4 Comments

1. jmcnamera April 12, 2006 at 12:18

   The “Slow Growth and unintended consequences” article you link to from the Chicago Tribune describes what is happening to Fluvanna, Orange, and Greene.

   Orange is getting growth from Northern VA and Fluvanna and Greene are getting it from Charlottesville and Albemarle. The result is sprawl, congestion, and additional spending for infrastructure.

   Slow growth in a desirable location just pushes it out to other places.
2. Jim Duncan April 12, 2006 at 12:29

   I would argue that, at least in our region this type of growth leads to a need for more infrastructure spending, but no actual progress. A variety of reasons lead to our current impasse, but the main culprits are politics, special interests and money –
3. UVA08 April 12, 2006 at 18:08

   I agree that “slow growth” does nothing but drive prices up and push growth into rural areas. We had this discusion over at cvillenews a few months ago. I posted a website there that everyone should look at if they haven’t already. Charlottesville is a desirable place to live and people want to live here and should be able to live here. The trick is to balance the interests of keeping prices in a decent price range so you don’t hurt the working and middle classes while maintaining what makes the place desirable in the first place. In other words, somehow you need to make sure supply is sufficient enough to keep prices in control while making sure development doesnt get out of control.

   Here is the link about commuting patterns that I posted at cvillenews. It shows the effect prices have had on commuting patterns.

   http://www.bea.gov/bea/regional/reis/jtw/action.cfm?tableid=27&fips=51901&format=htm&placetype=w&industry=0

   This is to Charlottesville but you can repeat the trials to do places like DC, Fairfax, etc.
4. Jim Duncan April 13, 2006 at 10:17

   I think I linked to this WP article before, but Bacon’s Rebellion brought it up this morning – it highlights some of the complications that Gov. Kaine is having with the slow-growth coalitions.