Conservative Urbanism?
Why urbanism and traditional conservatism are not as disparate as they seem.
The burgeoning urbanist and YIMBY movements are often conflated with progressive political tendencies. While many proponents of infill development, public transportation funding, and bicycle lanes are on the left side of the political spectrum, urbanist principles are not beholden to one school of political thought. In fact, any political movement can claim to be as much a part of the urbanist agenda as any leftist or liberal. For example, one of the most widely recognized urbanist organizations, Strong Towns, was founded by Charles Marohn, a self-proclaimed conservative. I want to expand on how conservative politics can be incorporated into the urbanist agenda. There are several tenets of conservative thought that can propel urbanism into the national consciousness as the best way to go about how we interact with our built environment.
Before I go into the different aspects of conservative urbanism, I want to clarify that I am referencing a specific type of conservative politics. I am not interested in the far-right political movement that espouses conspiracy theories, bigotry, and authoritarianism. There is no room in the urbanist movement for those who believe that “15-minute cities” are secret government plans to take away all of our freedom. The conservative I am interested in reaching out to is one who believes in tradition and conservation. Typically coming from a Christian tradition, these conservatives place importance on community and traditional societal values. There is a broad range of issues where I disagree with these conservatives, but their approach to urbanism can be insightful into how the urbanist movement can tailor its message to be more universal.
Here are two tenets of traditional conservative Urbanism that can act as a space for collaboration between urbanists of all political ideologies:
Fiscal Efficiency
This more or less comes straight from the Strong Towns manifesto, but suburban America is inherently fiscally unsustainable. It resembles a Ponzi scheme that requires infinite growth. This 10 minute explainer provides an in-depth look at the system.
If there is one thing that American traditional conservatives are known to promote is financial responsibility. The government should be able to pay for all of its services. When it comes to city politics, this means going forward we should build an urban and suburban form that is more in line with urbanist ideals which is significantly more cost-efficient.
The photo above, provided by Urban3, shows the net revenue of each parcel in Lafayette, Louisiana, an average American city. The map shows that the outer, more suburban parcels are a net negative cost on the city’s finances whereas the more urban core is a net positive. This pattern replicates itself across the country. If we want our cities to become fiscally sustainable, as conservatives want, we need to rethink how we go about urban development, prioritizing denser infill.
Emphasis on Community
One of the most negative manifestations of modern American culture and built environment is the atomization of our society. Through our individualistic culture, reverence of the nuclear family, and the proliferation of social media as our primary form of communication, Americans have never been so isolated. Physically, we are so distant from each other because of how the suburban landscape is designed. This makes it difficult to interact with those outside of your immediate household, who tend to be immediate family. In many U.S. cities, it is illegal to live in a single-family home that is not inhabited by your kin. The institutions of American cities: churches, main streets, academic institutions, local parks, and others were the products of walkable community-oriented places. They have been replaced with big-box stores, parking lots, and highways. The process of community-building, which was once facilitated by our built environment, is now inhibited by it. This leaves the internet as the primary medium of community-building, which has not formed the same kinds of constructive communities produced by walkable areas.
The conservative emphasis on preserving traditional ways of life, while harmful in some respects, can be a catalyst for the return of local-scale community building and placemaking. Using the social technology provided by rural America, such as Sunday mass, Friday night football, summer potlucks, and other events, in collaboration with the construction of places that are conducive to community building, traditional conservatism can propel the rejuvenation of towns throughout the country.
Final Thoughts
I want to conclude this piece by saying that I am still working through this idea. I believe that the core principles of traditional conservatism share many similarities with Strong Towns’ mission and values. If urbanists successfully message this area of agreement to those on the right, it can provide an excellent base to convince a large portion of the country that urbanism is not evil leftist propaganda. In actuality, conservative urbanism can be a key instrument in the revitalization of small-town America. Tell me what you think!
This is a worthy inquiry. I encourage you to read Blake Pagenkopf and his books on political alignment. He adds a bottom-up/top-down framework to the liberal/conservative spectrum. It explains to me why I find it so easy to work with bottom-up liberals (despite our different motivations) and why I find most top-down conservative thinkers to be horrible for America.
Keep going!
Also look at the tenets of the Congress for the New Urbanism www.cnu.org. For almost 30 years, architects, planners and developers have pursued these ideas to create coherent, walkable towns and neighborhoods across the U.S.