Five Development Questions To Ask Any Candidate for Local Office
(Source: Unsplash/Jorge Maya.)
It’s election season, and whom your community chooses for local office goes a long way to determining what path it takes. More highways or investment in human-scale transportation? Housing construction that delivers a range of affordable dwellings for all residents or more greenfield developments that strain local infrastructure?
Strong Towns knows that local governments can make a huge difference—both positive and negative—in the lives of local citizens. We’ve assembled these questions to ask all candidates to gauge their approaches to the issues facing your area. Ask them directly, or better still, go to a candidate’s forum and get them on the record in front of your neighbors.
1. What should our city do to increase housing supply?
Many towns and cities in North America have a serious housing crisis, and in most cases it’s caused or exacerbated by restrictive zoning rules that limit housing types and impose expensive parking requirements. A candidate should be able to explain tangible steps a legislative body can take to spur incremental development, such as allowing ADUs, duplexes and triplexes, and how more housing supply in the central core will benefit all residents. Give them extra points if they can describe how the suburban development pattern strains local budgets and propagates a more dangerous transportation network (see below).
2. What are your transportation priorities?
Car dependency has made our cities and states less solvent and endangered our citizens. A candidate who would like to fix the problem will talk about making pedestrian safety a primary goal, even if it affects speed limits or surface parking. They’ll advocate for multi-modal transportation options and infrastructure investment. And they will recognize how more highway building usurps productive land and saddles municipalities with crushing maintenance burdens. A candidate for the status quo will talk about construction and congestion, perhaps citing spurious arguments about lost productivity caused by three-minute traffic delays. Bonus points to any candidate who uses the word stroad.
3. Where is our city’s most productive land?
One of the hallmarks of the suburban development pattern is land use that is vastly less productive per acre than how traditional cities evolved. Yet many elected officials (and economic development professionals) prefer something shiny and new even if the benefits don’t add up. In addition, low-income neighborhoods are often more profitable for cities than more upscale ones. This question is a good gauge to determine whether the candidate understands the complexity of your local economy and will make good decisions about where to invest municipal resources.
4. Where do you see people struggling in our community?
This simple question is the core of the Strong Towns message. There are tangible things officials at all levels of governments can do to make things better for their neighbors and constituents. A satisfying answer may include two tracks—macro challenges such as finding affordable housing, and granular ones like walking through dangerous intersections—and prioritizing inexpensive, incremental solutions. Be wary of any candidate who says they can solve all of your problems with a large public works project.
5. What people or organizations do you take guidance and advice from?
Strong Towns is just one of many organizations seeking meaningful changes in the way North American cities do development and infrastructure. Listen carefully to this answer to hear which voices a candidate is likely to heed in their decision making. Ideally you’ll learn from the examples they cite whether they plan to be humble observers, make small bets, and manage your city’s resources wisely.
Did we miss anything? Share the questions you’d like all candidates to answer in the comments below, or tag us on social media.
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Ben Abramson is a Staff Writer at Strong Towns. In his career as a travel journalist with The Washington Post and USA TODAY, Ben has visited many destinations that show how Americans were once world-class at building appealing, prosperous places at a human scale. He has also seen the worst of the suburban development pattern, and joined Strong Towns because of its unique way of framing the problems we can all see and intuit, and focusing on local, achievable solutions. A native of Washington, DC, Ben lives in Venice, Florida; summers in Atlantic Canada; and loves hiking, biking, kayaking, and beachcombing.