PROVIDENCE, R.I. – My affection for, and pride, in North Carolina get hurt when the governor of another state gives speeches that make me wish Gov. Mike Easley would be as visionary.
Today, the governor who stung my Tar Heel pride was Donald Carcieri of Rhode Island.
I’m here attending the national conference of the Congress for the New Urbanism. CNU is an organization of 3,000-some members: developers, architects, planners, designers and assorted others, including traffic engineers and even a few storm water engineers.
Their conferences are usually full of people telling about interesting developments or ideas or plans. Several Charlotte-area people and other Carolinians are here, including Charlotte architect Terry Shook, Concord developer David Mayfield, plus Chapel Hill architect/engineer/planner Tony Sease.
Carcieri, the Rhode Island governor, gave a short talk this morning as the conference opened. He seemed like a regular, Rhode Island kind of guy – the sort who’d slap you on the back, buy you a beer and kiss any infant in the room. In other words, he doesn’t come off as a policy wonk or a professorial type, or as a blow-dried 5-by-7 glossy, either.
Then he started talking about the importance of history and how interstate highways had destroyed the fabric of beautiful communities. He clearly understands the importance of place and how it relates to an economy: “You don’t see people go to ugly places,” he said.
He talked about the way that the look of buildings affects land use: “When I go down Broad Street here and see a CVS – one story, surrounded with parking – I think ‘What a waste.’ “
“It all sort of links together in my mind,” he said.
It made me wonder: Has Gov. Mike Easley ever learned enough about cities and how they’re built and how it all “links together?”
I haven’t seen much evidence of him caring at way about the physical world we inhabit in North Carolina. Our state has places of great beauty and history and it has been, and is being corroded by ugly, poorly thought-out development and scarred by ill-considered highway plans and designs. But it’s losing much of its rural beauty by just drifting into sprawl – due to a vacuum of state leadership.
Many in state government will try to excuse their flabby inattention, saying “Land use is a local issue.” That’s a load of baloney.
For one thing, the only powers local government in North Carolina has are what the state grants them. Zoning, land use planning, subdivision ordinances – all require state enabling laws.
For another thing, the state designs and builds roads and highways. That’s one of the most powerful land use tools around.
I don’t know enough about Rhode Island politics to know whether Carcieri is a good governor or a shoddy one. All I know is that I wish the words that were coming out of his mouth this morning would also come out of Mike Easley’s mouth one of these days.