Keeping "growth" issues under control. (Lebanon, Charlotte: condos, home)

[Dave_n_Tenn]

Business, government, households primarily fail for two reasons.

1) Not enough operating capital (money)

2) Uncontrolled growth (failure to manage growth)

How is Tennesse currently managing their growth from your perspective? What is failing and succeeding?
Where do we need to replicate "best" practices?
What are your personal thoughts about "local" growth?

I believe "no growth" is a sign of death, but "uncontrolled growth" is sign of cancer.

[jabogitlu]

I think a majority of TN cities and gov'ts is failing to plan wisely for the future. Now is the time to be building communities near dense cores to provide for better public transit (can we say rail) in the future. Instead we're seeing large sprawl 20-30-40+ miles outside of the city center.

I also feel that very little attention is being paid to true mixed-use developments. A lot can be said for being able to walk down to the grocery (and by that I mean Food City or Publix, not Tom's Corner Gas where you can buy bananas but that's about it) and the drugstore.

What we're seeing is a block pattern development. 2-3 miles of condos, a couple miles of strip malls, a couple miles of condos, a couple miles of strip malls. Again, usually outside of the more dense, historical parts of cities. And again, making access without a car difficult.

I really feel that future success lies in a vision of "How can we get these people to work, home, and to a central shopping district using rail, streetcars or busses -- effectively?"

[ddcortland]

The explosion of the "exurb" population and "block development" as you call it is to be expected in a culture where trust is so desperately in short supply and the "gangsta" and other criminal culture is alive. Especially in areas where the law is soft and weak. There's a reason "access without a car" is difficult. It's hard to do a walk by shooting...and it's hard for criminals to blend into the crowd if there really isn't one.

What do you mean by "FUTURE SUCCESS"? Your own personal success? Our success as a nation to end the welfare culture? To end the criminal culture? As far as "future success" goes, I don't think "WE" are entitled or assigned to make it our burden to get "THESE PEOPLE" (what people??) anywhere. That thinking proliferates the welfare mindset. Personally, I think a group succeeds when the individual succeeds and individuals are disappearing rapidly in this pseudo socialist climate we have become tricked into in this country. Any group or social success comes naturally from the entrepreneurial spirits of those that are settling into those exurbs and any other areas.
Before you label me critical, as I'm sure this sounds, please note that I grew up in the projects; I COME FROM that culture, and as long as I am able I will always do my best to AVOID largely populated areas.

[yarddawg]

I wish I had a happy answer for you but here's an honest one. It ranges from mediocre to bad to bucket full of landmines. And this is from someone who worked for 12 years in rural subdivision approval and still does piecework consulting for rural and suburban development issues. The large and medium sized cities are trying hard to address the issue but the problems scale up in size rapidly and a lot of effort is wasted on what are essentially temporary stop-gap solutions, in the current economic environment no one really wants to hear about 15 or 20 year plans, much less 50. Some of the smaller towns and rural areas were completely blindsided by the amount of development in the past decade and will be in horrendous shape if it is completely built out over the next decade unless drastic changes are made to their tax structure or they strike oil on the courthouse lawn.

And then there's the bucket full of landmines category, that's my home county. At the time most of the "gated communities" were developed and sold here the county had no planning commission or codes of any kind. Land could literally be divided and sold by drawing lines on paper and registering it at the courthouse. No approval required on roads, utilities, soil, lot sizes, slopes, nothing. No guarantee that the lots could be approved by the state for septic systems. No guarantee that utility water would ever be available or that the well which would have to be drilled would produce drinkable water. No plan for infrastructure upgrades at all, not even so much as a stop sign. We should be in the Growth Guidebook under "What not to do".


I will take a little bit of an issue with the idea that no growth is equivalent to death though. Mostly because I've had to listen to too many small town politicians screaming about how "you have to grow or you're gonna die" to justify whatever hair-brained money pit they were trying to sell this week. If your local citizens desire something, whether physical or cultural, that a larger population is required to support then increasing population is a desirable goal and growth is the mechanism. But growth for the sake of growth is usually nothing but a Ponzi scheme run by government with all of the eventual predictable results.

