Title: "The Illusion of Smart Growth: A Cautionary Perspective on Vermont’s Development Policies"
Economist Kenneth Boulding famously said, “Anyone who believes that exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist." Boulding’s words came to mind recently during VNRC’s Smart Growth Conference in Montpelier, which I attended.
Don’t get me wrong. Smart growth includes admirable principles, like restricting sprawl and "protecting environmental, natural and historic features." But these goals are only aspirational. And the term "features" reveals a superficial understanding of what is at stake.
What concerns me most about "smart" growth is that it isn’t fundamentally different from conventional growth. It’s … growth, with different branding. And at the conference it became clear that the term has become a tool in a coordinated effort to weaken or eliminate regulations that prevent rampant exploitation of Vermont’s environment. Without those laws, the development floodgates will open. Developers don’t care about aspirations. They care about profits.
To put it bluntly, smart growth is a Trojan horse for developers.
Kevin Chu of the Vermont Futures Project and member of the conference’s panel of speakers, told us that his parents emigrated from China in the late 1980s. They moved to Shelburne, and found Vermont to be a friendly and welcoming place. They worked hard, raised three boys and sent them to college. Chu is understandably motivated to help us return to a time when such opportunities were plentiful.
But then his tone changed: "We must acknowledge the history of how we arrived at today," he said, and then read from a segment of VPR’s Brave Little State: “Act 250 has contributed to racial inequity in Vermont. There is some indication that racist fears shaped the law from the very beginning". The "indication" is a disparaging remark about fast food joints made by governor Deane Davis, who advocated for and signed Act 250 into law in 1970. Governor Davis was concerned about the impacts of the sudden surge in development happening at that time.
Environmental historian Bruce Post, author of "The Mountain Manifesto," explained that Vermont’s land use laws emanated from a groundswell of environmental concerns in the late 60s. Many Vermonters helped to frame the debate that led to the Gibb Commission and ultimately to Act 250 and other environmental measures. Vermonters were motivated by a desire to protect the land they loved from unchecked development, especially around ski areas. Governor Davis was worried about developers with big money paving over Vermont, not about people of color moving here.
Anyone who lived through the 60s and 70s can remember the collective cultural awareness that nature must be defended from the voracious appetite of industrial civilization. The overarching goal of Act 250 was to find some balance between economic growth and the continued health of the land. Governor Davis opened the 1970 Legislature by calling for a commission to review the impacts of growth: "humans are an inescapable part of an intricate system of life and growth that begins with air soil and water and includes myriad forms of life and activity on which we are mutually dependent." Among Governor Davis’s goals were restrictions on pesticide use, a ban on development at elevations above 2,500 ft, and restrictions on development in flood plains and lakeshores.
Carol Irons, former Vice Chair of Vermont’s Commission on Native American Affairs, put it this way: "There are plenty of examples of racism in Vermont’s history, but Act 250 isn’t one of them.”
Act 250 isn’t a racist law, but describing it as one serves to undermine legislation that developers see as an obstacle.
Many people long to return to a time when possibilities and opportunities seemed endless. Gutting Act 250 will not bring that back. In fact, Act 250 was in full force during the era that Chu remembers so fondly. Act 250 isn’t to blame for the housing or affordability crises we face today – these problems are global.
The reason for these crises is that industrial civilization has exceeded its limits. As discomforting as this is, it behooves us to face it. Rather than attempting to expand the state’s population by 135,000, as the Vermont Futures Project proposes, we need a statewide discussion about how to ensure a decent life for those who live here now; about the failures of our existing infrastructure (especially municipal wastewater treatment plants); about the relationship between housing shortages and the explosion in short-term rentals; about Vermont’s carrying capacity and the consequences of ecological overshoot.
As we enter an uncertain future, author Wendell Berry provides a valuable perspective: "We have lived by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. … We have been wrong. We must change our lives, so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption, that what is good for the world will be good for us."
That’s not "smart," that’s wise.
Suzanna Jones writes from Walden. The opinions expressed by columnists do not necessarily reflect the views of Vermont News & Media.
