Opinion: Boulder confronts the tragedy of the commons


This concept, popularized by Garret Hardin in the 1960s, discusses a community owned pasture that is becoming overgrazed because, although each additional cow on the land benefited that cow’s owner, the end result was damage to everyone. In other words, the cumulative effect of decisions that may benefit given individuals may irreversibly harm the whole community.
This problem manifests itself in as many ways as we have “commons.”
At the most global level, our common atmosphere has provided us with the stable climate that allowed humans to flourish. Yet our extra cows — our individual greenhouse gas emissions — are in the process of destabilizing our climate, threatening to extinguish much of life on Earth.
Locally, we have many commons: wonderful open space, great mountain views, mostly non-gridlocked street system, lots of parks and recreation centers, good schools, multiple bikeways, some permanently affordable housing, accessible libraries, peaceful and uncongested neighborhoods, and so on. So we must face the same fundamental questions: How can we adequately preserve the commons by mitigating the impact of the next cow? What is the cost of such mitigation and who should pay it? And how many more cows can be added before the commons are degraded to the point of no return?
My first take on addressing these questions occurred when working as a legislative aide in 1983, when global warming was becoming a big issue. It occurred to me that although a 100-watt incandescent light bulb might cost under a dollar, the coal-fired power plant to light it would cost way over $100. So, if the person who was going to add the light bulb (the next cow) had to pay the real cost of the portion of the next coal plant necessary to power this bulb, they would almost certainly make a different, more efficient choice.
This inspired my investigation of how communities address the costs of people adding more cows, which led me into extensive research into the legal and practical underpinnings of development impact fees. These are the fees that can be charged to pay for the cost of mitigating the impacts of growth on municipal systems, like water and sewer. For example, a water tap fee would be calculated based on the water rights, reservoirs, treatment plants, pipes and pumps required to prevent existing water users from experiencing more frequent restrictions on water use due to the demand from new users.
It became clear to me that the same approach could be applied to any number of municipal facilities where it was currently not being used, from transportation to affordable housing. (The policy that “growth should pay its own way” was incorporated into the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan well before my involvement.) Unfortunately, we in Boulder have not fully implemented this approach — for example, with affordable housing — and have apparently abandoned it in areas where it is critically needed, like transportation.
Another approach is simply to say that there is a numerical limit to growth, as was attempted in 1993 with the Integrated Planning Process. This process was directly overseen by five council members, and led to a very extensive polling process to gauge community attitudes. This was nothing like the current inadequate approach of using internet polls that lack real statistical significance. During the IPP, multiple city staff members went out to meetings, shopping malls, etc., and got anyone who was willing to fill out a detailed questionnaire on a primitive version of the iPad. Four scenarios were posed: 1) continued job growth, 2) continued population growth, 3) continued job and population growth, and 4) significant limits on growth in both sectors. About 80 percent of the respondents (per my memory) supported tight limits to both job and population growth.
In brief summary, the final IPP report said that population should not exceed 100,000 by 2020, that employment should not exceed 80 percent of the population, and that the concept of “no net negative impact” should be a condition of all growth. To lower population and employment projections, down zoning and land acquisition were suggested. Unfortunately, from my perspective, the majority of the next council abandoned this direction. So here we are, with a population well over 100,000 and employment not far behind, and with no real end in sight.
It’s past time for us to do long-range, big-picture, multidimensional planning in all areas so that we don’t destroy our commons. If done right, I believe that general agreement would again emerge about how many more of us we can live with in our community.

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