Quote:
Originally Posted by Crawford
I'm not aware of any backcountry part of CT that isn't proximate to a colonial-era town center.
I mean, people need services. These places wouldn't exist without the little town centers. These are generally affluent areas, many relocated from Manhattan, and they want a facsimile of rural living, not the real deal.
And while I'd agree these places are inefficient and wasteful, they're also beautiful and worth preserving. I don't see how it would be better if we leveled stone walls, hills, and wooded country lanes for tract housing.
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I'm not saying these places aren't without their charm, but if it wasn't for their existing, you wouldn't have metro NYC extending into places like Litchfield County CT or Pike County, PA. Or you wouldn't have metro Boston extending so deeply into New Hampshire.
I mean, if you define suburban sprawl as being the overall level that a metro area sprawls across the landscape - the rough line where the suburbs end and the genuine rural area begins - then clearly allowing large-lot backcountry suburbia relatively close to core cities creates demand for new-construction suburbs even further out.
A lot of this really comes down to the New England model of local governance. Since zoning is on the town level, rural areas in New England can decide (if they aren't desperate for tax dollars) to set very high minimum lot sizes and effectively cap future development. Somewhere in Fairfax County Virginia couldn't really do the same, because even if NIMBYs exist, they don't control local zoning boards, and don't have any more pull than a particular neighborhood does in a city.