A PANDEMIC OF STUPIDITY - SMART GROWTH VISION PLANS

Time was when I used to love to drive over to Charlotte for shopping and events. This was 20 years ago when it was still easy to navigate the roads and streets, before congestion, when parking was easy and the commerce I sought was readily accessible. It was an enjoyable day or evening trip for the most part. Occasionally I would go to Spirit Square for an event or go to the first Friday art crawl with friends when Jonathan's restaurant was still there. I would run over to Providence Rd. for shopping and dining. I would go to the ASID Designer house event which raised money for the symphony. I would go to a favorite Dr. on East Blvd. upon the need. Gradually that all changed. Now I cringe when even thinking of going to Charlotte. What used to be a fun trip to the city is now a nightmare with odd traffic patterns, fighting traffic congestion, less available parking, and mob scenes in shopping malls. Everything is more difficult to access.

What changed?
Smart Growth is what happened. Growth is one thing. Smart Growth is quite another thing. Smart Growth is planned high density and traffic congestion....by design. The same Smart Growth disease that occurred in Charlotte has come to Gastonia and, sadly, most cities in America.

The Charlotte Vision Plan 2010 is nearly a carbon copy of the Gastonia Vision Plan and of every other plan in the country. Isn't that strange? How could individual cities and individual city councils and mayors in individual topographical locations somehow come up with the same template for their formerly unique cities???

Take a look at the "Overview" of the Charlotte Vision Plan:

To create a memorable Center City Charlotte, future development as well as funding initiatives and improvements will be guided by these principles:

Pedestrian: A Walkable City. Create comfortable and interesting neighborhoods at a human scale.

Mixed: Encourage growth that supports a mix of housing, retail, office and civic spaces, throughout neighborhoods, blocks, and even buildings.

Balanced: Each new initiative for Center City should be considered according to its impact on the larger picture. Memorable cities grow comprehensively.

Leveraged: Optimize each private and public investment through coordination and partnerships between government, neighborhoods, developers and businesses.

Varied: Offer a range of experiences to the community, including urban alternatives such as multi-family housing, mass transit, active parks and vehicle free living.

Designed: Discover the "architecture of Charlotte" that is unique and of the highest standard.

Now take a look at the Gastonia Vision Plan:

1. Make improvements to pedestrian paths and create safe,
walkable, pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods.
2. Support the revitalization of declining neighborhoods.
3. Increased opportunities for homeownership for various housing
types.
4. Vibrant recreational centers, including walking trails, and
connections to area greenways.
5. Mixed-use transit oriented development centers combine retail,
services, and offices with medium-scale residences to fill the
transition from commercial uses to surrounding neighborhoods.
6. Promote regional cooperation to ensure development outside the
City’s municipal boundary is complementary.
7. Increased opportunities for mixed used high density residential
development with commercial business and health service centers.
8. Redevelopment of abandoned commercial and industrial sites.

Problems cited are:
1. Large lots and low density discourages walking and
bicycling.
2.Street networks tend to consist of two-lane roads
handling far more vehicles than they were designed
for funneling traffic onto major arterials, causing and
congestion on major streets.
3. Roads are designed for mobility of cars as opposed to
accessibility for all modes of transportation.
4. Streets with multiple lanes of traffic; often lack sidewalks.

It goes on to say:
"Therefore, it is essential that the City encourage smart growth and sustainable development principles, which will build from the City’s source of strength–structured around a historic and vibrant downtown, diverse residential neighborhoods, infill development within the Center City, and nodal development along the commercial and institutional spines of the City’s major corridors like Franklin Boulevard and US 321."

If you haven't been here lately, you should see the traffic congestion along Franklin Blvd. created by Smart Growth principles. Evidently there is no other plan but "Smart Growth." There is no development, but "Sustainable Development." The entire country has become a cookie cutter pattern designed by environmentalists who believe space belongs to wildlife and not to people. And there lies the rub. The planning is not for people. In fact it is anti-people planning. In fact, the planning is un-American. The planning has been forced on the U.S. through the U.N., through corrupt American politicians and a corrupt process called "regional governments" who are unelected bureaucrats demanding Smart Growth for bribes....oops, I mean government grants.

It doesn't have to be this way. Believe me. I have one little acre of property. There is wildlife all over my property. I have frogs, birds, bugs, trees, bushes, weeds and wildflowers. I have chipmunks and way too many squirrels. I have hickory nuts and acorns. We have lots of permeable land. I've grown cucumbers, tomatoes, and carrots. We have butterflies and dragonflies. We have occasional owls and hawks and bats. We have an occasional raccoon and rabbits and box turtles. We have occasional black snakes and, once in a while, a very unwelcome copperhead. I even have a walking trail all around the wooded backyard. My one acre lot is supporting a lot more wildlife than if you crammed a high rise apartment building on this one acre. There isn't anything going on here that thwarts wildlife. Maybe I should apply for a government grant for all the wildlife I support with my one little acre. What do you think??

I tell you all of that because neighborhoods with larger lots support more clean air, better water distribution, and "livability" that condensed, high density, congested, "Smart Growth" planned areas ruin. My quality of life on this one acre is environmentally sound for both my family and wildlife!

Smart Growth is just plain dumb. But worse than that, Smart Growth is corrupt politics. And sadly, it is now pervasive in our country in the way that the Asian Carp and Kudzu are pervasive. It is a pandemic of stupidity and political tyranny.

Cramming people into smaller and smaller areas is not good for the quality of life we all seek, that is assuming you actually want good quality of life for people and the surrounding wildlife. If you only care about a wild planet without people, then that's another thing. Maybe you should move to Mars.

Study Smart Growth and STOP IT NOW!

