Quote:
Originally Posted by M II A II R II K
While we want to grow as a region, we want to grow in a smart manner. We need to use our land wisely and not waste it on endless parking lots and cul-de-sacs. The region should grow, but it should take into account smart growth principles such as alternative transportation choices, green spaces, natural spaces, mixed-use, and denser development. Let’s not simply repeat the same mistakes others have made in a way that will destroy almost everything we love about this region.
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No we don't. We talk a good game about it, but we trip over ourselves to copy the very worst mistakes made by the cities that were growing fast in the first wave of real suburbanization after WWII. Charlotte, the Triad, the Triangle, Greenville-Spartanburg... They all say they don't want to be another Atlanta, while following Atlanta's sprawling example to a tee -- and without, I might add, following the movement toward urban density that the actual City of Atlanta is showing now.
It also does not help that North Carolina is in the grip of the most urban-hostile state government in history. Cities in North Carolina, which trend more liberal than their surrounding areas -- as cities everywhere tend to do -- are being actively punished by the state for that tendency. Because they don't vote for the Tea Party, urbanites in North Carolina are watching as the state strips their cities of their airports, expo centers, and water systems in retaliation. The state has also made it effectively illegal for a city to annex land, reversing what were some of the most urban-friendly annexation policies in the nation.
In short, suburban Atlanta is already a mess that will only keep spreading like fungus across North Georgia. That will be helped along by the fact that the suburbs of Atlanta comprise literally hundreds of different governmental entities who would rather die than cooperate with each other. South Carolina is and always has been beyond hope, although the city centers of places like Columbia, Greenville, and Spartanburg, will remain gems embedded in the shitpiles of those cities' sprawl. North Carolina has a government utterly dedicated to reversing every gain this state ever made since the Civil War, and which is out for the blood of every voter and every community that dares to disagree with their backward march.
So yeah... The South, as defined in this article, will bounce merrily along in that handbasket to hell. What we love, we'll kill. And one glorious day, we might even link up, via Richmond, to the sprawling megalopolis that already runs from Boston to Washington.