What you said! BUMP!! Hopefully I live far enough out in the country that I won't be bothered with this for awhile.
Posted on 01/28/2006 1:50:56 PM PST by Lorianne
Across the United States, an unprecedented acceleration in suburban sprawl is prompting concerns about the environment, traffic, health and damage to rural communities, but opponents appear powerless to stop the process because of the economic development and profits it generates.
Sprawl, defined as the unplanned, uncontrolled expansion of urban areas beyond their fringes, has greatly accelerated over the past 25 years, spurred by low mortgage interest rates and aggressive developers.
According to the National Resources Inventory, about 34 million acres -- an area the size of Illinois -- were converted to developed uses between 1982 and 2001. Development in the 1990s averaged around 2.2. million acres a year, compared to 1.4 million
in the 1980s. By 2001, the total developed area in the lower 48 states was slightly more than 106 million acres.
In other words, around one-third of that total was paved over in the final two decades of the 20th century.
"In the realm of local government, growth is one of the most controversial issues, and we see no-growth or slow-growth groups becoming more sophisticated and powerful over time," said Richard Hall of the Maryland Department of Planning.
However, he said opposition tended to fade during economic downturns, when people became less concerned about the environment. Even when opponents succeeded in blocking a specific development, the net effect was often merely to move it to somewhere else.
"Some politicians have tried to do something but they have rarely succeeded in stemming the tide. Developers and realtors have developed a powerful political lobby," said Joel Hirschhorn, a former director of environment, energy and natural resources at the National Governors Association and author of "Sprawl Kills -- Better Living in Healthy Places."
STEERING DEVELOPMENT
"Smart growth" or "slow growth" advocates usually argue that development should be concentrated in existing urban or suburban areas instead of in new suburbs. Many states and counties have tried to protect open space by buying land and through zoning and other regulations.
Others try to provide incentives for farmers and foresters to remain on their land. None of these has had any measurable effect in slowing sprawl.
For Maryland Rep. Wayne Gilchrest (news, bio, voting record), a moment of truth came when he was flying over the Atlantic coastline close to his own congressional district and he saw in the distance what looked like a massive cemetery.
Gilchrest, a Republican who represents an area of northern Maryland alongside the Chesapeake Bay, looked closer and realized he was viewing a huge new suburban development that had sprung up seemingly overnight.
"I'm afraid our heritage is being arbitrarily and summarily discarded without the slightest thought of what we are losing." Gilchrest said in an interview.
In the Chesapeake Bay watershed, which comprises parts of seven northeastern states, some 128,000 acres of natural land are converted into suburbs every year and the rate more than doubled in the 1990s. The number of houses has expanded at more than twice the rate of population growth.
For centuries, Gilchrest said, his community survived through agriculture, forestry and harvesting the rich resources of the bay. But pollution is killing the bay; it no longer supports a sizeable oyster or crab industry. And farmland is fast being turned into clusters of vacation and retirement homes for residents of Washington, D.C., Baltimore and Philadelphia.
Opponents blame sprawl for a host of problems from traffic jams to bad air, polluted waterways, the destruction of traditional lifestyles and even asthma and obesity.
"Sprawl is killing people, some 300,000 premature deaths annually because of the sprawl sedentary lifestyle, and it is killing our natural environment, scenic vistas, biodiversity, rural towns and much more," said Hirschhorn.
But Robert Bruegmann, a University of Illinois at Chicago professor of architecture and urban planning, and author of "Sprawl: A Compact History" debunked many of these assertions.
SERVING THE MARKET
"What we call sprawl is the process of a lot of people being able to acquire what only the wealthiest people used to be able to have -- a single family home on land with private transportation," he said, echoing the argument of developers that they were merely catering to what the market demanded.
According to Bruegmann, densely populated cities were much unhealthier and worse for the environment than suburbs.
"Agriculture is often worse for the environment that suburbs while cities did a terrible job of protecting water quality," he said.
Still, citizens in some states are responding to politicians' calls to slow or halt sprawl. Last year, Democrat Timothy Kaine won election as governor of Virginia partly by promising a solution to the state's crowded highways.
