population
We Asked for Science. We Got Sustain-a-Babble.
Editor’s Note
CASSE encourages members and readers to hold their government agencies to account on the conflict between economic growth and environmental protection. Last week, Brian Czech presented Gag-Ordered No More to the Canadian Association for the Club of Rome, concluding with recommendations for engaging agency directors. We follow up this week with a letter from the Qualicum Institute (British Columbia) to Canada’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change, The Honourable Steven Guilbeault, MP.
Canadian citizens can petition a Minister of the Crown via a Member of Parliament (MP). The minister must respond to each petition within 45 calendar days. In December 2022, MP Rachel Blaney, on behalf of the Qualicum Institute, petitioned Minister Guilbeault to acknowledge the conflict between economic growth and environmental protection, and to apply the principles of steady-state economics in the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change.
What follows is the Qualicum Institute’s rebuttal of Minister Guilbeault’s response. Headings were inserted by CASSE.
The Rebuttal Letter
Canada features many geographies of majestic beauty. (Trevor McKinnon, Unsplash)
To the Minister of Environment and Climate Change Canada:
The Qualicum Institute (QI) petitioned Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) (Petition 441-01068—Environment. Editor’s note: The link also includes the Minister’s response to the petition.) to pursue a real solution—a move towards steady-state economics—to address the dangerous and escalating climate and biodiversity crises. Steady-state economics, grounded in science, is an economic model that respects physical and ecological limits. There are many experts across a wide array of disciplines who understand and know how to apply ecological economics and who can help keep humanity within the safe operating limits of planet Earth.
We believe it is your job and responsibility, on behalf of all Canadians, to assemble these experts to deal quickly and efficiently with the limiting factors of the climate and biodiversity crises: population and economic growth. Empower these experts and let them begin the transition towards a steady-state solution!
The escalating, threatening crises we face are the direct result of overpopulation, over-development, and ecological overshoot caused by the continued pursuit of economic growth. This isn’t an accident—economic growth requires never-ending expansion in order to grow GDP. It’s an economic model that doesn’t respect and isn’t grounded in physical or biological reality.
Specifically:
- Economic growth is an exponential function
- A 3% growth rate, the target rate of most governments, doubles the size of the economy, and thus resource and energy use, roughly every 23.5 years
- Physical and biological laws dictate that economic growth can only occur by liquidating the natural world on which we depend; absolute decoupling of resource use from GDP is a fantasy
- Scientific data show that exponential GDP growth is occurring lockstep with exponential resource use and climate and biodiversity breakdown. In fact, GDP is actually a measure of environmental impact—our collective ecological footprint—and not a measure of our well-being.
If the Canadian Government’s overarching goal is to grow the economy, then attending conferences, such as the climate and biodiversity Conferences of the Parties (COP), developing policies, protecting natural areas, signing agreements, and funding initiatives, won’t and can’t work. Truth in government matters and we don’t accept the sustain-a-babble provided in your government’s reply to us.
The Reality: Climate
For example, you wrote that “the 27th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which took place in Egypt in November 2022, and the 15th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which took place in Montreal in December 2022, have demonstrated the increasing global focus on these issues.”
Figure 1. Annual mean atmospheric CO2 concentration levels from Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii, overlain with the various climate conferences, scientists’ warnings and, in particular, the formal United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conferences of the Parties (COP) and their 28 Climate Change Conferences. (Qualicum Institute based on data from NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory)
We are well aware of all the global meetings that have taken place over the years and the increasing global focus on the issue, which always appears to be of the highest concern. That is until you consider the resulting actions this so-called global focus has generated. Look at how effective these globally focused meetings have been (Figures 1 and 2)! Some focus! Some effective actions!
Despite the scores of climate meetings that have been held, there has been a continual increase in CO2 emissions (Figure 1). These emissions, and their relationship to economic and population factors, have been discussed in many IPCC reports over the years. But the 2014 IPCC report specifically identifies the primary drivers of emissions: “Globally, economic and population growth continue to be the most important drivers of increases in CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion. The contribution of population growth between 2000 and 2010 remained roughly identical to the previous three decades, while the contribution of economic growth has risen sharply (high confidence).”
In your response to us, however, you ignored our specific concerns and did not explain what the Canadian Government has done and is doing to address the two primary emissions drivers. In fact, neither economic growth nor population growth nor steady state economy appear in your response to our Petition yet those are the principle points we fully expected you to address!
The Reality: Biodiversity
Regarding the biodiversity crisis, you wrote, “The [Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity] Framework addresses the direct drivers of global biodiversity loss: land- and sea-use change; direct overexploitation; pollution; invasive species; as well as climate change given that we cannot solve the climate crisis without nature, nor can we solve the nature crisis without stabilizing the climate.”
Figure 2. The Living Planet Index showing an average relative decline of 69% across the studied animal populations, overlain with the various biodiversity conferences, conventions, scientists’ warnings and, in particular, the formal Convention on Biological Diversity Conferences of the Parties (COP) and their 14 Biodiversity Conferences. (Qualicum Institute based on data from Our World in Data)
But—and we emphasize this—the Framework does not address the actual direct or primary drivers of global biodiversity loss according to the current science, which are, again, economic and population growth. The so-called “direct drivers” you mention are merely symptoms of continuous economic growth. As Ripple et al. (2017) note,“economic growth is one of the two major causes of the environmental crisis, along with population growth.” And Pacheco et al. (2018) emphasize that “A transition to sustainability cannot be achieved if our economic system is not radically changed, simply because limitless economic growth is impossible within a limited planet.” Many scientists have echoed these concerns, which makes us seriously question the contention that your government “follows the science.”
The myriad biodiversity meetings over the years that you speak of have paid off in similar results to the climate crisis meetings, in this case an average relative decline of 69% across the studied animal populations since the 1970s (Figure 2). Would you seriously call this “the successful conclusion of [any of] the COP or other such meetings”? We certainly wouldn’t.
You talk of “an ambitious goal” and that budget 2021 investments are setting the stage to support efforts to conserve 30% of land and waters by 2030. But we have known biodiversity loss was a major issue since at least the 1970s, so taking these small, gradual steps now is too little, considering what the science is telling us. Ecological studies have shown that at least 50% of all regional ecosystems need to be restored, preserved, and protected—both land and marine systems—in order to provide sustainable ecosystem services for humanity and all other life forms that share the planet with us. According to Dinerstein et al. (2019) it’s important we “protect at least half of Earth by 2050 and ensure that these areas are connected.” There is a “need to fast-track the protection and restoration of all natural habitat by 2030. A GDN [Global Deal for Nature] that will ensure that we have at least 50% intact natural habitats by 2030 is the only path that will enable a climate-resilient future and is one that will offer a myriad of other benefits.” Protecting only 30% is insufficient and doesn’t follow the science, especially at this late date when time is our least abundant resource.
Ditch the Myth of Absolute Decoupling, Move to a Steady State Economy
If the Government of Canada moves towards steady-state economics and addresses the primary drivers of the climate and biodiversity crises— economic and population growth—it would show Canada as a global leader in true sustainability and, more importantly, give humanity a chance of long-term survival. Then, many of the other actions you describe in your response might add up to make a difference. However, if the government continues to choose to ignore the primary drivers of the climate and biodiversity crises— economic and population growth—the good actions you describe will be overwhelmed and swamped by the exponential growth.
Moreover, we were totally confused by your statement that “Canada is one of many countries demonstrating strong economic performance while decreasing the GHG intensity of their economy.” This is the same decoupling myth that your government used in its reply to our initial petition to the Auditor General of Canada (No. 408 dated 27 May 2017). Since this seems to be your government’s attempt to allow the continuation of economic growth by attempting to decouple that growth from GDP, you might take notice that we debunked that possibility at length in our comments to your predecessor’s reply to that petition with Minister McKenna: Where is the Science? (Dawe et al. 2022).
