By Larry Jones
February 9, 2004

Rochester (NY) Mayor William A. Johnson, who chairs the U.S. Conference of Mayors Task Force on Regionalism and Smart Growth, told mayors that traffic congestion and dealing with sprawl were identified as high priority issues in a 72-city survey conducted by the Conference staff last year. Base on the survey findings, Don Chin, executive director of Smart Growth America, was invited to lead the Task Force in a discussion on dealing with traffic congestion. Ralph Grossi, president of the American Farmland Trust was invited to lead the discussion on dealing with sprawl and open space.

Don Chin told mayors that traffic congestion is a problem in most large metropolitan areas. He said highway capacity has not kept pace with growth. Development continues to move further and further out creating the need for more roads and highways. However, he said people are beginning to question building more highways which tend to invite more congestion and adversely affect air and water quality. To address this problem, he said there has been a rebirth in transit oriented development, which involves developing areas around existing transportation modes. There is also a move to build affordable housing near transportation modes to reduce the distance between where people live and where people work. He said some regions are also improving their transportation network by connecting highways, roads, rails airports and non- motorized networks like bike trails.

Ralph Grossi told mayors that 80 percent of the food is grown in metro regions but farmland is disappearing at an alarming rate. He said over 2 million acres are lost each year to development and 1.2 million of that is farmland. He explained that there is a huge disconnect between the farm community, and the urban and suburban communities. Local areas tend to compete for tax dollars associated with development rather than pull together to ensure a proper balance between agriculture and development. He said planning for agriculture is just as important as planning for development. An effective plan includes land use policies and programs to keep land available and affordable for farming. It also includes economic development tools to make farming profitable. Grossi said huge coalitions are being formed to protect farmland. Farm-City forums, Farmers Markets and other events are being held to educate the general public on the importance of planning to ensure the development of agriculture.