Eugster Blows It

August 14, 2009Contrarian Comments Off on Eugster Blows It

Gadfly attorney, intrepid blogger, former Spokane City Councilman and current Council Candidate (District 2) Steve Eugster today on his blog laments the decision of a South Hill neighborhood group to abandon their efforts to block a “big box” retail development on S. Regal St (S-R story here). Eugster calls the decision by the City Council last summer to allow the development “senseless,” and “contrary to good comprehensive planning.”

Steve must have held up his finger and determined that the political winds were blowing in that direction (the projects in question are located in his Council District 2). Though usually quite astute concerning the proper scope and role of city government, he is also a fairly astute politician.

Cities grow and evolve, Steve, and as they grow the various components of the urban matrix must grow with them, including the retailing outlets upon which people depend for their daily needs. That particular area of the city has long been underserved by such outlets, forcing people to travel further than they would like to meet those needs. Or at least, that is what the developers are assuming.

Whether the developments proposed are “senseless” can only be rationally determined once they are built. If no customers show up and the retailers close their doors, then we’ll know the projects were senseless. The developers will have been proved wrong and their mistake will cost them money. But if customers show up in sufficient numbers to keep the stores profitable, then we’ll know they are serving a genuine need, and that building them made very good sense indeed. We can’t decide that they are “senseless” a priori merely because they may change the present uses of that land, or the “character” of the neighborhood. That is simply an invalid and irrelevant criterion. Changing land uses within a city and the changing “character” of those areas which result are a constant, intrinsic feature of urban growth — indeed, of any evolving complex system (of which human settlements are one example). Should that criterion have been consistently enforced throughout its history Spokane would still be a village of a dozen log cabins surrounding a sawmill.

“Good comprehensive planning” is an oxymoron, Steve. Any attempt by a handful of bureaucrats to plan the future of an urban settlement will necessarily yield a bad plan, because it will be an attempt to force a natural, evolving, adaptive, organic system into the straightjacket of some sterile, preconceived pattern — a giant PUD. That not only guarantees an economically non-viable city, but a colorless, boring one.

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