While there has been some success in relative decoupling, in order to be sustainable, absolute decoupling must occur and that has not been shown to be possible. Hickel and Kallis (2020) found through “Examining relevant studies on historical trends and model-based projections … that: (1) there is no empirical evidence that absolute decoupling from resource use can be achieved on a global scale against a background of continued economic growth, and (2) absolute decoupling from carbon emissions is highly unlikely to be achieved at a rate rapid enough to prevent global warming over 1.5°C or 2°C, even under optimistic policy conditions. We conclude that green growth is likely to be a misguided objective, and that policymakers need to look toward alternative strategies.” Fletcher and Rammelt (2017) describe decoupling “as a ‘fantasy’ that functions to obfuscate fundamental tensions among the goals of poverty alleviation, environmental sustainability, and profitable enterprise that it is intended to reconcile. In this way, decoupling serves to sustain faith in the possibility of attaining sustainable development within the context of a neoliberal capitalist economy that necessitates continual growth to confront inherent contradictions.”
The Government’s Poor Performance to Date
Finally, we have noticed that the crises of climate change and biodiversity loss have all been handled by your government reluctantly and in an inefficient manner. There seems to be no understanding of the relevant scientific information. This seems to us due to the government’s pathological reliance on an economy dependent upon growth and debt at the expense of humanity and the other lifeforms on Earth. Your government has relied on a faulty human construct—neoclassical economics—designed not by scientists but by conventional economists.
Parliament: Do the right thing for Canada and the planet! (Chelsey Faucher, Unsplash)
“Neoclassical economics does not even acknowledge the costs of environmental problems and the limits to economic growth, [and thus] it constitutes one of the greatest barriers to combating climate change and other threats to the planet” (Nadeau 2008). The assumptions of neoclassical economics are inconsistent with reality and the current science and fail to recognize that the global and local economies lie within the biosphere and its limits (Moldan, Janoušková, and Hák 2012; Rockström et al. 2023). As Kosoy et al. (2012) point out, “The simple, but to many unthinkable, fact is that you cannot get to a flourishing or even sustainable Earth if you start with the assumptions of neo-classical economics.”
The climate and biodiversity crises are global issues and both have been driven to the crisis point by governments engaging in confirmation bias and clinging to the demonstrably false human construct of economic growth, a construct facilitated by population growth and growth in per capita consumption. We cannot see any improvement regarding either crisis without dealing with economic growth. This would entail, among other things, going through a period of degrowth of both population and consumption as we move towards a steady state economy, an economy in balance with the regenerative and assimilative capacities of the biosphere. Listening further to conventional economists who, in no small way, have brought us to this point, rather than ecological (not environmental) economists, will only exacerbate the crises, leading us in the direction of a 4° C global temperature anomaly and leaving us with a depauperate planet, where many species, including perhaps humans, cannot survive.
If we ever hope to have a sustainable society, governments must follow the science and commit to a solution that lies within the physical and biological laws of the universe. As our leaders, we fully expect the Canadian Government—especially ECCC—to respect and be led by the science and to support a move towards the only truly sustainable solution to these crises: a steady state economy.
Can you make this commitment?
Sincerely,
Neil K. Dawe, President and Terri D. Martin, Secretary
On behalf of the Board of Directors
Qualicum Institute https://qualicuminstitute.ca/
Neil K. Dawe is President, and Terri D. Martin is Secretary, of the Qualicum Institute in British Columbia.
The post We Asked for Science. We Got Sustain-a-Babble. appeared first on Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy.
Inner city areas of Australia are booming – regional population growth 2022-23 update
A return to the cities? The latest population figures from the ABS allows us to see how the record growth we know happened in 2022–23 at State and National levels was spread around the country at the LGA level. Lead demographer, Glenn Capuano, unpacks the data and shares how the interplay of international and internal migration affects the growth of different areas around the country.
The 2022-23 population update figures (Estimated Resident Population) have just been released by the ABS. This happens around the end of March every year, but is particularly eagerly awaited this year, as we already knew from the state and national ERP released just before Christmas, that in the year to June, Australia piled on an extra 634,000 people or 2.4%. This is a record number of extra people (but not a record percentage growth) and is largely due to an extremely high Net Overseas Migration of +528,000 (comprised of a high migrant inflow and low outflow). Natural increase (births minus deaths) now makes up just 17% of our total population growth as a nation.
So this new release gives us a second year of population change since the 2021 Census, and enables .id (informed decisions) to update all the Local Government, suburb and district level information with the 2022-23 dataset. It brings the local figures back into line with the national population numbers, and reveals where growth and decline is distributed across Australia. So what does the new dataset show?
Here is a link to the Regional Population Growth, Australia publication, which is the source of all these data.
Return of the cities
After a couple of years during COVID when growth in regional areas outpaced the cities, population growth in 2022-23 returned to “normal” in its distribution; it’s anything but normal in terms of the amount of growth. As cities gain the most overseas migration, these areas have returned to having the largest and fastest growth in the nation. The combined capital cities of Australia grew by 517,200 people, or 3.0% for the year. This is not to say that regional areas aren’t growing – they added 117,300 people (1.4%) – but capital cities accounted for more than 81% of Australia’s population growth in 2022-23.
Greater Capital Cities
Population June 2023
1 year change
1 year % change
Regional Australia
Population June 2023
1 year change
1 year % change
Greater Sydney
5,450,496
146,702
2.8%
Regional NSW
2,891,789
+28,879
1.0%
Greater Melbourne
5,207,145
167,484
3.3%
Regional Vic
1,608,296
+17,326
1.1%
Greater Brisbane
2,706,966
81,220
3.1%
Regional Qld
2,753,454
+58,259
2.2%
Greater Adelaide
1,446,380
28,057
2.0%
Regional SA
405,904
+3,012
0.7%
Greater Perth
2,309,338
81,318
3.6%
Regional WA
571,889
+8,115
1.4%
Greater Hobart
253,654
1,165
0.5%
Regional Tas
319,502
+940
0.3%
Greater Darwin
150,736
1,582
1.1%
Regional NT
101,793
+ 719
0.7%
Canberra/ACT
466,566
9,651
2.1%
Total Greater Capital Cities
17,991,281
517,179
3.0%
Total Regional Australia
8,652,627
+ 117,250
1.4%
At a capital city level, Perth had the standout growth of 3.6%, or more than 81,000 people, closely followed by Melbourne with 3.3%, or 167,000. Tasmania’s huge growth during COVID-19 has evaporated as the state loses population to the mainland again; Greater Hobart was the slowest growing of the capitals, at 0.5% growth.
Among regional areas, Queensland continues to have the stand-out growth of 2.2%, but it’s still below Greater Brisbane at 3.1%.
Population growth in Local Government Areas
This map shows the population by LGA at June 30th, 2023. Use the map to find your local area and its population growth, for this one year only.
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Fastest growing LGAs 2022-23
LGA
Population June 2023
% growth 2022-23
Melbourne, Vic
177,396
10.6%
Perth, WA
32,856
7.4%
Upper Gascoyne, WA
201
6.9%
Melton, Vic
206,070
6.6%
Adelaide, SA
27,901
6.6%
Peppermint Grove, WA
1,736
6.0%
Sydney, NSW
231,086
5.9%
Serpentine-Jarrahdale, WA
36,739
5.6%
Camden, NSW
134,811
5.5%
Yarra, Vic
97,448
5.5%
The fastest growing areas are dominated by the inner cities in 2022-23, with the top 10 containing the City of Melbourne (#1) as well as the cities of Perth, Adelaide and Sydney. So 4/10 are capital city LGAs. Capital cities are often the epicentres for overseas migration and are particularly attractive to students. The general trend in 2023 is that any area which tends to get a lot of overseas migration is growing strongly. These areas – Melbourne and Sydney in particular – also recorded the largest declines during the COVID-19 pandemic as students left in 2020 and 2021. So in a way this is just the return to normal for the inner city areas.
This table above is in percentage terms, and you can get a high percentage growth from a very small population base. The typical example is number 3 on this list: the tiny, remote Upper Gascoyne, whose population exceeded 200 in 2023, growing by 6.9% by adding 13 people! But it's very small compared to the average sized LGA, even in rural areas. Similarly, the tiny (for a metropolitan LGA) and very wealthy Peppermint Grove, comprising just one small suburb in the west of Perth, made the list at #6, with 6.0% growth.
More traditional fringe growth areas such as Melton, Victoria and Camden NSW also made the list. Other very large growth areas like Blacktown in NSW and Casey and Wyndham Victoria don't make the top 10 as their populations are very large now. To see them we need to look at the absolute growth numbers.
