Special Series
Economic Turnaround
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The Danger of Stimulus Done Wrong
Stimulus spending can provide short-term juice to a sputtering economy. But that's not the same as saying that any old kind of spending is good. Clearly not.
It would not be wise, for example, to use deficit spending for vast poppy planations in order to create a domestic heroin trade. And yet, some non-trivial portion of US stimulus spending appears directed at deepening a different kind of hazardous addiction.
I've taken a few swipes at Washington's leaders for directing federal stimulus money to pointless highway expansion. But when it comes to nutty highway megaprojects, the Northwest really doesn't hold a candle to Texas. Check it out:
Texas plans to spend $181 million of its federal stimulus money on building a 15-mile, four-lane toll road — from Interstate 10 to Highway 290 and right through the prairie — that will eventually form part of an outer beltway around greater Houston called the Grand Parkway.
The road exemplifies an unintended effect of the stimulus law: an administration that opposes suburban sprawl is giving money to states for projects that are almost certain to exacerbate it.
The NYT article focuses on the conservation value of the Katy Prairie, an ecosystem jeopardized by the planned toll road. But when it comes to the sheer stupidity of this kind of highway expansion, the loss of rare native habitat is only the tip of the iceberg. The new highway will certainly induce low-density sprawling development -- in fact, that's the express purpose of the new road -- that will lock in auto dependence and unnecessarily high energy consumption for generations to come.
And it's not like Texas is alone here:
