Here's another map:
Posted on 01/29/2006 7:17:24 AM PST by SmithL
A well-made, raised-relief map is a beautiful thing. You know what I'm talking about, don't you? It's a map mode of molded plastic, so that mountains protrude into your personal space. This is handy when you are riding your bicycle across America. You can see where the tough climbs will be. Avoid Gunnison, Colo.
My map of the 48 states is made by Kistler Graphics Inc. in Denver. Not only the texture but also the colors are delightful: a rich mix of tans, greens and blues.
The artist uses one other color, yellow, to mark urban areas. I think about those splotches when I hear gloom and doom about suburban sprawl, and you know why? Because compared to the entire land mass of the United States, they are tiny.
A lot of cities you would consider large do not even merit their own yellow splotch, but merely a black square. For example, Portland, Las Vegas, Indianapolis, Salt Lake City, Miami and Phoenix.
In fact, in the entire western two-thirds of the nation, between the California coast and the Mississippi River, there are just four yellow splotches, and you have to look really hard to find them. They sit unobtrusively next to mountains and rivers. Can you guess them? I'll tell you at the end of this column.
On my map, the distance from San Francisco to New York is 50 centimeters. The distance from International Falls, Minn., to Brownsville, Texas, is 30 centimeters. That means my America comprises roughly 1,500 square centimeters. It looks to me like all the yellow splotches combined could fit into Vermont.
My seat-of-the-pants analysis is confirmed by Steven Hayward, a senior fellow at the Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco. He writes: "Developed land accounts for less than 5 percent of the total land area in the continental United States. The amount of land developed each year, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, is 0.0006 percent."
So I have to ask: Where in the heck is this suburban sprawl crisis?
The answer, to me, seems obvious. There is no crisis. Suburban sprawl is just another hoax that liberal governments use to try to stop us ordinary Americans from doing what is natural.
In this case, we want to find a roomy place to live and have a little money left over after paying the mortgage. But social engineers, trying to perfect humanity, don't want us to spread out. They want us crammed together in dense cities to keep us in line and take away our Swiss Army Knives.
In this sense, the suburban sprawl myth is similar to the global warming hoax. Al Gore types begrudge us the freedom that cars provide, so they scare us with threats like "You're destroying the coral reef of Mexico!"
Well, so what if we are? I didn't even know Mexico had coral reef. As I have asked before: Who ever promised us an Earth that would never, ever change? Who ever said coral reef should exist forever? Ask a dinosaur: Species come and go every day.
In other words, if coral reef does die out, soon enough it will be replaced by some other interesting organism. Did you know there were no bats on Earth until we emerged from the last Ice Age 12,000 years ago? That's right: If not for global warming, there would be no such thing as these fascinating, sonar-equipped flying mice.
This is how the world's climate works, you see. You lose a reef, you gain a bat. Deal with it, OK?
Now some more about suburban sprawl. It is not the evil that it's made out to be. In the New Democrat a few years ago, Fred Siegel wrote that sprawl is "an expression of the upward mobility and growth in homeownership generated by our past half-century of economic success. ...
"An unprecedented 67 percent of Americans now own their own homes. Black homeownership has been increasing at more than three times the rate for whites, and today a record 45 percent of African-Americans are now homeowners.
"Sprawl is part of the price we're paying for creating something new on the face of the earth: the first mass upper-middle class."
The writer Thomas Sowell adds: "In some places housing prices are astronomical -- three times the national average in much of California, for example. Despite the old rule of thumb that housing should cost no more than one-fourth of your income, there are parts of California where tenants and new homebuyers pay at least half their incomes for housing."
So what are middle-class people supposed to do in cities such as San Francisco? Pitch a tent in Golden Gate Park? No, of course not. They move eastward, building communities in the undeveloped land between Oakland and exurbs like Stockton.
And what if they do? As Sowell points out: "You could double the size of every city and town in America, and still nine-tenths of the land would be undeveloped."
