my latest article
)
Southeastern Environmental Law Journal
Fall, 2004
Article
*1 SUBURBAN SPRAWL, JEWISH LAW, AND JEWISH VALUES
Professor Michael Lewyn [FNa1]
Copyright ? 2004 by the Southeastern Environmental Law Journal, University of
South Carolina, School of Law; Professor Michael Lewyn
I. INTRODUCTION
In the second half of the twentieth century, America's cities and suburbs were engulfed by suburban sprawl--"the movement of people (especially middle-class families) and jobs from older urban cores to newer, less densely populated, more automobile-dependent communities generally referred to as suburbs." [FN1] Cities throughout America lost population to their outlying suburbs, [FN2] and cities that gained population usually did so only because they were able to annex those suburbs. [FN3]
America's suburban revolution has not left Jewish communities unscathed. For example, the city of Newark, New Jersey, contained 58,000 Jews [FN4] and thirty-four synagogues in the 1940s, [FN5] but today has only a few hundred Jews [FN6] and only two synagogues. [FN7] Similarly, the city of St. *2 Louis, Missouri, now has only one synagogue, although its suburbs have over twenty. [FN8] Even in more vibrant cities, significant "Jewish flight" has occurred. In 1990, two-thirds of metropolitan Chicago's Jews lived in suburbs, up from 4% in 1950. [FN9] This flight to suburbia has affected Jews' daily lives dramatically. Suburban Jews, like other American suburbanites, are highly dependent on automobiles. [FN10]
This article discusses the tension between suburban sprawl and Jewish values. Specifically, Part II of the article argues that the automobile dependency and class division exacerbated by sprawl conflict with Jewish ethical and environmental values and impede observance of Jewish law. Part III sets out a program for action, both for Jews in their roles as voters and lobbyists, and for Jews in their role as private citizens deciding where to place Jewish schools and synagogues. Part IV rebuts libertarian objections to anti-sprawl policies by pointing out that Jewish law encourages public regulation of land use, and that in any event, anti-sprawl policies need not conflict with libertarian norms.
II. SPRAWL AND JEWISH VALUES
The growth and form of suburbia has divided metropolitan areas into rich suburbs and poor cities [FN11] and has made Americans dependent on automobiles to fulfill every conceivable function. [FN12] The implications of these realities for Jewish values and Jewish observance will be discussed below.
*3 A. The Ethical Problem: Justice and Charity
1. What Tradition Requires
Jewish law is based primarily on the Torah, [FN13] the first five books of the "Hebrew Bible" (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy). [FN14] The Torah consistently urges Jews to aid, rather than impoverish, the needy and disabled. For example, the Book of Leviticus states, "[t]hou shalt not curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling-block before the blind." [FN15] These words, if read literally, appear to condemn mistreatment of the disabled. [FN16] In the very next verse, the Torah urges government officials not to favor the rich over the poor, asserting: "[y]e shall do no unrighteousness in judgment; thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor favor the person of the mighty." [FN17] Although Leviticus uses the term "judgment," that book contemplates no government officials other than judges (such as kings or legislators). [FN18] Thus, Leviticus 19:15 could plausibly be interpreted to mean that all government officials should deliver equal justice to rich and poor. The verse thus suggests that, other *4 things being equal, [FN19] government policies should not make the poor worse off than would an unfettered free market. [FN20]
In addition to prohibiting discrimination against the poor, the Torah affirmatively mandates support of the needy. The provision in Leviticus states: "thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather the fallen fruit of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them for the poor and the stranger." [FN21] The book of Exodus similarly requires that every seven years, landowners shall allow all their land to "lie fallow, that the poor of thy people may eat." [FN22]
Later Jewish tradition not only requires Jews to support the poor in their midst but also privileges certain forms of charity over others. Moses ben Maimon (also known as "Rambam" or "Maimonides"), a twelfth-*5 century medieval philosopher and codifier of Jewish law, [FN23] explained that the duty to give charity is not merely a voluntary obligation, but should actually be legally enforceable in rabbinic courts. [FN24] Maimonides went on to specify the proper goals of charity, writing that the "summit of charity's golden ladder" [FN25] is to "assist the reduced fellow man ... by putting him in the way of business, so that he may earn an honest livelihood, and not be forced to the dreadful alternative of holding out his hand for charity." [FN26] Maimonides urged that Jews seek to make poor people self-supporting rather than promoting permanent welfare dependency. [FN27]
