Rather than working to physically limit growth, public leadership should manage the growth attracted to our area by its amenities and way of life by seeing those are protected and enhanced.
Building community can happen outwardly and upwardly, as both attract different types of residents, and both also need parks congruent with the urban or suburban communities being built.
This is best served by planning that anticipates change, according to how people want to live and how the developers of communities are able to build, and the recent financial troubles with upwards building versus outwards building is a reality that, while it shouldn’t be ignored, shouldn’t curtail good plans.
Editorial: Careful with expansion
County must grow up more than out
Published 12:00 am PST Friday, March 9, 2007
Looking at how Sacramento County has been reviewing its growth strategy, it doesn't seem that much has changed from the long-gone day when land seemed infinite and traffic seemed a trifle. Supervisors are directing staff to eye expansions beyond what key planners have been telling the board were appropriate for the area's footprint for growth. It's not the way to lead a region that is trying to grow inward and upward more than outward. But the deeds aren't yet done, and there is time for a change in thinking.
The county is updating its blueprint for growth, its general plan. The plan has long attempted to set physical limits to the future path of growth by delineating a so-called urban services boundary. The boundary has been under attack for some time. And in this latest review, supervisors are either looking to grow right up to the line, or blow it up entirely on behalf of the region's largest and most influential developer, Angelo Tsakopoulos. In all, about 20,000 acres of undeveloped land are being eyed for future development.
Growth is a given unless regional planners are colossally off the mark. The area is poised to double its population in the next half-century. The question isn't whether our area will grow, but how. Through a landmark regional planning process known as the Blueprint, leaders who included Sacramento supervisors, embraced in concept a new way of growing. The idea was to stop relying nearly exclusively on single-family home subdivisions farther away from the urban core. Instead, the plan would make much more efficient use of land.
