Liberal Talk Radio

Knute Berger, now writing for the just-launched Crosscut, has been pushing an anti-growth agenda for years. He’s a classic “lesser Seattle” guy. Born here, and doesn’t much like all the new money and new people like me who have flooded his fair city in the last 25 years.

And that’s fair enough. If I lived in Seattle my whole life, I imagine I’d be pretty pissed that I couldn’t afford a home anymore ’cause of all these East Coast and California interlopers. What frustrates me about Berger is that he continually complains about growth, but rarely offers alternatives.

Now he’s offering one: send ‘em to North Dakota! Seriously.

Responding to the same P-I article that I cited earlier, he writes:

One proposal I’ve touted is redirecting in-migration to places that actually need more people, like North Dakota and other heartland states that are losing population and want to be revitalized. The New Homestead Act proposed by Sens. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska would actually reward people for relocating in rural areas.

I have a hard time believing that one can offer large enough government incentives to lure people away from the coasts (the bill is summarized here). As it is, a house in ND is probably 1/5 of what it is here, and still people are moving to Seattle. In other words, it’s hard to make ND more of a bargain than it already is: land is plentiful, labor’s cheap, etc. All the tax breaks in the world aren’t going to change the fact that ND winters are horrible.

The migration of people away from the heartland and toward the coasts tracks with the changes in agricultural production and increases in global trade over the last couple of centuries. With due respect to Dorgan and Hagel, I’m not sure they’re going to be able to reverse that trend with tax breaks.

Here’s Berger’s other solution:

But it also means cultivating an economy and values that are not growth-obsessed. Or that don’t operate on the basis that the demand side of the market is unstoppable. “More” is always accepted as a given that we are powerless to resist. But the consequences of allowing the market to romp can be devastating to the environment and destroy communities that serve people all up and down the economic ladder.

Which leaves me with three questions:

1. How is it more environmentally friendly to move people to North Dakota? The Northwest allows people to have a relatively small footprint. Hard to imagine living more sustainable and ecologically in ND.

2. How is the Homestead Act not “growth-obsessed”? It’s entire purpose is to stimulate growth… in North Dakota! Why is it acceptable to jigger the market to generate growth in ND, but not in WA?

3. How do you actually turn demand-reduction into policy? You restrict development. But all that does is increase the value of the property that already exists. Suddenly every single-family house in town would triple or quadruple in value. That would just price people out more quickly.

As I said before, I’m sympathetic to Berger’s plight. And I definitely concur that there’s been an overbuilding of high-end condos in Seattle. It’s not the healthy mix of housing that one would hope to find in a vibrant, family-friendly city. I admit to not having all the solutions. My own preference is to increase rapid transit options and make them conducive to a metro area that has multiple employment centers.

Finally, I get that Berger’s job is not to be a policy wonk, but a critical observer, so I understand that he’s not going to always get too deep into the weeds of policy. But when you scratch the surface of his “solutions,” you quickly realize there’s not much “there” there. He just sounds like a cranky Seattlite who wants to put all these newcomers in box cars and ship them to North Dakota like cattle.