King's Sprawl
I just saw this opinion column in today's WSJ.
"King, just like so many other towns across North Carolina, is in danger of letting over-development kill what's long made it special."
No offense to anybody, but I don't recall anything too incredibly special about King. I've always been more of a Pilot Mountain/Mount Airy-kinda dude. But yes, disorderly development always sucks in the long run. And disorderly development can easily involve over-development.
Farmland and forest are losing out to subdivisions. King's population grew by more than 2,200 to 6,256 people from 1990 to 2004. And in the next four years, King's population is predicted to grow by another 50 percent, to about 9,000.
The city council has approved more than 1,500 residential lots and apartment units that will be built in three to five years.
Then more shopping centers will spread, and the sort of development that requires people to drive everywhere they go will eat up more of the countryside.
And that's why I hate the suburbs. It really sucks being in the middle of two great, yet different locales. I'm either a city guy or a country guy. I have no interest in living somewhere that's neither convenient and exciting nor beautiful and relaxing. In the suburbs, you have nothing but the problems of living in the city and the country: the congestion, the bad roads, often illogical layouts, neighbors in close proximity, fewer choices in retail, 'keeping up with the Joneses'-obsessed suburb dwellers, and all that sort of crap.
You can't blame farmers, who've struggled so long to make it, for selling out to developers.
Well, of course you can't. It's their land and, as long as it's legal, they can do what they want with it. I don't think that any farmer ever enjoyed experiencing less demand for his crops over the years. According to every farmer I've ever known, farming is a generally good but physically active lifestyle, one that most of those who experienced it in its heyday rarely ever wanted to change.
But I'm not so sure about the 'who've struggled so long to make it' part. Many farmers have now simply sold land to supplement retirement funds they carefully saved over the years. Some farming families have even sold land to 'improve' the lifestyles of their individual members, which could include buying that thing they've always wanted (ranging from a nice car or motorcycle to a beach house). All that and more than a few of them can still afford to live well in Stokes (and well protected by plenty of empty acres around them). How cool, huh?
Although it would be nice if some King developers would spend the extra time and money to do things right and make King a place that anybody would really want to be once it's all 'grown up.' If it eventually becomes nothing but a string of abandoned shopping malls turned into low rent retailers and lousy mini-McMansions, don't start wondering why no one wants to live in your town's 20-year-old housing developments anymore.
Fact is — in Stokes County — the northern side of the county is where it's at. Maybe I'm biased, but I really don't think so. It's the most beautiful with more rolling hills, and incredibly well preserved by many of its long-term owners. It's perfect for country living or, if it ever comes to it, a pleasant, well-preserved suburban area with bigger, nicer individual lots for those who may work at the King/Forsyth County border (or, as it increasingly happens, those who can easily work from a home office). Does that sound far-fetched? I don't think so.
In King, as across North Carolina, the building keeps booming, swallowing up a way of life and straining the local school system.
And that's why King should support its own school system. The rest of Stokes shouldn't have to because of, in large part, to the bad decisions made by some King developers (and by the buyers of their real estate).
"King, just like so many other towns across North Carolina, is in danger of letting over-development kill what's long made it special."
No offense to anybody, but I don't recall anything too incredibly special about King. I've always been more of a Pilot Mountain/Mount Airy-kinda dude. But yes, disorderly development always sucks in the long run. And disorderly development can easily involve over-development.
Farmland and forest are losing out to subdivisions. King's population grew by more than 2,200 to 6,256 people from 1990 to 2004. And in the next four years, King's population is predicted to grow by another 50 percent, to about 9,000.
The city council has approved more than 1,500 residential lots and apartment units that will be built in three to five years.
Then more shopping centers will spread, and the sort of development that requires people to drive everywhere they go will eat up more of the countryside.
And that's why I hate the suburbs. It really sucks being in the middle of two great, yet different locales. I'm either a city guy or a country guy. I have no interest in living somewhere that's neither convenient and exciting nor beautiful and relaxing. In the suburbs, you have nothing but the problems of living in the city and the country: the congestion, the bad roads, often illogical layouts, neighbors in close proximity, fewer choices in retail, 'keeping up with the Joneses'-obsessed suburb dwellers, and all that sort of crap.
You can't blame farmers, who've struggled so long to make it, for selling out to developers.
Well, of course you can't. It's their land and, as long as it's legal, they can do what they want with it. I don't think that any farmer ever enjoyed experiencing less demand for his crops over the years. According to every farmer I've ever known, farming is a generally good but physically active lifestyle, one that most of those who experienced it in its heyday rarely ever wanted to change.
But I'm not so sure about the 'who've struggled so long to make it' part. Many farmers have now simply sold land to supplement retirement funds they carefully saved over the years. Some farming families have even sold land to 'improve' the lifestyles of their individual members, which could include buying that thing they've always wanted (ranging from a nice car or motorcycle to a beach house). All that and more than a few of them can still afford to live well in Stokes (and well protected by plenty of empty acres around them). How cool, huh?
Although it would be nice if some King developers would spend the extra time and money to do things right and make King a place that anybody would really want to be once it's all 'grown up.' If it eventually becomes nothing but a string of abandoned shopping malls turned into low rent retailers and lousy mini-McMansions, don't start wondering why no one wants to live in your town's 20-year-old housing developments anymore.
Fact is — in Stokes County — the northern side of the county is where it's at. Maybe I'm biased, but I really don't think so. It's the most beautiful with more rolling hills, and incredibly well preserved by many of its long-term owners. It's perfect for country living or, if it ever comes to it, a pleasant, well-preserved suburban area with bigger, nicer individual lots for those who may work at the King/Forsyth County border (or, as it increasingly happens, those who can easily work from a home office). Does that sound far-fetched? I don't think so.
In King, as across North Carolina, the building keeps booming, swallowing up a way of life and straining the local school system.
And that's why King should support its own school system. The rest of Stokes shouldn't have to because of, in large part, to the bad decisions made by some King developers (and by the buyers of their real estate).
posted by Strother | 1:00 PM
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