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I always make comments to suburbanites and city people about urban sprawl...but never thought to ask people from rural areas. Have you ever lived in a small town, and suburbia stretched out to it and it became just another suburb?
We have one city 40 miles away from St. Louis called Wentzville that has grown by 200% since 2000. It is now up to 40k people. There were under 7,000 people in 2000. It's sad to see that urban areas are sprawling so far as it seems that people are trading in their suburban life for a small town, only to create the same suburban lifestyle that they desired to leave.
Yeah..when I moved to my city 12 years ago the pop was about 8K.
Small town atmosphere, no big box and not too much industry.
Fast forward..population is 41K, cornfields replaced with cookie cutter subdivisions, big new tollroad splitting the city in two and big box (Wallymart, HD, Target) that doesn't seem to end.
Forgot to mention..I'm north of Austin Texas but I guess not far enough north to escape the sprawl.
We have one city 40 miles away from St. Louis called Wentzville that has grown by 200% since 2000. It is now up to 40k people. There were under 7,000 people in 2000. It's sad to see that urban areas are sprawling so far as it seems that people are trading in their suburban life for a small town, only to create the same suburban lifestyle that they desired to leave.
Wow, that's really sad. There are some people in Rolla who seem determined for us to follow that route.
Wow, that's really sad. There are some people in Rolla who seem determined for us to follow that route.
Rolla city fathers are trying to sprawl the city to the west. St. Robert city fathers are trying to sprawl to the east. Twenty years from now (I'll likely be dead by then so I won't have to see it), the two will meet in the middle and driving along I-44 will be like driving through one big town.
Sprawl is such an awful thing. It's most frustrating for two types of people; rural people who want to be rural people, and urbanists who want their city to remain the center of the region. St. Louis sprawls 40 miles west now, aand has thus far only sprawled 16 miles or so to the east (in Illinois). The people move out there and then want all the services and conveniences they had in the suburb they hoped to leave.
We have one city 40 miles away from St. Louis called Wentzville that has grown by 200% since 2000. It is now up to 40k people. There were under 7,000 people in 2000.
It's gotten that bad? Zounds.
I used to live across the river (Collinsville). 20-some years ago, heading west to visit family in the KC area meant fighting the congestion on I-270/I-70 thru St. Charles, but knowing that things would open up once I got past that area. Living in the SE now, I haven't had much of a chance to see that part of the country since I take a route that doesn't involve going thru the St. Louis area. Much sympathy on the ruination of the area.
South Florida, and especially from Miami to Homestead, has been swallowed up with sprawl in the past twenty years. Any area near a big city was fair game during the real estate boom.
I'm looking forward to selling my land when it happens. I'll be set for life.
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