Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Spotsy on the Spot

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by

James A. Bacon
in

In early September, we profiled the efforts of Spotsylvania County build its way out of its transportation woes — voters last year approved a $144 million bond referendum. (See “Spotsy Turvy,” Sept. 8, 2006.) In theory, jurisdictions that take on prime responsibility for building and maintaining their own roads will make a greater effort to support transportation-efficient human settlement patterns. Trouble was, I observed back then, there wasn’t much evidence of such development in Spotsylvania.

Now we’ve gone back for a closer look. There still isn’t much transportation-efficient development, but that’s mainly because previous zoning decisions created a pipeline of unfortunate development. Land use planning was so basic that Spotsylvania County didn’t even have a land-use map to show what kind of development was supposed to go where. As Bob Burke reports today in our update, “Spotsy on the Spot” (I’ll take the blame for the bad puns in the headlines):

Without a land-use map, “what do you measure a rezoning against?” asks Ric Goss, the county’s planning director, who arrived in May 2003 after the current comprehensive plan was already written. “If you don’t have a land-use plan that tells you where you want to go, how do you make these decisions?”

The good news for Spotsylvania residents is that the current Board of Supervisors is getting serious about changing the dysfunctional development patterns. In addition to creating a new map, supervisors are considering the traffic impact of rezoning requests, concentrating development around transportation corridors, encouraging mixed use, promoting transit-oriented development and permitting higher densities. All moves in the right direction.

Given the backlog of bad development, however, traffic is likely to get worse before it gets better — even with that $144 million to spend on roads. Let’s hope that voters don’t draw the wrong conclusions and blame land use reforms which haven’t even been implemented yet.

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32 responses to “Spotsy on the Spot”

  1. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    The interesting thing about Spotsy and it’s outer suburb brethren is that it’s problems don’t stem from too many high dollar businesses locating there and “burdening” the county with the job of trying to provide affordable housing for those employees.

    Instead.. we get to do the affordable housing deal … for Fairfax and NoVa.. who keeps the high-dollar jobs and sends us the folks looking for homes… and in the process … maxed out our own modest road infrastructure and our schools.

    Until the county took a hard line on proffers (now almost 30K per home) – the county was headed into deep debt that had to be paid back from property taxes – which were going up at a steady clip.

    So last year.. it was decided to float about 140 million dollars in bonds to pay for road upgrades – I should say – critical… and limited.. because the actual cost of real upgrades is many times that number… but give the voters credit.. they approved the referendum… even though they knew it would probably require a tax increase.

    Many folks who have lived here for most of their lives would be just as happy if NoVa kept BOTH the jobs and the housing and some.. have bumper stickers that say “Don’t Fairfax Fredericksburg”.

    So… how does Spotsy get the blame for not… having prepared “adequately” for growth?

    I happen to agree with that appraisal… but it’s not like they had megaphone-equipped cars cruising through Fairfax blaring “come to Fredericksburg to Live”. 🙂

    Basically – Spotsy got blindsided… on one hand … and on the other hand.. those that make their living off of developing land .. never missed a beat… and had enough buddies on the previous BOS to get more than a few “sweetheart” deals approved.

    NOw.. we’re all a bit wiser… down here.. and some of us wonder what “sprawl” really means in particular whether Spotsy is the SprawlER or the SprawlEE. 🙂

  2. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    So, tell me. Is it the developers who aren’t paying their full allocated costs, or is it Fairfax that isn’t, by sending you the affordable housing and keeping the high test jobs, and expecting everyone to provide the transportation between?

  3. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    “…concentrating development around transportation corridors, encouraging mixed use, promoting transit-oriented development and permitting higher densities.”

    Don’t these concepts have an entrely different meaning in Spotsylvania than in Ballston?

    What does transit oriented development mean in Spotsylvania? Is it that we are going to concentrate development in the places we would like the next Metro or VRE spur to come?

    What is higher densities? One house per five acres as opposed to one house per fifty?

    Since Spotsylvania is still a long way from the next BRAC re-alignment, what does mixed use mean? Apartments over the 7-11?

    But the one I really like is concentrating development around transportation corridors as an example of good planning.

    I really don’t know where to start.

    Don’t we see constant griping about roads being built to enrich the landowners, and this being the cause of sprawl? Now, of a sudden, building where the roads are is good planning.

