Community

What is going on in your community and what you as a community are doing to build you economy and improve their quality of life.

The notion of "community-based regionalism" is increasingly capturing the attention of academics, activists, policy makers, and funders.

First there was suburban sprawl. Now comes high-country-resort sprawl.

The primary goal of this initiative is to include and amplify rural voices in the current statewide growth debate, steering it away from a predominately urban and affluent point of view.

”It is important for you to know that life in the country is different from life in the city.”

Amen.

It’s not often that a proposal for a major subdivision sails through the regulatory process with few naysayers and the approval of planners and "smart growth" advocates alike.

“If you put a cap on growth, all you do is drive up the price of existing real estate. That’s been tried, unsuccessfully, elsewhere.”

Another growing trend is new urbanism, which advocates not only connectivity to ease transportation problems but also promotes gridded streets lined with welcoming residential buildings to replicate traditional neighborhoods. Instead of formidable house fronts of multi-car garages, new urbanism calls for single family homes with garages accessed from alleys behind them.

"50-plus empty nesters are abandoning sprawling suburbs for pedestrian-friendly cities, towns, and planned communities. In the past decade, affluent boomers and retirees have helped fuel major growth in the downtown populations of several cities."

The challenge is to find ways to keep today’s older generation and boomers independent, theoretically delaying or even eliminating their need for expensive long-term care.