Tag Archives: Burlington

Burlington needs to grow.

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One of the things that always perplexes me about anti-development activists in Vermont is how fragile they believe our state’s character is. To hear them tell it, a single development here or there will forever alter Vermont for the worse, and trash our pristine image.

Myself, I believe our state’s character is built of stronger stuff, and can withstand a reasonable amount of development.

Ditto Burlington, a small town by most standards but our largest metropolis. There’s a kneejerk reaction to any growth or development proposal in the city, as if it will be forever shattered if it has a few tall buildings or more people, or if we were to mix some housing into the artists’ colony in the South End, or just about anything else that might add to the population. .

Well, as a person who lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan longer than I’ve lived anywhere else, I can tell you that a city can accommodate a frightening amount of growth without losing its character. Ann Arbor remains a funky town full of interesting, creative people, even though it has a lot of tall buildings downtown and a lot of in-fill development.

Yeah, the traffic sucks, but it’s always more or less sucked.

Beyond that, I believe in a simple propostion: Burlington needs to get bigger. For the sake of its people and its economy — but more importantly, for the sake of Vermont’s future.

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Burlington Mayoral Race Cools Down

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(In honor of the hackneyed campaign headline, “_________ Race Heats Up,” the favorite of unimaginative headline writers desperate to gin up a little reader interest. And yes, the Free Press deployed it during the campaign for mayor of Burlington, which was never, ever, ever close.)

Well, if there’s any widespread revolt over Miro Weinberger’s alleged secret plot to pave the open spaces and fill the city with skyscrapers, it sure didn’t show itself on Town Meeting Day. Weinberger won a second term with 68% of the vote; the two challengers beating the anti-development drum managed less than 30%.

So, Monday Morning Quarterback, what does it mean? Glad you asked.

The accusations against Weinberger didn’t stick because (1) anti-development sentiment in Burlington represents a loud minority; most residents, I think, would like to see reasonable growth, (2) Weinberger consistently presented a reasonable approach and hasn’t given the voters any big reason to mistrust him, and (3) by all appearances, he ran the city competently in his first term. And after the Bob Kiss Experience, voters were happy to see simple managerial competence.

Corollary to point 3: the Burlington Progs are still suffering from the aftereffects of the Kiss Experience. Especially when their candidate is a hippie-lookin’ holdover from past Progressive administrations. It’ll take them a while longer to win back the trust of Queen City voters.

The Progs’ candidate, Steve Goodkind, refused to admit that Weinberger might actually be popular, heaven forfend; he credited the mayor’s “great machine.” By which he presumably meant Weinberger’s massive fundraising advantage.

That certainly didn’t hurt, but if we’ve learned anything from recent gubernatorial elections, it’s that Money Can’t Buy You Love. If there was widespread disaffection with Weinberger, the voters would have scrambled to the nearest available Scott Milne, no matter how underfunded or dubiously qualified. It’s tough to argue with 68% support.

On the other hand, there’s the City Council vote, which saw the Democrats lose ground and the Progs gain, probably leading to a Progressive council president. Was this a mixed verdict by the voters?

Yes and no, but mostly unclear. If the voters were convinced by the anti-development argument, it seems to me that they would have concentrated their ire on Weinberger. Also, and more saliently, the council results are tough to interpret because of the massive overhaul of ward boundaries. You’d really have to do a deep analysis of the vote, comparing it to previous elections.

One example: a new ward was created in student-dominated precincts. Students, as they are wont to do, stayed away in droves. (Overall turnout was 25%, but in Ward 8 it was under 10%.) As a result, Prog-leaning independent Adam Roof beat the Democrat despite getting less than 200 votes. That total would have earned him a brutal defeat in any other ward.

So the Progs had an unearned edge in Ward 8. I have no idea if that’s true across the city because I’m not a deep-numbers guy. I’ll leave that task to the experts.

The result does leave Weinberger facing a divided City Council with the Progressives likely enjoying a narrow organizational majority. He’ll have to work with the Progs and independents, which could mean a slightly more measured approach to development.

