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.
BL: I don't find that disturbing at all.
I do find it sad that communities and regions that used to be unique and quaint are fading. Instead of the Ma and Pa cafe that we used to make a point of stopping at on the way to Reno, there are the same fast food places we have at home. We can travel anywhere in this country now, and never see anything new, at least in terms of architecture and services. This land has great diversity in landscape, but the towns are all the same. It ~is~ a loss.
Here at home we still have a few local businesses... our local grocer who now has huge chain groceries on all sides of him. We'll shop there as long as he stays open... because I like that I know the name of the man who owns it, and went to school with his kids. It means something to me.
I agree. Walled communities with homes 2 feet apart and security at the gates and countless, redundant mega-merchandisers within 20 minutes driving on packed hiways...urban sprawl is a problem. Planning is the key, unfortunately, planning goes out the window when tax hungry city governments are put in charge of development.
mark
A loss to you on your vacation, but not to those who live in those areas. If people didn't WANT these things, the stores and restaurants would go broke. What is it about free choice that bothers people? Why do you think everyone should share your vision of what should be?
Too bad your not the king of the world. Others happen you like those things that you decry, but I guess you know best for everyone, just like Hillary and the left.
If you don't think it's a loss that ALL our towns now look ~exactly~ the same, then you'll undoubtedly be very pleased in the new America. I do think we've lost something.
That has it's appeal to the "Accidental Tourist" who really doesn't like to travel.
As for your last paragraph... I don't even comprehend the point. That's not at all what I see.
"When the sprawl reaches your doorstep, sell your land for many times what you paid for it and then go buy yourself another property a few more miles out where you can live comfortably until the sprawl reaches your doorstep again. REPEAT."
You're my kind of Capitalist, PassionFruit! I'm sitting on a little gold mine on the edge of two converging cities, myself. Selling in five years or so is planned, and in the meanwhile, I'll enjoy being one of the last small farms out here.
I've gone from City to Suburbs to Small Town to Farm.
And then I'll find another small farm south of here & "repeat" until I can't physically care for myself any longer, then me and my pile of money will move to the city where everything's more convenient for we 'Little Old Ladies.'
That's my plan, anyway. :)
Live wherever you want, enjoy your home depots and gated communities. I moved to the sticks so I wouldn't be subjected to unlimited views of home depots and walmarts and the opinions of nasty little snots like you.....
I am so glad you agree! What the whiners on this thread don't realize is that the wealthy got that way by seeing opportunity where others saw problems. Real estate has made many paupers into princes!
Or wind generators from their ocean front homes.......
I'm not one of those who sees endless expansion as a good thing.
You don't have to see endless expansion as a good thing. You have to recognize that it is inevitable.
A good Reublican President, Teddy Roosevelt saw to it that we will always have plenty of National Parks and Forests. That land will be preserved and is arguably the most beautiful on earth.
Our children are growing up, and they want what Mom & Dad gave them as kids. They want to provide a nice home in a safe neighborhood, good schools and freedom for their children. That means expansion.
Well, I do realize it's inevitable, which means, for the things I really value, I'm lucky to be alive today, because it'll eventually be gone.
For my part, looks like I'll not be having kids, so at least I'm not adding to it.
"Real estate has made many paupers into princes!"
And Princesses, LOL! Bought my first house at age 25. While I was in the Army I rented it out and also owned other rental properties which my Dad managed for me during periods when I was overseas.
My best investment ever was a grand old Victorian that I bought cheap and restored to her former period glory. Now THAT was a lot of work, but a lot of fun, too. Furnishing it with period pieces found at estate sales and Goodwill, and a mother that was a pro with a thread and needle for velvet curtains and tufted furniture helped, too.
I've had a lot of fun. Now DH & I have a 1906 Four Square Colonial farmhouse, but I'm not sinking a lot of money into the house aside from continually upgrading it for energy efficiency. The land is worth much more than this house, which will probably be razed anyway for a subdivision in the future.
One of the reasons I married my husband was that he was willing to re-roof my house in the 'burbs to ready it for sale before we married and bought a house together...and he had six brothers to help. :)
There's got to be a method to your madness when it comes to Real Estate, or people just think you're mad, LOL!
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