Largest growth LGAs 2022-23
LGA
Population June 2023
Absolute growth 2022-23
Brisbane, Qld
1,323,162
39,730
Gold Coast, Qld
666,087
18,909
Melbourne, Vic
177,396
17,068
Blacktown, NSW
426,202
15,258
Logan, Qld
377,773
14,714
Wyndham, Vic
324,087
14,689
Moreton Bay, Qld
510,104
13,332
Casey, Vic
392,110
13,006
Sydney, NSW
231,086
12,811
Melton, Vic
206,070
12,785
Looking at absolute growth by numbers, we exclude the smaller population areas which have had high percentage growth from a low base. The largest growth is always the City of Brisbane, since it's the only LGA of more than 1 million people and contains the majority of the population of Greater Brisbane. (Logan and Moreton Bay are also in Greater Brisbane and feature in the top 10.) Even on this list, the City of Melbourne – with the fastest growth in percentage terms – is in there at #3. The rest of the list is fringe metropolitan areas with a lot of greenfield growth still happening, such as Casey, Blacktown, Logan and Melton.
Where are the fastest growth and declines happening across Australia's states and territories?
Growth rates among the states are highly variable, but within each state there are areas of growth and decline as usual. This year, the growth is dominated by large metropolitan LGAs. Decline is primarily in smaller rural areas again, but some rural areas are still growing quite strongly.
New South Wales
The largest growth in our most populous state was Blacktown, adding 15,258 people, or 3.7%, while the fastest was the City of Sydney with 5.9% or 12,811 people. Other strong growth was found in the outer suburbs and inner city areas of Sydney, including Camden, Randwick and The Hills. Notably Randwick and the City of Sydney had the largest population declines just two years before during the pandemic restrictions. Every LGA in Greater Sydney grew in the 2022-23 year, with just a few small declines in regional areas. The largest decline was -367 people in Lismore, a consequence of the 2022 catastrophic flooding in this area.
Victoria
It was just two years ago that Victoria's population declined by more 50,000 people during COVID-19. Now it is the second-fastest growing state, and the City of Melbourne is the fastest growing LGA in the country (10.6%) and third-largest growth (+17,068 people). Melton, on the western outskirts of Melbourne, is the next fastest at 6.6%, followed by two more inner-city areas: Yarra (5.5%) and Port Phillip (5.2%). Again, population declines are confined to a few rural areas. The largest fall was in the Shire of Campaspe, centred around Echuca on the Murray River, declining by 257 people. This is also likely to be flooding related; it contains the town of Rochester, which was heavily impacted in late 2022.
Queensland
The Sunshine State had continuous population growth during COVID-19 and continues to grow strongly, with a lot of interstate migration and an increasing amount of overseas migration. As we've already seen, Brisbane is by far Australia's largest LGA, with 1.3 million people, about double the size of the second largest. It always dominates the "largest" growth but rarely the "fastest". Adding 39,730 people in one year, the City of Brisbane managed to be the 3rd-fastest growing LGA in Queensland, with 3.1%. The fastest were on Brisbane's outskirts (still part of Greater Brisbane): the cities of Logan (4.1%) and Ipswich (3.5%). Queensland's regional areas grew more strongly than anywhere else in Australia. Only 3 LGAs recorded population declines in Queensland: Mount Isa (-101 people), Torres Shire (-15) and Balonne Shire (-7).
South Australia
Growth in South Australia continued, but whereas in COVID-19 there was movement from interstate into SA, there is now a return to small net migration out. Almost all the growth (about 90%) was due to overseas migration, and 90% of total growth was in the Greater Adelaide region. The fastest growth was in the City of Adelaide itself, which welcomed back a lot of international students to the inner city, growing by 6.6%, or 1,718 people. Adelaide Plains was the next highest in percentage terms, adding 4.6% – though this was only 478 people. Playford, on the northern fringe of Adelaide, was next with 3.5% growth, and had the largest growth of 3,668 people. A few areas in more remote parts of SA had population falls, but these were at most a few dozen people, with Coober Pedy losing 1.5% of its population (23 people) and the largest fall being a loss of 29 people in Port Augusta.
Western Australia
Reclaiming the mantle of the fastest growing state in Australia, WA grew by 3.2%, or nearly 90,000 people, of which 90% was in Greater Perth. As with other states, the inner city dominated, with the City of Perth having the largest percentage growth of 7.4% (2,276 people). This was followed by the tiny Upper Gascoyne, adding 13 people for a growth rate of 6.9%. The affluent suburb of Peppermint Grove was next – a whole Local Government Area comprised of a single suburb of 1,736 people. Then it was Serpentine-Jarrahdale, a rapidly growing area on Perth's south-eastern fringe, with 5.6% growth. (S-J has been the fastest growing area for many years.) The largest growth was in the City of Wanneroo on Perth's northern fringe, adding 8,181 people, or 3.7% for the year.
Tasmania
The Apple Isle is the only state or territory which recorded a lower rate of growth in 2022-23 than it did two years before at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, the Census "found" about 25,000 extra people in Tasmania, due to people moving in or moving back from the mainland. In 2022-23, interstate migration turned negative again, as people left for the mainland. So despite high overseas migration, the state's population grew by only 0.4% for the year. The fastest growing LGA was Brighton at 1.6% (+310 people), followed by Huon Valley at 1.2% (+239). Both of these are on the fringe of Hobart, north and south respectively. The largest growth was in the City of Clarence, adding 579 people. It's worth noting that even the fastest growing areas are below the national average growth rate in 2022-23. Only 6 LGAs in Tasmania recorded a decline, though, with the largest in percentage terms being King Island (-1.6%) and the largest in absolute number being Glenorchy (-204 people).
Northern Territory
The NT also had a strong migration out of the territory to other parts of Australia, but still managed 0.9% population growth for 2022-23. The fastest growing LGA was West Arnhem (+2.1%, +149 people), while the largest growth was in the City of Palmerston, just outside Darwin, adding 646 people. East Arnhem lost 97 people or 1%, making it the most significant decline in NT.
Australian Capital Territory
The ACT grew strongly by nearly 10,000 people, or 2.1% – but it doesn't have Local Government Areas. At the suburb level, new growth areas on the urban fringe of Gungahlin and Belconnen grew the most, such as Taylor, Denman Prospect and Strathnairn. Nearby Queanbeyan-Palerang LGA in NSW added 1.8% or 1,133 people. Canberra is the only capital city for whom the Significant Urban Area (which includes Queanbeyan) is larger than the Greater Capital City Statistical Division (just the ACT). The Significant Urban Area for Canberra-Queanbeyan added 2.0% and exceeded 500,000 people for the first time in 2022-23.
Updating community profiles and other .id tools
With these ERPs now released, .id will be updating the community profile and other tools for our clients with all the new data. This includes small areas, suburbs, districts etc., which have updated 2023 figures, and also small revisions to 2022 figures. These should be on the community profile in the next week or two, after we receive and process the data from the ABS. We'll also be updating the annual migration figures, which look just at the internal migration component of population change.
If you want to be the first to know when datasets and functionality are updated on the .id toolkit, subscribe to our New Data and Features updates here.
The population forecasts for many areas are in the process of being updated to our new National Forecast Program – many areas have been updated already. These new forecasts start at 2021 and extend to 2046 for all our clients. However, they won't exactly match the 2023 population numbers just released. The reason for this is while the 2021 ERPs are final, all "interim" ERP figures – including 2023 – are subject to future revision, including a major revision after the next Census, due in 2026. So after the Census, past ERP numbers can and do change. Our forecasts match the base Census-year ERPs with our own estimates for subsequent years, arrived at in consultation with Local Government.
Keeping the County Great: Rappahannock’s Steady State
by Dave Rollo
Farms and forest occupy Rappahannock County. The Shenandoah Mountains lie to the west. (Wikimedia Commons)
It would be difficult to match the pastoral majesty of northwest Virginia, with its rolling hills covered in forests and prime farmland at the northern foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The region boasts the Shenandoah Valley to the west and Shenandoah National Park (SNP). Sitting at the eastern doorstep of the Park is Rappahannock County, part of the Piedmont region of the state, which lies between the mountains and the coastal plain.
Rappahannock is unique among the counties of the northern Piedmont for its careful approach to conservation. Unlike neighboring jurisdictions, Rappahannock County has carefully guarded its rural character and natural beauty—an astounding achievement given its proximity to the Washington, D.C. Metro (less than 50 miles away). Missing in Rappahannock are the big box stores, strip malls, fast food restaurants, and sprawl that are common outside the county’s borders.
