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Awakening Activism
The trend is readily apparent in the Grand Rapids region. Since 1966, when the city's population peaked at 206,000, Grand Rapids has lost nearly 20,000 residents.
The metamorphosis of once-prosperous Grand Rapids into a struggling city seems almost surreal to those who grew up there. Even after the last decade of the Metro Council's efforts and major investments to bring people downtown — a new civic arena, new museums, and refurbished housing — evidence of improvement is gradual. Center city Grand Rapids still is characterized by a surplus of parking lots that often are half-full. In some neighborhoods entire blocks of old buildings stand empty.
Meanwhile, the population of the suburbs more than tripled since the mid-1960s. In the 1990s alone the amount of developed land in suburban Grand Rapids increased nearly 30%. The Grand Rapids area now is Michigan's fastest growing region. It's also generating a chorus of complaints about traffic-choked streets, increasingly crowded schools, rising municipal costs and taxes, and a deterioration in the quality of life caused by the relentless march of subdivisions, malls, and road construction.
The pace of urbanization outside the city is so swift that it's alarming suburban residents. About eight miles from the Brittany Café, Betty Jo Crosby pours coffee in her roomy farmhouse along increasingly busy Grand River Drive in Ada Township. Mrs. Crosby raised three sons in a setting that not long ago was so rural she could watch mink forage in the winter along the stream that runs through her property. Now forests are falling to new mansions and subdivisions.
Three years ago, when bulldozers moved in across the road to build 30 houses and tore down the woods and hills she had walked through for decades, Mrs. Crosby decided she needed to get involved in helping manage Ada Township's explosive growth. She was appointed to the Township Planning Commission in 1997. As a member of an open space task force she is looking into strengthening zoning ordinances and studying how to join Ada's land preservation plan with those of neighboring townships.
"I knew once I became involved it was going to be a long-term commitment," said Mrs. Crosby. "What I've learned is that contending with growth and the governmental process is really difficult. It comes down to how we lead and how we recognize and respond to influences from inside, and outside, the township." |
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Part of the Bigger Picture
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The Grand Rapids regional planning effort is part of a powerful grassroots movement in Michigan and throughout the nation to halt sprawl.
Serious campaigns to manage growth, protect farmland, and strengthen downtown economies are thriving in Macomb County, Kalamazoo, Petoskey, Marquette, Ann Arbor, and Traverse City. Lawmakers in the state House are preparing legislation to form a task force that would develop formal statewide planning goals. In the state Senate, they are proposing bills to strengthen farmland protection and prevent erosion into Lake Michigan.
In early May Detroit hosted the “National Town Meeting for a Sustainable America,” a gathering of 3,000 land use advocates and business and political leaders. The focus of the conference was to revive the idea that communities should be designed to foster human well-being. There is a growing sense among the electorate that important values have been lost as cities emptied and the countryside became a smear of malls and mini-marts. Legions of people who rarely, if ever, participated in government are turning up at city council, township, and county commission hearings to improve the laws and policies relating to development.
Mayor Dennis Archer told the Town Meeting of the major business and housing investments being made in Detroit. Vice President Al Gore, who is likely to make taming sprawl and rebuilding cities an important theme in his run for the presidency, said the federal government is identifying and changing housing, transportation, and farm programs to redirect investment.
One leader who missed the Town Meeting, though, was Michigan Gov. John Engler. Participants noted that they were disappointed by his absence. They said the work to rejuvenate communities, thereby addressing a wide range of social problems, will require bipartisan cooperation. There is a natural fit to blend the Republicans’ message of local control with the Democratic ideals of shared responsibility and community cooperation.
The most repeated theme of the conference was the need to eliminate wasteful, sprawl-driving subsidies to businesses and individuals, and sharply increase investment in housing, transit, walkable neighborhoods, farmland protection, land use planning, public schools, and urban redevelopment. The National Town Meeting was another hopeful step toward new ways of governing that enhance the economy while restoring community character and a sense of place. ~K.S.
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