Leaving the Sandbox

As a child I spent countless hours in the sandbox.  Well, it was not a sandbox, but a circle made from large concrete blocks set in the earth that served as the border with the area between dug out and filled with sand.  My mom, who spent a great deal of time in the kitchen, only needed to look out the windows above the kitchen sink to see me playing in the sandbox. Using my hands, and Tonka equipment I would build cities with roads and buildings.  I took cuttings from trees to use as landscape. I sifted sand, using the larger grains for gravel, and the small grains for rooftops or sidewalks.  I would wet and pack some sand to make a nice hard surface. Stones and hunks of wood would be gathered to provide bridges and their abutments.  Lucky for me we did not have a cat who would use the sandbox as a litter box.  I am not sure if it was in my DNA from birth, or if it was the play in the sandbox that most informed my career choice as a city planner.  When attending the grand opening for the Fitchburg City Hall in 1999, a project I managed for the city, my Dad commented to my sister that Fitchburg was my sandbox.  It is now time for me to leave that sandbox.

Fitchburg City Hall
Author photo

I have been employed by the city of Fitchburg for 32 years.  It was just but a three year old as a city when I started, although it was a town before its incorporation.  I have worked for the city longer than I have been married, but not as long as I have had a mustache.  I had a full head of hair, a smaller waist line, and a mustache with no gray when I started my position.  The city then had a population of about 13,900, and has since grown to over 28,000.  I was hired by the second mayor, but to count the chief executives under whom I have served, I have to use more than my ten fingers.   The city in aging from toddler to that of an adult, from a rural town to a suburban city, provided challenges and opportunities which have been remarkable, difficult and daunting. Showing the common paradox, the work has been both trying and at times rewarding.  I feel as if I have attended more public night meetings than a person should endure.  I have sacrificed family time, missed school concerts and sporting events, to attend yet another night meeting.  For 32 years I have calculated dates around when Plan Commission meetings were held, as they were the dates most quickly recognized. 

1937 Air Photo of Fitchburg
Fitchburg Planning Dept. 

As gruesome as night meetings can be, they are part of the mission of government, particularly local government.  While people often gravitate to that which is most familiar, and acceptance of change can be difficult, public acceptance of planning documents is crucial to a workable plan.  In a sense, public meetings are the backbone of American government.  Such meetings either reinforce the politic of divisiveness, or show a cordiality and spirit of proper engagement.  The former, unfortunately, can be more common than the latter.  Alexis de Tocqueville, the French commentator on early American life,  wrote in his well-known work Democracy in America: “The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens.”  I have longed believed that which governs best governs locally.  Being local does not mean it would not be difficult.  When it comes to land use and planning in the local government of Fitchburg, nothing, it seems, is ever easy.   Why, because Fitchburg is at the edge of different landscape types--rural (pastoral) and suburban.

Card Made for Me by a Sister-in-law 

as I Started Work in Fitchburg in 1986

Upon my starting to work in Fitchburg, I was presented with a unique opportunity to help form a new city.  City land use has changed over this time.  When I started it was primarily large lot single family subdivisions.  There is now lots of varied size, varied housing opportunities, and much more commercial-industrial development.  Multi-family housing has been significant in the past several years to provide housing for the millennial generation, and those that now are in an empty nest and wish to downsize.  Residential density has increased, and this helps to protect the environment by reducing the consumption of open space and agricultural land for development.   An increase in density also, as shown in a study by the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency, reduces pollutant levels into our lakes and streams.  Unfortunately, density has actually declined for many industrial or commercial developments, which means more agricultural land is used for suburban development.  Big box single story development eats up land, usually agricultural, at a ridiculously high rate. 

Growth Ever Problematic in Fitchburg

Wisconsin State Journal, October 19, 1975

Originally formed as an agricultural community, Fitchburg is a microcosm of Dane County.  William Vroman, who with his brothers were the first permanent European settlers in Fitchburg said: “It is one of the best agricultural towns in the county, with very little or no waste lands, about equally divided between prairie and oak openings.  The soil is very rich and climate healthy.”  Fitchburg is unique in the state of Wisconsin.  It was the first city in the state to have exclusive agricultural zoning (which was adopted in 1979 and stayed in place upon upon its incorporation in 1983 and exists to this day), and it is also the only city in the state to have SmartCode zoning (2010), a neo-traditional zoning to help form place by creating development that enhances the public realm.  But, land use is only part of its diversity.  As a city, it has a higher percentage of minority population than any other city or village in Dane County.  Planners desire to protect and improve the public safety and health—for all of the population.

 A Younger Me

Fitchburg Star, June 19, 1986

I have spent over thirty years attempting to create a land use pattern that is productive, livable, variable, and enjoyable. Creating place is not easy in an auto-oriented suburban culture.  Creating place allows engagement and discernment, and for lives to be led in a purposeful and meaningful manner.  The land use pattern, however, is only one aspect of place.  Undifferentiated space, according to Geographer Yi-Fu Tuan, becomes a place when that space is endowed with value. The values of the people expressed to a space provide and give meaning, creating place.  The values of a community, however, are not always easy to discern.  After all, people have different ideas and mores.  But, as planners the task is to take these varied values, find commonality and infuse, or endow, our collective values to the shared space.  The name becomes the identifier and common language of a place recognized by our shared values.  

