PEORIA -- A fascinating piece in today's New York Times, by a prize-winning author, rings a bell that is tolling for Peoria.
The article talks about the new slums, the empty suburban houses built during the housing bubble. It concludes this way (and does this sound familiar?):
"Look at the cities with stable and recovering home markets. On this
coast, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle and San Diego come to mind. All
of these cities have fairly strict development codes, trying to hem in
their excess sprawl. Developers, many of them, hate these restrictions.
They said the coastal cities would eventually price the middle class
out, and start to empty.
It hasn’t happened. Just the opposite. The developers’ favorite role models, the laissez faire free-for-alls — Las Vegas, the Phoenix metro area, South Florida, this valley (in California)— are the most troubled, the suburban slums.
Come see: this is what happens when money and market, alone, guide the way we live."
Now look at the outskirts of Peoria. A city that doesn't want to fund animal control allows untrammeled urban sprawl over prime farmland.
The excuse has been sprawl will happen, whether it's in the city limits or elsewhere, so we may as well allow it.
Oh really?
But has Peoria allowed what will become future slums, while its inner city has decayed as well? Stay tuned.
-- Elaine Hopkins
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