In sum, Jewish tradition suggests: (1) at a minimum, governments not discriminate against the poor and disabled; and, (2) Jews affirmatively seek to make the poor self-sufficient. The division of American metropolitan areas into poor cities and wealthier automobile-oriented suburbs, however, violates both of these principles because of city/suburb inequality [FN28] and because suburban jobs often are inaccessible to people who lack personal transportation. [FN29]
*6 2. Sprawl vs. Jewish Justice
a. Rich Suburbs, Poor Cities
In the first half of the twentieth century, Americans of all social classes generally lived in the same types of municipalities. [FN30] The rich and poor shared the same government services, the same schools, the same transportation system, and the same city parks and libraries. [FN31] In recent decades, however, the rich and the middle classes have moved to suburbia while the poor have been left in cities. [FN32] By 2000, household income in American cities averaged less than three-fourths that of American suburbs, [FN33] and the average city had twice as many residents with poverty-level incomes as in the suburbs. [FN34] In some regions, the economic gap between cities and suburbs is enormous; for example, the average per *7 capita income for residents of Newark is only 42% of the average per capita income for Newark suburbanites. [FN35]
Because most cities are poorer than their suburbs, those cities' tax bases tend to be smaller, [FN36] which means that those cities either have higher taxes than their suburbs or poorer quality of municipal services. [FN37] Moreover, a poverty-packed city typically must spend more money than its suburbs to obtain the same quality of public services, because poor people need more money for public assistance, police services, and poverty-related health care than would the population of a more affluent municipality. [FN38] Thus, the division of American metropolitan areas into rich suburbs and poor cities means that wealthy and middle-class Americans live in suburbs with superb tax bases and fine services, while the poor are confined to cities where weak tax bases force municipal leaders to choose between high taxes and poor services. [FN39]
In sum, suburbanization means better local government for the rich than the poor. [FN40] By contrast, the Torah suggests that government should not favor the rich over the poor. [FN41] Thus, the city/suburb division is inconsistent with the values of the Torah.
b. The Injustice of Automobile Dependency
As noted above, some traditional Jewish sources assert that the poor should be given an opportunity to work rather than being forced to subsist *8 on charity. [FN42] American transportation policies do exactly the opposite by using highway spending to develop suburbs while refusing to provide enough public transit to enable the car-less poor and disabled to reach the jobs the highway system has shifted to suburbia. [FN43] The majority of welfare recipients [FN44] and millions of disabled Americans [FN45] do not own a car. These Americans are often frozen out of jobs and are more likely to be dependent on private and public charity due to America's highway-dominated transportation policy. [FN46]
For decades, government at all levels has funneled money into highway construction. In the first half of the twentieth century, public transportation was generally private and unsubsidized--yet as early as 1921, the federal government poured $1.4 billion into highways. [FN47] *9 Government highway spending continued to grow in subsequent decades and now exceeds $100 billion annually. [FN48]
Initially, highway spending generated suburban residential development by making it easier for commuters to drive to downtown jobs from once-distant suburbs. [FN49] However, jobs inevitably followed highway-driven residential development, as retail and other businesses moved to suburbia to accommodate suburban customers and employees. [FN50] Even supporters of road construction admit new highways encourage people to move to areas served by these roads. For example, in 1999 the National Association of Home Builders [FN51] (which supports increased road construction) [FN52] conducted a poll asking respondents what amenities would encourage them to move to another neighborhood, and their top choice (endorsed by 55% of respondents) was "highway access." [FN53]
If the suburbs created by highway-generated sprawl had adequate public transit service, government transportation policies might not implicate the question of fairness. Governments could have served suburban employers with buses and rail lines, matching each highway-related spending spree with a parallel spending spree on public transit. Instead, governments chose to invest in roads for the middle class and other commuters while ignoring transit for the poor. [FN54] The federal government did little to support public transit until the 1960s. [FN55] As a result, vehicle miles of transit service declined nationally by 37% between *10 1950 and 1970. [FN56] Today, all levels of government spend far more on highways than on public transit. [FN57]