    Whew.

    Maybe that kind of thinking will catch on. Shucks, with six lanes of mostly unused highway running through the farm, and an interchange less than a mile off, I ought to be first in line for mixed use development, wouldn’t you say?

    But here is the single thing that struck me hardest.

    “If you don’t have a land-use plan that tells you where you want to go, how do you make these decisions?”

    Here is the one single thing that Spotsylvania can do to make sure its land plan succeeds.

    Make it fair.

    If you have a plan that shows you where you want to go, then by default it will show you where you don’t want to go.

    Presumably, the plan will be designed to create the greatest wealth at the least cost to the county. It would seem that one way to do that would be to minimize travel. Excess travel is a waste to those that travel and an expesne to those that support it. The porblem is, that we simply do not know what constitutes transportation efficient settlement patterns. Even if we did, they would likely change over time, in unpredictable ways, which is the cause of many of our transportation problems now.

    All we can do is the best we can, with regard to travel and development. But, we are going to create wealth according to a government plan that says wher we want to go. The government has an obligation to see to it that this planned wealth is shared with those that happen to be where we don’t want to go.

  4. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    laser light observation:

    “…concentrating development around transportation corridors, encouraging mixed use, promoting transit-oriented development and permitting higher densities.”

    Don’t these concepts have an entrely different meaning in Spotsylvania than in Ballston?

    I’ve asked this question many times in this blog in slightly different ways.. but yes..

    In the Reality Check exercise for the Fredericksburg Area – I-95 and VRE were treated as transportation corridors and it was presumed that density would be concentrated along these corridors.

    Density in Spotsylvania, by the way, is townhouses and garden apartments (3-4 stories). We’re not yet at the high-rise stage… 🙂

    But we do have the same issue that TMT alludes to in Fairfax – which is – if you allow a gazillion townhouses and apartments – you’ll need bigger/beefier roads, lots of schools and lots of water/sewer –

    .. AND someone must pay for these things.

    What Spotsy is doing – give them credit – is that they are focusing on mixed use developments where commercial retail is a significant component.

    THEN .. this is the smart part in my opinion – They are setting up CDAs to pay for the road infrastructure. Everyone inside of that CDA has a supplementary annual tax – until the bonds for the infrastructure are paid off.

    The school cost (capital cost) is captured via proffers and the water/sewer (capital) have significant “availability” fees – all of these passed on to buyers.

    Builders of these mixed-use developments get incentives to build a certain percentage of affordable homes – which are very basic starter-type homes that look like the others.. but lack premium features – that can be added over time by the owner as they go up their career ladders…

    Still LOTS of issues and problems – not the least of which is capacity on I-95 and VRE.

    Additional capacity on I-95 can be had – by electronic tolls and congestion pricing – something VDOT is currently “double-talking”… i.e. we “might” or we “might not”… lately they’ve said they want to break the I-95 expansion into two phases with the first phase being Prince William – North and the second phase South after 2010.

    NOW .. if you talk to the Smart Growth folks and/or Risse/et al – about the relative merits of Spotsy doing many of the “right” things from a New Urbanist community perspective… that it’s not the case from a New Urbanist REGIONAL perspective.

    Ray – I don’t think your concern with development “opportunities” pans out in Spotsy either. There are innumerable, almost endless opportunities for those who buy/sell land, homes and commercial/industrial.

  5. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    Larry, you are quite right, Spotsylvania can do things right on a local, or “micro” perspective — mixed use, transit-oriented development, greater density, creating pedestrian-friendly design, financing infrastructure through CDAs, etc. — and things can still be messed up if the regional, or “macro” system is screwed up.

    Ideally, there would be a balance of housing, jobs and amenities in Spotsy. But if the primary-sector jobs are in Fairfax, no amount of sound, micro-level planning in Spotsy can fix the imbalance. Ultimately, Northern Virginia’s problems transportation can be addressed by creating a balance of jobs, housing, shopping and amenities in the core employment centers of Arlington, Alexandria and Fairfax County. Until that is done, Spotsy and comparable counties have no choice but to make the best of a bad situation.

  6. Toomanytaxes Avatar
    Toomanytaxes

    Jim,

    IMO, you continue to talk about balance in the same silly way that the Coalition for Smarter Growth does. Density, at least in Fairfax County, will mean expensive housing & more traffic. Look at the Lerner plans for Tysons Corner (approved). The Park Crest condos at Tysons start at more than $500 K for about 1000 square feet.

