North Carolina Needs Office of Smart Growth

[urbanaturalist]

North Carolina is at a crucial moment in its history. It is about to join the "big boys" when it comes to state population in less than a decade. 10 million people will call it home, but at what cost?????

There is no major rail system, say like the MARC system in Maryland, and regional rail is still basically in its infancy in Charlotte and Raleigh.

More interstates are on the drawing board or being constructed to cut through rural and forest areas of the state.........which will be joined by more of the same sprawl development.

Typical sprawl type housing, commerical developments, and golf courses take over agricultural lands in the middle of anywhere...........see Greene County. Its rarely mentioned, because its seen as a cash cow, but even allowing companies to take up vast acreage of land outside or inside of industrial parks without comprehensive growth plans is not fulfilling sustainability measures.

The Inner Banks/Pamlico Sound area is under assault from developers and visionless politicans who want to bow down to people who don't want to or can't afford to live in expensive Florida anymore.

We are nearly at the top of states loosing agricultural lands the fastest annually.

And so on and so on.

Every county wants do it their way and doesn't want the hand of Raleigh all up in their beeswax, telling them how and where to grow. Unless their in a major metropolitan area like the Triad area, less populated neighboring counties don't really look outside to see that typical sprawl development (even if it increases your tax base for awhile ) is not really to their benefit in the long run.

So I'm suggesting a Office/Department of Smart Growth for North Carolina (not under the Department of Transportation...hell no......but its own department), whose job it would be to analyze county by county developments, push for more land conservation, and make recommedations to the General Assembly and so on. I know....I know......the libertarians are going to have a field day tearing up even the thought of such an endeavor, but whoever runs for governor or even state representatives should be thinking about such a thing. The only states I'm aware that have such a thing are Maryland and New Jersey, and if North Carolina would at least study the idea of one, other states, particularly southern ones would take note for sure.

What do yall think? To progressive for North Carolina at this point and time???????

[CapeFearRiver10]

North Carolina is at a crucial moment in its history. It is about to join the "big boys" when it comes to state population in less than a decade. 10 million people will call it home, but at what cost?????

There is no major rail system, say like the MARC system in Maryland, and regional rail is still basically in its infancy in Charlotte and Raleigh.

More interstates are on the drawing board or being constructed to cut through rural and forest areas of the state.........which will be joined by more of the same sprawl development.

Typical sprawl type housing, commerical developments, and golf courses take over agricultural lands in the middle of anywhere...........see Greene County. Its rarely mentioned, because its seen as a cash cow, but even allowing companies to take up vast acreage of land outside or inside of industrial parks without comprehensive growth plans is not fulfilling sustainability measures.

The Inner Banks/Pamlico Sound area is under assault from developers and visionless politicans who want to bow down to people who don't want to or can't afford to live in expensive Florda anymore.

We are nearly at the top of states loosing agricultural lands the fastest annually.

And so on and so on.

Every county wants do it their way and doesn't want the hand of Raleigh all up in their beeswax, telling them how and where to grow. Unless their in a major metropolitan area like the Triad area, less populated neighboring counties don't really look outside to see that typical sprawl development (even if it increases your tax base for awhile ) is not really to their benefit in the long run.

So I'm suggesting a Office/Department of Smart Growth for North Carolina (not under the Department of Transportation...hell no......but its own department), whose job it would be to analyze county by county developments, push for more land conservation, and make recommedations to the General Assembly and so on. I know....I know......the libertarians are going to have a field day tearing up even the thought of such an endeavor, but whoever runs for governor or even state representatives should be thinking about such a thing. The only states I'm aware that have such a thing are Maryland and New Jersey, and if North Carolina would at least study the idea of one, other states, particularly southern ones would take note for sure.

What do yall think? To progressive for North Carolina at this point and time???????

[davidals]

Maybe. I don't think it would work, or would be taken seriously at all - at this point, it would make a few political figures look good, pretty much once every 2-4-6 years. But what would such an office recommend: maintaining existing infrastructure, orienting our educational system towards the future (Hows that lottery dough working out, apart from providing an abundance of material we could work into a course on ethics?), adding that x,000,000 acres of protected green space, passenger rail development? All already proposed, and getting nickle-and-dimed, comparatively speaking.

[CapeFearRiver10]

Maybe. I don't think it would work, or would be taken seriously at all - at this point, it would make a few political figures look good, pretty much once every 2-4-6 years. But what would such an office recommend: maintaining existing infrastructure, orienting our educational system towards the future (Hows that lottery dough working out, apart from providing an abundance of material we could work into a course on ethics?), adding that x,000,000 acres of protected green space, passenger rail development? All already proposed, and getting nickle-and-dimed, comparatively speaking.

[CapeFearRiver10]

Here is a new tactic that the Fayetteville is using to sell real estate to the future residents that will be moving to the region by advertising the neighborhoods in Cumberland county. (Smart growth)

Its a neat web link for the Fayobserver:

http://www.fayobserver.com/special/CommJournalsMap/