As a result of government's highway-oriented policies, many suburban jobs simply are not accessible to the car-less poor and disabled. [FN58] For example, in 2000 only 10% of all entry-level jobs in the Boston metropolitan area could be reached by public transit within sixty minutes from the Boston inner city, and 45% could not be reached even after a two-hour transit commute. [FN59] In metropolitan Cleveland, residents of one poor Cleveland neighborhood can reach only 929 entry-level jobs via a public transit commute of average length (approximately thirty minutes) and only 8-15% of all job openings are similarly transit-accessible. [FN60] Similarly, in 1999 one-third of all entry-level jobs in the Baltimore region could not be reached at all without an automobile. [FN61] Boston, Baltimore, and Cleveland are all regions with relatively well-developed public transit systems--all three regions' transit systems are among the thirty largest in America. [FN62] In smaller cities, the non-driver's plight is more desperate still. For example, bus service ceases after 7:30 p.m. and disappears altogether on Sundays and holidays [FN63] in Oklahoma City, a city with over half a million residents. [FN64]
It seems then that governments have slashed job opportunities for transit-dependent Americans by building highways that shifted jobs to suburbs and by refusing to provide transit service to those suburbs. [FN65] Jobs and civic opportunities are kept away from low-skilled workers who cannot afford private transportation, as well as from Americans physically *11 incapable of driving a car. [FN66] Thus, sprawl systematically impoverishes the weakest members of American society. By contrast, Jewish tradition urges people to do their best to make every member of society employable. [FN67] In other words, the automobile dependency produced by sprawl creates a direct contradiction between American transportation policy and Jewish values.
B. Sprawl, the Environment, and Jewish Land Use Regulation
The Torah and later sources of Jewish law, such as the Mishna (a code of Jewish law and oral tradition compiled in the second century) [FN68] and the Talmud (a set of books written in the fourth and fifth centuries discussing and interpreting the Mishna), [FN69] regulate land use in two relevant respects. First, they restrict the right to develop rural land in Jewish communities, and second, they limit Jews' ability to engage in polluting activities. [FN70] By contrast, suburban sprawl leads to more development of rural land [FN71] and, arguably, more pollution. [FN72]
*12 1. Protecting the Land: A Jewish Value
The Torah mandates an uncultivated green belt around cities dominated by the Levite tribe. [FN73] The Talmud expanded this rule to all Jewish-dominated cities in Israel. [FN74] Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, a nineteenth-century Jewish scholar, [FN75] asserts that these laws are designed to "maintain an urban population with a connection to agriculture ... [and] prevent cities from growing into metropolises cut off from the fields." [FN76]
While Jewish law discourages the expansion of urban areas into the countryside, sprawl by definition involves increased development of oncerural suburbia. [FN77] Although some suburban development may be a necessary result of increased population, in much of America land has been developed at a rate far exceeding the rate of population growth. [FN78] In *13 1950, 69 million Americans lived in urbanized areas containing 12,715 square miles. [FN79] By 2000, those same urbanized areas contained 155 million residents in 52,388 square miles of developed land. [FN80] Thus, America's urban and suburban population doubled in the late twentieth century. However, Americans occupied more than four times as much urban and suburban land in 2000 as in 1950. [FN81] America's exploding population makes literal application of the Torah impractical. [FN82] Nevertheless, the Torah's greenbelt law suggests Jews should be predisposed to support redevelopment of land within existing neighborhoods, rather than supporting policies that shift development to rural areas on the outskirts of metropolitan areas. [FN83]
2. Judaism, Pollution, and Sprawl
Jewish law regulates land use not only to further aesthetic goals, but also to limit pollution. For example, the Talmud contends that carcasses, graves, tanneries, and furnaces be distanced from a town because they are sources of smoke and smell that can blow into a city. [FN84] Jewish law even bars seemingly innocuous activities, such as commercial bakeries, when *14 these activities create intolerable levels of smoke. [FN85] Domestic activities that cannot be placed outside of cities are also subject to regulation. For example, an oven located on the second floor of a building must be placed upon plaster, so that any fire caused by the oven does not spread downstairs. [FN86]
American sprawl has led to increased automobile use, [FN87] thereby increasing air pollution. [FN88] As early as 1977, the Supreme Court noted that "driving an automobile [is] a virtual necessity for most Americans." [FN89] As people and jobs have moved to suburbia, [FN90] Americans have been forced to drive more and more miles to do the business of everyday life. [FN91] "Between 1980 and 1997, the number of miles driven in the United States increased by 63%--over three times the rate of the population increase during that period." [FN92] In turn, motor vehicles are a primary source of pollutants such as carbon monoxide and ozone smog, pollutants linked to asthma and lung disease. [FN93]
*15 The connection between air pollution and automobiles was demonstrated quite visibly during the 1996 Olympics, when a restrictive citywide traffic plan forced Atlanta motorists to drive less. [FN94] As traffic on Atlanta roads fell by 23%, smog levels fell by 28%, and emergency room visits associated with asthma dropped by 42%. [FN95]
