Columnist E.J. Dionne: Gore finds topic that hits close to home

Friday, Jan. 15, 1999 | 11:57 a.m.

SPOTTING THE next big issue that will move people is one of the essential political arts. Vice President Al Gore placed a large bet this week on the idea that Americans are tired of wasting time in their cars on clogged highways.

He's gambling that they want more green space near their homes and more growth in already developed but economically lagging inner cities. They want suburbs that create the sense of community we associate with old urban neighborhoods.

The issue he's latched on to is "livability" created by "smart growth." It's taking off all over the country, and Gore would like to ride it to the White House. He just might, although some Republicans are smart enough to know they leave smart growth to the Democrats at their peril.

The White House designated Gore to unveil its anti-sprawl initiative on Monday. But he had already put his mark on the issue last fall in a speech that linked all the anti-sprawl arguments to popular longings for less chaotic lives and more -- dare one use the word? -- traditional neighborhoods.

The core of the administration's plan is "Better America Bonds." Through a federal tax subsidy, communities would be able to float $9.5 billion worth of interest-free bonds. They'd pay for buying and preserving green space, creating or restoring urban parks, protecting water supplies and reclaiming polluted industrial sites.

"Plan well and you have a community that nurtures commerce and private life," Gore said. "Plan badly, you have what so many of us suffer from firsthand -- gridlock, sprawl and that uniquely modern evil of all, too little time."

The sprawl issue would seem a winner, in part because of the success of so many smart growth and anti-growth initiatives in November's elections. But it also raises vexing philosophical issues.

Advocates of unplanned growth cleave to the idea of "spontaneous order," the view that the sum of all our individual decisions creates a better, more interesting and more exciting life. There's a lot to this theory, especially when it's stacked up against completely planned economies and regimented lives.

But virtually nobody believes in total planning, and few outside totalitarian ranks ever did. The alternative view is that a slew of individual choices taken together can create circumstances few of us like.

Many move to the suburbs in search of larger, more affordable homes with yards and, often, better schools. Yet when so many people make the same decision, the suburban dream gives way to those choked roads, crowded schools and the loss of the very green spaces that inspired the journey beyond city limits. In the meantime, cities suffer. They lose population, businesses, jobs and tax revenues.

Smart-growthers argue that better planning might get individuals more of what they want. They also raise questions that ought to appeal to taxpayers: Why ask government to recreate the same services (schools, roads, sewers) farther and farther out when we've already taxed ourselves for them in cities and nearer suburbs? Are government policies and subsidies unconsciously promoting sprawl?

The administration's new initiatives are hardly radical. In many communities, anti-sprawl activists are pushing not just for green space but also for growth limits to hem in development. But by jumping on smart growth, Gore and President Clinton have validated a movement that's flourished over the last decade.

"The battle for livable communities has been joined at the national level now," says Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., who came to Congress to crusade on the issue. "What this means is that other people simply won't be able to ignore it now."

Smart growth won't work if it's designed simply to preserve the good life for those who already have it. Its power will come from linking the desire for more agreeable suburban communities with the need to expand economic activity in decaying city neighborhoods.

If Gore forges this bond, he may have a lot to say to a lot of people.