SMART GROWTH….Via Blake Hounshell, this article in USA Today a few days ago is pretty interesting. Apparently the building trade unions are starting to embrace growth controls:
A study released last month by Good Jobs First, a non-profit research center in Washington, D.C., found that over a 10-year period, metro areas with growth controls had nearly a third more construction than areas without such policies. Rehabilitating buildings, developing idle urban land and reclaiming toxic sites for building ? all smart-growth priorities ? were more labor-intensive than sprawl, the study found.
….Along with arguments that it creates more jobs, smart growth complements other union priorities. Labor fights “big-box” retailers such as Wal-Mart because they’re non-union. Labor’s smart-growth allies blame those companies for hastening sprawl.
I don’t have anything especially insightful to say about this, but it’s both interesting and counterintuitive. I wonder how much impact it will have?
