Humeville:
Which looks like every other -ville in this nation:
Single Use Zoning -- residents over here, strip retail over there, token light industrial over here, large format retail over there, office "parks" over here, schools over there...
Car Dependency -- and extreme dependency at that -- a four mile round trip by car for a pack of gum, a forty mile round trip by car to a job....
Jobless -- All jobs in one place, all living in another. Living within walking distance to an icky, icky office park is verboten.
Patchwork Quilt of Development -- A 45-unit development, followed by a half mile of dirt, followed by another 55-unit development...
Of course, the end-game of Elk Grove has already been determined -- as soon as the "newness" of Elk Grove fades, as soon as tree limbs go unpruned, leaves pile up in the gutters, gutters fall off the roof, roof shingles blow away, dead cars die in driveways, dry rot rots exteriors -- those with the means will pick up and drive away to the next "new" development. It may still be within Elk Grove proper, but will be even farther from everything.
I live in extreme North Elk Grove, only a few hundred yards from the City of Sacramento. It might as well be South Sacramento, because our housal units are beginning to show object signs of deferred maintenance that is the hallmark of aging suburbia and a hallmark of South Sacramento -- people who don't give a shit about where they live. They don't have any attachment, no roots so-to-speak, no sense of community that would motivate them to take care of their properties. They do the minimum and focus on NASCAR, on commuting to the Bay Area for weekend visits to the relatives, on grinding out solo-occupant commutes to work.
Humeville is destined to suffer from crushing traffic from all its diseased, non-active exclusively-motorized residents, property booms and busts much more volatile than would otherwise occur, and a constituency who have never learned and never will learn the value of community.
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