    The plans for the Tysons Corner shopping center call for more new parking spaces (i.e., cars) than are at the Pentagon today. Lerner requested and received more new parking spaces than even the planning staff proposed (& the Fairfax staff believes it works for the developers). And there are at least 20 more requests for changed zoning that would add even more automobiles.

    The final EIS for the Silver Line shows no traffic relief despite spending billions on rail. We will spend much more than $4 B to build the Silver Line. The Associated General Contractors’ tracking data show that construction material costs are increasing at rates well above general inflation. For some types of construction, the PPI indexes are up 40 to 50% since 2001 and costs continue to head north. The Association’s economists warn contractors to protect themselves with price escalation clauses.

    Marshall High School and Kilmer Middle School, where the Tysons Corner students would attend, lack the capacity to handle the added students. New classrooms, etc. need to built. FCPS’ most recent CIP shows construction and remodeling costs ranging from $130-$170 per square foot. The developer-friendly targer proffer formula for FCPS will result in contributions of less than $1000 per new high rise condo.

    Unless we force builders to construct housing below cost, impose huge taxpayer subsidies for affordable housing, or build tar-paper shacks stacked one on top of another, density/balance in Fairfax County will not solve the housing/job mismatch.

    We need more good-paying jobs and commercial buildings outside core NoVA locations to balance the growth in residential properties in those communities. Fairfax County is simply too expensive to provide affordable housing.

  7. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    TMT – so… we build affordable housing in the outer suburbs…because affordable housing cannot be built in Fairfax.

    First.. I’d ask.. why cannot affordable housing not be built in Fairfax? Don’t you think it CAN? What does it take to build enough high-rises that contain apartments that are within the reach of many?

    But let’s presume that Fairfax cannot … and Spotsy/brethren will. What is the impact of doing that?

    Won’t Fairfax/NoVa STILL get the traffic from all those commuting cars? Won’t it still have to provide parking for all of those commuting cars?

    Short of telling companies and/or people that they cannot locate in Fairfax – what is recommended as the way forward?

    If all we do is grump about what we don’t like and won’t support… aren’t we simply OBE in the equation?

    What’s on the table … for change.. that doesn’t require a dictator?

  8. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    TMT, I’m sure it is very difficult finding a site to locate a new school in Fairfax County. But have you ever stopped to ask why? The space doesn’t exist to build a typical suburban school, with attendant parking lots, setbacks and huge footprint. Neighborhood city schools take up much smaller footprints. Furthermore, many of the kids who attend them actually walk to them! If Fairfax were willing to entertain a different design for schools, perhaps it would find room to build more of them.

    Given the commitment to the existing suburban scale and design, you’re right, Fairfax County can’t accommodate new growth. That’s why tinkering with land use patterns won’t work. You have to reinvent things on a massive scale.

    I just got off the phone interviewing a guy who came back from Hong Kong. Eight million people live there. Kowloon has 80,000 people per square kilometer! But somehow it works. One of the differences: No segregated land uses. Hong Kong is the ultimate mixed use experiment. Retail on the floor-level of every building. Office and residential uses not just on the same block but in the same building. And my friend says the average commute is 10 to 15 minutes.

    Americans don’t want to live like the residents of Hong Kong. My point is that we can migrate to much higher densities and make things more workable than they are now.

  9. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    Here is low income housing in Hong Kong.

    http://www.phototour.minneapolis.mn.us/4414

    Let’s not go there.

    Here is a page that includes a chart of the sources of air pollution in Hong kong. The biggest source is power plants to support all that density.

    http://www.cleartheair.org.hk/

    Let’s not go there, either.

    It sounds to me that Spotsylvania is on the right track, so far as it goes. My point is that the plan, as a government creation, will have the effect of redlining some people out. The fact that they may beable to create a new opportunity from scratch someplace else in the county does nothing to alleviate their initial loss.

    If some areas can redline out residential development, why can’t Fairfax redline out job creation? Because it is politically inexpedient, and because Fairfax does not have to bear the full cost of its decisions.

    I do think there is room for SOME of what Bacon suggests in Fairfax, but eventually you hit the air quality barrier. Would Hong Kong have been built the way it is if our air quality laws had been in place when the British arrived there?