Threats from Exurbia
“Super commuters” and telecommuters have created great demand for land in the counties west of Washington, D.C. Extending beyond the coastal plain cities of Washington, Arlington, and Alexandria, whose combined population is 5.5 million, the Piedmont region and the mountains beyond have felt the effects of this hunger for land.
Rappahannock County lies on the periphery of the exurban D.C. metro area. (Wikimedia Commons, modified).
The population of suburban Loudon County has increased more than tenfold in 50 years, to 440,000 people. Fauquier County, sandwiched between Loudon and Rappahannock, has tripled since 1970, to 76,000 residents. Fauquier is now considered part of the 22-county D.C. metro area, out on the exurban fringe.
Yet despite growth pressures—actually, because of active resistance to them—the population of Rappahannock County has held nearly steady over the past half-century, at 7,500 people.
Growth pressures have intensified over the years and are now on Rappahannock County’s doorstep. The county has successfully staved off most conversion of land to housing tracts, but neighboring counties have approved large development projects within a few miles of the county line.
In Culpeper County, immediately southeast of Rappahannock, the County Planning Commission granted unanimous approval of a massive development at Clevenger’s Corner. The development consists of 774 homes and a 144,000 square-foot commercial center. The approval was consistent with the county’s “growth centers” vision described in its 2005 comprehensive plan. To the people of Rappahannock County, Clevenger’s Corner is an object lesson in the type of development to avoid. They point to it when they complain to their elected representatives about the consequences of loosening zoning restrictions.
Pressures of Growth Tested
Rappahannock residents’ preference for conservation was put to the test recently, as was Rappahannock County’s 2020 Comprehensive Plan, by two controversial development petitions in the villages of Sperryville and Washington. The proposal in Sperryville was denied, while the one in Washington was approved, but they both reflect a cautious review of development that is more or less consistent with a steady state economy.
Sperryville, with more than 350 residents, has a vibrant village center. At the boundary of Shenandoah National Park, it benefits from significant tourism, and is buoyed by visitors frequenting the handful of shops, galleries, and restaurants. It is unincorporated, and development decisions are made exclusively by the County Board of Supervisors.
In Washington, by contrast, commercial and cultural activity has waxed and waned over time, and population has fallen from a high of 250 residents to 86 today. The mayor has set a goal of increasing the town’s population to roughly its former high. Unlike Sperryville, Washington (and most towns and villages in the County) is incorporated; development within its boundaries falls under the purview of the Town Council.
The Sperryville development proposal was for changing the density requirement of a local parcel from five acres per home to two acres (referred to as “upzoning”). This proposal generated a great deal of public opposition. In response, environmental restrictions on the parcel were introduced, which reduced the developable area and the number of homes. However, a petition of nearly 400 signatures urged the Board of Supervisors to reject the rezoning request outright. Ultimately, the Board agreed with the opposition to the proposal and kept the current zoning, at five acres per home.
View of Main Street, Sperryville, Virginia (Wikimedia Commons)
Meanwhile in Washington, the Rush River Commons project consisted of a mixed-use (commercial/residential) proposal on 5.1 acres that featured slope constraints and environmental challenges. The Washington Town Council viewed the project as valuable for shoring up town commerce. They also liked its inclusion of space for nonprofits and 20 units of affordable housing, a key consideration in their comprehensive plan.
After approval of the first phase by the town council, the developer offered a second phase that not only entailed additional building but required expansion of the town boundary by three acres. This required approval from the County Board of Supervisors. County residents pushed back on the proposal, and it was only after the developer removed the residential component and met twenty-five other conditions that the Board approved the project.
Thus, although the Board of Supervisors finally approved the Washington development, it imposed a high degree of stringency in the review process. Concern over the town’s loss of 60 percent of its population was likely a key reason for the decisions by both the town and county governmental bodies.
In the Sperryville and Washington cases, meeting records, public comment, and letters to the editor of the local Rappahannock News illustrate a substantial degree of public input from throughout the county. Civic involvement explains, to a large degree, Rappahannock County’s success at preserving land and resisting growth pressures.
Comprehensively Speaking
The Rappahannock Comprehensive Plan of 2020 updated the previous 2004 plan in significant ways. The Board of Supervisors implemented a downzoning (an increase in minimum lot size) of approximately 90 percent of the county’s land. Current zoning allows only one housing unit per 25 acres. This check on development is popularly supported and was reflected in elected leadership and appointments to the Planning Commission.
The opening statement of the comprehensive plan emphasizes the value that residents find in the county’s undeveloped lands: “When asked what brings the most pride related to Rappahannock County, there were various answers generally related to the unique viewsheds, the rural nature, the preservation of land and open spaces, and the citizens that help keep it that way.”
Popular support for constraints on development is clearly evident: “When asked what should never change about Rappahannock County, responses generally referenced the natural beauty and the zoning restrictions that control development.” Clearly, residents prize the natural attributes of the county over proposed alterations imposed by development.
Fortunately, Rappahannock County can draw on state-level policy to limit land conversion. For example, a foundational element in Rappahannock’s success in farmland preservation is the State of Virginia’s 1971 LUVA (Land Use Value Assessment) law allowing local governments to assess land by its “use value” rather than its typically higher market value. Through LUVA, real estate taxes are lower for lands that are useful for production of food, fiber, or timber. This creates an incentive to keep land rural and productive. The policy is effective: Ninety-eight percent of farms in the county are still family-owned, and 80 percent are smaller than 179 acres.
Rappahannock’s permanently protected land. (Piedmont Environmental Council)
The Piedmont Environmental Council, a regional environmental organization founded in 1972, has played a significant role in environmental protection and conservation for more than half a century. It promotes parks and trails, supports the local food system by connecting consumers to producers, encourages an active civic culture, and builds on land conservation successes.
The PEC has permanently protected more than 420,000 acres through the use of conservation easements. In Rappahannock County, conservation easements total approximately 34,000 acres, 20 percent of the county’s area. These are held by a consortium of organizations, including The Land Trust of Virginia, Virginia Outdoors, local and state governments, and the PEC. Together with the Shenandoah National Park, conservation easements cover more than 38 percent of Rappahannock County.
The PEC goal is to place 50 percent of the privately held land in the Piedmont region—a million acres—into permanent conservation status. The PEC has determined that the 50 percent goal is the minimum area required to preserve species diversity in the region. The secondary goal is to create a vibrant rural economy.
The PEC is in the process of targeting farms in the upper Rappahannock watershed that could also provide an anchor for the rural economy. Farm Bill programs through ALE (Agricultural Land Easements) provide grants—up to 50 percent of the land’s fair market value—to farms for placing their land in easements, with tax benefits on the remaining land value.
The Need for Vigilance
The inclination of town and county residents alike is to resist sprawl, as reflected in the 2020 comprehensive plan. The Land Use section provides that ”…we the people of Rappahannock County declare it to be a ’scenic county‘ and all goals, principles, and policies will reflect and devolve from this fundamental recognition.” The “Principles” section includes six that are directed toward land conservation. Two principles pertain to economic growth and development. However, they call for maintaining “growth areas” of urban infill for commerce and affordable housing. Economic growth is allowed only when it “assists in maintaining our existing balance and is compatible” with the natural and rural nature of the county.
Principle 10 promotes the philosophy that “land is a finite resource and not a commodity” and needs protection. Principle 9 encourages “citizen involvement in the planning process,” citizen education regarding the value of the natural and rural environment, and provision of an avenue for citizen participation in the oversight of development proposals.
The Rappahannock Comprehensive Plan’s “Goals” section is likewise explicit regarding land conservation. Seven goals require protection and preservation of the natural attributes of the county. Only one goal entertains prospects for further economic growth. It includes the directive to “Define the future boundaries of growth in village and commercial areas necessary to preserve our community character and to maintain the balance that exists today.”
Since growth is constrained by restrictions and within discrete physical boundaries, what level of growth is likely, especially given the demographic and affordability challenges of the county? The Board of Supervisors recognizes that as the county ages, gentrification prevents younger and poorer community members from living and participating in the county. Yet younger residents are usually needed to work in agriculture.
