At CNU XV, Barney Frank argued that smart growth supporters should support liberal Democrats, because Republican support for tax cuts and military spending leaves no room for smart-growth oriented programs such as public transit, HOPE VI, etc. I think this story provides some ammunition on both sides of the argument:
But see the following story from the LA Times (full story at
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-budget20jul20,0,5439437.story )
"State lawmakers appeared to be closing in on a spending plan late Thursday that would divert roughly $1 billion away from mass transit, forcing Los Angeles to put off plans for extending parts of the Expo light rail line and widening some freeways.
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Democrats said they agreed to the big cut to transit funding in an effort to avoid having to take money away from schools and healthcare programs. Republicans justified the cut by noting that state transportation funding will continue to increase overall."
What grabbed me was the last paragraph: the Democrats wanted to cut transportation to fund public education and health.
This is why I don't think left-wingers are necessarily better than right-wingers on urbanism issues: just as the Right will always pick tax cuts and wars over smart growth-type programs when money is tight, the Left will always pick public education and health care.
Of course, if you think public education is a better use of money than tax cuts, you will probably vote for liberals anyhow: but you shouldn't be doing it because of their superior commitment to urbanism.
For what its worth, I do think there are differences among candidates- but I think the issue cuts across left/right lines. From what I've learned of the candidates, some are more oriented towards transit and urbanism than others: Richardson on the Democratic side has said some good things, and Romney on the Republican side has a good record. Bloomberg is very pro-transit but isn't likely to win as an independent.
I don't know enough about the candidates to know if any are really hostile to smart growth. However, I suspect most of the candidates just don't care much about these issues one way or the other. For example, I don't know of any evidence that these issues take up a single brain cell in the brains of Fred Thompson or John Edwards.
Obama and Giuliani SHOULD be good because they live in cities: but your zip code doesn't necessarily dictate your thought processes on these kind of issues.