    I don’t think we can reinvent Fairfax on a massive scale. Even if we can, the costs will make the road situation look like peanuts, and the goal is to keep costs down, right?

    It is pretty obvious that thousands of people have figured out that the way to keep costs down is to get out. Now businesses and even government is following suit.

    What we need is a plan to deal with what is happening, NOT a plan to make something else happen, at enormous cost and with uncertain results.

  10. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    Sorry, I tried to make those links go live, but it wouldn’t “take”. Appeared in the edit box as links, but disappeared on the actual page.

    ???

  11. Toomanytaxes Avatar
    Toomanytaxes

    Jim,

    I would agree, in theory, that Fairfax or any other place for that matter, could be rebuilt, over time, to be more compact. But could anyone afford to do this? In many instances, the County’s infrastructure cannot support those of us that are here already. So how would we add public facilities to support even more people?

    If we have 7th graders eating lunch at 9:50 despite an 80%+ increase in real estate taxes over the last six years or so, why would any sensible resident of Fairfax County want to bring in more people? If our wastewater treatment plants need to be expanded if we add more people beyond what are already contemplated in the CP, why would we want to add more people? Etc.

    The way it looks to me, the Governor and the Senate want me to pay higher taxes for transportation regardless of how much we grow and where we grow. I’m better off with sprawl. At least that way, some of the costs (schools, parks, etc.) are foisted on other counties.

  12. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    TMT: “If we have 7th graders eating lunch at 9:50 despite an 80%+ increase in real estate taxes over the last six years.”

    Sounds like a real indictment of Fairfax County. Inefficient land use patterns plus gold-plated government, and that’s what you get. The answer is not to freeze things into place. The answer is to find more efficient land use patterns and more efficient government processes.

  13. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    Give me a break.

    I have not analyzed the information I have yet, but if I am correct about the results, I think I have real data that can disprove the idea once and for all that increased density is the answer.

    Stand by.

  14. Toomanytaxes Avatar
    Toomanytaxes

    I’d love to see some indictments in Fairfax County. But I’d settle for a County Board without Gerry Connolly. I don’t really care whether the new chairman is a Republican or Democrat, just so long as he/she puts the average citizen ahead of the big landowners. It would be nice to see Fairfax County address development issues in the same way that neighboring counties do. No more, no less.

  15. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    “I think I have real data that can disprove the idea once and for all that increased density is the answer.”

    Sometimes.. we have to “rewind”.

    What criteria would be used to evaluate density – with respect to whether it is the “right” or “wrong” answer?

    TMT believes that density is not the right answer for Fairfax.

    Larry… wonders.. if density is the right answer for Outer Suburbs to acommodate computers with jobs in NoVa.

    Ray… thinks .. density IS the problem and that if we removed restrictions on development and let it occur anywhere.. that we’d not have problems to start with.. ????

    EMR… still trying to figure out WHERE density is indicated and WHERE it is not… on a Region-wide basis..

    Boy am I confused… as usual.

    HOWEVER – dialogue.. even seemingly aimless dialogue can be useful sometimes because there’s an old saying that you gotta understand the problem first before you try to find solutions …

    .. and at this point.. if this group does not agree on what the problem is ..then I’m quite confident that the general public does not either…

  16. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    Larry, There is no single right density. Different people have different preferences. A system that respected consumer sovereignty would offer a wide range of densities, a wide range of housing types and a wide range of communities. The problem today, I would contend, is that zoning regulations, transportation policies and other locational-related subsidies stack the deck in favor of lower-density models.

    When I say I am in favor of higher densities, I am not advocating a social engineering approach of forcing people into communities and housing types they don’t want. I insist upon two things: (1) that people pay the location-variable costs associated with their consumer choices, and (2) that zoning regulations allow developers greater freedom to provide compact, mixed-use, transportation-efficient, pedestrian-friendly development forms popularly associated with the New Urbanism movement. Typically, such development is possible only after expensive and protracted legal appeals.

    In addition to these two critical criteria, I agree with Ed Risse that we need to do a better job of developing “balanced communities” — i.e. communities with a balance of housing (for all income ranges), jobs, shopping, schools, health facilities, and other amenities. How we identify these communities amidst the sprawl that now exists, and how we create that balance are questions I cannot yet answer. But it’s a challenge that we must begin to grapple with.

