From Reader George:

Across our land, consortiums in every major metropolitan area are plotting our common future by implementing sustainable communities based on the premise of smart growth, which leads to high density mixed-use housing. Today, smart growth planners are implementing the same ideas as the University of Moscow planners did forty years ago in a book entitled, “The Ideal Communist City”. In their book, the planners formed a blueprint for residential construction all across Eastern Europe and Russia. This blueprint is almost identical to smart growth in the United States today. In their plan, the Russians wanted mixed-use developments which allowed easy access to services such as restaurants, parks, and day care, which would minimize the need for private spaces, thus eliminating the use of automobiles. The authors suggested that apartments for a family of four need be no larger than 600 square feet which would be made of reinforced concrete, and allowing 15-17 story apartment buildings. It was believed that some of the advantages to high density housing would be equitability with everyone living in the same buildings. In the United States, smart growth planners promote the idea of mixed-income families so the more affluent can associate with lower income people. Soviets believed that high density housing would promote collective and community values as opposed to single family homes which they believed were too “autonomous”. Smart growth planners in America claim that their designs will promote a greater sense of community. Soviet planners wanted easy access to public transportation so that as many 12,000 people could live within a four hundred yard walking distance of public transit stations. That is about 70,000 people per square mile, slightly greater than the density of Manhattan. Smart growth in America envisions fast rail from the tip of Texas to the Southern border, removing automobiles from the interstate system.

The smart growth centers all over our nation are being set up to create social equity by ensuring that resources are shared evenly within the centers; however, people outside the centers are being excluded and financially punished. There will be an initial infusion of federal funds to jump start these centers, but the taxpayers will be on the hook to continue developing these centers.

Although this smart growth mentality seems like a regional problem to Texas, it is actually being implemented in every city, in every county, and in every state of our nation.

* “The Ideal Communist City” by Alexei Baburov