Yalick Farms---Smart Growth in the Back Mountain? (home, move)

[ScranBarre]

Originally Posted by Michelle18612

I have had the opportunity to view the townhomes. They are builder grade construction with come pretty upgraded cosmetics such as maple cabinets and granite countertops.
When I see Yalick Farms and Sable Ridge development, I feel like I am in a New Jersey development outside the NYC where land is scarce. The builders are trying to cram housing so they can get a bigger bang for their buck. Yes, the Back Mountain is overpriced but you can still get a good deal if you are handy and can do some upgrading/remodeling yourself. I feel it worth the price to live here because of strong community support, low crime, excellent schools and beautiful mountain scenery's.

Oh I don't doubt that the Back Mountain is a wonderful place to live for now. My concern is how much longer? You now have 30,000 residents and are growing by leaps and bounds every year. I'm actually happy to see smart growth communities like Yalick Farms sprouting up that give people the opportunity to live within walking distance to a few dozen businesses. One can conceivably be self-sustaining here assuming the right tenant mix evolves to afford residents their day-to-day conveniences. I'd like to ideally see nothing but independent merchants spring up here, but as I said upthread I spoke with one contractor who was working on the project when I worked at the Wilkes-Barre Township Lowe's store, and he leaked to me through casual conversation that a big-box store (most likely a Wal-Mart he added) was destined for one of the outparcels.

Do you really want Dallas to become the next Eastern Loudoun County, VA with its endless tract housing sprawl, traffic congestion, big-box stores, etc.? It's conceivable that by 2025 given current trends that the bedroom community of the Back Mountain will be LARGER than its host city of Wilkes-Barre. That amazes (and concerns) me. Marina Pointe in Harvey's Lake is the perfect example of "slap 'em up quick to make a buck." The facades of those townhomes are gorgeous with stone accents but all face away from the main roadway into town, leaving visitors to see their disgusting vinyl-clad backsides as a rude awakening into how the Back Mountain is transitioning from quiet to rat-race. Saddle Ridge is likewise indicative of this. I hear that the new Stone Bridge upscale subdivision was named after an old stone bridge that was removed for the community's development---that's the epitome of sprawl right there. I once saw a bumper sticker on my campus that read "Suburbs: Where They Rip Out the Trees and Name the Streets After Them." How very true and very sad. I cringe to think of how congested the rock cut in and out of the Back Mountain will become in another decade of all of this large-scale growth continues with only one "choke point" to access the Wyoming Valley.

[The Commish]

Originally Posted by MrKrabs

Maybe when you grow up and move out of mom's basement, you'll know what its like to support a family and stay within a budget in a world where everything is getting more expensive. Its not an option for most people, supporting families, in the real world to shop at places where the prices are higher. I have a decent job and make more than the median income around here, but when you have a family to support, money doesn't go very far. As another poster pointed out to someone, when you buy a car, do you negotiate the lowest price? Or would you rather pay someone more for the exact same thing? Anyone who says the latter is an idiot.

Sorry, I can't afford any political activism when it comes to my wallet. I'm going where I can spend the least money on comparable items. Wal-Mart is where I can do that, so I go there.

If you're gonna play like that, then maybe you'll see things differently when you get my education.

Sorry, but you opened that up with the "basement" comment, which, for what it's worth, hardly describes me, what I do, and what financial constraints I operate under. Anyway, for some people such as myself, the cost of low prices is too high. Would you shop at Wal-mart if you knew that by squeezing suppliers, its suppliers had to fire people or cut back their salaries? Or if it destroyed small businesses in the area? Or if it underpaid/under-promoted its female workers? What people don't understand is that Wal-mart actually makes things *more* expensive because somebody has to pay to get these prices so low. Lots of us don't think that's such a good thing. And this isn't just a situation where other companies do the same thing on the same scale: no one has Wal-mart's power in this arena. This isn't merely political activism: shopping at Wal-mart on the grand scale has very real consequences for people and their communities. Their illusory "low prices" come at great costs.