  17. Toomanytaxes Avatar
    Toomanytaxes

    Jim, your two points make sense, but they simply don’t happen in Fairfax County. I and many others have hammered our supervisors and our school board members about the puny proffers for schools. Each one blames the other. Meanwhile, these high-priced condos contribute less than $1000 for schools versus $5033 in Prince William County. This is with construction/remodeling costs ranging between $130-$170 per square foot, as I recall from the FCPS CIP released this spring. Etc.

    At best, we will have new supervisors in 2008. Can we take a timeout until then?

  18. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    re: Balanced Housing choices.

    Spotsylvania did a smart thing when they downzoned because now almost every project has to go through the rezoning process.

    Right now – they ARE taking hard looks at mixed-use proposals.

    I think other counties are also.

    I do not know of specific impediments and in fact, Va Law requires that every County have an Affordable Housing component to their Comp Plan.

    If there is something missing – the opportunity to rectify it in the 2007 GA – is here and now…. in the Nov/Dec lead-up to January.

    With regard to TMT and school proffers, I don’t get it.

    Here’s the proffer in Spotsy:
    Schools = $21,148.00

    http://www.spotsylvania.va.us/emplibrary/Proffer_Policy_Guidelines.pdf – Page 7

  19. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Spotsy has its own set of unique issues, but when I read the debates about developments along transportation corridors, I want to go, “Aggghhh.” Why? When have developments NOT followed transportation corridors? Think Londinium, or Rome for that matter. When Route 1 was built, not to mention its child, Route 95, Spoty’s die was cast. It just takes a long time for the development to come. And that is not a bad thing. All of this is to ask the erudite commentators on this blog, why are market forces ignored in the development debate? They are the forces that drive development. Fauquier is probably doomed in a 100 years or so to a late and rapid paced urban development because of the scarcity driven by its land use practices (Basic supply and demand.) Spotsy was a rural county but no more. I think the term exurban applies to both counties. All of these comments relate to market conditions, not government regulations. I think that the “market” like biological forces, evolves to address concerns. So why not acknowledge it in these discussions?

  20. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    For myself – I agree – I think the market is fundamental and unstoppable. You can block the flow in one place but it will adapt and re-route around such blocks.

    I also think the market does not concern itself with collateral impacts which CAN be affected by both subsidies and restrictive rules.

    So… the comment about development following transportation corridors – is right on.

    It’s pretty clear to me that if I-95 had never been built that Spotsy growth rate would have been very different because a signal-light festooned Route 1 would insure a 2-3 hour commute one way … and most folks are simply
    not going to invest that much time to “drive to qualify”.

    But is the question whether or not the markets seeks disbursed “greenfield” development organically or is that outcome caused by current rules and policies – such as – building new roads… that then become new disbursed greenfield development venues?

    I’m not asking what people want; we all “want” brand new suvs and 5,000 square foot homes…etc…but rather what the market ultimately offers us – that is affordable.

    A young fella.. first job in NoVA does not want a home on 5 acres in Facquier. He simply wants a place to crash every night that is not surrounded by criminals. Yet .. the market… will not meet his needs with an affordable place to live. Many young folks have to double and triple in a small apartment to make ends meet.

    A young family with the breadwinner making a modest income… may be fine in dense/compact housing but when none is available.. commuting becomes the way out.

    So.. I’m not convinced the market is operating … as it should.. but then again.. I did not ace Econ 101.

  21. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    One has to ask the question. “What is the purpose of dense/compact development in a county like Spotsylvania
    that has 220 people per square mile compared to Fairfax with 2400 per square mile?”

    Is there a market demand in Spotsy for compact/dense housing? Is that demand being stifled?

    Specifically – WHO in Spotsylvania would choose to live in a compact/dense development verses renting a
    home away from the transportation corridor (I-95)?

    another question – Would one expect someone with a NoVa job to commute to a Spotsylvania home in a dense/compact development?

    Is the calculation something simple like comparing the price of housing in Fairfax and the price of housing in Spotsylvania + the dollar cost of commuting?

    I would think… that if I were in the business of building homes in Spotsy – that making the wrong decision with respect to market demand.. could be … a good way to go broke but to date – it appears that housing in mixed-use development … sell…

  22. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Anonymous again. As I read the comments above, it occurs to me that almost everyone looks at controlling one set of variables in environments where there are expansive sets of variables and that government controls create changes in the market.

