As Columbus grows, with suburbs spreading out as far and wide as Talbot, Marion and Chattahoochee counties, reusing land at the city's core becomes a more valuable proposition, Tomlinson says.
As energy prices escalate, people look to live closer to where they work and shop, where they get their suits tailored and their cars and their pets fixed.
In a telephone interview Monday, Norquist said this trend toward a more functional lifestyle, with less driving and more time spent close to home, could help solve a lot of the problems people face today. Less of the natural environment gets eaten by sprawl; redeveloping blighted urban areas becomes more profitable; wasting time and gasoline stuck in traffic becomes unnecessary. It's a more efficient way of living, with a more promising future, he said.
"You know, Al Gore talks about 'An Inconvenient Truth,' and there's a lot of gloom and doom," said Norquist, 58. "You get people on the right saying, 'It's going to ruin the economy if you try to do anything about the environment.' You get people on the left saying, 'We've been bad and we have to be punished.' But actually if we organize ourselves right, we can address this issue, make the economy more efficient and create more wealth, and actually raise our lifestyle over the decades to come."
But bringing developers back to town takes more than a market for their goods. It takes government policies and incentives equal to or greater than those bestowed upon sprawl, said Tomlinson.
She says Columbus is catching on.
"We were definitely headed to a ghost-town status in our in-town environment, much like downtown Atlanta used to be, and subsidizing just as hard as we could people to move out to Harris County and Talbot County, by laying roads and sewer lines and putting the schools out there. Everything it takes to pick up and move neighborhoods and communities, we were doing," she said.
"The message I want the private developers to get is: 'There is a boatload of money for you all to make by redeveloping in town. We know it's been easy pickin's for years and years, but the problem is you're running out your land resource, which is jacking your costs up, and causing you to have to build farther and farther.' It's causing all that economic activity to start leaving Columbus."
The growth at Fort Benning that is to bring 30,000 or so newcomers to Columbus in the next four years is an opportunity to rebuild housing inside the city, she said.
"There's acreage along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard -- empty, wide-open acres and acres," she said. "The city should have an active plan with developers to come in and put 250, 300 units in areas such as that."
Locals may see that as a losing proposition, that no one of any means would move in. Newcomers who want to live close to work won't see it that way, Tomlinson said: "There's this mindset that that's the old, used thrown away property; no one will ever want to move down there. Well, I'm just telling you, they do in other cities, and this guy can speak to it. He's been all over and he's seen it happen."
Norquist said the city life is just more desirable now. "Now, you know, with the energy challenges, with consumer tastes changing, and with household sizes changing -- there are a lot more single-person households -- it's a real chance to recreate this urban living," he said. "Communities that do it right are going to be well positioned."
Norquist was mayor of Milwaukee from 1988-2004, when according to the Congress for New Urbanism the city saw poverty drop and downtown housing boom.
"He has overseen a revision of the city's zoning code and reoriented development around walkable streets and public amenities such as the city's 3.1-mile Riverwalk," says the group's Web site at www.cnu.org. "He has drawn widespread recognition for championing the removal of a... stretch of elevated freeway, clearing the way for an anticipated $250 million in infill development in the heart of Milwaukee."
Norquist is the author of "The Wealth of Cities," and an experienced instructor in urban planning and policy.
His visit to Columbus on Wednesday is sponsored by MidTown and the Coalition for Sound Growth. The $10 breakfast begins at 7:30 a.m. To get more information or reserve a seat, call MidTown (www.midtowncolumbusga.org) at 706-494-1663.