In his first speech to the state assembly this month, Kaine proposed giving local governments more power to slow growth. "We cannot allow uncoordinated development to overwhelm our roads and infrastructure," he said.
In response, home builders and real estate agents immediately sent 200 of their members to the state capital of Richmond to lobby state representatives and remind them of the dangers of halting development.
Though there is little polling information, a Gallup survey in March 2001 found that 69 percent of Americans were worried about sprawl and the loss of green spaces.
But the economic forces behind sprawl are powerful. "It's hard for a farmer to turn down $100,000 an acre from a developer when he's not making a tenth of that from agriculture," Gilchrest said.
The same people who are pushing this "smart growth" or anti-"sprawl" nonsense at the same time oppose cracking down on illegal immigration.
Yep. The blue-staters think they're smarter than everyone else for having less/no kids. But, long-term, they're not really that smart, are they? Even biologically speaking, that is.
1. More land to build there Manse. Its easier and cheaper to build a McMansion 40 miles from work in the Exurbs, than it is to buy an already constructed on closer in. A friend of mine built a McMansion for about $1M in Hunterdon County, NJ, which would cost $4-5 million in eastern Morris County, some 25-30 miles closer in.
BTW, by "blue-staters," I'm talking about a mindset, not everyone who happens to live in a blue state (heck, I live in a blue state!).
Where the heck do they get that statistic? Talk about hysterics!
They make them up as they go along.
I don't get into the big city much anymore, I'm going to have to go for a visit, it sounds like all the attractive, fit and wonderful people live there, but that's not how I remember it.
What you said! BUMP!! Hopefully I live far enough out in the country that I won't be bothered with this for awhile.
So what part of "mine" is so confusing? It is my town, and I expect new residents to assimilate- not take over the schools and push their new agenda all over. These are typically not people seeking refuge, they are wealthy folks invading places that were poor, and happy to be poor.
It's classism. The only way they can feel superior is by building mansions next to shacks and letting their kids out to prey on the neighborhood.
"Smart growth" or "slow growth" advocates usually argue that development should be concentrated in existing urban or suburban areas instead of in new suburbs. Many states and counties have tried to protect open space by buying land and through zoning and other regulations.
Care to do the honors of providing the links and background, so all can see that the OBL-ers are getting ready to hide in THEIR gated communties while we are forced to live according to THEIR rules?
Is there that much of a problem with that, or is it more that people who now own the land get cheated out of some part of its worth?
If you really knew beforehand that there were restrictions on land use, you wouldn't buy the land. You'd either buy somewhere else or change your plans.
But for the person who owns the land now and expects to benefit from it at some point, restrictions can be a definite problem.
The point will be moot once the war in the Persian Gulf gets going.
Yeah, I understand the economics, I just find McMansions aesthetically empty. It seems to me that if you're going to go to all the trouble of buying the land and building the house, then it should be something with a little more class.
In a few big metropolitan cities, like Detroit, their urban cores are being transformed back into farmland.
Exactly. Zoning laws have been super restrictive for decades. "Slow growth"ers have been around for decades too ... they push development away from their area to be somone else's problem. Which caused leapfrog development
Developers have it never had it easy.
You can't buy class.
Someday these "planners" will wake up and realize that if you want denser urban areas, the easiest way to achieve this is to get rid of zoning, not instituting even more complicated regulations. It's call the law of unintended consequences.
"Developers have it never had it easy."
Well, I've certainly had it "easier," it's gets harder and more expensive every year. But, that's OK, that's the territory, I just deal with it. Right now, I'm about to go for a walk through my nice suburban neighborhood.
Except for ranches and farms, everyone's home sits on what was once someone's open space view, or field to play in, or area to hunt and fish. And someone was unhappy when your home got built.
"The only thing that I don't understand are the number of affluent young families that decide to move that far out, but then into one of those cookie-cutter "McMansion" deals. *Ugh*!"
The thing I don't understand is the number of affluent people who decide to move to the middle of nowhere, and then complain because there are fewer services out there. Next thing you know, taxes go up, crime goes up, and community ties go down. Sprawl is a great thing, isn't it? This is exactly the type of principle that Republicans should be basing their identity on.
Yes, there will always be NIMBY's
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