    I don’t understand Larry’s comments on why people wouldn’t want homes in Spotsy. People live in homes in Spotsy because they can afford the same home there that cannot be afforded in Fairfax. Because most people follow the precept of developing wealth via home ownership established by the post war generation, they see the pain of the commute as economically viable because “Spotsy” is growing and they will make a profit. And most people don’t want to live in a building that is economically “lesser” than where they grew up, which is an additional influence on choice of location. Where/how roads are located are probably not a signficant factor in how/where individuals choose to buy. Land use patterns and what the community “looks” like isn’t a concern either because the subdivision already has that “designed in.” If it was a farm before, that just adds to the quaintness of their neighborhood.

    I guess what I’m saying is that builders are meeting a market desire when building in outlying counties.

    From developers’ perspective, making profits by development based on government placement of roads is an age-old practice. They’re not worried about outcomes other than profit. I.e., they just want to sell houses.

    These are market forces; where they intersect with government land use is where we begin to say “what if…” But there seems to be unpredictability in outcomes.

    What happens if government stays out of land use controls? Are there economic “models” to show results in terms of density patterns and quality of life? Places like downtown Fredericksburg probably aren’t good models because of the historical differences in transportation and lifestyle patterns. The only modern example I can think of is Houston. Are there others? Can we really compare them?

    I’m suggesting that we can’t predict outcomes in terms of controlling land use because the sets of variables are too expansive to manage to create planned outcomes.

    Reston didn’t exactly turned out as planned.

    I think this is called “Chaos Theory.” Jurassic Park, et al….

  23. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Actually, I should have said that the variables are unmanagable–not that they are too many to manage–we are a capitalist society, not a socialist one. Sorry!

  24. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    Thank you, anon. It’s nice to see that someone understands.

    I see the system like a spiderweb made out of rubber bands. If you adust any one band, the whole web changes shape. If yu want a certain shape you have to figure it out before hand and adjust all the bands at once.

  25. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    re: “I don’t understand Larry’s comments on why people wouldn’t want homes in Spotsy.”

    I said it badly. I was truly asking WHY folks would want to live here … AND, as important,
    from a demographic viewpoint- WHO?

    I speculated that it was not singles with their first Job…in NoVa … and perhaps not even a stereotypical family – you know.. the modern-day descendant of the Clever family or Father knows best surbanites.. but more multi-cultural and perhaps more willing to have a career that is not at a “safe” Federal or Federal-contract job – and perhaps as important – may not necessarily view the path to wealth as via a tax-deductible home (which is a huge dysfunctional aspect of our so called market-based economy).

    Some folks actually see a fat 401 as superior to a house jeek by jowl with others all having lawns and perfunctory green stuff … around them especially folks with a more worldly heritage than the Clevers.

    But the mortgage subsidy is hard to ignore. All things considered – in a fast growing area – it beats the heck out of anything else thats legal.

    It drives people in that direction – even those who would not normally go in that direction.

    I do think – you’re wrong about the roads. If you could work in NoVa making a fat salary – and every evening you could sit on your porch surrounding by a lot of mountain or stream … chances are you would.

    You and many others actually are willing to sit in traffic for 2-3 hours a day to get much less – right?

    But if that commute turned into 4-5 hours… I claim.. there IS a threshold for most.. where they WILL draw the line – and it all depends on how good that road is… at getting them home… within a couple of hours.

    Build a new – limited-access road from NoVa to.. say Capon Bridge WVA – and see what would happen. Capon Bridge would explode and that road would max within a decade – right?

    I’ve seen it here in Spotsylvania where a road – barely an idea still undergoing environmental study – and NO MONEY to build it… used by developers to entice prospective buyers with “easy on/easy off access to I-95”.

  26. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    This is an interesting dialogue.. especially the part about rubber bands… 🙂

    I actually do buy the “elastic” theory but as something we observe after-the-fact at best as opposed to a potential methodology for looking ahead.

    And for that matter… say for the sake of argument that Facquier squeezed that proverbial balloon… and the only thing that changed was not volume but where the volume got displaced -… tell me how much.. got displaced and where it went.