Of course, I’m not convinced that Weinberger ever had a secret plan to pave Burlington. By all indications, he wants to pursue a measured approach anyway. For the crowd that thinks “developer” is a dirty word, his intentions will always be suspect. But that crowd suffered a pretty thorough defeat in Burlington yesterday.

Burlington will grow. Burlington must grow.

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The race for mayor of Burlington has a clear and concise theme, at least in the minds of the media: it’s a referendum on development, with incumbent Miro Weinberger favoring growth and his main opponents, Steve Goodkind and Greg Guma, resisting change. It’s an oversimplification, but there’s a lot of truth in it — especially when his critics are typecasting the Mayor as a willing partner of rapacious developers.

There’s a big disconnect at work here. In reality, the question is not, will Burlington get bigger? The question is, how will it grow and how will it manage change? Because like it or not, Burlington is going to grow. In fact, I would argue that Burlington needs to grow, for the sake of Chittenden County and the entire state.

Burlington is a highly desirable place to live. Beautiful setting, great food, a lively cultural scene, close to recreation of all sorts, and full of opportunity for entrepreneurs and garden-variety job-seekers. Its housing market reflects all of that: homes and rental properties are scarce and expensive.

The city itself has seen modest population growth, from 36,000 in 1960 to 42,000 in 2010. The population pressure has been forced outward: in the same 50-year period, while Burlington’s population has increased by roughly 18%, Chittenden County’s population has nearly tripled — from 63,000 in 1960 to 157,000 in 2010.

That outward development pattern carries heavy costs: loss of farmland and open space, traffic density over a wider area, higher costs for building and maintaining infrastructure, and the toll on Lake Champlain from all those impervious surfaces. This trend is only going to continue, and the region would be much better off if more of the development were to take place in Burlington.

Vermont likes to position itself as a technology center. To the extent this is true, its hub is Burlington. That’s where the activity is, that’s where most of the techies want to live, that’s where the successful tech enterprises and startups are located. If our tech economy is to grow, Burlington will grow with it. If we artificially depress growth in Burlington, we will also limit the growth of the tech sector.

The state has a real problem with its aging population. Burlington is the most attractive place in Vermont for young people to live*. But as things stand now, many of them are priced out of a market in which supply fails to meet demand. Burlington is our best hope for attracting a cadre of young people who can build their careers and raise their families in Vermont. We can best do that by boosting available housing and rental stock. This is especially true for the working-class Burlingtonians so cherished by Goodkind and Guma: if housing prices are high and rentals are scarce, how does that enhance the city’s affordability?

*Quick story. When we first moved to New England, we lived in a town of about 4,000 people in New Hampshire. We liked it, although there were some drawbacks. A couple years after our arrival, a younger couple from our old hometown moved to the same NH town. And they moved out within a year, relocating to a city of 50,000, because small town life was just too damn quiet. They were actively unnerved by it. A lot of people are like that. And by most outside standards, Burlington is the only real city in Vermont. 

The tides of history, geography and finance have made Burlington, and Chittenden County, the locus of Vermont’s economy: its population center, its best hope for the future. That’s made Burlington a prosperous and vibrant place to live, which wasn’t the case through most of its existence.  With that success come internal challenges and external responsibilities. You can’t evade that by just saying “No.”

As for the desire to preserve Burlington’s “character,” whatever that means, it’s an impossible dream. Burlington is changing. Burlington is growing. Resisting development is not a wise or tenable strategy. Managing development, so that the future Burlington is a desirable place to live and work, is the right approach. The future Burlington might not look exactly like the present edition, but it can be an even better place — for its residents and for the entire state.

This is not an endorsement of Miro Weinberger’s candidacy. I don’t live in Burlington and I haven’t studied his performance or his opponents’ records enough to make that judgment. I’m writing what I see from a distance, and among many of his opponents I see a futile misperception of reality.