The remarkable success of protection by conservation easement within the County. (Piedmont Environmental Council)
The comprehensive plan anticipates population growth of 0–1 percent per year. This is not a goal, but a response to a variety of causes. The plan indicates that infrastructure such as schools are adequate to accommodate an increase of 750–1,500 county residents. This means a total projected population of 8,800 people, similar to the County’s population in the year 1900.
Rappahannock’s comprehensive plan embodies a limits-to-growth ethic that is consistent with the county’s legacy of resisting development pressures. The use of conservation easements and support for an agrarian base with ecological integrity is also consistent with a steady state economy. However, conservation easements are vulnerable to violation, the doctrine of changed conditions, and other legal challenges in a nation pursuing economic growth. Vigilance will be required to maintain the terms of easements. Ideally, these easements would be bulwarked by a sturdy framework of conservation lands owned by the county or a fee-title land trust.
Continued advancement toward a steady state economy could also be encouraged by replacing references to quantitative “growth” in the comprehensive plan with principles of qualitative improvement. And because the county’s population growth has long fluctuated within a small range and at a low level, the county could explicitly aim to maintain this dynamic equilibrium for the purpose of protecting its biocapacity. With these moderate changes, the plan could serve as a model for keeping a county great by maintaining a steady state.
Dave Rollo is a Policy Specialist and team leader of the Keep Our Counties Great campaign at CASSE.
The post <em>Keeping</em> the County Great: Rappahannock’s Steady State appeared first on Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy.
Growth Battles in Chittenden County
by Dave Rollo
The Green Mountains of Vermont. (JJ Sky’s the Limit)
Vermont takes its name from the French Monts Verts, or Green Mountains, the state’s rolling hills that host maple, birch, and beech forests in the south and spruce and fir in the north. Quaint towns and farms, many retaining their historic structures, are nestled in the mountain valleys. Lakes, streams, and wetlands are plentiful. And farms are everywhere: Vermont consistently ranks as one of the top states in the nation for local food production.
The verdant beauty of the Green Mountain State is striking, but preserving its beauty is a struggle as the state’s fields and forests attract green of a different kind. The state’s revered rural landscapes represent potentially lucrative investments for developers.
Developers have sought to expand urban development into surrounding green areas since the end of World War II. This is particularly evident in Chittenden County, the home of Burlington, Vermont’s largest city. More than a quarter of Vermonters live there, and it remains on the front line of the struggle against sprawl. Recent battles there highlight the tensions between providing housing and protecting the environment. They also demonstrate that well-organized groups of citizens can make inroads against powerful pro-growth interests.
Burlington’s Growing Pains
In the latter half of the 20th century, Chittenden County lost farmland at an alarming rate; farmland’s share of total area fell from 73 percent to just 24 percent between 1950 and 1992. Commensurate with this loss was a doubling of population. And since 1945, the number of residents has more than tripled.
In the late 1960s, politicians and the public began to clamor for action to prevent further loss of land to sprawl. The legislature responded in 1970 with Act 250, a landmark land-use statute. Years later, the Republican governor who signed the legislation recognized the Act as the most significant of his administration.
Act 250 marked a sea change in land use. It required that a project, after passing review at the local level, meet ten criteria to earn further review by the state’s Natural Resources Board. Then it is reviewed by one of nine regional Environmental Commissions. Environmental Commission review has been particularly successful in regulating developments of ten or more housing units or building lots.
Analysts credit Act 250 with protecting Vermont’s agrarian spaces, wetlands, and forests. The development process mandated by the Act encourages the participation of neighbors in targeted areas, bringing the perspectives of various stakeholders before the commissions. Although developers find the requirements onerous and time consuming, most permits are granted—none were rejected in 2022, and only one was rejected in 2021.
Will the scarlet tanager continue to have a home in Vermont? (Jen Goellnitz)
Still, developers complain of a chilling effect of the Act, as the review can be lengthy and costly. And housing advocates, concerned about housing scarcity and rising home prices, have joined developers in critiquing the Act.
Legislators are now debating reform of Act 250, which the current Governor favors. Changes are likely soon. Some proposed changes are quite benign, such as exempting farm restaurants or farm stands from the density provisions of the law. But loosening standards and lowering barriers threatens to generate the very sprawl that the law was enacted to prevent. Resident groups such as Better (Not Bigger) Vermont eye the growing coalition of developers and housing advocates with concern.
Meanwhile, the legislature adopted the Home Act in June 2023, which critics fear could encourage sprawl. The intent of the Home Act is purportedly to elevate density in village centers of rural communities to increase housing stock. To this end, the Act permits “plexing,” the subdividing of existing single-family homes, usually to create rental units.
While creating density through plexing could be beneficial in town cores, the Act’s simultaneous elimination of single-family zoning statewide reduces opportunities for home ownership, a key strategy for building wealth. In contrast, duplexes convert housing stock to rentals where equity building isn’t possible.
Many advocates of a supply-side approach to the housing crunch fail to consider that the problem is not just a shortage of structures, but how they are used. Short-term rentals (Airbnb) and the purchase of second homes effectively take homes off the sale and rental markets. The effect is to reduce housing availability in Vermont, just as it does elsewhere in the country.
Infrastructure and Growth Pressures
As the state legislature begins to ease development review and encourage greater density through upzoning (allowing greater height, density, or both), local governments are responding by relaxing local land-use codes. Planning commissions typically develop eight-year plans and create zoning regulations that are forwarded to selectboards, the legislative bodies that govern towns in Vermont. The revision of zoning plans provides an opening for growth advocates to expand development in rural towns—especially the bedroom communities of large cities such as Burlington.
Summer 2023 algal bloom in Lake Champlain. (southherovoters.org)
Growth in these communities takes infrastructure, such as roads and waterworks, which benefits developers. Expanding sewer treatment, for example, is a prerequisite of housing and commercial development. At least, it should be a prerequisite. Unfortunately, a common practice of growth advocates is to pressure communities to develop more housing even though existing infrastructure is inadequate to accommodate it.
Many communities impacted by growth and sprawl commonly complain about a lack of concurrency of infrastructure and services—ensuring that infrastructure is possible and affordable before a new area is developed. But concurrency is rarely prioritized, leading to stress on existing infrastructure that is costly in both environmental and economic terms.
In Vermont, the case of combined sewer systems, in which sewage and stormwater flow through the same pipes, demonstrates the lack of infrastructure capacity. Combined sewer-stormwater infrastructure renders water treatment vulnerable to flooding during heavy rains. This can bring about sewage overflows into waterways, such as the White River, a tributary of the Connecticut River, the largest river in New England. Sewage overflows also contaminate Lake Champlain.
Heavy summer rains in July 2023 caused an antiquated sewer pipe to rupture, spilling 10 percent of Burlington’s wastewater into the Winooski River, which feeds into Lake Champlain, causing extensive contamination of the lake. Combined sewer-stormwater overflow also contributes to poisonous bacterial blooms, which diminish fishing and swimming opportunities and threaten the health of pets and wildlife.
During the COVID pandemic, federal funding from the American Rescue Plan (ARPA) was ostensibly made available for upgrading antiquated sewage systems such as combined sewage-stormwater systems and septic fields. However, in Vermont this funding was often used to expand sewage treatment plants in rural areas, stimulating growth there. As a result, combined sewage-stormwater systems still plague the state.
Westford Pushes Back Against Growth
Westford, Vermont, a town less than 10 miles from greater Burlington, illustrates how citizens can stand against development interests to protect small-town rural character. In 2023, the state proposed use of ARPA funds for construction of a wastewater treatment plant that would permit a 60 percent increase in Westford residences. Ninety percent of the construction cost of the $4-million plant was to be financed by the state, but Westford residents needed to approve a bond to cover $400,000 of the cost.
Westford, Vermont town center. (Bernhard Wunder)
Knowing that the plant’s extra capacity would be utilized by development interests, residents joined forces to educate the town and vote down the referendum that was required for the bond passage.
Residents found themselves pitted against the town planning commission, and the local media was unsympathetic to their objections. They were even removed from a statewide listserv used to provide information on the project, according to Bob Fireovid, a farmer and activist in the greater Burlington area.
