Letter: What real pragmatists say about infill development

The most interesting sentence in Bill Branyon’s entertaining but misguided opinion piece [“Look Homeward, Asheville: Let’s Make the City’s Pop-up Parks Permanent,” May 29, Xpress] reads as follows: “But wait! I can almost hear the groans from pragmatic Ashevilleans expressing that we must have more affordable housing and that this involves cramming infill development into as many urban green spaces as possible.” At the risk of intruding on Bill’s reverie, let me make a few minor corrections.

First, I doubt many people would consider it an insult to be called “pragmatic,” even in Asheville.

Second, pragmatists do not groan. They think.

Third, pragmatists tend to express themselves in terms more precise than the grunt Bill attributes to them.

There are many pragmatists who (correctly) perceive a need for more affordable housing — in Asheville and just about everywhere else. Even ideologues and impractical dreamers do that. But I have never heard anyone insist on “cramming infill development into as many green spaces as possible.” I’d like to see that quotation in verbatim form.

What the pragmatists I know want to see is the removal of unnecessary barriers to infill development so as to rationally encourage more multifamily housing, especially in locations where walking, cycling and public transportation reduce car dependency.

That policy is good for the climate because it is more energy-efficient. It’s good for affordable housing because multifamily dwellings are cheaper and because the reduction of a shortage has been known to have a pleasant effect on prices. It’s good for community harmony because denser development attacks the legacy of racial segregation caused by single-family zoning. And, when done properly, infill development is compatible with the existence of public parks and the preservation of leafy neighborhoods.

I wish Bill would stop listening to the pragmatists in his head and starting paying attention to the real ones in his community — some of whom may know more about land-use policy than he does.

— Peter Robbins
Marshall