[ScranBarre]

I suppose I've come to dislike Wal-Mart because I'm happily employed by Lowe's Home Improvement, a company several dozen notches down the Fortune 500 list, and while we may have billions of fewer profit dollars, our average wages are above-average for the retail industry. MrKrabs, while I usually agree with most of your sentiments, your insinuation that retail is only for college/high school kids, housewives, semi-retirees, etc. is way off-base. I know of many people, some of whom are related, who are indeed supporting themselves from what they earn at Lowe's (albeit modestly). I myself earn $11/hr. as a Level 2 Customer Service Associate, and specialists, team leaders, department managers, and zone managers all make considerably more. I'll guarantee that our store manager makes in excess of $100,000 annually when bonuses are also taken into consideration. I work amongst people with college educations who are merely underemployed because they can't wait around for that Scranton-Hoboken commuter rail to the white-collar metropolis to ever materialize. I can honestly see myself earning my Master's Degree and CPA and then working Monday-Friday as an accountant and working as an outdoor power equipment specialist at Lowe's on the weekends in order to compensate for the lower salary I'll be making by staying in NEPA. I'm probably never going to have a family anyways. Would you consider someone working at a big-box store with an MBA to be a loser?

If Lowe's can treat their employees with respect instead of like pawns, then why can't Wal-Mart (or Mao-Mart as MermanMike so excellently coined it)? There's simply no excuse for it, and I'll continue to seem like an elitist as I bite my thumb at people who will patronize a business that extends such poor benefits that many of their employees are supporting their families with government assistance. It really irks me to realize that a portion of my $15,000 annual income goes to feed and clothe the children of Wal-Mart associates because their parents work for an evil corporate monolith.

[FightinPhils]

Originally Posted by ScranBarre

I suppose I've come to dislike Wal-Mart because I'm happily employed by Lowe's Home Improvement, a company several dozen notches down the Fortune 500 list, and while we may have billions of fewer profit dollars, our average wages are above-average for the retail industry. MrKrabs, while I usually agree with most of your sentiments, your insinuation that retail is only for college/high school kids, housewives, semi-retirees, etc. is way off-base. I know of many people, some of whom are related, who are indeed supporting themselves from what they earn at Lowe's (albeit modestly). I myself earn $11/hr. as a Level 2 Customer Service Associate, and specialists, team leaders, department managers, and zone managers all make considerably more. I'll guarantee that our store manager makes in excess of $100,000 annually when bonuses are also taken into consideration. I work amongst people with college educations who are merely underemployed because they can't wait around for that Scranton-Hoboken commuter rail to the white-collar metropolis to ever materialize. I can honestly see myself earning my Master's Degree and CPA and then working Monday-Friday as an accountant and working as an outdoor power equipment specialist at Lowe's on the weekends in order to compensate for the lower salary I'll be making by staying in NEPA. I'm probably never going to have a family anyways. Would you consider someone working at a big-box store with an MBA to be a loser?

If Lowe's can treat their employees with respect instead of like pawns, then why can't Wal-Mart (or Mao-Mart as MermanMike so excellently coined it)? There's simply no excuse for it, and I'll continue to seem like an elitist as I bite my thumb at people who will patronize a business that extends such poor benefits that many of their employees are supporting their families with government assistance. It really irks me to realize that a portion of my $15,000 annual income goes to feed and clothe the children of Wal-Mart associates because their parents work for an evil corporate monolith.

One, I never said anyone who works in retail is a loser...I spent plenty of time working in retail myself. I just stated that most of the positions there are part-time and geared towards students, second incomes, etc. If someone chooses to stay in a retail job when they have an MBA, rather than going where the jobs are, that's their business, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Wal-Mart also pays its managers well. I worked for Sam's Club (a division of Wal-Mart) when I was in college, and our general manager made over $100,000 a year, and that is with no college education and starting there pushing carts. The argument from some on here that Wal-Mart discriminates against women is also false. There were plenty of female managers when I was there, as well as female district managers. I never noticed any preferential treatment to male employees when I was there. Maybe there have been some instances of individual store managers discriminating, but it was not a company policy and I never witnessed it myself. When I graduated from college, they offered me the opportunity to move into their management training program, and I turned it down because I just did not want to stay in retail....the wacky hours and likelihood of having to move wasn't appealing to me.

And yes, places like Lowe's and Home Depot do pay better than Wal-Mart, Target, etc, because generally there is more manual labor involved in working in a home improvement store than in a department store. Actually Wal-Mart pays employees at Sam's Club better than Wal-Mart employees, because there is more heavy lifting involved at Sam's.

