To Karlin Danielson
I support and admire all
of the activities of Smartgrowth including Tour De Sprawl, land
conservation, and changes in laws but am too old to have the energy to do
what I most want to do, or what others think I should be
doing.
There is no future for my grandchildren and
that is my biggest concern. The links between Sprawl, energy consumption,
and land for biomass growing are so strong that Sprawl is a deadly enemy of
Sustainability. The only question is how best to fight it. It hurts that
abortion, gun control, and Social Security are so much more in the public
view. Sprawl is a national and international problem. Even in Europe they
have built too many houses. When the oil is gone then people will
starve.
This question is so important to all
young people that I believe that passing out handbills to students might be
a good idea. It is my belief that for the Sprawl problem to become
important, Sustainability must become important, and the two issues must be
linked. A group letter to President Clinton or Al Gore might help. Clinton's
help is crucial because he is a lame duck and can say what he pleases. We
just need to have a large enough group to influence him to say the right
thing. I wish we could put an add in the paper with a lot of signatures. We
need to grow like a snowball.
An example of the
conflict between Liberalism and Sustainability is this Fannie May money that
is supposed to become available. Does this mean that every vacant lot in Ann
Arbor will have a house built on it? We need these lots for apartment
buildings. There is a clear choice between houses and Sprawl. Houses are
being subsidized in many popular ways including disaster relief. We must
stop this and subsidize only apartments. We need to explore living styles
whereby people can save with shared walls, no lawns, and bigger gardens.
Building Design and City design are crucial to Sustainability. These hard
choices are not clear to most people.
Kermit Schlansker