Sprawl may also increase water pollution. [FN96] Suburban growth means more roads, parking lots, and buildings in once-rural areas. [FN97] When rain falls on such impervious land, [FN98] it runs off into nearby water sources, rather than being absorbed by soil. [FN99] Such runoff contains not only rainwater, but pollutants contained in suburban lawns and other surfaces, such as pesticides used for lawns, salt used to protect roads from snow, and other materials found in or on roads, parking lots, and other *16 structures. [FN100] In fact, such runoff is the third leading cause of pollution in America's rivers and lakes. [FN101]
C. Sprawl vs. Jewish Observance
The Torah prohibits work on the Sabbath (traditionally understood by Jews to include Friday night and Saturday until nightfall) [FN102] and on religious holidays. [FN103] Jewish law traditionally has understood this restriction to prohibit not only labor for compensation, [FN104] but also a wide variety of other activities. [FN105] In addition, the Torah independently prohibits the kindling of fire on the Sabbath. [FN106]
For several reasons, tradition-minded Jews interpret these laws to prohibit the use of automobiles or other mechanized vehicles on the Sabbath. [FN107] First, driving violates the Torah's prohibition against the use of fire because automobile engines work by burning gasoline. [FN108] Second, driving may lead to other forms of work forbidden on the Sabbath. For example, if a car breaks down, its owner must repair it, thus violating the rule of not working on the Sabbath, as repair is considered prohibited *17 "work" under Jewish law. [FN109] Similarly, drivers often must handle and use money in order to purchase fuel, thus violating the rule that money should not be spent or handled on the Sabbath. [FN110] Accordingly, Orthodox Jews, [FN111] and even a few members of more permissive Jewish denominations, [FN112] do not use automobiles or other vehicles on the Sabbath or other holy days. [FN113]
However, several features of suburban sprawl make it very difficult for Jews to walk to synagogue or anywhere else. First, many American neighborhoods and suburbs are so thinly populated that very few Jewish residents live within walking distance of a synagogue. [FN114] Modern suburbia is characteristically low density, [FN115] a result explained not only by consumer demand, but also by zoning rules that heavily restrict density. [FN116] *18 In 1950, America's urbanized areas contained 5,391 people per square mile. [FN117] By contrast, the average density of post-1960 American development, most of which has been located in suburbs, [FN118] is only 1,469 people per square mile. [FN119] If a neighborhood has only 1,500 people per square mile, and most people will walk no more than a quarter-mile to a synagogue, [FN120] then in such a neighborhood only 375 people live within walking distance of the synagogue. Even heavily Jewish neighborhoods are predominantly non-Jewish, [FN121] and only about a quarter of American Jews attend synagogue regularly. [FN122] Therefore, even in a heavily Jewish, *19 low-density area, no more than a few dozen-synagogue patrons can conveniently walk to a synagogue. [FN123] In some regions, there are no heavily Jewish neighborhoods [FN124] and almost no Jews have the opportunity to walk to synagogues. Thus, the low density of suburban America impedes observance of the Sabbath and other holy days. [FN125]
A second characteristic of American land use patterns that impedes walking to synagogue is the separation of land uses, which is the division of neighborhoods into residential areas and recreational or commercial areas. [FN126] In most American cities and suburbs, [FN127] zoning laws require that *20 residences be separated from every other form of land use. [FN128] This system of "single use zoning" [FN129] effectively prohibits many Americans from living within walking distance of any nonresidential structure. [FN130] Municipalities sometimes consider synagogues to be "nonresidential" structures and hold that they may not be established in residential zones. [FN131]
Even in mixed-use areas, walking often is inconvenient or dangerous due to anti-pedestrian street design. Many streets lack sidewalks, [FN132] *21 forcing pedestrians to share those streets with cars. [FN133] Many areas even have wide streets designed to encourage cars to drive at high speeds. [FN134] Such high-speed traffic discourages walking, because a pedestrian is more likely to be killed or severely injured by a fast-moving vehicle than by a slow-moving vehicle. [FN135] In addition, suburban residential areas are often dominated by dead-end or cul-de-sac streets. [FN136] Because dead-end streets by definition do not connect with each other, [FN137] residents of such streets often cannot walk from one residential street to another unless they wish to walk on busier roads. [FN138]
In sum, sprawling suburbs are typically characterized by very low population densities, separation of residences from other land uses, and anti-pedestrian street design. All of these aspects of suburban sprawl impede Jewish observance by making it difficult for Jews to avoid driving on Sabbaths and holy days.