    If one could do that with a computer model .. then we’d be cooking.. cuz then we could start mucking around with all these variables to figure out how to do strategic “squeezes” – right? You know.. just like that software they use to gerrymander with?

    🙂

  27. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Anonymous: What I meant re road placement is that home buyers only look at how they get to work; cost and profit are larger motivators imho.

    Va Tech did have a model under development that looked at growth impacts based on gov’t infrastructure. This was about 4 or 5 years ago. I am unsure what happened with it. It would be a great project for a doctoral disseration in economics, chaos theory or simulation.

    As for me I drive an hour 15 minutes each way to work. I choose a round about back way to avoid traffic, but the difference in income from working locally is about $35,000. That’s worth the time differential. I suspect I’m not the only one in that boat–but I didn’t emigrate out to suburbia; I hung out in F’berg when it was a real downtown. The exurban lifestyle came to me. I am saddened by what is happening to our area, by the numbing and boring development patterns, but I am also a total realist.

  28. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    GAWD!

    you can get 35K .. MORE by driving 15 minutes.. which means you are .. NOT driving to Stafford/Spotsy/Culpeper,etc

    so.. that does not sound like the same deal that those folks who DO drive to outer exurbs .. right?

    perhaps.. you own a home… that you’ve owned for quite some time….and are lucky

    whereas those exurban commuters… even earning 35K more than a local salary… still have to drive a substantially longer distance to “qualify” for a mortgage that “fits” their salary?

    🙂

  29. Toomanytaxes Avatar
    Toomanytaxes

    9:08 — Serious question. If condos at Tysons Corner or wherever you work were less expensive (when pigs fly), would you live the new urban life? I contrast these new “urban settings” to more genuine places such as the District of Columbia, DT Fredericksburg, Old Town Alexandria.

    Why or why not? Very curious.

  30. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Interesting question. Anonymous again. I’m a product of the original downtown F’berg area and the idea of living in a condo at Tysons doesn’t appeal. It’s too sterile and isolating an environment. But that probably isn’t fair as it is my fundamental belief that one should generally be happy not to be homeless and to have financial recourse; to be picky about where one lives as opposed to being fundamentally grateful for shelter from rain and lack of hunger seems arrogant and I suspect too many of our national citizenry are arrogant. But if choices were appropriately available, my first choice would be a waterfront home on 3000 acres on the Mattaponi (a large enough tract to be ecomonically viable in agricultural enterprise) away from the proposed impoundment, my second choice would be an intimate pied de terre adjacent to the Spanish Steps in Rome, and my third choice, well, I guess it would be home as it now stands.

    None of these places sound like a condo, anywhere, do they? But if a condo was it, I’d live there.

  31. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    re: anon 11:15 – grinning as I read….

    All things being equal (and they are clearly NOT)…

    put the question to everyone.

    If money was not an issue would you prefer to live in a spartan apartment in an urban area or a 3000 acre farm along a river or other water body.

    This is not a slam dunk. There ARE folks who like the city life.

    Oh.. and anon – Fburg is being “gentrified” by way of VRE. Amazing.. what an old building in need of repair now brings in Fburg…

    Anyhow… lots of folks retire every year .. with enough wealth and time to pick a place other than urban.

    Not all of them do – for a variety of reasons.

    I’ve heard “to be near the grandkids”.

    I’ve also heard – “to be near good medical services”

    … to be near “cultural opportunities” i.e. redneck city is not for me….

    To a certain extent – I think the “boomers” were “trained” to expect suburbia from their WWII “tract-housing” parents.

    Younger people today – clearly want to make big bucks and seem to be much more interested in “connecting” with the world around them.. rather than hide out in a “charming” 3bdr home surrounded by other likewise “charming” cookie-cutter abodes AND they have to spend HOURs every day getting back and forth.

    Multi-cultural folks … I think… ditto…. the proverbial American Dream of a job, a house, and a commute.. might be in the rear-view mirror… but it’s slow motion…

    Some day.. (long after we’re gone).. who knows.. folks might actually live like the Jetsons (yes.. I know I’m dating myself). 🙂

  32. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Larry, the Jetsons are cool. But an 18th century farm on the Mattaponi is way cooler.

    I suspect it is a slam dunk, or we wouldn’t have so many feudal micro castles on quarter acre lots sold.

    Anon, again.

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