David Brooks: Still Rooting for Auto Dependence and Sprawl

David Brooks is dreaming of Denver, and in Denver they're dreaming of transit-oriented, walkable neighborhoods. Photo of 16th Street Mall: ericrichardson/Flickr.

Looks like there's at least one bubble that has yet to burst: David
Brooks' unyielding enthusiasm for exurbs and car dependence. In today's Times, the nation's most famous sprawl apologist cites a recent Pew study to argue his case:

That's
a pretty thin reed to lean on, but Brooks tries to support a whole
schadenfreude-filled column with it, mocking efforts to curb sprawl and
give people better transportation choices:

Where
to begin? Brooks draws conclusions that the Pew study just doesn't
support. He gleefully notes the absence of older, Eastern metro areas
from Pew's list of
the most desirable American cities, while neglecting to mention that
highly-ranked places like Denver, San Francisco, and Portland
are all taking significant steps to become more walkable, bikeable,
or transit-oriented -- in other words, more urban.

Likewise,
he sees the relative dissatisfaction of city residents as a judgment
against urban form, but why not pin it on poor urban air quality, or
perceptions of public education, or unsafe city streets that concede
too much to the automobile? One could just as easily spin cherry-picked
Pew data to argue against the Brooks point of view:

• Americans are all over the map in their views about their idealcommunity type: 30% say they would most like to live in a small town,25% in a suburb, 23% in a city and 21% in a rural area.

See,
most Americans would prefer to live in a city or small town. I could
say that they hunger for walkability and "dense community," but I won't,
because the Pew study is not a useful barometer of American preferences
for urban form and transportation options.

Which won't stop
Brooks and his ilk from advancing a favorite straw man argument at
every opportunity: that planners want to take away everyone's cars and
force people to adopt a different lifestyle. As if tens of thousands of Portlanders have no choice but to commute by bike every morning. Or a shadowy cabal put a premium on house values near Denver light rail. Or jackbooted thugs marched Americans to polls at gunpoint last November and ordered them to vote for $75 billion worth of transit-related ballot initiatives. 

The sprawl dead-enders can deride "planners" and scream "Amsterdam!" all they want. It's easy to see why they protest so much: If they ever acknowledged the fact that ending car-dependency is about
giving people choices, it might lead to some self-incriminating conclusions about who's trying to put restrictions on whom.