*22 III. WHAT IS TO BE DONE?
A. Should Jews Do Anything?
It could be argued that sprawl is basically a secular issue, and therefore is an inappropriate subject for lobbying by Jewish organizations. This argument lacks merit because, as noted above, low-density, single-use land use patterns affect not just Jewish values, but Jewish observance as well. [FN139]
Moreover, Jewish groups have already taken public positions on land use and environmental issues. For example, Jewish groups supported [FN140] the 2000 enactment of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), [FN141] which prohibits land use regulations that unfairly burden synagogues, churches, and other forums of religious practice. [FN142] Jewish groups are also involved in environmental lobbying. The Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (COEJL), an environmental advocacy group, [FN143] is sponsored by twenty-nine organizations representing all major Jewish denominations. [FN144] COEJL's 2005 Environmental Policy Platform [FN145] includes opposing oil and gas drilling in environmentally sensitive areas, phasing out reliance on fossil fuel technologies, abolishing subsidies for logging and mining on public lands, increasing vehicle fuel economy standards, and reauthorizing the Endangered Species Act. [FN146] COEJL even supports "land-use and transportation policies which would contain urban sprawl, promote the redevelopment of cities, and protect open spaces." [FN147] However, COEJL's *23 involvement in land use issues is minor; their Platform includes just one paragraph on "Urban and Community Planning." [FN148]
B. If So, What?
Given that sprawl is to some extent a Jewish issue, Jewish groups and politically active Jews should support solutions targeting the problems created by sprawl. First, as noted above, single use, anti-density zoning prevents significant numbers of Americans, and thus some Jews, from living within walking distance of houses of worship or other nonresidential structures. [FN149] In addition to fighting zoning laws that directly limit placement of religious facilities in residential neighborhoods, [FN150] Jewish groups should also oppose zoning laws that preclude medium [FN151] and high-density, pedestrian-friendly neighborhood design. For example, Jews should support the loosening or the elimination of minimum lot size ordinances that artificially limit density by limiting the number of houses per acre, [FN152] and should support developers who seek to build walkable neighborhoods near Jewish facilities.
Density alone is not enough to make a neighborhood walkable. As noted above, people may be unwilling to walk through even a fairly dense area if it is designed for dangerously fast automotive traffic, lacks sidewalks, is not within walking distance of nonresidential land uses such as synagogues, or is dominated by dead-end streets that are not connected to those land uses. [FN153] The New Urbanists, [FN154] a group of planners, *24 architects, and developers devoted to designing communities "for the pedestrian and transit as well as the car," [FN155] have proposed a variety of additional steps to make neighborhoods walkable. These steps include: (1) narrower lanes to slow traffic; [FN156] (2) wider and more frequent sidewalks to encourage pedestrian activity; [FN157] (3) on-street parking to create a buffer between auto and pedestrian traffic; [FN158] (4) a grid-like network of streets, so that pedestrians have multiple routes to every destination; [FN159] and (5) nonresidential land uses within neighborhoods, so that neighborhood residents can walk to civic uses (such as synagogues). [FN160] Jews should favor developers' rights to build walkable "New Urbanist" neighborhoods that include these elements because these neighborhoods will be places where synagogues and other Jewish facilities can easily be reached on foot. Communities can encourage New Urbanism either through abolition of existing anti-walkability zoning laws or through new codes that encourage pedestrian-friendly development by limiting street widths and lot sizes, requiring streets to be interconnected with each other and lined with sidewalks, and allowing residences to be within walking distance of nonresidential land uses. [FN161]