South Branch of Swan Creek
Source:  City of Fitcbhurg McGaw Neighborhood Plan

What does Fitchburg represent?  Fitchburg has created place names like McKee Farms Park, or Haight Farm Rd to recognize the historical nature of agriculture.  Yet should Fitchburg become like a subdivision named for the landscape feature which it has replaced?  Unfortunately, that seems to be more and more the case.  My hope is that Fitchburg will continue to deliberately include and respect its agricultural land, for that heritage makes up such a large part of the community’s collective value.  Agricultural land needs to be viewed as a resource in its own right, not just land for development.  Unfortunately, the latter seems to be ever more the case.  The urban-rural tension will not cease.  However, as shown by past experience, with proper planning it can be managed.  It comes down to respecting and working your plan.  More than ever in the past at least 32 years, and perhaps since Fitchburg created its first land use plan in 1974, planning now takes a back seat to development. 

1980 Air Photo of Fitchburg
Fitchburg Planning Dept.

For the past forty years in Fitchburg it has been a goal, a value, to allow for proper, measured development in an appropriate, meaningful location and manner, respecting the environment, but also to respect the agricultural heritage of this growing city by keeping agriculture a prominent land use.  Times have changed, and development values more and more usurp those larger (becoming former?) community values.  Values of the importance of agriculture were present in Fitchburg long before the creation of its first land use plan in 1974. However, such effort is more than marginalized by forces of power that use language to wash and mask true intent.  Local politics is a master at this. 

Farmland in Fitchburg, circa 1990
Author photo

Current city policy makers well out-do the state legislature in developer friendliness:  agreeing to accept wetlands as parkland dedication even though the wetlands are already protected (a first for the city).  Complaining about the amount of multi-family development, and need for more industrial land only to re-designate industrial land for a multifamily development.  Looking to reduce parkland dedication requirements (yes, at the same time now accepting wetlands as parkland).  Or, allowing a subdivision to use a lift station when a gravity option was available, the city's first permanent lift station.  In today’s climate most every development is a good development that has to be accommodated.  What is seen in Fitchburg today is clear evidence of what Michael Farren, a research fellow at George Mason University, wrote in a guest opinion piece in the "Wisconsin State Journal" on January 28, 2018:  “Moreover, the competition between local governments to attract jobs pushes politics toward cronyism.  Giving special interest groups undue influence runs against the ideals of democratic governance—that government authority should serve the people in general, rather than just those with power and influence.”  That is why James Madison, writing in the Federalist Papers, warned of what he called the mischiefs of faction (Federalist #10).  Yet, Farren is only partly right.  Cronyism is present regardless of competition for jobs; it is present for many developers.  

2017 Air Photo of Fitchburg
Fitchburg Planning Dept.

The negatives of cronyism affect not only our democracy, but our built environment.  This view destroys good planning, demeans the intent to create place, and shows a lack of respect to the population, and more important provides a shaded view of long-established community values.  As urban development continues to advance onto the rich soil recognized by William Vroman in the mid-19th century, the faint glimmer of recognition that farmland is a resource in its own right is near extinguished.  When that glimmer is extinguished, Fitchburg will have lost a key aspect not only of its heritage, but, its meaning, its value, and what has provided its sense of place.  Its heritage will be but recalled in photos, old plat maps, and in the names of streets and parks using an ersatz measure to replace the real thing. 

Sidewalks, Still Controversial
Capital Times, July 22, 1987

Migration is comprised of push and pull factors, and as I migrate from this large sandbox called Fitchburg, both factors are in play, although one is greater than the other.  Always wanting to keep the best interests of the general public in mind, it has become difficult in the current climate.  It is a sign of the times when euphemisms become commonplace.  James Madison’s “mischiefs of faction” would later become “special interests” but today the euphemism is a reference to a special interest as a "community", as in “development community.”  (These factions have a place in the debate or dialogue, but they should have no more than any other individual.)  There comes a time when a confluence of circumstances envelopes position and place and brings with it a time when one has to say goodbye.  For me, that time is now.   Future generations will critique my contributions to the city of Fitchburg, I just hope it not too harsh.  I leave knowing that, while it was not always enough, I did my best.

Photo of plaque in an Alaskan store

I have had the privilege of working with some very fine persons in Fitchburg over the past 32 years, including a few elected and appointed officials.  The city, in age, is a millennial in young adult hood.  Like some in that age group it still is looking for identity, not fully cognizant of the forces at play to remove what is its identity.    I only wish I had kept a log of the varied happenings encountered in my work since the former television series “Park and Recreation” is not near as bizarre as real life.   As I leave this one sandbox I have the confidence that my time will be well spent engaging and pursuing adventures in a variety of the world’s sandboxes.  Not to mention, keeping my wife busy.