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Our fastest growing cities of the last 20+ years have catered to sprawl for a good reason. Cities like Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Charlotte, Phoenix, Nashville,
Raleigh,.....ect, offer what the majority of the masses want, their own affordable home with a decent size yard, nice parks, plenty of good jobs, and
good schools. I like a city with breathing room over our mostly older, more
densely populated cities and obviously so do most people.
Last edited by carolinadreamin'; 06-19-2007 at 04:42 AM..
This is just pure madness. According to the table provided through that source of the 100 largest areas in the nation, the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre MSA declined in population by 9.4% while expanding its land usage by 20.4 square miles. Essentially, we sp-r--a---w----l-----e------d our region's dwindling population further and further away from existing infrastructure to increase our land usage by 11.3% during this same period. Scranton/Wilkes-Barre ranks among the worst metropolitan areas in the nation for urban sprawl because we were one of only ten major cities in which 100% of the sprawl was needless, as evidenced by the shrinking population.
What is the end result? We have surrendered more of the precious open space that our visitors and residents alike had grown to love and appreciate to McMansions, Starbucks, and "lifestyle centers." Our once-vibrant, historic downtowns in Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Pittston, Nanticoke, Plymouth, and Carbondale are all sitting vastly-underutilized and in the throes of despair (even though Scranton and Wilkes-Barre are each seeing promising recent reinvestment). Scranton's population dipped from 150,000 to today's most recent estimate of about 67,000. Wilkes-Barre's population dipped from 90,000
to a more recent estimate of just under 40,000. Meanwhile, the suburban area of the Back Mountain grew like a weed to now house nearly 30,000 residents and is growing by leaps and bounds annually.
This poses problems in not only the shrinking areas, but in the growing ones as well. While cities like Scranton and Wilkes-Barre are being forced to tax their residents to death in order to maintain an adequate level of public services whilst seeing their number of taxpayers dwindle, suburbia is likewise starting to jack up its tax rates to pay for new schools, new roads, new emergency services personnel, etc. to accomodate the influx of new residents to once-virgin lands. The cities pay for this with urban blight, pockets of "trapped poverty," and housing vacancy rates approaching 15%. The suburbs pay for this with horrific traffic congestion, a greater dependency upon fossil fuels, overcrowding schools, and not being able to walk to any conveniences whatsoever. Sprawl quite simply does not work. The price society pays for some selfish, self-centered people to "show off" with their own, supposed "American Dreams" is much too hefty, in my opinion, and it is not sustainable. What will you say to your grandchildren when they ask why you bulldozed a half-acre of trees and built a brand new two-story, vinyl-sided home with a front-facing two car garage that is only within driving distance to parks, playgrounds, churches, grocery stores, etc. while thousands of other homes just sit and rot a few miles away in our older towns within walking distance to anything and everything one could ever need without destroying more open space and wildlife habitats? Where's the moral responsibility in that?
I'm awaiting for your responses on how it is okay for Scranton/Wilkes-Barre to look like this just because some of you people are too selfish to do what is best for the community as a WHOLE as opposed to just furthering your own statuses among your colleagues with impressive new homes and lifestyles. They say a picture is worth 1,000 words, so I'll let them finish my rant:
VS.
Why? Can someone explain to me why it is "okay" to just "give up" on older neighborhoods in favor of "bigger and better?" Are Americans just a disposable society?
I think a big part of it is that a lot of people will live where they can. I would love to live in a dense central city, but where I am I can't afford it. I live in an inner suburb but would much rather live downtown, as is the case with most of my neighbors. The type of small scale, pedestrian centered development that make places like NY and San Francisco attractive was largely made illegal after WWII and we are still in that mindset.
ScrantonWilkesBarre: It can go both ways, a billion-dollar downtown rehab is currently under way in Raleigh, while at the same time, sprawl is growing father out from Raleigh. I've also notice a lot of filling in development closer to the core of Raleigh.
Last edited by carolinadreamin'; 06-19-2007 at 09:46 AM..
Our fastest growing cities of the last 20+ years have catered to sprawl for a good reason. Cities like Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Charlotte, Phoenix, Nashville,
Raleigh,.....ect, offer what the majority of the masses want, their own affordable home with a decent size yard, nice parks, plenty of good jobs, and
good schools. I like a city with breathing room over our mostly older, more
densely populated cities and obviously so do most people.
It's not as obvious as you think, carolina. I know lots of people who would love to live in the city, but the good housing in the decent neighborhoods is not affordable to them and the other neighborhoods have bad schools and/or lots of crime. Unfortunately for city lovers, as more and more people in my area choose the city, the price of housing gets driven up. The flip side is, our city house has more than tripled in value in 12 years, and my neighborhood and similar ones in the central city have had the highest rates of appreciation than any others in our metro area over the past decade, including the poshest suburbs.
Having lived in both, I'll take the city any day. Even if my home's value hadn't increased so much, I'd still rather live here than in Sprawlville.
swb - while I would love to live in a more urbanized area, the fact of the matter is i won't sacrifice my children's education to be part of a revitalization effort. plus, i absolutely refuse to pay $600K+ and 12K+ taxes for a shack on a 25x75 postage stamp lot. it's not as simple as you're making it - when you reach your 30's-40's and have children, priorities shift.
Ben Around, I guess it depends on who you know or talk too. Most people I know still prefer the burbs. I'm glad to see sprawl areas such as Raleigh invest more in their downtowns, the nationally trend is slowly going back that way.
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