*25 Second, as noted above, the division of metropolitan areas into poor cities and wealthier suburbs means that lower socio-economic classes get less from government than the more affluent classes. [FN162] To combat this inequity, Jewish groups should support state legislation making it easier for cities to merge with counties or to annex their suburbs. [FN163] Today, most states allow municipal annexation, [FN164] but only in very limited circumstances. [FN165] For example, some states allow annexation only with the consent of the voters of the area to be annexed or with the consent of county governments. [FN166] This ensures that in counties where suburban voters outnumber urban voters, wealthy suburbs can refuse to be annexed by nearby cities. [FN167] Only fourteen states authorize city-county consolidation, thus causing poor cities to be encircled by wealthier suburbs in the same county. [FN168] Jewish groups should lobby for the abolition of these anti-annexation laws, so that cities can encompass their entire region instead of just the region's low-income areas. [FN169]
A less radical solution, "municipal tax-base sharing," has been implemented in the Minneapolis/St. Paul region. Under Minnesota law, 40% of the increase in all communities' commercial property values goes into a common pool and is distributed among all local government entities, thus narrowing the gap between the region's wealthiest suburbs and its poorer communities. [FN170] Without tax base sharing, the disparity between the tax bases of the richest area communities and the poorest would be *26 seventeen to one; the state's tax base sharing law narrows the gap to four to one. [FN171]
Third, as noted above, the automobile dependency caused by suburban sprawl isolates the young, the needy, and the disabled from jobs and other civic opportunities. [FN172] Jewish groups can urge state and federal legislators to combat this problem in several ways. Initially, Jewish groups should lobby for additional public transit service. [FN173] In particular, Jewish groups should support focusing public transit spending on areas that currently have minimal or nonexistent transit service. [FN174] Next, Jewish groups should oppose the construction of new and widened roads in areas with minimal or nonexistent public transit, as such highway spending encourages development in those areas and encourages the migration of jobs to areas without transit service. [FN175] A less automobile-oriented transportation policy is also consistent with Jewish environmental values--less highway spending means less transformation of countryside into automobile-*27 dominated suburbia, [FN176] which means fewer automobile-dominated neighborhoods, [FN177] less driving, and less pollution. [FN178]
Fourth, Jews should support regional land use policies that encourage development of older areas and discourage transformation of rural areas into auto-dependent suburbs. Perhaps the most radical example [FN179] of such a policy is Oregon's urban growth boundary system, which, like the greenbelts mandated by the Torah, [FN180] draws a boundary ring around the city of Portland and its older suburbs and reserves areas outside the ring for farming, forestry, wilderness, and recreation. [FN181] The growth boundary apparently has led to a revitalization of the city of Portland; after the growth boundary's creation in 1980, the city's poverty rate decreased, and the city's population grew as fast as its suburban populations, while city growth in other nearby regions lagged far behind suburban growth. [FN182] A more moderate policy was adopted in Maryland, which has declined to prohibit outer-suburb growth, but instead has shifted state infrastructure funding to "designated growth areas," [FN183] areas that already are urbanized to a significant extent, as opposed to countryside. [FN184]
Fifth, in their private conduct, when planning institutions such as synagogues, community centers, schools, Jews should seek locations that are: (1) on streets with sidewalks and near significant clusters of *28 residences (so a substantial number of Jews can walk to them), and (2) near public transit service (so users and employees can reach those facilities by bus or train as well as by car). [FN185]
IV. THE LIBERTARIAN OBJECTION
Even commentators who admit that sprawl impairs Jewish observance sometimes assert that sprawl is inevitable. For example, one Jewish journalist writes that despite the problems caused by sprawl, sprawl is an inevitable result of
freedom [because] ... American Jews will continue, like their neighbors, to range far from downtowns .... Though we would like them to stay in the city or at least the inner suburbs, we must make our peace with the fact that they have the right to make this choice. [FN186]
This argument is based on two assumptions: (1) that sprawl is the result of the unregulated free market (or, in the aforementioned journalist's words, "freedom"); and (2) that what the free market has put together, no one may tear asunder. [FN187] The first assumption is factually incorrect, and the second ignores Jewish law and tradition.
