Why I keep writing about land use even while the world is falling apart

Oh I'm aware of how bad things are right now but we gotta start somewhere

I read the news. I read too much of it. I’m an old journalist and I work for a news company and on some level it’s my job to read the news, at least my company’s reporting. I have a pretty good sense of how quickly the world as we knew it is coming undone. And yet, here I am, mostly still writing about zoning and land use and urban issues.

I’m doing this for a few reasons:

1. It’s very obvious that people have little faith in government these days. Most people don’t interact with the federal government. They deal with local governments, and in our federalist system, for better or worse, local governments have a lot of power over the shape of our cities. Better local governance may lead to a renewal in faith in government overall. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that many big city governments have failed at making life meaningfully better for their residents and the Democratic Party as a whole has lost numerous elections that seemed winnable on paper. If you’re going to run on government as a force for good, you better make it fucking great in the areas where you already have power.

2. I think managing our land is among the greatest challenges we face and encompasses a lot of different aspects. The US population continues to grow overall and grow in specific areas. We need to find ways to house everyone so that housing is not expensive and scarce, people are not locked into few housing options, and we don’t gobble up every bit of land for development.

3. We currently build way too many single family homes in sprawling subdivisions (although I support one, but it’s a unique circumstance). We currently build too few mixed use buildings, townhomes, and small scale multifamily housing. Everything we build a lot of encourages heavy car usage. I think this is a huge mistake and leads to poor health, isolation, higher costs for residents, poor air quality, unsafe streets, and frankly ugly streets as well.

4. Eventually the national nightmare will end. A lot of folks are putting energy/money/time/etc. into pushing back against the Trump Administration and into mitigating the worst consequences of the Trump Administration’s actions. I think we need people to think of how we can make things better after Trump. Clearly, going back to the Biden era or the Obama era is not nearly enough. Housing is too expensive, our cities are not what they could be, and we have built out our suburbs and exurbs in ways that are environmentally damaging and soulless. Gas prices have an outsized effect on people’s view of the economy. If we start to deprioritize the car in development, that’ll change.

Here’s an optimistic message from the art of the super talented Jenna Horner. I find it broadly applicable in life, even when things seem to be going to shit.

So though the news is bleak, I’ll continue to write about these local issues, particularly with any eye on Gainesville. But just know that what happens here in our little swamp town is pretty applicable to most places in the US. We have the same fundamental problems. Stuff is too expensive, housing is scarce, we have too few different types of housing, and people are forced to drive most places. But we’re working on it here. Sometimes our leaders do great things. They do those things more often when they are pushed toward it and have support. What’s true of Gainesville is true of anywhere.