[ScranBarre]

Originally Posted by MrKrabs

And yes, places like Lowe's and Home Depot do pay better than Wal-Mart, Target, etc, because generally there is more manual labor involved in working in a home improvement store than in a department store. Actually Wal-Mart pays employees at Sam's Club better than Wal-Mart employees, because there is more heavy lifting involved at Sam's.

I don't know if there's necessarily a lot more manual labor involved because as a former grocery clerk I know that associates across the retail industry are expected to stock and rotate often heavy merchandise, load heavier orders into customers' vehicles, etc., but there's definitely more of a logical concept to working at a home improvement retailer over a traditional department store or grocery store because I've noticed that patrons of Home Depot and Lowe's are more dependent upon employees than shoppers at Target, Wegman's, or Wal-Mart. I can spend an hour hovering near an associate at Wal-Mart if I wanted to and not observe a single customer asking them a question whereas on a busy Saturday at Lowe's people begin to form a semi-circle around me and take turns asking me questions until I'm blue in the face. I haven't quite understood why the standards are so differently between the two industries, especially since most of the questions I'm asked could be easily answered by the customers themselves by reading the packaging of our merchandise or reading the helpful in-store signange and brochures, but to each his own I suppose. Hell, I learned about our products myself from studying our signage and brochures. Perhaps people just need second opinions more with home improvement purchases in order to feel more confident in their decisions.

I'm not complaining, but I can honestly count the number of times I've gone shopping and have asked an employee for assistance on one hand. We literally have customers at Lowe's who walk in the front door, flag me down, show me their shopping list, and want me to write down what aisle each item is in. One woman was even ballsy enough on one busy weekend day to request that I first retrieve a cart for her and then "fetch" her merchandise (as if I were her pet). I've also had people walk right over near the grills and start asking me questions about roofing, appliances, etc. Would you walk into the electronics department at Wal-Mart and ask about bras? Are people in this valley just lazy, stupid, or both? I have NEVER even considered going into a large store and doing something like that because I know from experience how busy the associates are assisting customers who have REAL questions or concerns. When I have a customer who needs me legitimately to get something down from top stock or a customer who is in a hurry and just wants me to fetch their orders for them, who do you think I'm going to be more inclined to help? We're not "underlings," you know.

Needless to say I'm tiring of people thinking that big-box stores are just like the "good 'ole days" where Pa and Ma Bob and Tammy Sue know you on a first-name basis and will spend an hour catching up on old times. Big-box stores are "get in and get out quickly" types of places now where the volume of patrons makes it impossible to offer that type of service. For what it's worth I had a customer experiencing a problem with our Scranton store last night and spent nearly an hour on the phone trying to resolve it. Thankfully nobody else needed assistance at that late hour, but expecting an associate to spend an hour on you and you alone is ridiculous. Nobody is that important. What's with people calling the store to complain to ME about us selling products made in China or signage being printed in different languages, anyways? What am I supposed to be able to do to fix it? RAWR!

Wow! After an absolutely miserable day at work yesterday and what will honestly be another one today as I know I'll be alone in my department from 3-11, it certainly feels wonderful to vent!

[The Commish]

Originally Posted by MrKrabs

The argument from some on here that Wal-Mart discriminates against women is also false. There were plenty of female managers when I was there, as well as female district managers. I never noticed any preferential treatment to male employees when I was there. Maybe there have been some instances of individual store managers discriminating, but it was not a company policy and I never witnessed it myself.

Dukes v. Wal-Mart begs to disagree.

The outcome in that case is pending. That case is a class-action that doesn't allege individual but systemic intentional disparate treatment sex discrimination. Generally, you don't need a formal policy of discrimination to prove that (although that's one way). So your comments about company policy don't end the analysis. In fact, these days you will *rarely* see an employer, especially a megacorporation like Wal-Mart, dumb enough to have a facially discriminatory policy. Most times, we look at the employer's patterns and practices of employment. The question is whether the effect of the employment policy is discriminatory. The ultimate idea is that whether you spell it out explicitly in a company policy or not, you can't intentionally discriminate against someone based on their sex.

