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It seems to me that Raleigh is at a crossroads. It can put a stop to the developmental feeding frenzy, and actually start thinking about what the city should look like in the next 20, 30, 50 years (the city does have a Business and Development Department, but it seems to be a toady for the real estate industry). Or it can pretty much let the developers do whatever they feel like. If it does, pretty soon the city will look like those towns in South Florida, where everything is gleaming new and utterly soulless, where housing stock is prohibitively expensive for the middle class, and working class folks (who?) are shoved out into marginal areas where decent housing and public transportation become a real problem.
My solutions?
More resident input and veto power over proposed projects
Demand that all new apartment houses and condo developments include a certain percentage of units for middle income people.
Any new development must obtain approval of a panel of architects – Lord knows we could use some interesting-looking new buildings in this city.
Look at other cities worldwide. Learn how they dealt with development, and what they experienced, both positive and negative.
It’s not too late to save Raleigh. But the time to act is now.
It’s easy to see what’s happening: as the older African-American homeowners die off, their houses will be torn down, and large, expensive homes erected. Pretty soon the neighborhood will be lily white, upper middle class, and lose most of its character. It’s called gentrification. I call it the development disease.
Are there only older African-Americans in Raleigh? See, as soon as I see a statement like this, I immediately dismiss any chance of credibility.
Raleigh's development pattern has remained what's described as loose, low-density sprawl.
My recommendation is severely limit amount of new cul-de-sacs, starting connecting every street stub possible to next closest road. Increasing connectivity of streets will disperse traffic & ease conditions on the main arterial thoroughfares.
New subdivisions should be discouraged in favor of walkable, grids of new streets open on both ends following new urbanism towns or how early towns in America were laid out.
All new development should have access to two or more main thoroughfares to mitigate the funneling of all traffic to a single arterial.
Much higher impact fees to use for the community good, and give all new-home buyers a breakdown of the lifetime costs of the water/sewer/gas extensions to service their new homes, and the burden imposed on the city.
An all-out effort to upgrade street-level infrastructure starting by replacing all wire-hung traffic signals with mast-arm poles.
An all-out effort to plant millions of trees to counter the clear-cutting of the landscape currently happening to the once-tree covered state. This helps to reduce the heat island effect in cities, absorbs carbon, and just looks beautiful.
Put litter cleanup program "Adopt a highway" on steroids even paying groups to do it if necessary.
Raleigh's development pattern has remained what's described as loose, low-density sprawl.
My recommendation is severely limit amount of new cul-de-sacs, starting connecting every street stub possible to next closest road. Increasing connectivity of streets will disperse traffic & ease conditions on the main arterial thoroughfares.
New subdivisions should be discouraged in favor of walkable, grids of new streets open on both ends following new urbanism towns or how early towns in America were laid out.
Clearly you didn't see my posts on the Six Forks corridor study thread about connecting cul-de-sacs and seeing how that turned out. People want that "rural feel" (despite being in a big city!), cars staying on arterial roads and not cutting through their neighborhood, and we all know people don't want the undesirables who take the bus coming through their neighborhood
I apologize for posting same ideas twice. I didn't see that my 1st attempt succeeded.
Regarding displacement of lower income residents and gentrification, I see the suburban areas starting to decay and transitioning into working class neighborhoods as affluent buyers head for urban cores.
Gwinnett County, GA has changed so much in the last 20 years, it's nothing like what I remember from the '90s.
Driving southbound on Satellite Blvd. (a new road in early '90s) between Pleasant Hill and Indian Trail, the '80s &'90s-era homes have aged horribly and look like what you'd see in a 3rd world country. Exteriors with gaping holes, blankets covering windows, and this was solidly middle class not long ago. Cheap construction (like towards Rolesville) will require continuous above-average maintenance just to not end up looking like something in the Middle East in 25 years.
Everyone complains about all of the new "luxury" apartments going up everywhere, but doesn't that push the older developments down a rung closer to what the working class can afford?
As apartment complexes in Raleigh age, don't they eventually resort to concessions to attract tenants?
I know it doesn't happen equally across all tiers, but eventually no one wants to live in these plain brick barracks-style apts. like around Cameron Village and landlords will low income renters to inhabit the oldest complexes.
In short, the displaced homeowners downtown Raleigh will find housing somewhere in the aging suburbs. I'm not saying it's easy or fair, but that it follows a cycle.
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Regarding cul-de-sacs and increasing connectivity, Charlotte has banned them and is connecting stubs to adjacent neighborhoods.
Eventually dead-end style neighborhoods will have to be curtailed, let people fight to reserve in a spot in the existing ones.
It eventually will be considered selfish to negatively impact the region as a whole just for the luxury of not having to keep as close an eye on your children and having three sides of natural buffer separating/protecting your home from the city you choose to live in.
I've always thought concentric rings of density with highest around downtown center and decreasing in steps as you went further out would be a good template to steer development density.
For Raleigh, I would have the lowest density classification ring located as far out at Louisburg or Pittsboro, and then Franklinton/ Youngsville would mark the next step higher in density, and by the time you arrived at the Hayes-
Barton neighborhood no one could protest mid-rise and low high-rises, because it's the center of town.
Last edited by architect77; 03-27-2017 at 07:24 PM..
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