A. Sprawl vs. Freedom
American-style sprawl is the result not only of the free market, but also of massive governmental intervention on behalf of suburban expansion. Government has encouraged migration from city to suburb in a variety of ways, including:
Massive highway spending. As noted above, government at all levels spends over $100 billion annually on highways, [FN188] and new highways facilitate sprawl by making it easier for people to live "further from where they work, shop, and engage in other activities, which spurs development on the fringes of existing communities and necessitates increased driving distances and frequency ... [as well as] opening previously inaccessible areas to development." [FN189]
*29 Federal Housing Administration (FHA) mortgage insurance. Since 1934, the FHA has insured mortgages against default. [FN190] For many years, FHA guaranteed home loans only in "low-risk" areas. [FN191] FHA guidelines defined "low-risk" areas as areas that were thinly populated, dominated by newer homes, and lily-white--in short, suburbs. [FN192]
Federal public housing policies. Public housing for the poor generally has been concentrated in cities due to federal laws that give suburbs veto power over public housing within their boundaries [FN193] and mandate that only areas with substandard existing housing could build new public housing. [FN194] Thus, even the suburbs that wish to participate in the public housing program are excluded if they are new enough not to have a significant supply of dilapidated housing. [FN195] Because poor people generally dominate public housing, [FN196] and poverty-packed neighborhoods tend to be more crime-ridden than other areas, [FN197] it follows that federal public housing policies have caused cities to be more impoverished and more crime-ridden than suburbs. [FN198] These conditions make cities less attractive to middle-class families. [FN199]
*30 State and local educational policies. Under most states' laws, students are assigned to public schools based on their home addresses. [FN200] Urban students must attend school within an urban school district, while suburban children must attend school in suburbia. [FN201] Because students from low-income households tend to achieve less in school (other factors being equal) [FN202] than students from high-income households, and urban school districts tend to have more low-income families, [FN203] urban school districts will continue to be less prestigious than suburban school districts as long as school assignments are based solely on jurisdictional lines. [FN204]
Local zoning regulations. In addition to encouraging Americans to move to suburbs, government also makes those suburbs as automobile-dependent as possible through local zoning regulations. As noted above, local zoning ordinances typically require land uses to be segregated, preventing residences from being located within walking distance of offices or stores. [FN205] Furthermore, because zoning laws often dictate low *31 population density, [FN206] houses are so far apart from each other, shops, and jobs that many Americans must "drive everywhere for everything." [FN207]
In sum, government spending and government regulation have encouraged suburban migration, discouraged urban living, and made city and suburb alike far more sprawling and auto-oriented than a free market would require.
B. Judaism is About More than Just Property Rights
Even if suburbia in its present form was purely a result of the free market, [FN208] this alleged condition would not place sprawl outside the realm of Jewish concern. Judaism does not enthrone unregulated individual choice as the supreme good. Instead, Jewish law mandates that individuals' property rights be balanced against community needs. [FN209]
As noted above, the Torah directly prohibits unfettered urbanization of rural land by mandating that certain cities be surrounded by undeveloped greenbelts. [FN210] The Torah also limits private use of land in a variety of other ways, such as by requiring Jews to let land lay uncultivated every seventh year, [FN211] and by requiring land to be returned to its original owners every fifty years. [FN212] Further, as noted above, post-Torah Jewish law intricately regulates land use in order to restrict pollution. [FN213]
Of course, the laws of the Torah, Mishnah, and Talmud cannot be applied chapter and verse to a secularized, industrial society. However, these laws do suggest that Jews need not give total obedience to laissez-faire theories of land use regulation, because the notion of unfettered property rights is completely alien to Jewish tradition. [FN214]
V. CONCLUSION
In sum, Jews have both idealistic and practical reasons to seek solutions to sprawl, reasons based on Jewish ideals of charity, environmental protection, social justice, and concerns about the survival *32 of Jewish observance. Jews can thus comfortably oppose sprawl from within a traditional Jewish value structure. Rather than dismissing sprawl as inevitable, Jewish organizations should support anti-sprawl policies in their roles as political actors and seek to locate their facilities in areas accessible by foot, bus and train, as well as by automobile.
(footnotes omitted - will supply privately on request).
Posted by lewyn
at 10:05 AM EDT
Updated: Monday, 12 September 2005 2:16 PM EDT
