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c~ z czrza r ree e czizes ~ cz , cz~zes, c~nnzczz ~ c~t.;t~e zser.co ~ e 1 c~t~ 3 un a, Jul , Free the cities Here's a 5-paint, new urban agenda that embraces freedom rather than tap-down planning and regulatian® STEVEN GREENHUT Sr. editorial writer and columnist ,~ ~~°~p~ ~ ~ The Orange County Register ~~~ ~~,, Most Americans have the naive notion that their local city officials busy themselves fixing potholes, providing police and fire services, dealing with the occasional code violation and quietly running the parks and recreation service. We generally like where we live, and often feel a certain local pride, so it's easy to conclude that city planners, city council members and the police chief, mayor and city manager are motivated mainly by a desire to do what's best for the residents of our fair city. Officials do spend time dealing with the nuts-and-bolts issues of potholes and policing, and most of the folks you meet at City Hall are no doubt as public-spirited as the next person. But what most of us forget is that those who have the power to run city government have their own prerogatives and ideologies. Their priorities aren't happenstance, but are carefully crafted in university public administration departments and at organizations such as the League of Cities and the American Planning Association. The typical local government agenda has these goals: finding ways to get more tax dollars, improving the pay and benefit packages of those who work for government, hiring more staff, securing additional powers for those who run the government, implementing more rules that dictate how citizens can live while reducing the number of rules that govern those who run the government. Local officials argue tha# there is no alternative to their regimen of regulation, taxation and control. But there is another alternative. Some elements of this New Agenda for Cities have been tried, most notably in Anaheim. Instead of being centered on what's best for the officials who run the city, and the privileged interest groups that live off of government largesse, it is an agenda centered on advancing the freedom and opportunities of those who live in the city. No wonder few cities have embraced it. Point 1 in the new agenda is city planning that gives individuals the maximum latitude to do what they choose to with their businesses and their property, provided they conform to some easily understood, fairly applied rules. Freedom results in better, more interesting cities. Central planning not only crushes the human spirit and destroys entrepreneurship, but it results in blandness. Cities love big redevelopment projects that are planned in City Hall and implemented by one developer. No wonder so much of Southern California looks the same. Wherever there's an old strip mall, officials declare it "blighted," then seek ways to replace it with a Costco or Nome Depot-anchored shopping center. Whenever a developer proposes something interesting, architecturally speaking, city officials and architectural review boards insist that the new project blend in with the old project, which means mare faux Mediterranean schlock and fewer designs that push the envelope httpa/vvww.ocregister.comfocregister/opinion/columns/article_1781120.php 7/30/2007