ScranBarre probably has questions, so yes the employer has various defenses here (they can rebut the inference of discriminatory intent; they can admit discrimination but assert some recognized defense, etc).

Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. is an ongoing (as of 2007) U.S.$11 billion sexual discrimination lawsuit, and the largest civil rights class action suit in United States history. It charges Wal-Mart with discriminating against women in promotions, pay, and job assignments in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

[skijmpr]

Originally Posted by ScranBarre

Do you really want Dallas to become the next Eastern Loudoun County, VA with its endless tract housing sprawl, traffic congestion, big-box stores, etc.?

LOL, you know about Loudoun? Man, that's both impressive and scary that word has traveled so far from this area about how rapidly that place has sprawled out. Loudoun, IMO, is a cesspool of cookie-cutter townhouses, condos, and McMansions, big-box stores and shopping plazas that are only accessible by car (no sidewalks or even bike lanes), and poor infrastructure across the board: road networks, police and fire departments, schools, hospitals, you name it. They have all been overburdened by the insane pace of sprawl growth that has happened out there. Most of it is centered around Ashburn, and for the most part stays east of Leesburg (the county seat, which still has a charming downtown core), but even a few communities to the west and north of Leesburg have been "overrun" by the forces of "dumb growth".

Fortunately, you'll be happy to know that the newly elected county board has enacted new laws to limit the amount of new growth, which combined with the faltering economy has effectively halted all new development in most of Loudoun (thankfully too, since most of the stuff has now lost a lot of its value and tons of people are already flooding the sales market trying to unload their properties). The only part of Loudoun that really wasn't affected by all of this mess is the southwest part of the county near Middleburg, where hordes of (mostly wealthy) landowners refused to sell out to developers because they didn't want their community to be destroyed like so many others.

[ScranBarre]

Originally Posted by skijmpr

LOL, you know about Loudoun? Man, that's both impressive and scary that word has traveled so far from this area about how rapidly that place has sprawled out. Loudoun, IMO, is a cesspool of cookie-cutter townhouses, condos, and McMansions, big-box stores and shopping plazas that are only accessible by car (no sidewalks or even bike lanes), and poor infrastructure across the board: road networks, police and fire departments, schools, hospitals, you name it. They have all been overburdened by the insane pace of sprawl growth that has happened out there. Most of it is centered around Ashburn, and for the most part stays east of Leesburg (the county seat, which still has a charming downtown core), but even a few communities to the west and north of Leesburg have been "overrun" by the forces of "dumb growth".

Fortunately, you'll be happy to know that the newly elected county board has enacted new laws to limit the amount of new growth, which combined with the faltering economy has effectively halted all new development in most of Loudoun (thankfully too, since most of the stuff has now lost a lot of its value and tons of people are already flooding the sales market trying to unload their properties). The only part of Loudoun that really wasn't affected by all of this mess is the southwest part of the county near Middleburg, where hordes of (mostly wealthy) landowners refused to sell out to developers because they didn't want their community to be destroyed like so many others.

Yes. I have extended family in Manassas, VA and Bethesda, MD, and our immediate family drove through Lucketts, Leesburg, and a few other towns en route to Hampton Roads for our vacation back in what I believe was the summer of 2004. I can't speak for the immediate downtown proper of Leesburg since we didn't pass through it, but the surrounding outskirts of the city were downright disgusting---"dumb" growth at its worst. Now that gas prices in our area are $3.99/gallon (and probably similar in NoVA), I wonder how much longer those tedious exurban commutes into DC from not only Loudoun County but also the Charles Town and Martinsburg, WV areas will be sustainable? I also wonder in similar fashion how much longer people will be willing to move en masse to the Poconos to commute into New York City whilst battling the I-80 gridlock. I sincerely hope that one "positive" of the spiking gasoline prices will be a disenfranchisement of the outer suburbs/exurbs and a renewed interest in the inner suburbs and cities across our nation. I've never been to either Arlington or Alexandria before, but from what I've heard they are each model walkable cities. I cringe to think that their vitality may be threatened due to all of this "dumb growth" in the Greater Leesburg/WV Eastern Panhandle area.

