I'm almost positive it would have. I believe that if we had adopted a slow growth ordinance, we'd have been better able to limit speculation, dramatically decreased the number of foreclosures, dramatically stemmed the plunge in real estate prices, dramatically increased the value of the existing housal unit stock, and we would have a much nicer city in which to live.
I want to compare a section of a city that I admire to my own city:
Show me, anywhere in Elk Grove, where a lady her age rides her bike to get places. Show me, anywhere in Elk Grove, where she can ride without having to compete against crushing traffic. Show me, anywhere in Elk Grove, where I could buy a place to live that doesn't require mandatory motoring. Show me, anywhere in Elk Grove, where I can take a walk, or ride a train, or ride a bus, to an outdoor stand for a beer or a lunch at work.
This isn't even offered here. While we decided to destroy our open spaces with sprawl, why couldn't we have also built up a town core so that there are options for people who want to live without mandatory motoring?
Instead, all we got was this:
where nobody can walk, where nobody is willing to bicycle, where nobody interacts with neighbors, and where everybody will spend a full thirteen years of their working lives simply to pay for the purchasing, maintaining, insuring and the gassing of the dozen cars they will need just to live.
If we had also subjected that limited growth mandate towards transit oriented development, and if we could have allowed even just 4% of our residents to live without a car or 6% of our residents to live with just one instead of multiple vehicles, my guess is that we would have had even fewer foreclosures.
Elk Grove is and will remain in terrible shape precisely because we failed to build it correctly. Any person willing promote slow, controlled and TOD based growth can't possibly get installed on the city council. This city's perogatives aren't about living well, it's about sprawling more.
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