So here's another one from the little town of Davidson, NC

Davidson preserves its small town character and community assets in the face of explosive development pressure from nearby Charlotte. Adherence to smart growth principles and regional collaboration on industrial development projects are Davidson’s strategies for upholding its community’s high standards.

Read below, just so you know:
Cities Across the Country Under Smart Growth
Smart Growth Principles

GREENBACKS FOR GREENWAYS

There are only a few days left in 2010, which is making me reflect on all of the ridiculous and insane schemes the leftists have inflicted upon America this year. I cannot begin to recount them all, so this could become an exercise in head banging due to my frustrations with the irrational people who have the keys to our government. For the sake of my head and the wall next to me, I will just focus in on one of the subjects that exemplifies waste of taxpayer money and at the same time assaults private property rights by using tax money for frivolous, non-essential programs.

Somehow, sometime ago our brilliant "Green" generation of bureaucrats and environmentalists decided we should "transform" our Federal Highway Administration into sidewalk, bike trails and greenway programs instead of roads and highways. From Heritage.org "Created in 1956 to finance and build the interstate highway system, the federal highway program achieved that goal in the early 1980s and since then has had its goals repeatedly modified in successive reauthorizations that have diverted money from general-purpose roads to a variety of other objectives that benefit influential constituencies." Keep in mind that for many decades we have established hiking trails through national parks and created parks around hiking trails, such as the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Appalachian Trail. Not only that, but every city in America has parks, sidewalks, and neighborhoods in which to walk all you want. Those existing trails, which were carved out of formerly private property, are already paid for in continuum with our Federal and state taxes. Not enough for the "Green" folks who think cars are a scourge on the earth, politicians have been lobbied by environmentalists and recreation groups who want more and more trails taken out of private hands and off limits to motorized vehicles.

Welcome to the nation's Greenways projects; that take your money away from real roads, are being used to discourage car traffic, and at the same time take property out of the hands of private ownership. The funding for these greenways has been attached to every conceivable bill, under every conceivable title, using every conceivable excuse imaginable. City and county leaders, thinking this is the latest, most popular fad amongst the public, have applied for grants and government funding by the boatload to create greenways. First, the local leaders want Federal and state money to come back to their communities. And secondly, the Feds and the state are saying they have no money, UNLESS you want a greenway. If you want a greenway, voilá, you get money!! (don't even look at that National Debt clock on my sidebar that is ever closer to the 14 Trillion greenbacks in debt.)

How much money are we talking about? Billions of greenbacks for greenways!

In case you don't get the scheme at hand, here below is from Ray LaHood, the current Secretary of Transportation:
"March 15: "This is the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of non-motorized," said US Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood to a League of American Bicyclists conference. "We are integrating the needs of bicyclists in federally-funded road projects." Sec. LaHood also announced key recommendations for state DOTs and communities:

* Treat walking and bicycling as equals with other transportation modes.
* Ensure convenient access for people of all ages and abilities.
* Go beyond minimum design standards.
* Collect data on walking and biking trips.
* Set a mode share target for walking and bicycling.
* Protect sidewalks and shared-use paths the same way roadways are protected (for example, snow removal)
* Improve nonmotorized facilities during maintenance projects.

In January, Secretary LaHood said, "People want the opportunity to leave their cars behind."

Really? Who are these people he speaks of? As I write this it is 22 degrees outside and the thought of leaving my car behind while I cycle or walk to the grocery is not too tempting. For three months in the summer, the daytime hours are pretty hot here, so the same goes for that time of year. Time is a factor. How much time do you have to walk or ride a bicycle to the store? Strength is an issue. How many bags of groceries can you trudge back to your house? Age is a factor. How many 60 year olds do you know who carry their groceries or various purchases on a bicycle or back-pack for miles from store to home? How many 50 year olds, for that matter. How many 30 year old mothers can carry their children and groceries back and forth on a bicycle, from school to store to home?

So mostly these greenways are for recreation? We don't have enough recreation in America? That's all well and good for the cyclists, who want bike lanes on every by-way in the country. I wonder if that is worth the billions of dollars being spent. And I wonder that while the Chinese are busy buying cars, if we are going backwards by encouraging our citizens to do all their activities by bicycle? Let's borrow money from the Chinese so they can buy cars and we can buy bicycles! What a great idea! (Let the head banging commence.) I still contend that if you want to walk somewhere, you can do it without billions of tax dollars taking private property away and using up road money. There is an 8 to 15 foot buffer belonging to the government around every road on which you can walk, sidewalk or not.

Locally we have a snafu with FHWA money over a greenway project that, according to our local newspaper, was not documented properly. In other words, our local bureaucrats didn't fill out the FHWA (Federal Highway Administration) paperwork properly and now may have to return $172,00.00 to the Feds. Does anyone else see the irony in that? One government agency is telling another government agency that the reams of paperwork to justify the existence of the greenway grant was not fulfilled properly? My, oh my. If that isn't poetic justice, I don't know what is.

So while you are watching Congress and the President haggle over the tax bill, which is now laden with nearly another trillion greenbacks in debt on your back and mine, by all means, go lobby your local government leaders to apply for another greenway grant. We really need those greenways....or not.

By the way, just in case you think all of these greenways are essential to save the earth from global warming, you need to read This Article at American Thinker

Excerpt here:

"... According to scientists' models of Earth's orbit and orientation toward the Sun indicate that our world should be just beginning to enter a new period of cooling -- perhaps the next ice age...

The premises of all of our government tax programs regarding energy, transportation, housing, and food, based on "Global Warming" need to be sent into the scrap bin and FAST! ....along with the idiots who are trying to scam the public with this idiocy. I'm for driving more gas guzzling cars all over the damn place if it keeps us from freezing to death. What do you say out there?


Sources:
American Trails .org
Jonathan DuHamel on the Global Warming Fraud