Steven Hayward, the researcher quoted above, has found a rich analogy to the suburban sprawl panic in Chapter 7 of "Alice in Wonderland":
"There was a table set out under a tree in front of the house, and the March Hare and the Hatter were having tea at it: a Dormouse was sitting between them, fast asleep. ...
"The table was a large one, but the three were all crowded together at one corner of it: 'No room! No room!' they cried out when they saw Alice coming. 'There's PLENTY of room!' said Alice indignantly, and she sat down in a large armchair at one end of the table."
Duh!
Readers may send email to mbowers@starnewspapers.com. The four yellow splotches between the California coast and the Mississippi River are Denver, San Antonio, Dallas and Houston.
We basically got taxed out of the city of Austin. The wife quit working after Lisa was born, and the wife was making more money than I did. I had better insurance and benefits, so we decided to move to a cheaper area.
Then, Austin threatened to annex that area, so we moved again. We bought this home for less than the previous two, so that was a blessing. Austin is turning into a hippie survivors of the 60s heaven.
My little town (30 miles away) just recently had Starbucks and a Walgreens built, I like it as do all the locals, it means the town is growing. What we don't want is another Starbucks across the street and tearing down the old museum so that Eckerds can compete with business from Walgreens. Understand? It's called urban planning and it's out the window in most suburbs. Unregulated sprawl is a blight, I don't need 5 new drugstores within 1/2 block, at the expense of the historic 100 year old buildings and neither do you.
Maybe you need to travel more. Having lived in Ft. Worth, New Orleans (before the hurricane), Chicago, and Milwaukee, believe me, other than the shopping strips they don't look the same when you really drive around. An example, with frugal Polish/German ethnicity there are more duplexes in Milwaukee than anywhere. New Orleans had houses on stilts.
Hey, a carless utopia! And they got bicycles, too!!
There are still neat places... and I hope there always are. But you can't deny that upon driving in to most towns, the signs point to the same chain stores we have at home.
It's called urban planning
It sounds like the state planning who are the winners and who are the losers. You introduce unwarranted emotion by making the choice one between a "museum" or a drug store. Oh gosh, that's always the choice our precious museums!
Why should your local leaders decide that Walgreen's gets a store and Eckerds doesn't? Seems like a recipe for making local government officials accept money under the table and for driving away jobs.
Actually, FRiend, directly across the street from Walgreens new store is an old museum, and a 200 foot oil derick donated to the town.....and the street out front is called Route 66...and just down the road about 1 mile is the Route 66 museum. The name of the town is Elk City Oklahoma. Talk of something you know, then you won't appear ignorant when you get a response.
Well that does it, I know where I'm going on vacation next year!
Here's another map:
Is that the Houston Hilton?
You sound like a New Urbanist, bud. I checked your web sites and I have a question: Do you build houses for people with less than a million bucks to spend?
Most of your stuff appears to be way over-sized and garish beyond belief.
Blame zoning, MADD and the anti-smoking campaign for shutting down all the decent and unique little bistros, bars and saloons.
While each of those have a part in these changes... I actually blame technology. There is no such thing as local anymore in this media age...
Our best defense against nuclear attack -- suburban sprawl. Damn good of Ike to initiate and carry through with ir.
I proudly go out of my way to make sure I keep sounding "Boston", even though I haven't lived in Town for over forty years.
Bump for later.
Sooner or later you'll run out of states and space. And when enough states have tipped, then you'll be in real trouble.
People certainly have a right and a reason to complain about how things are changing in states like Virginia or Arizona or North Carolina or Colorado or New Hampshire. But they might think a bit before promoting the the changes that tip states into the liberal or democratic column.
While I agree with you that it is a shame to tear down a 100 year old building, unless you own it, you really have no say in the matter. And they have no say in your business dealings if you chose to sell property.
Ug. And the new Supreme Court rulings support your stance. What's a church, home or historic building's value when the city can make MORE MONEY on taxes..........LOL. Enjoy your walmart, I kind of like the old brick buildings myself.
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