Despite these obstacles, the group created a political action committee and a website with information including videos describing the proposal. They also peppered the community with signs urging a “No” vote on the referendum. To the surprise of the growth boosters, the referendum was defeated in November, 2023 in a 532-to-488 vote. Furthermore, the Westford Selectboard went further, declaring that the vote represented not just a rejection of the bond, but a referendum on the wastewater project. The project is now suspended
Tale of Two Heroes
Other rural communities threatened by Burlington sprawl are the towns of North and South Hero, located on Grand Isle in Lake Champlain. South Hero is just 12 miles from Burlington, while North Hero, on the northern end of the island, is more distant. Towns in Vermont make changes to their town plans every eight years, and both Hero draft plans were opened to public review in 2022. A referendum in South Hero and a vote by North Hero’s Selectboard were then to follow. That’s when residents got busy.
Many residents of both towns were alarmed at the extent of the proposals, which increased density and altered zoning over large areas extending from their town centers. The plans, they argued, weren’t created in the interests of residents at large, but to serve commuters to Burlington, South Burlington, and Essex Junction.
Residents of South Hero developed a website to post planning documents, alert neighbors to upcoming meetings, and describe the hazards of a plan that would have expanded development into their rural community.
On the South Hero ballot were two alternative proposals: one to limit the extent of growth and the other to expand the dense development many-fold. The proposal to limit sprawl failed by about 50 votes of the 650 cast.
The referendum question for South Hero. (southherovoters.org)
In contrast, residents of North Hero opposed to comprehensive density increases were able to restrict multi-family housing primarily to a limited zone near the town center. The North Hero Selectboard will permit denser housing in rural neighborhoods only by conditional use, which requires a board hearing with public input.
Moreover, recommendations by the town’s planning commission to decrease rural minimum lot size from three to two acres was rejected by the North Hero Selectboard. The commission had recommended a more expansive zoning allowance for multi-unit development, but residents convinced the North Hero Selectboard to adopt the more limited area, with density increases in the larger jurisdiction left to a matter of conditional use.
The divergent outcomes in South and North Hero hold important lessons for advocates of restricted growth. In South Hero, advocates lost, but narrowly, demonstrating the near-effectiveness of their organizing and communications efforts. Their network and template of action can be deployed in the next attempt to update their town plan.
In North Hero, a committed group of residents were successful in resisting the most ambitious objective of the growth boosters, which would have adversely affected their quality of life and negatively impacted their island’s environment.
Together, the two cases demonstrate that citizen action can move the needle in opposing growth. The Heros have constructed constituencies for eventual success, if not initial victory.
A Recurring Theme
Chittenden County’s growth struggles pitting the preservation of scenic beauty, rural character and agricultural base against housing development are a recurring theme in counties across the country. Preservationists have traditionally stood up to development interests, but today the latter are joined by “affordable housing” advocates who contend that the demand for housing should be met with more supply—and therefore, that communities need to grow. This is the argument and impetus of easing the current standards of Act 250, and the frame of mind of planners and elected officials who modify zoning.
This clash of interests must ultimately be resolved by means other than accommodating ever more housing if Vermont is to retain its rural character, protect its production of food, and conserve wildlife habitats. While density can play a part in accommodating housing, it should be localized so as not to undermine decades-long efforts to limit land development impacts.
Equal attention should be placed on limiting short-term rentals and the trend of investors buying up housing stock. Efforts to limit these trends probably require federal action.
In the meantime, residents of Vermont have had some success in restraining urban encroachment, serving as examples of steady-state citizenship at the local level.
Dave Rollo is a Policy Specialist and Team Leader of the Keep Our Counties Great program at CASSE.
The post Growth Battles in Chittenden County appeared first on Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy.
Conservative Idaho: Poised to Resist Sprawl?
by Dave Rollo
Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountain Range. (USDA)
The USA, Canada, and other countries have long recognized sprawl as a vexing dimension of urban development. Especially challenging is the difficulty creating the public consensus needed for political and planning responses to the problem.
But growing numbers of residents today are expressing their distaste for sprawling approaches to development and are primed to resist it. Perhaps surprisingly, sprawl afflicts a U.S. state better known for its natural beauty and its potatoes: Idaho. Even more surprising, and hopeful, is the growing opposition to sprawl among the state’s citizens.
An Urban Malignancy
Sprawl, one of the chief products of the urban growth machine, entails a development and building pattern that is damaging to the environment and to a community’s quality of life.
The monotony of sprawl replaces farmland and natural habitat. (Mark Strozier, Flickr)
Characterized by an expansive diffusion of roads, housing, and other built infrastructure, sprawl has become ubiquitous across the USA and Canada. With its emphasis on separation of commercial, residential, and public uses, sprawl employs great quantities of concrete and asphalt infrastructure and promotes car use. Furthermore, its high energy demands are maladaptive for a future of energy limits. Lax and aesthetically unimaginative design standards create a monotonous landscape that swaps traditional beauty for strip malls, big box stores, and McMansions.
Sprawl eats up natural habitats, demands huge amounts of resources and energy, and leads to isolation, social segregation, and other societal harms. However, in the short term, sprawl generates profits for development interests, especially when demand is high, and when planning codes permit or even encourage it.
Losing Natural Assets
Idaho is ecologically rich and abundant in quality farmland, rangeland, and water resources, assets threatened by pro-growth development in cities and counties across the state.
Idaho is often ranked in the top tier of states endowed with natural beauty. It borders Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Tetons and includes the strikingly beautiful Sawtooth Mountain Range, which runs through the center of the state. That range boasts four unique plant and animal communities and provides habitat for numerous species. Idaho’s natural features also include sagebrush steppe, an ecosystem that supports 350 rare, threatened, and endangered species.
Besides its magnificent wildlands, Idaho is endowed with a vibrant agricultural base, composed of some 25,000 ranches and farms. Food abundance is evidenced by the state’s seventh-place ranking in the USA for agricultural exports per capita. Furthermore, 26 percent of Idaho’s agricultural land is considered “nationally significant” by the American Farmland Trust; that is, it ranks among the best in the nation for long-term food production.
Yet Idaho’s natural assets are threatened by population pressure, which often drives land conversion. Idaho is one of the two fastest-growing states, with immigration from California accounting for nearly 40 percent of Idaho’s population increase in 2021. Spokane Public Radio reports that Idaho is projected to add 800,000 residents by 2060, an increase of 42 percent from the current population.
Aquifer depletion is already a problem in Idaho. (NumbersUSA)
This population pressure was largely responsible for the loss of some 370,000 acres of farmland and natural habitat between 1982 and 2017. The nationally significant share of agricultural land was more than three times as likely to be developed as other cropland. Population increase and attendant sprawl negatively impacts the sagebrush steppe in Idaho, with the greatest decline in ecological integrity in the fastest-growing regions of the state.
Apart from displacing cropland and wildlife habitats, new residences place added pressure on water tables, which are falling in Idaho. As aquifers trend toward depletion, allocating more water for a growing population will only serve to exacerbate the problem—in part through arguably wasteful uses of water, such as irrigation of turfgrass lawns, which competes with agricultural irrigation. Increased economic activity also generates contaminated stormwater, septic leakage, and yard pesticides that seep into groundwater and adversely affect aquifers.
Gauging Sentiment and Building Consensus
Prospective increases in the human population and the evident failure of land use regulations to limit the impact of growth have alarmed many residents of Idaho. Concerns about farmland loss and the degradation of Idaho’s environment prompted a 2023 study to assess the problem of population growth and sprawl in Idaho and take the pulse of the populace.
The overwhelming majority of Idaho residents see population growth as a problem. (www.IdahoSprawl.com).
NumbersUSA, a non-partisan, non-profit organization that advocates for “sensible immigration reform,” published a report on the study last month. The report establishes in detail the degree of habitat and farmland loss over several decades. Of the 370,000 acres lost, 77 percent was due to population increase, while 23 percent was caused by land conversion by the existing population.
The report also contains a survey of Idaho residents conducted by Rasmussen Reports that documents public awareness of sprawl and concern over it. More than three-quarters of respondents believe Idaho’s growing population negatively affects its open spaces and environment. And fully 93 percent see current growth as a problem and wish to slow, reverse, or stop it.
Furthermore, aquifer depletion is on the public’s mind. Some 73 percent of respondents oppose diverting water from agriculture to development. Clearly the citizens of Idaho understand that it’s not in their interest to compromise a precious and limited resource.
