Thankfully, the state border make[s] it much for (sic) difficult for well-intentioned meddlers like Mary to “save” us by destroying our homes and property values.
That’s from a comment on the previous posting, which linked to “What Will Save the Suburbs,” about whether current suburban development can ever be successfully re-used after today’s incarnations move and change.
My apologies to aforementioned commenter, but come on! How do you think present-day suburbia came to be? It took massive government “meddling.”
The current single-family-only subdivisions would be completely unnatural if we had that mythical “free market.” It takes constant government meddling, in the form of zoning laws and code and zoning inspectors, to keep some folks in those subdivisions from opening nail salons or small coffee shops in those houses, or renting out the bonus room above the garage to a grad student, or splitting their McMansions into quadraplexes and rooming houses to avert foreclosure. It took government “meddling” to create single-use suburbia and meddling is required to maintain it. Just try subdividing your large lot into three smaller ones and putting some apartments on one of the lots. Better yet, just try taking your lot in Morrocroft neighborhood near SouthPark and building high-rise condos – which you almost certainly could sell, or could have until last year.
One huge reason suburbia is hard to convert is because it was built under government rules that didn’t allow mixing uses. So there are no stores inside single-family home subdivisions, and no apartment buildings or condo buildings either. Other government rules have mandated a certain number of parking places for businesses, hence the big asphalt oceans left behind when the big boxes bail out or go belly-up.
Sure, some of suburbia is built by choice – mostly by people who learned to tailor their development techniques to match what the zoning laws required, and now they’d just as soon not have to re-learn new techniques if the old ones are A.) Legal and B.) Making money.
Suburbia is just as much a product of government intervention as the newer, mixed-use and transit-oriented developments. Different rules, yes, but rules just the same.