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That's your take.
If you believe life in The Triangle is "getting better and better everyday", then it's obvious you weren't here a few decades ago.
Too soon rep you, but THANK YOU. Those who think it's great now have no idea what it was like even a few years ago; you can only pour so many people into an area so quickly without really compromising the quality of life for all involved. And unfortunately, there's no sign of its slowing down. I apprecaite many of the things that grwoth has brought here, but it's too much, too fast--let's switch to a lower gear, please!
Last edited by SunnyKayak; 03-23-2009 at 10:05 AM..
Reason: flaming
The difference here is that us newcomers are not "mucking up" the place. We are making it better and better everyday.
Lordy, the hubris in this statement is enough to gag you. Not everyone agrees with you, CD. Many of us strongly believe that the sheer quantity of people stampeding to this area has had negative impacts on the quality of life. I don't believe that the "benefit" of having another Thai restaurant in a strip mall in Holly Spring offsets the fact that they razed a beautiful stand of trees and starved a bunch of deer to death just to put in that shopping center.
Growth definitely is a double-edged sword, and either side can cut more harshly if it is unmanaged/unbalanced. But that is a tough equation to work out sometimes, especially when a region's own success and attractiveness spurs and accelerates the change.
That being said, this is nothing new. Any city leaders can look to other communities that over time either successfully managed change, or have some hard lessons learned.
A good example might be the Santa Clara(Silicon) Valley area. Just 30ish years ago the area was mostly agricultural, a huge center for vegetable canning, olive and avocado groves, and other farming. Today all that is left are a few token family homesteads and museums, and much of that final capitulation happened in the 1990s and the tech boom and subsequent RE bubble of the early 2000s. For old-time residents the change has been pretty dramatic, and while many great things were brought to the area, a lot that was the identity of the area is now lost.... now simply names of shopping centers echoing the farms and orchards that used to be there.
At the current rate, Wake County will become North Carolina's largest county around 2013 or 2014, surpassing Mecklenburg County. Around the same time, Wake County will likely have over 1 million people.
Fastest growing.....that is good to know! But now you peaked my interest and to add balance I must google the slowest growing Metro in the US!
Got it...Seattle, Washington. OK lots of clouds there and little clouds here. Got it
Now on to what that means.
More Roads.
More People.
More waste. (garbage that is)
More homes.
More Schools.
More Power. (Both in electrical and voting)
We have grown so fast that we turned 'BLUE'.
On the flip side.
Less trees.
Less open space.
Less money to go around.
Less school space but More school trailers. (Mind boggling)
Less clouds than the slowest growing Metro area. (Sorry Seattle)
You say that last part as though moving away from somewhere involves very little effort and zero expense.
Similar comments have been written in the past by others in this forum.
Picking up and relocating to a new area isn't exactly like making a trip to Harris Teeter.
There's also a legitimate "We were here first" aspect to it.
Why should people who have lived in an area for many years or since birth have to be the ones to leave when a swarm of newcomers move in and muck the place up?
The newcomers paid that non-trivial expense to move here and deserve credit for that . This is a free country that adopts a free market, where growth seems to be eventually controlled by the living expense and living overhead (traffic, etc.). While the long-time residents sometimes get hurt by the expense/overhead, they are often rewarded (hopefully) by real estate appreciation. Mobility is one of the key factors that have kept this country dynamic and energetic.
No, the "We were here first" claim is not legitimate. As long as the newcomers pay taxes while sharing your resources, it's a fair game. Of course if you are native American it's another story.
That said, a lot of the development seems to be unnecessary or even goes against the growth. Why are there so many generic and redundant strip malls in Cary? You have 3 Harris Teeters, 2 Lowes, 2 Krogers, and 1 Food Lion within a one-mile radius, yet none of them is within walkable distance to the neighborhoods? Hate that ... The land could be used for something much better (park, gym, community center) or kept untouched.
Why are there so many generic and redundant strip malls You have 3 Harris Teeters, 2 Lowes, 2 Krogers, and 1 Food Lion within a one-mile radius, yet none of them is within walkable distance to the neighborhoods?
They are walkable. I walk to Harris Teeter and Lowes all the time. They are right outside my door, along with dentists, doctors, restaurants, shops, ice cream joints, coffee shops and a whole lot more.
That said, I still do scratch my head at how many grocery stores and pharmacies are here. I don't know how they can support them all, but some how they do.
Last edited by Charlton Dude; 03-24-2009 at 04:15 PM..
In 5-10 years Wake County will be a spitting image of what Fairfax County, VA is now. And for those you that have never been there, no, that isn't a compliment.
"Northern Virginia, including Fairfax County, is the third worst congested traffic area in the nation, in terms of percentage of congested roadways and time spent in traffic. Of the lane miles in the region, 44 percent are rated “F” or worst for congestion. Northern Virginia residents spend an average of 46 hours a year stuck in traffic."
The newcomers paid that non-trivial expense to move here and deserve credit for that . This is a free country that adopts a free market, where growth seems to be eventually controlled by the living expense and living overhead (traffic, etc.). While the long-time residents sometimes get hurt by the expense/overhead, they are often rewarded (hopefully) by real estate appreciation. Mobility is one of the key factors that have kept this country dynamic and energetic.
No, the "We were here first" claim is not legitimate. As long as the newcomers pay taxes while sharing your resources, it's a fair game. Of course if you are native American it's another story.
That said, a lot of the development seems to be unnecessary or even goes against the growth. Why are there so many generic and redundant strip malls in Cary? You have 3 Harris Teeters, 2 Lowes, 2 Krogers, and 1 Food Lion within a one-mile radius, yet none of them is within walkable distance to the neighborhoods? Hate that ... The land could be used for something much better (park, gym, community center) or kept untouched.
That's your POV and you're welcome to it, wrong as it may be.
This issue really doesn't matter a great deal to me.
When population growth eventually ruins the QOL in Raleigh, I will have no trouble moving on to somewhere smaller and much nicer....the way Raleigh USED to be.
Maybe it's just me, but wasn't it the government that set aside this land for these parks? I know for a fact that the government set aside rock creek park in DC and Central Park in NY. As far as I know Central Park was set up so that NY could compete with all world class cities that had parks at the time. I didn't think it was set up to keep growth in check? I know you didn't say this, but you can't compare the growth that NYC experienced to the growth in Knightdale. There are still plenty of parks and open spaces in all areas in the Triangle, including Raleigh. Parts of NYC at that time had NO open spaces at all, except for maybe a patch of grass behind your row house for a garden.
Huh? *Of course* it was the government that set aside land for these parks. Policies regarding growth, land use and development activities don't just zap themselves into existence. They are enacted by elected government representative acting at the behest of their constituents.
Also, parks indeed exist not only to provide entertainment services to citizens, but also to make usable land more scarce and to bid up the price of land adjacent to the park. So large parks can be used as mechanism to discourage sprawl.
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