Addressing the Problem
Besides assessing the contextual problem of sprawl in Idaho, the report addresses how urban areas could implement zoning code changes to restrict encroachment of development, thus protecting farmland and natural features such as forests or sagebrush steppe.
Permissive land use (zoning) codes are one way sprawl is unleashed. Sprawl is also promoted when developers are not required to internalize the costs of added community infrastructure, such as water and sewer lines. Their development activity is essentially subsidized by taxpayers.
Various zoning tools can mitigate the impact of sprawl by incentivizing density. Tools such as the transfer of development rights, infill strategies, and permitting multifamily apartments instead of single-family housing all help to limit diffused development patterns. Implemented appropriately, these tools can increase density in ways that increase overall livability.
Sentiments of Idahoans on zoning that encourages high-density development. (www.IdahoSprawl.com).
The NumbersUSA poll indicates that Idahoans are split on this approach, with 42 percent favoring regulations that encourage apartments and condos over single-family housing versus 47 percent strongly or somewhat opposed to such regulations.
While the approach of internalizing costs—that is, increasing development fees to offset the costs to the community for new development—was not directly addressed by the poll, Idahoans are resoundingly opposed to public subsidization of new development. Nearly 80 percent of respondents expressed opposition to paying higher property taxes to cover the infrastructure costs of new subdivisions.
Pressure on public infrastructure such as roads, sewers, water utilities, police and fire stations, and schools increases with an expanding population and its growing economy, and these facilities often become overextended. The costs of such services are supposed to be borne by the new residents, but are externalized to the existing residents.
One way to prevent such externalization is to impose caps on services. For example, sewer hook-ups can be limited. Limiting hook-ups to sewage lines and wastewater treatment plants was favored by half of respondents, while 22 percent were unsure and just over a quarter were opposed.
Up to the Challenge?
While it’s clear that population growth and the development pressures that follow are negatively affecting residents of Idaho, their county and municipal governments are having a limited impact in restraining sprawl as planners continue with a business-as-usual approach to development.
Recognizing sprawl as a threat should be made explicit within county planning documents and clear measures to limit sprawl should be specified. Yet, the comprehensive plans of seven of the eight fastest growing counties in Idaho mention ‘grow’, ‘growth,’ or ‘growing’ 1063 times in all, while sprawl garners only 15 mentions. And most of the references to growth focus on how to accommodate it; little mention is made of growth’s negative impacts.
Greater density can mean greater livability (La Citta Vita, Wikimedia Commons)
Boise is Idaho’s largest city and its capital. It was also one of the first communities in the state to experience the impacts of sprawl. Sprawl from Boise continues at a fierce pace with 24,000 new residents pouring into the city in just the past 2 years. “Blueprint Boise” is the 2021 updated comprehensive plan for Boise, whose more than half a million residents comprise over a quarter of the population of Idaho.
While Blueprint Boise is similarly light on references to sprawl (a single mention), it offers some measures to mitigate sprawl. In response to population pressures, the comprehensive plan adopted strategies to add density and to guide growth within a set of neighborhood and area master plans.
But critics of the plan complain that it does not adequately describe the consequences of growth and sprawl. And they blame continued loss of farmland and other open spaces on the failure of regional coordination, especially the absence of concurrency. Concurrency is a planning concept that mandates that adequate public facilities be in place before development is approved.
The threats to Idaho’s natural places, farmland, and rangeland will continue as population and economic pressures mount. Most of Idaho’s counties are ill-equipped to address the pressures that come with the surge in population. Recent efforts to make clear to Idaho’s elected officials that action is needed are also bound to intensify. Bold action is required soon. Which communities in Idaho will choose to lead on confronting the problem of sprawl, inspiring others to follow?
Dave Rollo is a Policy Specialist at CASSE.
The post Conservative Idaho: Poised to Resist Sprawl? appeared first on Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy.
‘Those Who Enjoyed the Post-1945 Social Progress of the West Were Made Complacent By It: We Forgot Its Price is Vigilance’
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On New Year’s Day 2024 ‘DEI’ will end at all 33 publicly-funded higher education institutions in Texas. ‘DEI’ stands for ‘Diversity, Equity and Inclusion’ and is the programme aimed at ending racism, sexism and anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination while promoting multiculturalism and inclusion. Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed the anti-DEI Bill into law in June, and already many institutions have dismantled their DEI resource centres and reassigned their staff.
As a move in the culture wars, this is pretty blunt – only one step short of banning people of colour or difference of sexual preferences from campuses outright (people who do not feel welcome will ban themselves; that’s part of the plan), and – in my view – two steps short of lynching them, which was once, and not that long ago, the option of choice in the US’ southern reaches. This fact has to be mentioned because the direction of travel indicated by ending DEI points that unpalatable way – for the simple reason that it’s the direction from which conservative moral thinking comes.
‘Conservative moral thinking’ is a kind way of putting it, because thinking is not what underlies moral conservativism.
What underlies it is feeling: emotions not of empathy and kindness, understanding and acceptance – but of tribalism, xenophobia, racism, fear of change, fear of difference.
Simplistic binaries – white-black, good-bad, male-female, right-wrong – lie at the source and limit of these feelings. Any gradations or nuances upset conservatives and must therefore be stamped on.
One of the major attractions of religion to conservative moralists is that it offers strong rules in relation to anything that does not observe the binaries – the more simplistic the better.
The political wing of conservatism is not, however, quite so unthinking.
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From its followers’ point of view, the great inconvenience in life is what they regard as the wrong kind of liberty. Whereas being free from taxes and federal laws, free to carry a pistol and own several assault rifles, free to exploit workers, free to cheat customers, and free to say hateful things about people different from them is the kind of freedom they like – they do not like protests and strikes, people voting in support of their opponents, the law protecting people unlike themselves, and they emphatically do not like paying taxes for other peoples’ health care or education.
This point of view has been frankly and openly voiced in America for decades. But it is only in the last decade or so that this agenda – from 1945 a mostly sleeping virus in Europe’s immune system – has broken through the skin like leprous ulcers in the form of Hungary’s Orbán, Italy’s Meloni, the Netherlands’ Wilders, Austria’s Kickl, France’s Le Pen, Germany’s AfD, and the enablement of the British Conservative Party’s capture by the UKIP/Brexit Party.
The current UK Government has placed limits on protest, set out to ban strikes, introduced mandatory voter ID, shifted billions of pounds from public service budgets into cronies’ pockets, allowed the NHS and local government to wither (so that they can be bought cheap by ‘private providers’ one suspects), protected the Thatcher-sold utility companies with profit-gouging and poor services matched in ambition only by the further billions of debt that have accumulated in order to pay dividends, plan to introduce dozens of ‘freeports’ and ‘special economic zones’ in which private corporations will be effectively be the government and will sell to the local population, for profit, what once were public services – and so wretchedly on, in full asset-stripping, civil-liberty-limiting, anti-democratic mode.
Rishi Sunak attended a gathering in Italy recently, along with Viktor Orbán and Steve Bannon, as a guest of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. Bannon’s presence is significant. The ‘Bannon playbook’ for right-wing politicians is brutal in its simplicity and effectiveness. It is: cause chaos, disrupt, frighten and anger people about immigrants, wokeists, gay people coming for their kids; roil them up; embroil them in difficulties caused by anarcho-capitalism (privatisation on steroids) which makes them paddle faster and harder in the rising waters of debt and insecurity, and put the blame for their plight on the immigrants (mainly) and the wokeists, bien-pensants and ‘liberals’.
Anarcho-capitalism, very bad for the have-nots, is very good for the haves – there’s profit in chaos, lifting bonus caps and selling public assets cheap. While this is going on ‘the state can be rolled-back’ and those pesky civil liberties and democratic restraints that make governing difficult can be ‘disapplied’.
The aim is to reverse the idea that government is the servant of the people’s interests; the people are to be made to serve the governor’s interests. Rulers must rule – without following any rules – and the little people must not get in the way. Their role is to be milked, ceaselessly, mercilessly, impotently.
We see all of this unfolding before our eyes, plain and clear. There is a mighty battle already under way.