[hiknapster]

Originally Posted by yarddawg

I wish I had a happy answer for you but here's an honest one. It ranges from mediocre to bad to bucket full of landmines. And this is from someone who worked for 12 years in rural subdivision approval and still does piecework consulting for rural and suburban development issues. The large and medium sized cities are trying hard to address the issue but the problems scale up in size rapidly and a lot of effort is wasted on what are essentially temporary stop-gap solutions, in the current economic environment no one really wants to hear about 15 or 20 year plans, much less 50. Some of the smaller towns and rural areas were completely blindsided by the amount of development in the past decade and will be in horrendous shape if it is completely built out over the next decade unless drastic changes are made to their tax structure or they strike oil on the courthouse lawn.

And then there's the bucket full of landmines category, that's my home county. At the time most of the "gated communities" were developed and sold here the county had no planning commission or codes of any kind. Land could literally be divided and sold by drawing lines on paper and registering it at the courthouse. No approval required on roads, utilities, soil, lot sizes, slopes, nothing. No guarantee that the lots could be approved by the state for septic systems. No guarantee that utility water would ever be available or that the well which would have to be drilled would produce drinkable water. No plan for infrastructure upgrades at all, not even so much as a stop sign. We should be in the Growth Guidebook under "What not to do".


I will take a little bit of an issue with the idea that no growth is equivalent to death though. Mostly because I've had to listen to too many small town politicians screaming about how "you have to grow or you're gonna die" to justify whatever hair-brained money pit they were trying to sell this week. If your local citizens desire something, whether physical or cultural, that a larger population is required to support then increasing population is a desirable goal and growth is the mechanism. But growth for the sake of growth is usually nothing but a Ponzi scheme run by government with all of the eventual predictable results.

I repped you for it, but "wow" that is such a great post.

[jabogitlu]

Originally Posted by ddcortland

The explosion of the "exurb" population and "block development" as you call it is to be expected in a culture where trust is so desperately in short supply and the "gangsta" and other criminal culture is alive. Especially in areas where the law is soft and weak. There's a reason "access without a car" is difficult. It's hard to do a walk by shooting...and it's hard for criminals to blend into the crowd if there really isn't one.

Whoa, I was just talking about public transport. You know, the kind you have to pay for. Don't know where your welfare rant came from?

[hiknapster]

Originally Posted by jabogitlu

whoa, i was just talking about public transport. You know, the kind you have to pay for. Don't know where your welfare rant came from?

I'm with you. There really are walkable streets in some cities, including mine. Public transport benefits us all and has nothing to do with welfare. Those people are already on the bus. Expand the transportation and we all can ride to the benefit of us all. You know. The working people with "entrepreneurial spirits." And the cleaner air will benefit the guy in the country whose had it with crowds. The lower gas prices will also help him because he'll have to drive longer distances.

[leonard]

Originally Posted by hiknapster

I'm with you. There really are walkable streets in some cities, including mine. Public transport benefits us all and has nothing to do with welfare. Those people are already on the bus. Expand the transportation and we all can ride to the benefit of us all. You know. The working people with "entrepreneurial spirits." And the cleaner air will benefit the guy in the country whose had it with crowds. The lower gas prices will also help him because he'll have to drive longer distances.

Too late,

The distances and spread of the cities now makes it impossible to pay for the rail, bus etc. The riders even now rarely pay the ongoing costs. In Europe it worked because the rail and cities grew up together from the city centers. That will not happen here. A local bus will only work if it comes to virtually every neighborhood and goes to every area where stores etc are located. You can't change the shape of cities enough now to fix that. This country is too big with too few people (Even though we have the third largest population) to make it work. Small countries like England , Japan, etc can do it. You can drive from one end of England to the other in a day. Not the US. Public transportation is a pipe dream. There is no way to ever pay for a fraction of it.

[jabogitlu]

But I think we are completely compounding the problem. Don't get me wrong, I doubt anyone would ever want to build lowrises in, say, east Knox city. But that is the solution, even though no one wants it.

Still, I think park and ride metro stations could work, in bigger cities. Nashville is seeing some success in a commuter rail from Lebanon and other locales, for instance. Not a complete successful public transport, but it does keep some traffic off I-40 and alleviate parking in the city centre.

What I think would be great, though, is more of a high speed link between, say, Nashville, Atlanta and Charlotte. With our burgeoning population, the South could become a leader in transportation. But, we're a bit too ass-backwards to ever be cutting-edge in this country. (Yep, I'm a proud Southerner, and I said it!)

[Dave_n_Tenn]

What planning successes do you see in Tennessee? that actually have come to fruition?

I agree growth for the sake of growth is a false sense of progress, but growth is a sign of life. Growth doesn't necessarily mean more, it means being able to reproduce itself through renewal, change, and maturity.

Do we have somewhere to look in Tn that is a model?