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I agree with most of William
Toblers observations but would like to add a few:
1. Underlying all of these issues of sprawl and
increased densities is the politicians' and businesses (and community's)
addiction to growth to provide more jobs, greater power, more (relative)
prestige, higher material standards of living (surveys show happiness is not
actually significantly increased and appears more relative than linked to
absolute standard of material well being), more profits and supposedly a more
rewarding lifestyle - politicians in particular know that if there is a
recession and job losses they are unlikely to get re-elected.
2. Population growth which in an industrialised
country provides more customers for businesses leading to greater profits, in
countries like Germany, Japan and I think Italy provides young workers to
help sustain the higher and growing proportion of retired/unemployed over 55, it
provides competition for jobs keeping wages lower than they might otherwise be,
it generally allows less attractive jobs to be filled by immigrants with
insufficient language or education to compete for more pleasant jobs, which
otherwise might have to be done by the children of the existing population, or
not get done, or get done at higher cost.
3. Falling numbers of persons per dwelling, partly
through nuclear families being smaller, partly through more elderly persons
living alone as the population ages, and partly as a result of delayed marriage
and divorce - if population remains stable more dwellings are needed, if
population grows as well, even more dwellings are needed.
4. Those most affected by increased density by way
of loss of existing benefits are those who live close by whose land can't be
redeveloped to the higher density. they have more noise, traffic, people (often
of a different cultural background), burden on community facilities like
schools, libraries, parks, public transport. The people who are able to sell for
redevelopment generally get the compensation of being able to get a higher price
for their property, enabling them to move, often to a better home but with some
inconvenience and disruption. The people who (think they) will benefit are those
who move into the new developments, generally they get these benefits, but
sometimes they don't and sometimes they discover that there are unforseen
costs.
5. Those areas attracting increased population from
internal (country town and other states) and external sources (immigration) face
the greatest problems of combined sprawl and increased densities
6. Re development of decayed areas, particularly
large former industrial landholdings near city centres or in the inner ring of
suburbs, is often a solution as the land for hundreds of dwellings is
owned by one entity, meaning rapid development on a large scale, communities
around such areas are often less educated and see the redevelopment in a
positive light given the current decay, the sites are sometimes in need of
expensive remediation which will mean that redevelopment requires a high value
end use otherwise the land is just forfeited by the owner/polluter. Corporations
often ensure that each major parcel of land is owned by a special purpose
company to enable them to do just that (surrender a contaminated piece of land
without risk to the rest of the corporate group). In established areas, much of
the infrastructure already exists, even if part of it needs updating, making the
cost to the public of re-establishing less than the cost for a greenfields site
- no major developer ever pays the full cost of infrastructure - it prohibits
development - that is why higher densities are almost always near existing
infrastructure that can be leveraged, not establishment of total new cities or
towns.
7. As we live longer after retirement and become
less able as we age, the need for different housing styles becomes greater and
high density suits many people, particularly the older, the young homeleavers
and the single or divorced with no or only one or two children.
If most of the people are addicted to growth (and
remember political campaigns of all major parties other than the Greens are
funded mainly from the donations of profit maximizing corporations) then
the continuation of a mix of sprawl and increased density is inevitable - rarely
are new cities established and country towns are often dying, in spite of
their cheap housing. This outcome has been going on for hundreds of years
and is unlikely to change unless the fundamental drivers change.
Governments also don't provide full additional
infrastructure in advance of gross unhappiness threatening loss of an election,
because 90% of the time the money is already needed urgently elsewhere where
more votes are at stake in a more marginal electorate. To keep taxes as low
as possible, existing public infrastructure - an uncrowded road, schools
which have reduced in enrolments because of changing demographics (aging of the
population),a railway line with some unused capacity, existing sewer and
water reticulation, is fully utilised by adding more people almost until there is a problem which requires huge public
infrastructure.
In summary, unless the drivers of economic growth
are changed in your area (by community agreement or natural factors like a
shrinking population, often in association with aging of the population)
then politicians know they are more likely to remain in power by dealing with
the problems of growth, than by creating a situation of no growth and trying to
deal with the problems that causes (less work, falling material living standards
- dramatic for some) and hundreds of years of recorded experience all around the
world support that view.
All this applies in Michigan and across the world.
To understand Michigan and your area you need to understand the current
population trends and what is driving them, and against the combined impacts of
federal and state governments driven to grow, no local community (other than a
major one in a swinging electorate where government is likely to be lost on the
issue), will ever really stop sprawl and increased densities.
Sorry to be so pessimistic.
Paul Hanly
PS
To see an example of the type of population
analysis that shows the population drivers for more development (sprawl and
density) see:
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