Remember how the ‘promise of residential development’ was a deal changer for the City of Winston-Salem when considering incentives for a downtown Mast General Store? I didn’t see the term ‘smart growth’ mentioned anywhere, but no doubt that was the thinking behind the city’s decision to offer up more than $1 million in incentives for a retail establishment, which goes City Manager Derwick Paige said runs counter to policy.
Yet another example of a city pushing smart growth. Just so happens Carolina Journal’s Michael Lowrey recently weighed in on smart growth:
“Smart growth represents a backward-looking model for economic development that attempts to turn North Carolina’s calendar back to the 19th century,” said report author Michael Lowrey, JLF economics and regulatory policy analyst. “But the densely built, rail transit-dependent cities promoted by smart growth do not represent how most people want to live.
….“Smart growth seeks more concentrated urban growth by increasing government regulation of development, housing, and transportation,” Lowrey explained. “Its policies restrict or eliminate development in new areas, thus driving up the cost of land. Smart growth increases government power and bureaucratic discretion. It ignores consumer preferences. All in all, there’s nothing smart about smart growth.”
Only a relatively small and constant percentage of Americans like the type of communities promoted by smart growth policies, Lowrey said. “Most Americans still prefer single-family detached houses with yards,” he said. “This is true even among a large plurality of Millennials, one of the top targets of smart growth advocates.”
Lowrey’s not just dissing smart growth; he’s offering up a better way—- flex growth.
Read full article » No Comments »No deal to transform the Guilford County prison farm into an industrial park, at least not yet.
Local media coverage has been interesting, to say the least. Try to keep up— on Tuesday county commissioners take the first step to hopefully transform the prison farm into an industrial park. On Thursday we read in the N&R about a “mystery company” that’s looking to bring 400 jobs to proposed industrial park. That’s the same day we read in the Rhino that ain’t happening, and the N&R follows up that development in this morning’s edition.
Anyone who follows local news here on G’boro knows the alt-weekly Rhino regularly beats the N&R, but this one had to be particularly tough for the local daily, considering how quickly this story developed.
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