Our View: Hot air gets priority over housing

In his zeal to battle global warming, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed one of the most authoritarian, far-reaching and elitist bills that has ever made it to the governor's desk, a piece of environmental extremism that's designed to make it more difficult for Californians to be able to live in a single-family home. Senate Bill 375 will give state government officials the power to, essentially, restrict new suburban developments as a means to force Californians to reduce our "carbon footprint" by shoehorning us into high-density urban neighborhoods.

It's part of what urban author Joel Kotkin refers to as the state's war on the suburbs. In a Wall Street Journal column from July, Kotkin found it ironic that state Attorney General Jerry Brown, son of the man (Gov. Pat Brown) who "laid the foundation for building modern, suburban California with massive new highway projects and one of the most significant public water projects in history," has been using his power to shut down the suburban dream. Key to that effort, Kotkin writes, is SB 375, the Jerry Brown-backed bill that "would restrict state highway funds to communities that refuse to adopt 'smart growth' development plans."

It's even more ironic that Gov. Schwarzenegger, who had fashioned himself as a representative of the people and an advocate for the California Dream, would be the one to sign this monstrosity into law. The fallout will take a while to be fully felt, but includes: a) less freedom, as state planners impose their vision on new developments; b) less opportunity for immigrants and young people to afford single-family homes; c) nettlesome regulations that will increase the state's already high cost of living; d) less mobility.

The stated purpose of the law is to battle global warming. Even true believers of the concept that Earth is warming because of man's activities should wonder how a government-induced increase in urbanization will cool things down. Yes, fewer suburbs means more open space, but it also means more concentrated heat in higher-density urban settings.

Frankly, SB 375 uses the pretext of global warming to advocate for the kind of big-government Smart Growth policies that advocates have always favored, anyway. Smart Growthers, and their closely related supporters in the New Urbanism movement, despise suburbs and seek various and sundry ways — almost always relying on government coercion — to make suburbs too costly to build. They believe that most of us should live in condos or high-rise apartments and that we should rely on buses, trains and light-rail lines rather than on automobiles to get around.

"To cut emissions, the government will take a more active role in where you live, how you get there, and what kind of home you live in," explains Sam Staley, director of urban growth and land use planning at the libertarian Reason Foundation. "While this legislation, thankfully, stripped away specific regional targets that would have been far more Draconian, the core governing values underlying California's approach should sound alarms in and out of state government."

But instead of sounding the alarms by vetoing this bill, Gov. Schwarzenegger has championed it. In his signing statement, the governor said, "This landmark bill takes California's fight against global warming to a whole new level, and it creates a model the rest of the country and world will use."

So while Pat Brown will always be the governor remembered for his efforts to help the middle class achieve the California Dream, Gov. Schwarzenegger will be remembered as an elitist who assured that the dream would be out of reach for new generations of Californians.