Paying to unsprawl

That Maine officials or, for that matter, Vice President Al Gore, can consider the effects of development sprawl, as the vice president did this week in Washington, is a positive sign for the state and nation. Only in years absent crisis would anyone take the time to raise this issue. And now is a particularly good time for Maine to do something about it.

It’s a good time for several reasons. Here are three:

Maine’s school-construction costs have continued to increase as urban schools see more empty seats. Cities have lost or only maintained population while surrounding communities have blossomed. Maine has 27,000 fewer elementary and secondary students now than it did in 1970, yet in the last 20 years has spent $750 million on new-school contruction, and the waiting list for new schools prompted Maine last year to raise the debt ceiling on construction bonds.

Suburban development squeezes Maine farmers. As former fields are developed, the services that support the remaining farmers depart, increasing operating costs for those who remain. Fewer farmers means less influence on local officials when new neighbors discover that farming can mean noise and smell, things no one told them about when they were sold the country squire life. When enough complaints about manure-spreading end up on the selectmen’s agenda, ordinances are sure to follow.

The service centers of Maine, from Portland to Presque Isle, depend on residents — and their tax dollars — to remain vibrant. Downtowns have been challenged by malls all over the nation; the ones that survive are the ones that are supported by people with a stake in the community. The difference between the person who puts in 9-to-5 in a shop or office and then goes home to a nearby town vs. the family that works, attends school, prays and plays in a town is the difference between a city dying or living.

Sprawl hasn’t happened by accident. As the director of the State Planning Office, Evan Richert, wrote a year ago, “State government subsidizes sprawl — through its community revenue-sharing formula, transportation formulas, school construction policies, and through utility regulation that requires an averaging of costs no matter where one lives.” Part of the difficulty of undoing these subsidies is making a distinction between supporting the desired end of maintaining rural communities and the costly support of suburbs. Maine gains when a potato farmer keeps land in production; there’s no gain when, say, a doctor decides to build on 20 acres outside of the city.

Director Richert’s observations may also apply to the federal government. Vice President Gore wants to spend $10 billion over the next decade on improving “livability,” but his office should first consider ways Washington subsidizes the activities that make some places so unlivable — federal road-building or utility money that is not well-directed may be creating some of the problems the vice president is now proposing the nation pay to fix.

Maine has an advantage over most places in that in many areas it merely needs to stop some harmful practices rather than try to undo the effects of sprawl. The State Planning Office is developing some encouraging, nonregulatory ideas for doing this, and if the federal government wants to help pay for it, all the better.