[tsedeski]

Originally Posted by ScranBarre

Yes. I have extended family in Manassas, VA and Bethesda, MD, and our immediate family drove through Lucketts, Leesburg, and a few other towns en route to Hampton Roads for our vacation back in what I believe was the summer of 2004. I can't speak for the immediate downtown proper of Leesburg since we didn't pass through it, but the surrounding outskirts of the city were downright disgusting---"dumb" growth at its worst. Now that gas prices in our area are $3.99/gallon (and probably similar in NoVA), I wonder how much longer those tedious exurban commutes into DC from not only Loudoun County but also the Charles Town and Martinsburg, WV areas will be sustainable? I also wonder in similar fashion how much longer people will be willing to move en masse to the Poconos to commute into New York City whilst battling the I-80 gridlock. I sincerely hope that one "positive" of the spiking gasoline prices will be a disenfranchisement of the outer suburbs/exurbs and a renewed interest in the inner suburbs and cities across our nation. I've never been to either Arlington or Alexandria before, but from what I've heard they are each model walkable cities. I cringe to think that their vitality may be threatened due to all of this "dumb growth" in the Greater Leesburg/WV Eastern Panhandle area.

I am from Edwardsville and have lived in Eastern Loudoun County for 14 years and watched it spawl for over a decade. True, any County (and its really just the eastern most 50 square miles) with a growth rate of that of Loudoun will have made many mistakes but what exactly is so bad about it? Is it the well manicured public landscape? The fact that any store or restraunt you want is within 20 minutes? Or is it the roads that are built to withstand growth and don't have any potholes? Is it the MUCH better school districts? Is it the low unemployment? Is it every major league sport within 30 mintues? No. Pretty much the only thing you all can find to target is it the crammed in homes at 4-7 per acre? Reality is that the homes in my neigborhood are no closer to each other than those in Kingston.

Its not for everyone and I, in fact, look forward to moving back to NEPA in the near future. But take if from someone who knows. Everytime I go home to NEDPA I think about how the areas are phycially different and wonder what I would miss most. There really are very few things I wont miss. Traffic and Cost of Living. Of course, both of these are relative. NEPA falls way, way, way short on everything else I mentioned. So whats worth more to me?............ dealing with traffic and high cost of living for all the convienience and opportunity of NoVA or scrapping all that and getting back to basics in NEPA even with its faults? I'm still debating.

[skijmpr]

Originally Posted by tsedeski

True, any County (and its really just the eastern most 50 square miles) with a growth rate of that of Loudoun will have made many mistakes but what exactly is so bad about it? Is it the well manicured public landscape?

You speak in half-truths here:

Originally Posted by tsedeski

The fact that any store or restraunt you want is within 20 minutes?

The difference is that for most parts of Loudoun the "20 minutes" is roughly cumulative, meaning that for each store you want to visit you need to get in the car and drive for another "20 minutes". In the closer suburbs and cities, you can drive "20 minutes", park the car, and then walk a short distance to the stores you want to visit.

Originally Posted by tsedeski

Or is it the roads that are built to withstand growth and don't have any potholes?

That road infrastructure you mention does not have any potholes yet because most of it has been built in the last few years. And the roads are clearly not built to withstand growth because they are already clogging like cholesterol-filled arteries. A grid network of streets like what is found in Arlington or Alexandria (even parts of Fairfax) is many times more efficient. Plus it is complimented by a host of public transit options, such as rail, buses, taxis, bike lanes, and sidewalks.

Originally Posted by tsedeski

Is it the MUCH better school districts?

The schools are not better; the Arlington (H-B Woodlawn, Yorktown, Washington-Lee) and McLean (Langley, McLean) schools are consistently ranked as the highest in the region and some of the best in the country.

Originally Posted by tsedeski

Is it the low unemployment?

Low unemployment is a moot point since it is true for the entire D.C. metro.

Originally Posted by tsedeski

Is it every major league sport within 30 mintues?

I can be at a Nats game in 20 minutes on Metro; guarantee it takes you way longer than 30 minutes coming from Loudoun, especially when you factor in having to park. It takes over 30 minutes just to drive from Loudoun to Arlington, and can cost up to almost $4.00 just in road tolls alone.

Sorry for getting off the NEPA topic here folks, but I figure that this discussion may be of interest to some of you seeing as parts of NEPA (e.g., Monroe and Pike Counties) are experiencing growth, albeit at a slower pace, similar to what Loudoun County has gone through recently.