Donald Tusk in Poland, Pedro Sanchez in Spain, and Keir Starmer in the UK appear to buck the Bannoning trend. The EU is structured on the progressive and liberal principles of the post-1945 immune time, but in the 2024 European Parliament elections a Bannonish majority might win. Alas: those of us who enjoyed the increasingly open and inclusive social progress of the West after 1945 were made complacent by it; we forgot that its price is vigilance.
The former Home Secretary showed no interest in urgent threats to the UK as the National Security Strategy Committee reveals that Vladimir Putin made attempts to interfere with the last General Election
David Hencke
Though highly allergic to conspiracy theories, I find it ever harder to resist thinking that there might be something to the allegations of a Russian connection with the Bannoning of politics in the democracies of the West. Putin, Orbán, Trump, Republican reluctance to help fund Ukraine’s war, Boris Johnson and the Lebedevs, Russian donations to Britain’s Conservative politicians, Russian interference in elections, Russians murdering Russians on British soil without much consequence – these are a spattering of dots that beckon one to wonder whether they join up.
If there is a connecting line it is to be found in the answer to this question: who stands to gain most by disunity in, even the fragmentation of, Europe? The answer is: Vladimir Putin.
It is a longstanding and well-known aim of his. To some, it is plain that Brexit was his first great success in this endeavour, with the added bonus of considerably weakening the UK itself. The UK, when both in the EU and a strong ally of the US, was once a formidable thorn in would-be resurgent Russian flesh, if you look at it from Putin’s point of view. Now it is a rusting hulk drifting offshore, and the task of picking off others in the convoy is easier.
The connection between moral and political conservatism? Attacks on immigrants and wokeism and the rest do a double job and do it beautifully: they fire up the base, and distract them from the agenda of making them the subjects to an anarcho-capitalist system in which they have few rights, but pay for everything with and beyond their last pennies.
It is not too late to resist what is happening.
Get the UK out of the Putin-helping (whether intentionally or not) Bannoning trend, return to the task of helping to build a strong and Europe committed – as it constitutionally is – to human rights and civil liberties, and resume vigilance thereafter. This is the least we must do.
Migration drives Australia’s record 2022–23 population growth
The latest population growth figures from the ABS completes the financial year picture for 2022–23, showing record population growth. Strong overseas migration remains the key driver for the nation, with different stories emerging across the states and territories. Demographer Glenn Capuano digs in to the details.
As always, just before Christmas, the Australian Bureau of Statistics releases new population growth figures for Australia, States and Territories. These are quarterly figures, but the December release for the period ending June 30th each year is the most important as it aligns with the local numbers which come out later in March, and represents the full financial year.
These figures for the year ended June 30th, 2023, show that Australia’s population stood at 26,638,544 – an increase of 624,145 (2.4%) since 2022. In just two years, the nation has gone from the slowest population growth in more than 100 years to one of the fastest, adding more people than ever before! (As a percentage the nation has grown faster off a smaller population base at other times.)
Overseas migration much higher than pre-COVID figures
The main driver of this very high population growth remains overseas migration. During the COVID-19 restrictions, particularly the 2020–21 year, Net Overseas Migration (NOM) was negative, as our borders were closed and we had hotel quarantine for a small number of returning residents only. Fast forward two years and, with the borders open, there is a very high migration intake. Net Overseas Migration for the 12 months to June 2023 was +518,100. This is more than 100,000 higher than the previous record set in 2009. For many years, NOM was around +150,000–200,000 p.a. Since 2006 it has been high, averaging between 200,000 and 250,000 p.a. So the current figure is close to double the average over the 10 years pre-COVID.
There has been a lot of discussion in the media lately about this being unsustainable and the government has some plans to cut the migration intake going forward. That’s only half the story of course, because Net Overseas Migration is also high at the moment due to fewer people leaving the country. The government of the day has less control over the out-migration component. It’s also worth noting that 75% of migrants arriving in this period were on temporary visas.
Population change across states and territories
This table shows population change at a state/territory level for the year ended June 2023.
State/Territory
ERP June 2023
Change over previous year
% change over previous year
Natural Increase
Net Overseas migration
Net interstate migration
NSW
8,339,347
172,643
2.11%
32,599
174,202
-34,158
Vic
6,812,477
181,846
2.74%
29,453
154,256
-1,863
Qld
5,459,413
138,472
2.60%
22,222
83,995
32,255
SA
1,851,704
30,489
1.67%
3,043
27,855
-409
WA
2,878,563
86,769
3.11%
13,548
61,591
11,630
Tas
572,780
1,729
0.30%
294
4,032
-2,597
NT
252,473
2,245
0.90%
2,177
3,335
-3,267
ACT
466,813
9,898
2.17%
2,701
8,788
-1,591
Australia
26,638,544
624,145
2.40%
106,058
518,087
Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics (June 2023), National, state and territory population
The high level of overseas migration is affecting every state and territory. The largest share by far is among the two largest states, NSW and Vic, which get around two thirds of that migration between them. Just two years ago, in the 2020–21 year, Net Overseas Migration was negative for these two states, leading to low population growth and even decline for Victoria. Now Victoria is back to being the second-fastest growing among all the states and territories, with the return of international students driving a lot of that. And there is a new frontrunner at the state level, with Western Australia’s 3.1% population growth eclipsing Queensland as the fastest growing state or territory for the year.
The other trend at a state level is Net Interstate Migration. This is typically negative for NSW, positive for Queensland and oscillates for other states. This year is no exception, but the very high interstate migration experienced by Queensland in recent years has come back a bit closer to normal (which is still highly positive, at more than 32,000 for the year). South Australia and Tasmania both had strongly positive interstate migration during the pandemic, but this has tapered back to close to zero for SA, and well into the negative for Tasmania.
All states and territories have positive natural increase. This indicates that, in the short term, our population in most areas would keep growing in the absence of migration, contrary to popular belief. However for Tasmania, as the oldest state, it’s close to zero, with deaths nearly balancing births. Australia-wide, it’s true that our birth rate is relatively low, but so is our death rate (see my recent blog on life expectancy). And it would be several decades at current birth rates with no migration before the population aged enough to drop our natural increase to negative.
More to come
These figures for state and territories will appear in .id’s community and economic profiles, but not until we have local datasets to compare with them. These are due out with the publication “Regional Population Growth” (or 3218.0 for those of us old hacks who still use ABS catalogue numbers). This eagerly awaited release around the end of March 2024 will give the full 2022–3 year update for Local Government Areas and smaller areas within them, and will be loaded on to profile.id as soon as possible after release, with the national and state comparisons as benchmarks.
People's Landscapes: Living in Landscapes
A roundtable discussion explore landscape as a space for living, considering the pressures on land from population growth and discussing questions of preservation vs. development. People's Landscapes: Beyond the Green and Pleasant Land is a lecture series convened by the University of Oxford's National Trust Partnership, which brings together experts and commentators from a range of institutions, professions and academic disciplines to explore people's engagement with and impact upon land and landscape in the past, present and future. The National Trust cares for 248,000 hectares of open space across England, Wales and Northern Ireland; landscapes which hold the voices and heritage of millions of people and track the dramatic social changes that occurred across our nations' past. In the year when Manchester remembers the 200th anniversary of the Peterloo massacre, the National Trust's 2019 People’s Landscapes programme is drawing out the stories of the places where people joined to challenge the social order and where they demonstrated the power of a group of people standing together in a shared place. Throughout this year the National Trust is asking people to look again, to see beyond the green and pleasant land, and to find the radical histories that lie, often hidden, beneath their feet. At the third event in the series, Living in Landscapes, panellists explore landscape as a space for living, considering the pressures on land from population growth, discussing questions of preservation vs. development, and asking: who should decide how we live in landscape?
Speakers: Alice Purkiss | National Trust Partnership Lead | University of Oxford (Welcome)
Lucy Footer| National Public Programme Producer| National Trust (Introduction)
Dr Ingrid Samuel| Historic Environment Director | National Trust (Chair)
Crispin Truman | Chief Executive | Campaign to Protect Rural England
Dave Lomax | Senior Associate | Waugh Thistleton Architects
Professor Caitlin Desilvey | Associate Professor of Cultural Geography | University of Exeter
Dr David Howard | Associate Professor in Sustainable Urban Development | University of Oxford
For more information about the People’s Landscapes Lecture Series and the National Trust Partnership at the University of Oxford please visit: www.torch.ox.ac.uk/national-trust-partnership