Do another. That’ s my biggest problem with politics in general, but I think it’s likely that liberals are more prone to that kind of posturing than ‘conservatives’. At the very least, statists of all stripes fall prey to that more so than liberty-minded folks.
Case in point: environmentalists and building heights in the district. Renting in D.C. is insanely expensive, especially for commercial space in the good parts of the city. The reason is simple: building heights are capped by both the city and the Congress.
The height restriction came into existence in 1899, in response to the construction of the 160-foot-tall Cairo apartment building, which was largely seen as an aesthetic threat to D.C.’s cosmopolitan feel. The restrictions are codified under D.C. law, however to make any major revision to the building code would require revision of the Heights of Building Act of 1910, which was passed by Congress. Lifting building height restrictions would presumably channel the high price of office space and real estate into vertical construction, allowing for the accommodation of increased density in the District.
There also overwhelming evidence that when you concentrate people into a smaller space, their environmental footprint is proportionally decreased.
Numerous studies and intuitive wisdom indicate that densely populated urban areas are, in many ways, more environmentally friendly than those that are less dense, and Environmental Protection Agency and National Association of Realtors guidance to cities lauds the benefits of dense building. Case in point: New York City may have the most skyscrapers of any city in the country, but it also has one of the lowest per-capita carbon footprints in the nation. With more dense growth, people are able to live closer to their places of work and to shopping areas, encouraging more walking and discouraging the use of cars.
Not to mention sharing services, which also reduces impacts. A city can afford a sophisticated sewage treatment/wastewater plant, while sparsely populated communities can’t. Economies of scale operate even in an environmental context.
As a resident, though, I’ll admit the height restrictions aren’t all bad. The city is beautiful and sunny, in a way that New York hasn’t been in probably a hundred years.
But I’ll bet dollars to donuts that environmental groups, especially those that make their home in or around the District, would be opposed to repealing those laws, and would be willing to forgo the environmental benefits that increased development in the district would bring. At the very least, the development of Northern Virginia would be slowed.
I consider myself an environmentalist. My father has made his living off the land for most of my life, I’ve worked in pristine natural settings, I care about the negative externalities of my actions, and when thinking about future policy I always consider the impacts on the natural world.
I think those principles are consistent with lifting the height restrictions in the district. It just so happens that such lifting would also conform to my free-market principles.
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