sounds so familiar. I could be in my hometown of Ann Arbor. Or Grand Rapids. Or Cleveland. Or Pittsburgh. It’s both comforting and disturbing to learn how common these problems are. It has started me thinking about the roots of the land use problems in these Midwestern communities. As I listen to Ohioans and Iowans, Kansans and Minnesotans, Illini and Michiganians, I’m realizing that we all somewhat naturally shy away from gross state directives on land use; we hesitate to collaborate with the city next door; we get uptight about being told or telling others what cannot be done with a piece of land.
Maybe there is something about our Midwestern values that has put us in this position. Perhaps, more importantly, a reliance on those same values can help us overcome our challenges. We are revered in literature and in business for a distinctive leadership style that exudes confidence and builds trust. It’s that same persona that makes the “Midwest accent” the choice of newscasters across the nation. We offer people a solid, quiet integrity. We are renowned for our strong work ethic. We are typically fiscally prudent, especially with other people’s money. Borne of the pioneer’s lifestyle, we are self-reliant, rooting our decisions in a stoic pragmatism. Not to undone by the occasional tornado, flood or bear attack, Midwesterners are also known for an unconquerable spirit.
Our communities have come to reflect those values somewhat, leading to the fragmented government that characterizes most of our metropolitan regions. It would be nice to collaborate with that neighboring village, but I’m pretty sure we can do it on our own … I don’t know what they do with their money, but we can do better with less … That newfangled train will never work here, so we better get to work building this road. Look at the way our communities behave toward each other, and I’m sure you’ll note that we keep each other at a polite arm’s length.
Bringing a new way of governing and growing to the Midwest is not going to come from California or New York (no matter how bright, innovative or right their ideas may be). I’m coming to believe that there must be something distinctly Midwestern about our approach to Smart Growth. Not better or worse, but ours. It will be homegrown. We might take a lesson from the east or west coast, but chances are it will be implemented with a Midwestern flair. Metropolitan governance, for example, will need to honor our independence and our right to fold our cards, gather our chips and go home.
Fortunately, there are some great Midwestern models to draw from. Those sensible people in Minneapolis, Chicago, Indianapolis and Louisville have been working hard on regional collaboration for decades. Suburbs organizing started in Cleveland, and some of the best farmland preservation strategies are coming out of Pennsylvania. It’s time for Michigan to make its contribution to the Midwest Smart Growth lexicon. Ours is the legacy of the innovator—think Ford and Edison—so there’s nothing we can’t figure out with a little perseverance and some good Midwestern attitude.
So, grab some farm fresh bacon and eggs and suck down that coffee. We’ve got work to do. Let’s put our shoulder to the wheel, bear down and solve some of this stuff.
