Urbanism: Not Just for Lefties

Policies in favor ofdense development shouldn't be viewed on a left-right spectrum andcertainly needn't be filtered through culture-war rhetoric, thepanelists said. In fact, one doesn't have to be concerned about climatechange at all in order to support such policies; values of fiscalconservatism and localism, both key to Republican ideology, can bebetter realized through population-dense development than throughsprawl.

Tom Darden, a developer of urban and close-in suburbanproperties, said Wednesday, "I'm a Republican and have been my wholelife. I consider myself a very conservative person. But it never madesense to me why we would tax ordinary people in order to subsidize thisform of development, sprawl." Darden told the story of a road-pavingproject approved by North Carolina when he served on the state'stransportation board. A dirt road that handled just five trips per daywas paved at taxpayer expense, with money that could have gone towardmass transit benefiting millions of people.

"Those were driveways, in my view, not roads," Darden said.