RALEIGH – Over nearly 20 years of debating political issues, I’ve come to appreciate many points of view I don’t share. That’s not to say I’ve been persuaded to change my mind – except in a few cases – but I have learned the importance of putting myself in other people’s shoes and trying to understand what assumptions or pieces of information might have led them to a different conclusion from mine.
I’ve also learned that policy disputes come in two varieties: debates and divides. Debates consist of disagreements in which it is at least theoretically possible that one side may be persuaded by the other to change a position. Divides, on the other hand, are just that: areas of disagreement that form unbridgeable gaps between two sets of assumptions or principles.
There is a clear divide in Raleigh city politics at the moment. The city council has just given its approval to the construction of what will be the capital city’s tallest building. Glen-Tree, built on the site of a previous 12-story hotel next to Crabtree Valley Mall, will rise 42 stories above the ground and encompass a four-star hotel and pricey condominiums. This is a purely private investment, made by entrepreneurs who perceive market demand and expect a sizable return.
While the council said yes to the project, it wasn’t automatic. There are plenty of busybodies who don’t like the prospect of Glen-Tree. They argue that tall buildings should be downtown, not out in the suburbs (where lots of people actually live and shop, perish the thought). One council member, Thomas Crowder, agreed with the naysayers. He said the project ran afoul of the city’s comprehensive plan, which calls for high-rise, dense development in just three regional centers: the downtown and two urbanizing districts to the north.
Try as I might, I don’t see this proposition as debatable. It is simply ludicrous. The entrepreneurs behind Glen-Tree have many millions of dollars riding on its success. They have strong incentives to make a good development decision. Land-use planners spend other people’s money and restrict other people’s rights. Their incentive to make good decisions is not as compelling. I understand the need to coordinate issues of traffic capacity, of course, but the kind of planning impulse that Crowder displayed goes far beyond such tangible, mundane concerns. It reflects the belief that markets are too “messy,” that a “progressive” city grows according to a central plan developed by university-trained “experts.”
There is a further absurdity here, which is that while the massive Glen-Tree project is completely private, the convention center/hotel complex in downtown Raleigh will require a massive subsidy to build and operate (and more so than originally thought). The latter may fit the “plan,” but it obviously doesn’t fit the prospective demands of real people looking for business or hospitality services. If it did, subsidy would not be required.
So here the dividing line is stark. Planners and bureaucrats want to put the kibosh on a private hotel in west Raleigh because it doesn’t fit their plan, but they want to plow $20 million of the taxpayers’ money into a downtown hotel that does fit their plan. Entrepreneurs and consumers want the freedom to make their own decisions, pay their own bills, and reap their own rewards. I know which side I’m on.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.